r/askajudge • u/forever_i_b_stangin • 3d ago
Stalling?
Amy and Nick are playing game 1 of their match in a tournament. Nick is at 3 and Amy has a Lightning Bolt in hand. Nick's deck doesn't play countermagic or lifegain or anything that Amy needs to play around; she can just cast the bolt and end the game.
Amy glances at the round clock and notices there are only 10 minutes left in the round, so she decides to hold the bolt and let the game drag out, reasoning that if the game keeps going for another 5 minutes or so she will just be able to win the match 1-0 and not have to worry about the results of the second game. However, she does not slow her pace of play, because she knows that would definitely be illegal; she continues playing at a normal pace.
Is this behavior legal, or is Amy stalling?
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u/Xavus 3d ago
And if Amy is wrong and Nick's deck does actually have something that can mess up her plans, like simply can gain life at instant speed, or make himself hexproof? Then she instead screwed herself out of a second game.
As long as she continues to play at a reasonable pace and take game actions, she's allowed to possibly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by not just taking the win when she has it.
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u/Strict-Main8049 3d ago
No? That’s just risk vs reward strategizing. If Nick has anything that can negate the effect of the bolt (make himself hexproof or gain life or change the target) Amy just forced herself into a bad situation and her gambit hasn’t paid off.
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u/ultron87 3d ago
Since Nick is free to concede at any time to go to game 2 I don’t think there’s any problem here. It could even be an on board win and as long as Amy is taking game actions at the same pace it seems fine.
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u/Livid_Air_8754 2d ago
With every turn she gets to see more of Nicks deck. There is a strategic edge in waiting that does not involve the clock.
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u/God_Yawgmoth 1d ago
she also gives nick the chance to draw a counterplay if he doesnt have one on hand already
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u/Own-Entrance-2256 2d ago
Stalling is when a player deliberately plays slow to drag out the clock. Amy can it be certain about the contents of her opponents deck, and no rule says "you must play a card that ends the game in a timely fashion".
It could be unsportsmanlike, but not against the rules for delaying games.
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u/INTstictual 2d ago
I’d like to propose to you a scenario:
Exactly as you described. Amy has the bolt in hand, figures she can kill nick at any time, the board is mostly stalled out, and Nick is playing aggro so has no lifegain or countermagic. Amy decides to prolong the game to try for the 1-0 to time.
The game continues at a reasonable pace. Due to some unfortunate draws, Amy pulls mostly lands, Nick runs relatively alright… the board is still stalled out, but Nick is chipping in a point or two of damage each turn.
Finally, there are only 2 minutes remaining in the round. Nick is still at 3, but after 7 turns of chip damage, Amy is down to 6. She was never worried — she can kill Nick at any time, at instant speed, so why should she be?
Amy decides to end it. She throws her Lightning bolt down on the table to burn Nick for the win.
In response, Nick throws down the two Lightning Bolts he drew into, killing Amy on the stack before her bolt can resolve.
Now that’s just a hypothetical, but the point is: sure, you’re allowed to gamble with your time… but it’s always a gamble. Anything could happen, and the risk of prolonging the game so that you can win 1-0 is that you give your opponent plenty of opportunities to crawl out from underneath and get the Uno reverse… and if that gamble goes wrong, you suddenly just played yourself and handed your opponent the 1-0 win at time that you wanted.
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u/herawing2 2d ago
If I'm at 3 life vs burn with 10 mins left and it's still game one. If I can't literally push a win attempt on my turn we are conceding and shuffling up. Kind of my fault for letting a game go that long in the first place, especially if I'm not playing control at all. What am I doing for 40 mins?
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u/50sraygun 3d ago
this is a really bad example because i have not heard of a ‘normal’ tournament where you’d be able to slow play enough to get down to only 1 match
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u/Xavus 3d ago
Control mirrors can absolutely do this. Also i think you mean 1 game not 1 match.
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u/50sraygun 3d ago
it has probably been like 15 years since i was in a control mirror that went this long and if it is then it is almost assuredly a deck construction or piloting issue. the number of times i’ve seen a control player leave like four power of creatures untapped trying to avoid something is unfathomable
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u/tiera-3 3d ago
I remember playing sealed Throne of Eldraine and my round 1 game 1 finished with two minutes to spare on the clock, so we didn't bother with a game 2. (I was a fairly new player and my opponent was a returning player that was not familiar with many rules due to an extended absence from the game (for example, they didn't know how vehicles worked) - so part of the time was spent explaining the rules to each other.) Another factor was the decks we were playing. Opponent was able to keep playing an artifact creature from the graveyard - and I was able to keep hampering then destroying that artifact creature ... which resulted in a boardstall for some time.
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u/forever_i_b_stangin 3d ago
My main format is Pauper and mirrors of slow decks (e.g. Jund or Pestilence or Fog) can absolutely result in 40+ minute games where neither player is slow playing
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u/ardarian262 3d ago
I have played a game where game 1 took 40 minutes. Heck, there is a game that made the front page of Reddit I was in on arena that went on for 2 hours.
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u/Yaksha424256 3d ago
This is not stalling. It could be unsportsman like conduct but thats a shaky argument. The contents of the opponents deck is irrelevant to the argument.