Sometimes in casual, I have a hard time keeping my graveyard in the original order, but not of my friends mind, but in a tournament setting or around sticklers I'm sure it matters a bit more. Cards like Ghoulraiser especially would make it difficult to randomly choose a zombie creature without separating all of them out of your graveyard first. Does it still matter? I checked the official rules on the MtG site and it seems to, but I just wanted to make sure that they didn't just forget to update it.

Graveyard order only matters in Legacy or Vintage games where you tell your opponent it matters because you have cards that care about graveyard order in your deck. Other than that, no.

Okay cool, thanks.

Here's the relevant tournament rule:

Is that quote not from the CR? I never realized Graveyard order stopped mattering, but then again my last paper tournament was Exodus Pre-release, I think.

Re: OP
What I do is roll a die and count creature cards from the top until the random number is reached. No need to separate them out (just make sure the die has a number higher than the total Zombie count). Leave it up to the playgroup is you reroll or start from the top if you roll higher than the total number of Zombies in the graveyard.

I think it stopped mattering some time around Magic 2010. Shadowmoor had a card that instructed a player to reorder their graveyard, which suggests graveyard order still mattered at the time. Even the Gatherer page has a ruling that states "You're not normally allowed to reorder your graveyard..." and is dated May 2008.

It's from the Magic Tournament Rules. The rule exists since 2009, but graveyard order stopped mattering in Exodus, as the last card that cared was Volrath's Shapeshifter in Stronghold.

Fossil Find reorders the graveyard, but it doesn't actually care at all about the order, so it's fine.

For completeness, here's the corresponding rule from the CompRules:


And here's the article discussing the change.

Thanks.

I remember using Volrath's Shapeshifter* to beat Ensnaring Bridge in Type 1.5 of the day, back then. I'm probably too much of a Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul fan though. So, I will probably still obsess over my graveyard order when/if I play paper; but it's good to know I don't have to do so (luckily MTGO doesn't matter).

I'd add Commander (as well as any other eternal-cardpool games) to the 'notify opponents' list, too. I know I regularly run Shallow Grave, and in Grenzo, Dungeon Warden I run Soldevi Digger, so I make sure to be clear up-front that my graveyard order will be carefully maintained (and that they might want to as well, in case they wind up, say, copying my Shallow Grave or my Soldevi Digger).

for the record, neither the floor rules nor the CR makes any distinction about notification. if Graveyard Order cards are legal, then the order must be maintained, whether or not anyone is running anything that cares, and certainly whether or not you notify your opponent of this fact. in a tournament setting, you shouldn't notify them, because that gives away strategic information. in casual you probably should to be nice.

I wonder if graveyard-order maintenance was mandated for sanctioned Conspiracy drafts. Because Lore Seeker could add graveyard-order-matters cards to the cardpool.

There's no such thing as "sanctioned Conspiracy drafts", as limited events including Conspiracy boosters can only be reported as casual events. If you draft Lore Seeker, you just apply common sense, notice if you have any graveyard-order-matters card, an play accordingly.

I thought FNM could be any format now (including conspiracy draft). I thought they did away with "FNM draft can only be current block official" as a sanctioning rule.

Yes, now you can do FNMs as casual events too, so you can do an FNM Conspiracy draft. Casual events can be reported but only give one lifetime planeswalker point to each player and don't necessarily follow the tournament rules.

Pretty much everything that is played with real Magic cards can be reported as a casual FNM event.

I always assumed Lore Seeker added a Conspiracy pack. is that not the case?

The booster pack can be from any Magic: The Gathering set, but you must provide it. Consult your co-conspirators for guidance.



That's exactly what the Conspiracy FAQ says about Lore Seeker

But remember that real men use Arabian Nights boosters.

One of the two Conspiracy drafts I played, someone Lore Seeker'd us into a New Phyrexia booster. Wound up with a Master Splicer and a Mortis Dogs in my (Worldknit) deck.

In casual and edh I reorder my graveyard if I have cards that interact with it unless someone tells me not to and nobody can stop me.

So if someone else plays a Shallow Grave and you hold a Fork / Twincast, do you:

A. Feel you're not allowed to cast it because you tampered with or failed to maintain graveyard order
B. Cast it and have it reanimate whatever you happened to leave on top last time you touched your graveyard
C. Cast it and try to reconstitute which creature card would have been the most recent one to enter your graveyard (and have fun making a decision now if multiple went at the same time)
D. Cast it and continue to tinker with your graveyard before it resolves, assuring you get the creature you want most at the top by the time it resolves?