Soldier of Fortune

[Dunharrow]

Soldier of fortune is interesting to me because a lot of the time it does nothing.

If a player has scried or put cards on the bottom of their library or can see the top of their library... sure, it does something.
But turn 1 of the game if nobody has mulliganed, if I somehow get a hasty Soldier of Fortune into play and activate it, am I going to get a warning for delaying the game?

If I make a twiddle contraption and activate Soldier of Fortune 5 times in a row, does the opponent need to shuffle 5 times?

At what point will a judge make me stop activating Soldier of Fortune?

Now let's say I have Psychogenic probe in play and activate Soldier of Fortune 5 times - do they need to do the shuffle each time or do they just take 10 damage and shuffle once?

[peteroupc]

In general, shuffling a library more than once has no bigger effect than shuffling it only once, since in both cases, the library's cards are "randomize[d] ... so that no player knows their order" (C.R. 701.19a). In sanctioned tournaments in general, you have to make it a shortcut to activate Soldier of Fortune's ability (and untap Soldier of Fortune) a given number of times (M.T.R. 4.4; see also C.R. 720.2a). This shortcut doesn't condense the number of times a player shuffles their library for the purposes of things that care about that, such as Psychogenic Probe's ability. For example, carrying out the shortcut might involve a player physically shuffling their library only once, even if, as far as the game is concerned, that player shuffled that library multiple times. See also this thread.

[Dunharrow]

In general, shuffling a library more than once has no bigger effect than shuffling it only once, since in both cases, the library's cards are "randomize[d] ... so that no player knows their order" (C.R. 701.19a). Assuming nothing in the game cares about how often it's shuffled, you have to make it a shortcut to activate Soldier of Fortune's ability (and untap Soldier of Fortune) a given number of times (C.R. 720.2a; for sanctioned tournaments, see M.T.R. 4.4). This shortcut doesn't condense the number of times a player shuffles their library for the purposes of things that care about that, such as Psychogenic Probe's ability. For example, carrying out the shortcut might involve a player physically shuffling their library only once, even though, as far as the game is concerned, that library was shuffled multiple times.

So If I make an opponent shuffle 10 times, they shuffle once and ignore the other 9 times?
What if I make an opponent shuffle on their end step, proceed to my turn, and make them shuffle again?
What if I make them shuffle on my turn, then they draw a card on their turn, then I make them shuffle again on my turn?

I am trying to figure out if making an opponent shuffle once can be skipped if we know the deck is already randomized.
For example, opponent casts Cultivate and I make them shuffle afterwards.... they just shuffled, so it get skipped?

[Dunharrow]

Additionally... if my opponent casts cultivate and I respond by making them shuffle... presumably they go Shuffle, search, shuffle. My shuffle does nothing but they are obligated to do it, right?

[peteroupc]

So If I make an opponent shuffle 10 times, they shuffle once and ignore the other 9 times?

The "other 9 times" are not ignored as far as the game is concerned; they're just not carried out physically.

What if I make an opponent shuffle on their end step, proceed to my turn, and make them shuffle again?

In this case, the shortcut is carried out by having that player draw a card and then physically shuffling their library once. Even so, however, that player has shuffled that library twice for the purposes of things that care about that. Note that any other player can shorten a shortcut a player proposes (C.R. 720.2b; for sanctioned tournaments, see M.T.R. 4.4).

What if I make them shuffle on my turn, then they draw a card on their turn, then I make them shuffle again on my turn?

In this case, the shortcut is carried out by having that player physically shuffle their library once and then draw a card. Even so, however, that player has shuffled that library twice for the purposes of things that care about that. (It's possible to shortcut this loop in this case even though, in general, loops that rely on the order of cards in a library after it's shuffled can't be shortcut, because the chance a given card is drawn from a library after it's shuffled more than once is the same as that chance after it's shuffled only once and because the other cards were in random order both before and after the second shuffle.)

[spacemonaut]

Stick to this general principle:

• If a deck is already randomized and we don't know anything about the order of any card in it, any additional shuffling is unnecessary. We'd call a judge and likely we'd handle it by skipping the shuffle but pretending it happens for anything that cares. If there's no actual benefit from making me shuffle then you're wasted time, mana, and a potential blocker, and you're potentially engaging in Slow Play.
• If a deck isn't randomized, the shuffle happens. That's the foundation of the Lantern of Insight control strategy

A primary measure of Slow Play is when you cause the game to enter a state that is identical to a previous game state. You will be doing this if you can repeatedly tap/untap Soldier of Fortune to make me shuffle needlessly in an infinite loop because you'll make us proceed through the following:

1. Turn 3, randomized library, untapped Soldier of Fortune, empty stack.
2. Turn 3, randomized library, tapped Soldier of Fortune, SoF's ability on the stack.
3. Turn 3, randomized library, tapped Soldier of Fortune.
4-9 (or some other number of steps). You use a combo to untap Soldier of Fortune while also resetting your untap combo so you can do it again later.
10. Turn 3, randomized library, untapped Soldier of Fortune, empty stack.

States 1 and 10 are identical. Nothing has changed between them. Two differently randomized libraries are almost certainly the same state for Slow Play purposes. You're engaging in Slow Play.

If it's a finite combo, you're probably still wasting time, but the judge will comment on that because they're standing right there.

Basically to avoid Slow Play you have an obligation to make sure the game state changes meaningfully ongoingly.

But turn 1 of the game if nobody has mulliganed, if I somehow get a hasty Soldier of Fortune into play and activate it, am I going to get a warning for delaying the game?

Just ... don't do this. I'd call a judge on the spot based on two concerns beyond wasting my time:
1. I don't want to damage my cards.
2. Worse yet, you may be playing to make me damage my sleeves until a card in my library can be considered marked and I get disqualified. I don't want that to occur either, and I'd want a judge to know what you're up to before this can happen.

You would put yourself in the crosshairs of Slow Play and Unsporting Conduct.

Additionally... if my opponent casts cultivate and I respond by making them shuffle... presumably they go Shuffle, search, shuffle. My shuffle does nothing but they are obligated to do it, right?

I'd call a judge always because I don't want to shuffle unnecessarily and damage my cards or sleeves. Supposing they don't directly suggest what to do, I'll propose one of two course of action:

If my library's already randomized —
1. I leave it untouched. We consider that a shuffle happened for the purposes of whatever cares.
2. I search.
3. I shuffle.

If it's not randomized (e.g. top card is revealed) —
1. I propose to you and the judge a shortcut that we let both the ability and my Cultivate resolve together, then I search and shuffle once to avoid wasting time.
2. If the judge approves, you either agree or propose something you'll do differently partway through that sequence, shortening the shortcut.
3. If the judge doesn't approve, I ask the judge what to do.

[Dunharrow]

Thank you for your answers. The idea was to make a deck focused on soldier of fortune and cards that trigger from shuffling, and to randomly hose mystical tutor et al. However, I wanted to have an idea of what is shortcutted, what is abusive, and what is tolerable.
I had not thought about the potential to cause damage to sleeves. This is definitely not something I want to put my opponents through.

Final question: If I have a lantern of insight in play and repeatedly activate Soldier of Fortune - at what point am I just wasting time? I can claim to be trying to force a bad card to be on top of the deck, but there is no guarantee of this happening.

I am trying to understand the real world limitations of playing with this card and rules clarification for how to execute playing with it. I want it to be a funny jank card, not something that aggravates opponents.

[TheMagicWord]

I feel aggravated just reading all these questions. LOL
Dont make this deck

Spam infraction
Kahedron

[user_938036]

Final question: If I have a lantern of insight in play and repeatedly activate Soldier of Fortune - at what point am I just wasting time? I can claim to be trying to force a bad card to be on top of the deck, but there is no guarantee of this happening.

You can make this claim but after one or two shuffles a judge should call slow play. Have you ever heard of the deck known as The Four Horsemen? It basically attempted to make Emrakul the last card in the deck by milling. The deck is unplayable because you can't shortcut the action of "only emrakul is left/A bad card is on top of the library". You can claim that eventually, you will stop your durdling but because it is possible that you will never get the outcome you want; after one or two attempts it is slow play.
The actual number of times you can do this is up to the judge. Some judges might be in on this whole torture your opponent thing and let you do a few more than others. Some might hit you with slow play the moment you attempt the second activation.

[spacemonaut]

Here's some articles on Four Horsemen and why it's unplayable:

• Let's talk about Four Horsemen — Ask a Magic Judge. Written by Charlotte Sable, a level 3 judge.
• Deck Tech: Four Horsemen with Jeff Liu — Star City Games Written by Glenn Jones, a WotC R&D employee.
• Horsemyths — Policy Perpsectives at MagicJudges.org Written by Toby Elliott, a level 5 judge and Magic Judge hall-of-famer. (You can't even become level 5 anymore IIRC.) You might also know him as papa_funk of the Commander Rules Committee.

Slow Play problems come up from various angles. One of them is the thing I mentioned before: you'll eventually return the game to an earlier state with no change. There's also this bit from Charlotte Sable's write-up:

This means that you have to execute the combo manually, and that means you'll fall afoul of the Slow Play rules, which say that "It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of iterations and the expected resulting game state."

As for your deck...

Thank you for your answers. The idea was to make a deck focused on soldier of fortune and cards that trigger from shuffling, and to randomly hose mystical tutor et al. However, I wanted to have an idea of what is shortcutted, what is abusive, and what is tolerable.
I had not thought about the potential to cause damage to sleeves. This is definitely not something I want to put my opponents through.

Final question: If I have a lantern of insight in play and repeatedly activate Soldier of Fortune - at what point am I just wasting time? I can claim to be trying to force a bad card to be on top of the deck, but there is no guarantee of this happening.

I am trying to understand the real world limitations of playing with this card and rules clarification for how to execute playing with it. I want it to be a funny jank card, not something that aggravates opponents.

If you can make a person shuffle 10 times and deal them 20 damage with Psychogenic Probe that's a reasonable advancement of the game state. If you're just shuffling indefinitely with Lantern of Insight until you see a card you want on top then you risk a Slow Play warning.

[Kahedron]

The question has been answered.

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