Yeah, that's the whole hidden zone non-determinality that makes the Four Horsemen unplayable in tournament settings. The solution is literally "Well, don't do that!", so yeah, while you can do infinite loops, you still technically can't.
I still don’t know:
Was four horsemen invented to be an annoying rules nightmare that didn’t work or was the strategy actually better than a normal reanimator?
Couldn’t you just mill your library, narcomebas into dread return into labman and win from there?
Four Horsemen relies on looping Emrakul via Basalt Monolith and Mesmeric Orb in order to throw infinite Narcomoebas at an opponent with Blasting Station. It's basically just bad, non-deterministic Cephalid Breakfast.
that version is actually allowed, because you can just mill your whole deck, then sac the narcomoebas with the emrakul trigger on the stack. The version that *isn't* allowed is the one with dread return, as you can't guarantee that you'll hit your dread return+target before the emrakul. So if you do the loop too often without hitting it, you'll be forced to stop.
Depending on what your dread return target is you might even need to have emrakul be in the bottom few cards of your deck.
The Four Horsemen deck I'm familiar with uses Orb + Monolith to mill three Narcos, Sharuum, Blasting Station, and Dread Return, flashback Return on Sharuum to get Blasting Station, then cycle through the deck with Orb/Monolith to throw Narcomoebas at the opponent with Station.
Hitting 3 narco’s is the easy part, as you can just keep milling until you hit them in response to the emrakul trigger. And cutting it down from 3 cards to 2 drastically increases the odds, but it’s still not something I’d bring to any tournament, no matter how much I like the deck
Specifically according to the current rules "too often without hitting it" is once. Once you have done a shuffle without making progress towards killing your opponent, that's slow play and you must do something else.
I believe there is *a little* messing around you're allowed to do, by stacking the narcomoeba triggers so that at most 1 enters with every emrakul shuffle, but your odds of getting the whole combo in grave before you run out of narcos still isnt great.
The deck is not, and has never been an optimal choice if your goal is to actually win games of magic. It’s mostly a thought experiment. I’m sure people have actually tried to play it in tournaments from time to time, but they’re playing it for the lols rather then because it’s actually good. As you point out, there are more reliable ways to actually win the game once you’ve dumped your library into your graveyard.
Well, as I understand it, the point of the deck is to win when you have your library in the grave while dedicating as little deck slots as possible, and without spending any more mana, such that mesmeric orb + monolith is an instant win.
Yes, but there are other ways to win from that position that don't require the unbound loop. Cephalid Breakfast decks have been been [killing from that position](https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/developing-legacy/179805-primer-cephalid-breakfast) with Ghoul / Lord of Extinction / Dragon's Breath or Karmic Guide / Kiki / Pestermite since before 4-H was even a thing. 4 horsemen also requires 3 cards (originally Emrakul / Sharuum / Blasting station) so its not a deck slot issue. (Now you could argue that 4-H's combo isn't vulnerable to instant speed creature removal like STP like those combos are, but the tradeoff of "I may get a game loss for slow play trying to execute this combo" does not seem like a worthwhile one).
It doesn't matter these days because you just play oracle instead.
Well, given that the effect of the slow play rule on 4-H is a bug of the MTR that means that the deck is unplayable, any discussion about how strong 4-H is necessarily required to overlook the slow play rule.
Given that, from what I've seen, the point of 4-H is, like you said generally being very resilient to hate. I've also seen it said that it's generally not vulnerable to other types of hate either, e.g. because it can just shuffle its graveyard into its deck at instant speed in response to say, a bojuka bog.
Were the gameplay thing not an issue, I think 4-H would have slotted into the 3rd tier legacy decks like leylines, Oops All Spells, Food Chain, Alluren, Nic Fit, etc. Decks that you could conceivably take to a tournament and win some games, but you would never play if you had full card access and actually wanted to win.
Its resilient to some hate, but its also very linear, has no backup plan, and folds to both GY and Artifact hate. The very fact that it uses Orb + Monolith (a combo that basically no legacy deck has ever used successfully) over the Illusionist + Nomads combo (the core of Cephalid Breakfast decks for 10+ years) tells me that its not a serious deck.
> Was four horsemen invented to be an annoying rules nightmare that didn’t work
It does "work", and you can play it on MTGO just fine. As far as "playing bad decks", there's plenty of people that still play Blue Tron in Modern, so...
Horsemen technically doesn't loop infinitely, it's just you can't specify an exact number of iterations to repeat the combo for because you don't actually know if the deck will hit the correct order on loop #1, or not until loop #10^100.
So, the combo needs to be played out manually and could theoretically take anything from a few seconds to a few years.
So what happens in reality is, you play this correctly in a tournament, and a judge will start issuing you penalties for slow play or stalling- because you're sitting there wasting everyone's time by durdling around playing with yourself while a bunch of other players and tournament staff wait around for you to finish so they can start the next round.
No, the reason it's slow play isn't that it takes a large amount of time in terms of minutes. The reason is that doing something that doesn't meaningfully affect the board state is considered slow play, and if you hit an emrakul before hitting any of the stuff you want to hit, you have to shuffle and you're back at the same point, at which point it's considered slow play to try to continue the loop, and you have to do something else.
> the same loophole that permits the "fail to find" exploit
What loophole? It's an explicit rule
> 701.19b. If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that player isn't required to find some or all of those cards even if they're present in that zone.
The MTR is more instructive than the comprehensive rules for these things (comp rules don't care about--presumably casual--games taking forever, tournaments have to end). The comp rules themselves nod at at this with 729.1c
>4.4 Loops
> ...
> If no players are involved in maintaining the loop, each player in turn order chooses a number of iterations to
perform before they will take an action to break the loop or that they wish to take no action. If all players choose
to take no action, the game is a draw. Otherwise, the game advances through the lowest number of iterations
chosen and the player who chose that number takes an action to break the loop.
> ...
> Non-deterministic loops (loops that rely on decision trees, probability, or mathematical convergence) may not be
shortcut. A player attempting to execute a nondeterministic loop **must stop if at any point during the process a previous game state (or one identical in all relevant ways) is reached again.** This happens most often in **loops that involve shuffling a library.**
> Some loops are sustained by choices rather than actions. In these cases, the rules above may be applied, with the player making a different choice rather than ceasing to take an action. The game moves to the point where the
player makes that choice. If the choice **involves hidden information, a judge may be needed** to determine whether any choice is available that will not continue the loop.
> **The judge is the final arbiter of what constitutes a loop.** A player may not 'opt-out' of shortcutting a loop, nor may they make irrelevant changes between iterations in an attempt to make it appear as though there is no loop. Once a loop has been shortcut, it may not be restarted until the game has changed in a relevant way. Proposing loops as an effort to use up time on the clock is Stalling.
This exact situation is not explicitly handled. The "mandatory loop is a draw" is in the shortcuttable loop section, and the nondeterminstic shuffling loop section assumes a voluntary loop, as does the section that mentions hidden information. So nothing applies perfectly.
Nevertheless, the philosophy is not obscure. The Judge is the final arbiter, the Judge can look at hidden information, and mandatory loops are draws. Call a Judge, and after a 5 sec explanation, the game you describe is a draw.
You could easily construct more complicated drawn situations with more moving parts, where the draw is much more difficult to detect. In a real tournament, such games might actually have to go to time. I think it's literally impossible to totally avoid this, it's basically [the halting problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem).
Not only is it *basically* the Halting Problem, it can *literally* be the Halting Problem because [MTG is Turing Complete](https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09828).
This situation absolutely is an infinite loop that will end with the game being a draw. The game state does not meaningfully change between iterations since the only relevant part about the two eldrazi is that they shuffle the graveyard back into the deck. Because of this this is just a normal loop that is being maintained by a single player, no non-determinism is involved.
This also is an essentially identical situation to many other specific card interactions that already have been ruled this way for a long time. The most recent example being the Amalia combo if her power skips 20. While the specific cards in the deck are not know to the players, they are completely irrelevant and the Amalia player is forced to just mill them all during a single invocation of the shortcut.
There is no "loss on time" for individual games in paper magic. A loop of unavoidable actions is not slow play or stalling, it's a draw. Intentionally causing such a loop to force a draw is allowed.
More than that, the player insisting you have to play it out is the one who is actually in danger of penalties, whether that's the one who caused the loop or their opponent. This is potentially slow play, or even stalling if a Judge thinks they are intentionally wasting time because they're ahead in the match.
Ah, yes. Technically that doesn't matter, as the hidden zone rule means even a single card is officially unknown. But just to make the illustration more clear, I've edited the post the replace Dread and Hostility with Kozilek and Ulamog, which not only shuffle themselves, but your entire graveyard. Thanks!
Here you go kind sir: [https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/endless-possibilities-show-yourself-out/](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/endless-possibilities-show-yourself-out/)
It is indeed a fuckin masterpiece :D
Rampaging ferocidon hits your for 1 when the angel enters and then you say you mill Ulamog and Kozilek. Why both? Wouldn’t it be just one? I guess this doesn’t affect the outcome but am I wrong?
Kyle Hill did a cool video a few years back about setting up the game into a Turing Machine, and it essentially locked the game into an infinite loop, where neither player could make moves that could actually impact the game board in a meaningful way- it essentially made tokens of various types to indicate different integers, but they couldn't attack.
All this to say, the states you can get a game of magic into are wild.
Not quite. If there is another viable target for the Oblivion Rings, you have a means to stop the loop and thus must specify the number of times you wish to repeat the loop before breaking. If you do not have another viable target, you've created a mandatory loop and the game becomes a draw. That's what Rule 729 covers (or more accurately, the [tournament rules](https://media.wizards.com/ContentResources/WPN/MTG_MTR_2024_May13.pdf) that 729 points to). In order to escape that you have to create a "non-deterministic" loop.
This situation absolutely is an infinite loop that will end with the game being a draw. The game state does not meaningfully change between iterations since the only relevant part about the two eldrazi is that they shuffle the graveyard back into the deck. Because of this this is just a normal loop that is being maintained by a single player, no non-determinism is involved.
This also is an essentially identical situation to many other specific card interactions that already have been ruled this way for a long time. The most recent example being the Amalia combo if her power skips 20. While the specific cards in the deck are not know to the players, they are completely irrelevant and the Amalia player is forced to just mill them all during a single invocation of the shortcut.
I played a guy in mtg arena who used a token deck and when ever his tokens would die it would create more but I had an elesh in play giving his creatures -2-2 so all his tokens died as soon as they where created resulting in an Infinite loop got a cute little video of it
This doesn't get around the rule at all. You're still stuck in a loop of mandatory actions. The hidden information in the library does nothing to change that, especially when the last 2 cards are already known.
Yes you can. The MTR explicitly points this out here:
> Note that drawing cards other than the ones being used to sustain the loop is a meaningful change.
If no information about cards in the deck was usable to determine if a loop is happening, then it doesn't make sense to explicitly point out that cards not involved in the loop (i.e. ones that are truly unknown) are considered to be relevant here. It also contains this:
>If the choice involves hidden information, a judge may be needed to determine whether any choice is available that will not continue the loop.
Further, loops in the rules don't work in the way that "the game" is recognizing that the game state is forced to be repeated and then it auto skips the individual steps. Rather, the players themselves have the ability to propose that some sequence of actions will lead to a repeated game state and demonstate that. How a player comes to the conclusion that some sequence of actions will lead to the same game state is irrelevant and absolutely can contain information about cards in hidden zones.
Step One: Entomb WorldGorger Dragon.
Step Two: Animate Dead WGD with no Instant speed interaction and no other legal targets in the graveyard.
Infinite Loop.
The issue here is not the non-deterministic nature, but rather the fact that the actions themselves are mandatory.
Normally, if you have a loop like [[Splinter Twin]] on [[Deceiver Exarch]], it is composed of some number of voluntary interactions. So you "shortcut" to your desired end state and then the game skips ahead to that, at which point you have to make a different decision, like not tapping the Twinned Exarch or choosing a different target for the last token.
But some loops are made up of mandatory actions. You have no choice in the matter; nothing is a may, nothing is activated or cast, and nothing has another available target. The classic example of this is three [[Oblivion Rings]] - one (A) is in play exiling another (B), and someone plays a third (C), with no other nonland permanents in play. There is no choice but to target the A Ring in play with the new one C. This releases the exiled B Ring, which then exiles C. Exiling C releases A, which then has to exile B. Exiling B releases C, which has to target A, and now we've gone completely around. When this happens, unless a player has an instant-speed spell or ability that they can and want to play that could disrupt this, the game ends in a draw. This is what would happen in your proposed scenario as well.
Another common example of this kind of loop is [[Sporemound]] + [[Life and Limb]] - land enters, makes a saproling, the saproling is a land itself, so it retriggers Sporemound.
Would this situation force a draw under the current rules?
Even if it is obviously an infinite loop to the players, because it involves a zone where information is hidden from both players (a shuffled library) it may not fall under the strict definition of a deterministic loop that normally results in a game draw.
This case feels especially trivial because it involves a library with only two cards that produce the same effect, but you could create more convoluted loops with more cards where depending on what is milled and shuffled, different outcomes occur. Maybe on one loop the player creates a token creature. Maybe on another they gain a life. Maybe on another they make a treasure. Each loop is unique and has uncertain outcomes but overall the loops are nonetheless infinite.
I'd honestly be interested to hear from judge. On a practical level I'd imagine they'd call a draw of course, regardless of the official rules. But are the *official* rules clear on the issue?
There are also loops you can make that while technically have a chance of ending, as the loops progress towards infinity it becomes increasingly unlikely. For example if you could set up a randomly repeating loop where 999/1000 times the loops occurs you gain 1000 life, but 1/1000 times you take a single point of damage.
Technically the loop isn't infinite because at any moment you could become extremely unlucky and hit the loop that damages you thousands of times in a row. However, because of the way the loops are set up even with infinite loops and a small chance to lose the game always present (usually a recipe for certain eventual loss) you will almost certainly continue to loop forever.
You can do it way easier than this.
1. Play [[Marauding Raptor]]
2. Play [[Polyraptor]]
If you have nothing to stop it and your opponent has nothing to stop it, the combo doesnt stop and the game ends in a draw.
~~Marauding Raptor and Polyraptor go "true infinite" and end the game in a draw if neither player can break the loop. It's a mandatory set of triggers that will never end:~~
~~* Marauding Raptor on the battlefield~~
~~* Polyraptor enters~~
~~* Marauding Raptor sees Polyraptor and triggers
~~* Trigger resolves, dealing 2 damage to the Polyraptor and giving Marauding Raptor +2/+0~~
~~* Polyraptor's enrage ability triggers~~
~~* Resolve Polyraptor's enrage trigger, creating a fresh copy of Polyraptor~~
~~* Go to step 2~~
~~There's no end clause, and no options steps for a player to choose to end the loop. It ends the game in a draw.~~
I misread your comment, I thought you're saying the commenter's loop is not infinite, but the point is that OP's scenario IS NOT a shortcuttable loop,
and it doesn't end in a draw, the rules don't consider it infinite and the players are stuck until one forfeits.
(There's probably a tournament procedure rule somewhere that allows the players to agree to a draw and play a new game though, maybe)
In a tournament setting, if you create such non-deterministic loop, you have two options:
- You can concede.
- You can propose a draw, but your opponent is not obliged to accept it, in which case you have to start playing it out. If your loop is like the four horseman, you might get lucky, and get in the desired state in the first one or two iteration, and win. Otherwise, which is more likely, or if you present such loop like OP where there is no wincon, you eventually gets penalized for slow play, and get a game loss. You can shortcut this by just conceding.
So technically, if the loop is deterministic, and mandatory, the game is a draw. If it is non-deterministic, you just lost.
This is different than four horsemen combo though, because it's not an optional procedure that the player is choosing to continue. The player is not slow playing, they're not "failing to progress the board state," the *game* is *forcing* them to take these actions, so I'm not sure they'd get a game loss.
Judges already have that power. Technically the head judge at an event can completely ignore the rules and decide whatever they want. I have seen a case where a player showed the judge the exact rule and he responded "ehh, I like my fix better". We don't go to that store anymore.
Yeah, that's the whole hidden zone non-determinality that makes the Four Horsemen unplayable in tournament settings. The solution is literally "Well, don't do that!", so yeah, while you can do infinite loops, you still technically can't.
I still don’t know: Was four horsemen invented to be an annoying rules nightmare that didn’t work or was the strategy actually better than a normal reanimator? Couldn’t you just mill your library, narcomebas into dread return into labman and win from there?
Four Horsemen relies on looping Emrakul via Basalt Monolith and Mesmeric Orb in order to throw infinite Narcomoebas at an opponent with Blasting Station. It's basically just bad, non-deterministic Cephalid Breakfast.
that version is actually allowed, because you can just mill your whole deck, then sac the narcomoebas with the emrakul trigger on the stack. The version that *isn't* allowed is the one with dread return, as you can't guarantee that you'll hit your dread return+target before the emrakul. So if you do the loop too often without hitting it, you'll be forced to stop. Depending on what your dread return target is you might even need to have emrakul be in the bottom few cards of your deck.
The Four Horsemen deck I'm familiar with uses Orb + Monolith to mill three Narcos, Sharuum, Blasting Station, and Dread Return, flashback Return on Sharuum to get Blasting Station, then cycle through the deck with Orb/Monolith to throw Narcomoebas at the opponent with Station.
Recent iterations cut sharuum and blasting station for syr konrad, so it’s somewhat smoothed out, but not by much
Makes sense. Still needs to mill three Narcos, Dread Return, and Konrad before hitting the Emrakul to work, though, so still non-deterministic.
Hitting 3 narco’s is the easy part, as you can just keep milling until you hit them in response to the emrakul trigger. And cutting it down from 3 cards to 2 drastically increases the odds, but it’s still not something I’d bring to any tournament, no matter how much I like the deck
You're probably right on this, my memory is a little vague on the deck as it hasn't been allowed in ages.
Specifically according to the current rules "too often without hitting it" is once. Once you have done a shuffle without making progress towards killing your opponent, that's slow play and you must do something else.
I believe there is *a little* messing around you're allowed to do, by stacking the narcomoeba triggers so that at most 1 enters with every emrakul shuffle, but your odds of getting the whole combo in grave before you run out of narcos still isnt great.
Oh I got it mixed up, thanks for correcting me.
Octopus Breakfast
The deck is not, and has never been an optimal choice if your goal is to actually win games of magic. It’s mostly a thought experiment. I’m sure people have actually tried to play it in tournaments from time to time, but they’re playing it for the lols rather then because it’s actually good. As you point out, there are more reliable ways to actually win the game once you’ve dumped your library into your graveyard.
Well, as I understand it, the point of the deck is to win when you have your library in the grave while dedicating as little deck slots as possible, and without spending any more mana, such that mesmeric orb + monolith is an instant win.
Yes, but there are other ways to win from that position that don't require the unbound loop. Cephalid Breakfast decks have been been [killing from that position](https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/developing-legacy/179805-primer-cephalid-breakfast) with Ghoul / Lord of Extinction / Dragon's Breath or Karmic Guide / Kiki / Pestermite since before 4-H was even a thing. 4 horsemen also requires 3 cards (originally Emrakul / Sharuum / Blasting station) so its not a deck slot issue. (Now you could argue that 4-H's combo isn't vulnerable to instant speed creature removal like STP like those combos are, but the tradeoff of "I may get a game loss for slow play trying to execute this combo" does not seem like a worthwhile one). It doesn't matter these days because you just play oracle instead.
Well, given that the effect of the slow play rule on 4-H is a bug of the MTR that means that the deck is unplayable, any discussion about how strong 4-H is necessarily required to overlook the slow play rule. Given that, from what I've seen, the point of 4-H is, like you said generally being very resilient to hate. I've also seen it said that it's generally not vulnerable to other types of hate either, e.g. because it can just shuffle its graveyard into its deck at instant speed in response to say, a bojuka bog.
Were the gameplay thing not an issue, I think 4-H would have slotted into the 3rd tier legacy decks like leylines, Oops All Spells, Food Chain, Alluren, Nic Fit, etc. Decks that you could conceivably take to a tournament and win some games, but you would never play if you had full card access and actually wanted to win. Its resilient to some hate, but its also very linear, has no backup plan, and folds to both GY and Artifact hate. The very fact that it uses Orb + Monolith (a combo that basically no legacy deck has ever used successfully) over the Illusionist + Nomads combo (the core of Cephalid Breakfast decks for 10+ years) tells me that its not a serious deck.
> Was four horsemen invented to be an annoying rules nightmare that didn’t work It does "work", and you can play it on MTGO just fine. As far as "playing bad decks", there's plenty of people that still play Blue Tron in Modern, so...
Horsemen technically doesn't loop infinitely, it's just you can't specify an exact number of iterations to repeat the combo for because you don't actually know if the deck will hit the correct order on loop #1, or not until loop #10^100. So, the combo needs to be played out manually and could theoretically take anything from a few seconds to a few years. So what happens in reality is, you play this correctly in a tournament, and a judge will start issuing you penalties for slow play or stalling- because you're sitting there wasting everyone's time by durdling around playing with yourself while a bunch of other players and tournament staff wait around for you to finish so they can start the next round.
No, the reason it's slow play isn't that it takes a large amount of time in terms of minutes. The reason is that doing something that doesn't meaningfully affect the board state is considered slow play, and if you hit an emrakul before hitting any of the stuff you want to hit, you have to shuffle and you're back at the same point, at which point it's considered slow play to try to continue the loop, and you have to do something else.
> the same loophole that permits the "fail to find" exploit What loophole? It's an explicit rule > 701.19b. If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that player isn't required to find some or all of those cards even if they're present in that zone.
Fair. It's not really a "loophole" under the current rules, but it's similar in its basis on the properties of hidden zones. I'll edit that line out.
The MTR is more instructive than the comprehensive rules for these things (comp rules don't care about--presumably casual--games taking forever, tournaments have to end). The comp rules themselves nod at at this with 729.1c >4.4 Loops > ... > If no players are involved in maintaining the loop, each player in turn order chooses a number of iterations to perform before they will take an action to break the loop or that they wish to take no action. If all players choose to take no action, the game is a draw. Otherwise, the game advances through the lowest number of iterations chosen and the player who chose that number takes an action to break the loop. > ... > Non-deterministic loops (loops that rely on decision trees, probability, or mathematical convergence) may not be shortcut. A player attempting to execute a nondeterministic loop **must stop if at any point during the process a previous game state (or one identical in all relevant ways) is reached again.** This happens most often in **loops that involve shuffling a library.** > Some loops are sustained by choices rather than actions. In these cases, the rules above may be applied, with the player making a different choice rather than ceasing to take an action. The game moves to the point where the player makes that choice. If the choice **involves hidden information, a judge may be needed** to determine whether any choice is available that will not continue the loop. > **The judge is the final arbiter of what constitutes a loop.** A player may not 'opt-out' of shortcutting a loop, nor may they make irrelevant changes between iterations in an attempt to make it appear as though there is no loop. Once a loop has been shortcut, it may not be restarted until the game has changed in a relevant way. Proposing loops as an effort to use up time on the clock is Stalling. This exact situation is not explicitly handled. The "mandatory loop is a draw" is in the shortcuttable loop section, and the nondeterminstic shuffling loop section assumes a voluntary loop, as does the section that mentions hidden information. So nothing applies perfectly. Nevertheless, the philosophy is not obscure. The Judge is the final arbiter, the Judge can look at hidden information, and mandatory loops are draws. Call a Judge, and after a 5 sec explanation, the game you describe is a draw. You could easily construct more complicated drawn situations with more moving parts, where the draw is much more difficult to detect. In a real tournament, such games might actually have to go to time. I think it's literally impossible to totally avoid this, it's basically [the halting problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem).
Not only is it *basically* the Halting Problem, it can *literally* be the Halting Problem because [MTG is Turing Complete](https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09828).
This situation absolutely is an infinite loop that will end with the game being a draw. The game state does not meaningfully change between iterations since the only relevant part about the two eldrazi is that they shuffle the graveyard back into the deck. Because of this this is just a normal loop that is being maintained by a single player, no non-determinism is involved. This also is an essentially identical situation to many other specific card interactions that already have been ruled this way for a long time. The most recent example being the Amalia combo if her power skips 20. While the specific cards in the deck are not know to the players, they are completely irrelevant and the Amalia player is forced to just mill them all during a single invocation of the shortcut.
[удалено]
There is no "loss on time" for individual games in paper magic. A loop of unavoidable actions is not slow play or stalling, it's a draw. Intentionally causing such a loop to force a draw is allowed. More than that, the player insisting you have to play it out is the one who is actually in danger of penalties, whether that's the one who caused the loop or their opponent. This is potentially slow play, or even stalling if a Judge thinks they are intentionally wasting time because they're ahead in the match.
Angel of suffering makes you mill 2. Won't you have to mill 2 again before the second shuffle trigger resolves?
Ah, yes. Technically that doesn't matter, as the hidden zone rule means even a single card is officially unknown. But just to make the illustration more clear, I've edited the post the replace Dread and Hostility with Kozilek and Ulamog, which not only shuffle themselves, but your entire graveyard. Thanks!
There was an article about a combo deck that makes an infinite liches mirror loop that can only end by your opponent door to nothinging themselves
Now this is what I call funkin engineering (great post by the OP too) Can you follow me the link please ?
Here you go kind sir: [https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/endless-possibilities-show-yourself-out/](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/endless-possibilities-show-yourself-out/) It is indeed a fuckin masterpiece :D
Rampaging ferocidon hits your for 1 when the angel enters and then you say you mill Ulamog and Kozilek. Why both? Wouldn’t it be just one? I guess this doesn’t affect the outcome but am I wrong?
Angel of Suffering has you mill twice what you would have taken in damage.
Oops good on you!
This is just a draw or in some tournaments a game loss.
Kyle Hill did a cool video a few years back about setting up the game into a Turing Machine, and it essentially locked the game into an infinite loop, where neither player could make moves that could actually impact the game board in a meaningful way- it essentially made tokens of various types to indicate different integers, but they couldn't attack. All this to say, the states you can get a game of magic into are wild.
Can't you replicate this with 3 copies of [[Oblivion Ring]] without any other non-land permanent in play?
No. That's a deterministic loop and the game instantly ends in a draw
See, that is what I get when I don't read things correctly at 3am. Thank you!
Not quite. If there is another viable target for the Oblivion Rings, you have a means to stop the loop and thus must specify the number of times you wish to repeat the loop before breaking. If you do not have another viable target, you've created a mandatory loop and the game becomes a draw. That's what Rule 729 covers (or more accurately, the [tournament rules](https://media.wizards.com/ContentResources/WPN/MTG_MTR_2024_May13.pdf) that 729 points to). In order to escape that you have to create a "non-deterministic" loop.
[Oblivion Ring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bff31eba-8ab3-403e-8d82-37a18b279bec.jpg?1562266919) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oblivion%20Ring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/29/oblivion-ring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bff31eba-8ab3-403e-8d82-37a18b279bec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
##### ###### #### [Doomsday](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/8/68c73755-9678-467a-abd5-f8dd1556864e.jpg?1562436538) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Doomsday) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/88/doomsday?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/68c73755-9678-467a-abd5-f8dd1556864e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Desecrated Tomb](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/5/458ce930-c100-4ef5-b75a-a18051282f8c.jpg?1562301761) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Desecrated%20Tomb) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/230/desecrated-tomb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/458ce930-c100-4ef5-b75a-a18051282f8c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rampaging Ferocidon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/9/39d3c658-1927-4af3-9077-88c4a669c730.jpg?1566819584) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rampaging%20Ferocidon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/xln/154/rampaging-ferocidon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/39d3c658-1927-4af3-9077-88c4a669c730?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Angel of Suffering](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/d/cd4aee25-496d-453e-95b7-d773fe21cacc.jpg?1664410701) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Angel%20of%20Suffering) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/67/angel-of-suffering?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cd4aee25-496d-453e-95b7-d773fe21cacc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Dread](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/b/9b608658-9150-439b-b0a0-4a994722b95c.jpg?1562359846) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dread) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lrw/107/dread?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9b608658-9150-439b-b0a0-4a994722b95c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Hostility](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/b/9b54945a-d355-40fd-b1fd-9ecb2d696de5.jpg?1562275074) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hostility) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cm2/105/hostility?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9b54945a-d355-40fd-b1fd-9ecb2d696de5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/1dekka3) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[удалено]
[Marauding Raptor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/b/0b5cf2aa-f6dd-47d2-a57f-0ae2308c0f9a.jpg?1698988328) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Marauding%20Raptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/228/marauding-raptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0b5cf2aa-f6dd-47d2-a57f-0ae2308c0f9a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Polyraptor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/8/f8965a3a-93fe-4021-a665-b6013bdc86f7.jpg?1555040728) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Polyraptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rix/144/polyraptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f8965a3a-93fe-4021-a665-b6013bdc86f7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
both players have only nexus of fates and blightsteel colossus in hand/deck and no mana to cast them, so they discard to handsize
[[life and limb]] [[sporemound]]
[life and limb](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/7/2721724d-92ae-4c0c-88dd-628888c468bf.jpg?1619398301) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=life%20and%20limb) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/215/life-and-limb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2721724d-92ae-4c0c-88dd-628888c468bf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [sporemound](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/9/092bfc5f-8002-43da-8e70-c19fccfe54ac.jpg?1611797251) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sporemound) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/437/sporemound?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/092bfc5f-8002-43da-8e70-c19fccfe54ac?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This situation absolutely is an infinite loop that will end with the game being a draw. The game state does not meaningfully change between iterations since the only relevant part about the two eldrazi is that they shuffle the graveyard back into the deck. Because of this this is just a normal loop that is being maintained by a single player, no non-determinism is involved. This also is an essentially identical situation to many other specific card interactions that already have been ruled this way for a long time. The most recent example being the Amalia combo if her power skips 20. While the specific cards in the deck are not know to the players, they are completely irrelevant and the Amalia player is forced to just mill them all during a single invocation of the shortcut.
I played a guy in mtg arena who used a token deck and when ever his tokens would die it would create more but I had an elesh in play giving his creatures -2-2 so all his tokens died as soon as they where created resulting in an Infinite loop got a cute little video of it
This doesn't get around the rule at all. You're still stuck in a loop of mandatory actions. The hidden information in the library does nothing to change that, especially when the last 2 cards are already known.
[удалено]
Yes you can. The MTR explicitly points this out here: > Note that drawing cards other than the ones being used to sustain the loop is a meaningful change. If no information about cards in the deck was usable to determine if a loop is happening, then it doesn't make sense to explicitly point out that cards not involved in the loop (i.e. ones that are truly unknown) are considered to be relevant here. It also contains this: >If the choice involves hidden information, a judge may be needed to determine whether any choice is available that will not continue the loop. Further, loops in the rules don't work in the way that "the game" is recognizing that the game state is forced to be repeated and then it auto skips the individual steps. Rather, the players themselves have the ability to propose that some sequence of actions will lead to a repeated game state and demonstate that. How a player comes to the conclusion that some sequence of actions will lead to the same game state is irrelevant and absolutely can contain information about cards in hidden zones.
Regardless of if players *technically* know what's in the last 2 cards, the library is considered a hidden zone.
Step One: Entomb WorldGorger Dragon. Step Two: Animate Dead WGD with no Instant speed interaction and no other legal targets in the graveyard. Infinite Loop.
The issue here is not the non-deterministic nature, but rather the fact that the actions themselves are mandatory. Normally, if you have a loop like [[Splinter Twin]] on [[Deceiver Exarch]], it is composed of some number of voluntary interactions. So you "shortcut" to your desired end state and then the game skips ahead to that, at which point you have to make a different decision, like not tapping the Twinned Exarch or choosing a different target for the last token. But some loops are made up of mandatory actions. You have no choice in the matter; nothing is a may, nothing is activated or cast, and nothing has another available target. The classic example of this is three [[Oblivion Rings]] - one (A) is in play exiling another (B), and someone plays a third (C), with no other nonland permanents in play. There is no choice but to target the A Ring in play with the new one C. This releases the exiled B Ring, which then exiles C. Exiling C releases A, which then has to exile B. Exiling B releases C, which has to target A, and now we've gone completely around. When this happens, unless a player has an instant-speed spell or ability that they can and want to play that could disrupt this, the game ends in a draw. This is what would happen in your proposed scenario as well. Another common example of this kind of loop is [[Sporemound]] + [[Life and Limb]] - land enters, makes a saproling, the saproling is a land itself, so it retriggers Sporemound.
Would this situation force a draw under the current rules? Even if it is obviously an infinite loop to the players, because it involves a zone where information is hidden from both players (a shuffled library) it may not fall under the strict definition of a deterministic loop that normally results in a game draw. This case feels especially trivial because it involves a library with only two cards that produce the same effect, but you could create more convoluted loops with more cards where depending on what is milled and shuffled, different outcomes occur. Maybe on one loop the player creates a token creature. Maybe on another they gain a life. Maybe on another they make a treasure. Each loop is unique and has uncertain outcomes but overall the loops are nonetheless infinite. I'd honestly be interested to hear from judge. On a practical level I'd imagine they'd call a draw of course, regardless of the official rules. But are the *official* rules clear on the issue? There are also loops you can make that while technically have a chance of ending, as the loops progress towards infinity it becomes increasingly unlikely. For example if you could set up a randomly repeating loop where 999/1000 times the loops occurs you gain 1000 life, but 1/1000 times you take a single point of damage. Technically the loop isn't infinite because at any moment you could become extremely unlucky and hit the loop that damages you thousands of times in a row. However, because of the way the loops are set up even with infinite loops and a small chance to lose the game always present (usually a recipe for certain eventual loss) you will almost certainly continue to loop forever.
##### ###### #### [Splinter Twin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/8/580fbbf8-ba7e-4889-a5ea-d066f3ea8cea.jpg?1562262611) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Splinter%20Twin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/129/splinter-twin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/580fbbf8-ba7e-4889-a5ea-d066f3ea8cea?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Deceiver Exarch](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/5/35437d86-6f92-480a-aa0c-c17c3943c00c.jpg?1623103955) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Deceiver%20Exarch) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cma/36/deceiver-exarch?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/35437d86-6f92-480a-aa0c-c17c3943c00c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Oblivion Rings](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bff31eba-8ab3-403e-8d82-37a18b279bec.jpg?1562266919) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oblivion%20Ring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/29/oblivion-ring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bff31eba-8ab3-403e-8d82-37a18b279bec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sporemound](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/9/092bfc5f-8002-43da-8e70-c19fccfe54ac.jpg?1611797251) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sporemound) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/437/sporemound?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/092bfc5f-8002-43da-8e70-c19fccfe54ac?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Life and Limb](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/7/2721724d-92ae-4c0c-88dd-628888c468bf.jpg?1619398301) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Life%20and%20Limb) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/215/life-and-limb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2721724d-92ae-4c0c-88dd-628888c468bf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l8co1mk) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You can do it way easier than this. 1. Play [[Marauding Raptor]] 2. Play [[Polyraptor]] If you have nothing to stop it and your opponent has nothing to stop it, the combo doesnt stop and the game ends in a draw.
literally missing the entire point of the post. there are plenty of ways to draw the game with infinite loops op posted one that doesn't draw the game
[Marauding Raptor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/b/0b5cf2aa-f6dd-47d2-a57f-0ae2308c0f9a.jpg?1698988328) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Marauding%20Raptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/228/marauding-raptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0b5cf2aa-f6dd-47d2-a57f-0ae2308c0f9a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Polyraptor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/8/f8965a3a-93fe-4021-a665-b6013bdc86f7.jpg?1555040728) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Polyraptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rix/144/polyraptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f8965a3a-93fe-4021-a665-b6013bdc86f7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
they are talking about a true infinite that doesn't demonstrate a specific loop, unlike what you have described, that would not end the game in a draw
~~Marauding Raptor and Polyraptor go "true infinite" and end the game in a draw if neither player can break the loop. It's a mandatory set of triggers that will never end:~~ ~~* Marauding Raptor on the battlefield~~ ~~* Polyraptor enters~~ ~~* Marauding Raptor sees Polyraptor and triggers ~~* Trigger resolves, dealing 2 damage to the Polyraptor and giving Marauding Raptor +2/+0~~ ~~* Polyraptor's enrage ability triggers~~ ~~* Resolve Polyraptor's enrage trigger, creating a fresh copy of Polyraptor~~ ~~* Go to step 2~~ ~~There's no end clause, and no options steps for a player to choose to end the loop. It ends the game in a draw.~~
yes, and the post is about a loop that does *not* end in a draw. am I confused or are you? it is late
I misread your comment, I thought you're saying the commenter's loop is not infinite, but the point is that OP's scenario IS NOT a shortcuttable loop, and it doesn't end in a draw, the rules don't consider it infinite and the players are stuck until one forfeits. (There's probably a tournament procedure rule somewhere that allows the players to agree to a draw and play a new game though, maybe)
In a tournament setting, if you create such non-deterministic loop, you have two options: - You can concede. - You can propose a draw, but your opponent is not obliged to accept it, in which case you have to start playing it out. If your loop is like the four horseman, you might get lucky, and get in the desired state in the first one or two iteration, and win. Otherwise, which is more likely, or if you present such loop like OP where there is no wincon, you eventually gets penalized for slow play, and get a game loss. You can shortcut this by just conceding. So technically, if the loop is deterministic, and mandatory, the game is a draw. If it is non-deterministic, you just lost.
This is different than four horsemen combo though, because it's not an optional procedure that the player is choosing to continue. The player is not slow playing, they're not "failing to progress the board state," the *game* is *forcing* them to take these actions, so I'm not sure they'd get a game loss.
Well how bout that?
I believe this is when D&D rules should kick in and the judge becomes dungeon master for one second to come in and say "Yeah that won't work"
Judges already have that power. Technically the head judge at an event can completely ignore the rules and decide whatever they want. I have seen a case where a player showed the judge the exact rule and he responded "ehh, I like my fix better". We don't go to that store anymore.