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Marauding Raptor has:

Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, Marauding Raptor deals 2 damage to it. If a Dinosaur is dealt damage this way, Marauding Raptor gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

Polyraptor has:

Enrage - Whenever Polyraptor is dealt damage, create a token that's a copy of Polyraptor.

When my opponent had Marauding Raptor in play, and played a Polyraptor, the Marauding Raptor deals two damage to the original, then when a token copy was made the Marauding Raptor dealt to that, which makes another copy, which is also dealt damage, etc...

My question is, does this mean the game breaks and is over, or does the arbitrary loop stop of its own accord at some point?

(Neither of us were able to destroy or exile a Polyraptor token in response to the damage, to stop the loop.)

Joe W
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Jedediah
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1 Answers1

22

The game will end in a draw

If the loop cannot be ended by either player, instead the game ends in a draw.

721.4. If a loop contains only mandatory actions, the game is a draw. (See rules 104.4b and 104.4f.)

Aetherfox
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    You don't need to change your answer, but if either player can end the loop, they can still choose not to do so, and the game would still end in a draw. – murgatroid99 Mar 16 '20 at 05:21
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    @murgatroid99 For clarity, you only mean if they could end a loop by some other action that's not involved in the loop; but if they can end the loop because the loop contained a "may", then that doesn't apply, right? – GendoIkari Mar 16 '20 at 13:23
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    @NuclearWang 104.4b says "Loops that contain an optional action don’t result in a draw." And 721.4 refers to "mandatory actions"... which wouldn't apply to an action with a "may", would it? – GendoIkari Mar 16 '20 at 14:39
  • @GendoIkari Hm, I think you're right, I'm deleting my comment. – Nuclear Hoagie Mar 16 '20 at 15:15
  • I was talking about this loop, which we already know is mandatory. – murgatroid99 Mar 16 '20 at 16:05
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    It seems like the player that did this would have the clear advantage here, given they have both an infinite-powered creature and an infinite army of Polyraptor clones to back it up. Surprising this wouldn't be an instant win for them. (Unlike a loop that goes between 2 players where neither has the upper hand.) I feel like this does kind of break the game... – Darrel Hoffman Mar 16 '20 at 19:01
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    @DarrelHoffman Not really. The player would have a clear advantage if they had a way to interrupt the combo. Without it they just have a way to force a draw. I don't see this fundamentally different than saying "I would have won this game if I had a Murderous Rider to kill your lethal attacker." - sure, but you don't, so you don't have an advantage. – xLeitix Mar 16 '20 at 22:07
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    It's worth mentioning that there are entirely viable ways of using this. Personally I have a Zacama, Primal Calamity EDH that runs Marauding Raptor and Polyraptor. My 'stop button' of choice is Trading Post. Get as many polyraptors as you like, then activate Trading Post's 3rd ability (sacrificing the newest polyraptor) in response to Marauding Raptor's triggered ability dealing damage to it. Marauding Raptor will deal no damage since the Polyraptor is dead, causing the loop to end. – Aetherfox Mar 17 '20 at 14:10
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    This can also be semi-useful even if you don't have an ability to stop the loop: Sometimes you know you can't win, and a draw is better than a loss. – Aetherfox Mar 17 '20 at 14:13
  • @DarrelHoffman It wouldn't really be possible for the rules to have been worded in such a way that the player with the advantage gets the win, instead of it being a draw. "Clear advantage" might be clear to humans analyzing the game state; but it's basically impossible for a rulebook to determine that. – GendoIkari Mar 17 '20 at 17:05
  • @GendoIkari Well sure it could be worded differently. All you'd have to do is make one or both of the cards' effects be optional, and then the player could choose to end the loop at any point. Or if that's considered too over-powered of a combo, enforce a limit of some sort, like maybe it can only activate X times per turn, or doesn't work on tokens but only on the original card. There's any number of ways this situation could have been made unambiguous. (Sorry, this may be just my programmer brain insisting that any endless loop is a bad thing and making sure they just never happen...) – Darrel Hoffman Mar 17 '20 at 17:38
  • @DarrelHoffman I thought you meant that 721.4 could have said that the player with the advantage wins, rather than it being a draw. As opposed to avoiding the issue completely by simply never having mandatory loops. The problem is that with over 20,000 different cards, it's not really realistic to avoid all possible infinite loops. – GendoIkari Mar 17 '20 at 18:18