Judge’s Corner #9

Welcome back to our regular series Judge’s Corner, where we answer your Magic: the Gathering rules questions.

Q: How does [card]Asylum Visitor[/card] interact with [card]Balance[/card]?

A: If Asylum Visitor is in play, it counts as a creature. If it’s in your hand, it counts as a card. It generally does not count as a land.

Q: Last week at FNM, my opponent got mad at me over a rough beat and called me a “buttlord” before scooping. After laughing with my friends about it, one of them said I should have called a judge even though the game was over. What would have happened in this case?

A: In this particular case, since your opponent conceded, we would simply issue a warning for Unsportsmanlike Conduct. However, if the match were still active, we would have issued a Game Loss to your opponent and given you an emblem with “All Butts you control get +1/+1 and have Swampwalk” to begin the next game with.

Q: What happens when I have an [card]Illicit Auction[/card] for a [card]Platinum Angel[/card]?

A: Wizards of the Coast, including the DCI, has a policy of not interfering in secondary markets. However, we condemn in the strongest terms any Magic trading behavior that violates laws of the relevant countries and territories.

Q: How many energy counters is that on [card]Gonti’s Aether Heart[/card]?

A: Since it can be hard to quickly count a bunch of energy counter symbols in a row, we have added reminder text to let you know how many there are. Gonti’s Aether Heart produces two energy counters.

Q: I tap [card]Rosheen Meanderer[/card] and four Mountains for mana. Then I activate [card]Doubling Cube[/card]. Then I use all my floating mana to activate [card]Ice Cauldron[/card], exiling [card]Fanning the Flames[/card]. I pass turn and my opponent casts [card]Conversion[/card] and then [card]Flashfires[/card], destroying all my Mountains. On my turn, I tap Rosheen and my Ice Cauldron for mana and I cast Fanning the Flames with buyback for the maximum amount. My question is, solve for X.

A: Sorry, Mr. Bergstrom. You tricked us into doing our math homework once this way. You won’t fool us again.

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