During the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms preview season, one of the most hotly debated topics was dice rolling and whether or not spin down dice were acceptable for use. Wizards had “unofficially” given us an answer to that question, and had alluded that there would be updates to the rules closer to set release. Well today we have those updates! There’s a few interesting things here to cover, so let’s get into it.
Dungeons
Dungeons are a new type of card in Forgotten Realms. We haven’t really had a card like this in the past. That being said, these cards that we have aren’t the only ways that we can interact with the dungeon mechanic. Wizards states that any way to accurately represent the dungeon is totally fine, as long as they don’t take up an obnoxious amount of space, and are accurately depicting each room.
Dice Rolling
Now that Dice Rolling is an official mechanic in Magic, Wizards had to put some official rules behind this. Their general take on this is that for casual play, any sufficiently random method of picking a number is ok, whether that’s rolling physical or digital dice, or a random number generator app. For the “roll a d20” mechanic, specifically in Competitive REL, Spin down Dice are prohibited from being used. Wizards states that the dice need to have an appropriate distribution to avoid manipulating dice rolls. Regardless of the debate behind the possibility of it being done, they’re removing the spin down dice from the equation to completely head it off.
One other little quality of life change that was made is that if you have an effect that makes you roll multiple dice, and if you get the highest result possible in an early roll, you can skip the remaining rolls, as they are irrelevant.
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Electronic Devices
In the past, electronic devices were prohibited for use during play, especially for Competitive REL events. Then a few years back, Wizards relaxed that rule for Regular REL events and was successful. They’re now unifying this rule, and now Electronic Devices are allowed to be used in all levels of events, as long as it’s done out in the open. A great use of your electronic device is to use the Magic: the Gathering Companion App, now with dice rolling features!
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While we don’t have to necessarily worry about these things on Magic Online or Magic Arena, in person play is currently open again, so definitely take note of these changes to the tournament rule!
