Async Mental Magic v20181215b
1 For the sake of play-by-post, cards have IDs that are public
information, even when the cards are in players' hands. IDs are like
a100, where 'a' is the game ID, '1' is the player who owns the card,
and '00' identifies the individual card. Bot commands are as follows:
! 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 #comment goes here
> PULL one or more new cards, which will become visible to your team
!! 202 203 204 #Gitaxian Probe
> FLIP one or more cards, i.e. reveal publicly
!n 105 Gitaxian Probe
> NAME a card
!u 106
> Shortcut equivalent to !n 106 Utopia
!info
> Display whose turn it is, and who has dibs on controlling the turn.
!dibs
> Call dibs on controlling the current turn.
!turnover
> End control of your turn. Before you do, remember to specify orders
for assigning damage to blockers and set categories for uncontrolled
choices, then peek at the top card of your library. (See Rules 7+)
!gameover
> End the current game. All cards will FLIP.
!r 3 #Goblin Arsonist: 1=me;2=Pyknite;3=Llanowar Elves
> Roll a die numbered from 1 to N.
!r me Pyknite LlanowarElves #Goblin Arsonist
> Randomly pick an item from a space-delimited list of choices.
2 Libraries are inexhaustible.
2a Cards that care about the size of a library (e.g. Battle of Wits,
Doomsday, Traumatize, Leveler) are banned.
2b Cards that ask you to reveal cards from a library until you reveal
one meeting a condition (e.g Tainted Pact, Mind Funeral) are banned.
2c If a library would be searched, instead search its owner's sideboard.
Sideboards contain inexhaustible supplies of Plains, Island, Swamp,
Mountain, Forest, and nothing else.
2d ID'd cards in libraries cease to exist when state-based effects happen,
EXCEPT cards on top of libraries.
2e Cards in graveyards cease to exist when state-based effects happen
UNLESS they're being referenced by something on the stack OR
a delayed triggered ability. (Kitchen Finks and Loyal Cathar both
work as expected. But you can't cast Zombify in time for it to work.)
2f Cards in exile cease to exist when state-based effects happen UNLESS
they're being referenced by ANYTHING, even themselves (e.g. Suspend).
3 Cards start unnamed, and have mana cost and color, but no other
characteristics. (They have no types; they can be discarded by Duress.)
3a When a card becomes named, the name lasts for the rest of the game.
4 Once per turn, the active player may name and play an unnamed card as:
Utopia
Basic Land — Utopia
(Utopia is an additional land type that exists in Mental Magic games;
Utopia is not a basic land type.)
{T}: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
4a Doing so counts as playing a land, but effects that allow you to
play additional land in a turn don't let you name Utopia again.
5 You may name an unnamed card you own if you have control and one of
the following conditions would be fulfilled after you do so:
* it would enter the stack or the battlefield;
* it would be spliced onto a spell you're casting;
* an ability it has would go onto the stack, or a delayed triggered
ability it has would go onto the stack later;
* or it would be exiled by an effect that couldn't exile it if it
stayed unnamed, and which would continue to reference it.
(For example, you name a card when Isochron Scepter exiles it.
On the other hand, you don't name a card when Elkin Bottle exiles it;
you name it if and when you play it. And you can't name Transguild
Courier to pay for Force of Will, but you can use an unnamed card
that's already blue, or a Transguild Courier that got bounced.)
5a Some effects exile cards regardless of characteristics, but only
continue to reference the cards matching some description. For the
purposes of Rule 5, consider such effects to reference the card(s)
regardless of characteristics. So you don't name a card when Nivix,
Aerie of the Firemind exiles it, but you can name it as an instant or
sorcery card when you want to cast it.
5b You may name an unnamed card an opponent owns if an effect you
control would put that card onto the stack or the battlefield
under your control, possibly by letting you cast it. This rule trumps
any rules letting the opponent choose the name.
5c The named card must have the same mana cost. Certain mana costs have
equivalence relations. The transitive property does NOT apply.
(A=B and B=C don't necessarily imply A=C.)
5d A card costing {0} (e.g. Ornithopter) may become a card with no mana
cost (e.g. lands, Evermind), and vice versa.
5e A multicolor card costing at least one non-hybrid colored mana may
become any multicolor card costing at least one non-hybrid colored
mana that has the same converted mana cost.
(The deck we're currently using has no such cards.)
5f A card may become any card costing hybrid mana if their mana costs
would match with some or all of the hybrid mana symbols treated as
one of their halves, and vice versa. For example, a card costing
{R}{R}{R}, {2}{R}{R}, {4}{R}, or {6} can become Flame Javelin,
without restricting how you actually pay if you cast it.
5g For the purposes of matching mana symbols, treat phyrexian
mana symbols as non-phyrexian mana symbols of the same color.
Unlike the other equivalence relations, this one IS transitive.
5h You can cast either half of a split card you name.
6 A previously chosen name can't be chosen again, not even in later games.
6a Ante, dexterity, and silver-bordered cards are banned.
6b Cards that can result in facedown spells or permanents are banned.
(E.g. Illusionary Mask and cards with Morph.)
7 Only the active player can gain priority, and only as long as he has
"control of the turn".
7a Control turns over at end of turn OR when the non-active player has a
decision, with multiple options leading to non-identical game states.
For the purposes of 7a, successive choices by the same player count
as a single decision.
7b For the purposes of 7a, decisions arising from effects of cards named
by the non-active player don't qualify. Note that declaring blockers
is not an effect at all.
7c Furthermore, opportunities to name specific cards with specific
abilities that create the opportunity, such as Guerrilla Tactics or
cards with Madness, also don't qualify.
7d HOWEVER, opportunities to name any card matching certain
characteristic(s), such as from Burgeoning, do qualify as decisions,
even if the active player somehow knows the cost(s) of the unnamed
card(s) and there are no possible cards to name that match those
characteristics, such as lands in this example. Note also in this
example that it would somehow have to be a Burgeoning named by the
active player and controlled by the non-active player, otherwise the
opportunity would be disqualified by 7b. A more straightforward
example would be if the active player played Hunted Wumpus.
7e Once control is turned over, the non-active player controls her
decisions and can name cards, but still can't gain priority.
7f There's no way to make any decisions before the first turn.
7g When a "Mindslaver" effect is active, the controlling player plays
for the controlled player within the framework of Rules 7 and 8.
8 As for uncontrolled decisions, their options are partitioned into the
following categories: NO_ACTION, SELF, OPPONENT, OTHER, and MYRIAD.
8a NO_ACTION is any choice that would qualify as taking no action for
the ordinary Magic rules purposes of determining whether a player
would be obligated to break an infinite loop. Moreover, when naming
a card, if not doing so is an option, then not doing so is NO_ACTION.
8b SELF and OPPONENT are choices of one player or one or more of their
objects over the other(s).
8c Anything else is OTHER, except creature types and cardnames not on a
card currently existing in the game and multiple-digit numbers, which
are MYRIAD.
8d Uncontrolled choices default to NO_ACTION if possible, else random
from non-MYRIAD options, else enumerate and random from all MYRIAD
options if finite and feasible (possibly pausing the game to debate
feasibility), else if choosing a number choose the smallest option,
else pause the game and debate further rules.
8e The defaults in 8d can be overridden by specifying which category or
set of categories you want which ability to random from, on a
per-ability basis (as opposed to a per-ability-instance basis).
Your spec can't apply only to some circumstances, and you can't
rank the categories, only select a set to try before default.
Specs are assumed to be until end of game unless otherwise specified.
8f For the purposes of randomization, choosing X out of Y options is
done by randomly choosing an option X times. If a variable number of
options can be chosen, do it by choosing a number before choosing the
options.
8g As an exception to the above, the active player, before turning over
control, may specify directions in unlimited detail for ordering
blockers and assigning combat damage.
8h Specifications and directions are public information.
9 After stating specifications and directions and before doing !turnover,
you may peek at the top card of your library. (It's worth improving the
gameflow by letting you see your next card, even though you can exploit
it instead of drawing it.)
9a You can add yourself to a team by calling !dibs during one of that
team's turns even if you aren't going to be playing that particular
turn. (Call !dibs twice to cancel existing dibs.)