Good on You, Jim - SILVER

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=863

Hey folks,

Welcome to this week's Knowledge Pool scenario! As a silver scenario it is designated for those who have learned the IPG but need to refine their knowledge on its minor points. Therefore if you are L2 or above we'll ask you to wait until Thursday to start posting your responses. In addition, this week's scenario has a few different characters, so take care to keep them straight as you work out your answer. Good luck!


Anna and Nalick are playing in a PTQ. Jim, a spectator, has asked them to pause and called you over. He explains this situation:

At the end of Anna's turn, Nalick taps out to play Azorious Charm, choosing to draw a card. After it resolves Anna's friend Ben says “You should probably cast that,” pointing to the Magma Jet in her hand. Anna responds “Are you sure? I was thinking maybe this one instead,” pointing to her Boros Charm.

Jim's explanation complete, you turn to address the problem with Anna and her friend. Before you begin, Nalick says “Judge, I just cast an Azorious Charm and I accidentally drew two cards that were stuck together”.

Your investigation confirms that Anna and her friend did discuss her best play in this situation, and that Nalick did draw two cards. What do you do?

Ben: Did provide Outside Assistance -> Match Loss
Anna: Not quite sure about this one, but I think since she was asking “Are you sure? I was thinking maybe this one instead”, she will receive a match loss vor OA as well.
Nalick: DEC -> Game Loss
Jim: he did everything correct, on competitive REL specators are allowed to pause the game, so no penalties here.

Seems pretty cut and dried. We have an Outside Assistance on one side and a Drawing Extra Cards on the other. Additionally we have an Outside Assitance on a spectator. All 3 penalties would be applied simultaneously. Anna did not initially solicit the OA, but when she responds and begins discussing the play with a spectator, that definitely qualifies. Ben offered information to a player who had sat for her match. If he's enrolled in the tournament, he would receive a match loss for his next round. If not, I would try and gauge his level of understanding of Competitive REL. If I feel that educating him on the issues involved with OA will stop the problem from occuring again (and it sounds like this is probably a case of lack of knowledge, not of sneaky underhanded stuff going on), I will allow him to stay at the venue, otherwise I will ask the TO to ask him to leave.

Nalick will receive a Game Loss for Drawing Extra cards. If the Game Loss would result in Anna winning the match (if she already had won a game), then they both receive a loss for this round.

I agree with Mike's penalty assessment, except on one point: From IPG 1.3:

“Separate infractions committed or discovered at the same time are treated as separate penalties… If the first penalty would cause the second one to be inapplicable for the round (such as a Game Loss issued along with a Match Loss), the more severe penalty is issued first, followed by the less severe penalty in the next round.”

I'd say that Ben and Anna should be issued Match Losses for this round, and Nalick should be issued a Game Loss on the next round.

Just a quick reminder that if you are L2 or above please wait until Thursday to steer/guide the discussion. Thanks!

Going to try to answer this one with my fledgling L1 knowledge but.. it seems like to me that Anna and Ben should both be given an Outside Assistance infraction and a match loss due to the fact that they held a two-way conversation regarding what to do during the match.

In terms of Nalick and the extra cards, if we've determined it to be true then I'd say its drawing extra cards and a game loss to be applied at the start of the next match.

I agree with everyone else that Anna and Ben will receive match losses altogether for Outisde Assistance, and Nalick will also receive a game loss for drawing extra cards. As the floor judge responding to this situation, I would immediately get the head judge involved. The head judge is the only person who can issue penalties above warnings (unless it's for deck problems or tardiness) so right away he/she needs to be made aware of the OA and DEC problems at the table. I would ask another judge to watch the table and I would go find the head judge. If another judge is not immediately available, I would ask a spectator to find the head judge and inform him that a floor judge at table number “#” needs his/her help with a problem.

Whenever I find out that I'm dealing with an outside assistance or drawing extra cards problem, one of the the first things I do is get the head judge involved.

Do you folks feel like the order in which these penalties are applied matters? What if it's game 3? If they're applied simultaneously, then Anna will be losing the match from her own penalty, but winning it at the same time since Nalick just lost game 3. How do we sort this out?

I think Anna and Ben both getting a Match Loss for outside assistance is pretty clear-cut.

Now Nalick is a bit less clear. If the cards that were stuck together are actually /really/stuck together, and both are still identifiable because of this, it could be acceptable to undraw one of them and reduce penalty to a Warning, with an additional Warning for Marked Cards (cards don't get durably stuck together without being somehow marked). Otherwise, it's a Game Loss as he drew two cards and their was no point at which is opponent could have prevented him from doing that mistake. I'd insist on the importance of making sure to count card when drawing.
If he does get a Game Loss, I don't think it carries over for the next match. Since those are penalties applied to different players, it's completely feasible to have them both lose the match (if Anna had already won a game). And there is no reason the result should be worse for Nalick than what would have happened if Nalick had got a Game Loss before Anna got a Match Loss.

There is another matter: apparently Nalick drew from Azorius Charm even though a spectator had asked them to pause and called a judge. I don't think it's an infraction in the IPG per se, but I'd remind him that if there is a probleme with the game (which apparently there was), players should refrain from taking any actions that might damage it further.

Good thoughts Nathanaël, but I do want to clarify this:

Nalick taps out to play Azorious Charm, choosing to draw a card. After it resolves…

Nalick had drawn the card (or rather, two cards) before Jim asked them to pause the match.

The above posts seem fine. Not going to rehash them. However, if the players were able to uniquely determine and agree between the 2 of them which card was the extra card drawn off the Azorius Charm, could we downgrade the GL for Nalick into a Warning for LEC instead, on the grounds of “GLs for dexterity suck real bad”?

It's well past Thursday, so I'm adding my two cents because I think something important has not been given due consideration.

While I think OA here is a slam dunk, let's give a little more thought to the DEC penalty. We'll start with the scenario description:

Originally posted by Patrick Vorbroker:

At the end of Anna's turn, Nalick taps out to play Azorious Charm, choosing to draw a card. … Before you begin, Nalick says “Judge, I just cast an Azorious Charm and I accidentally drew two cards that were stuck together”.

Now, an Extra Card was obviously Drawn. And there is no prior GRV or CPV. And the identity was not known to both players. But let's take a look at another section of the IPG:

IPG General Philosophy
If a player commits an offense, realizes it, and calls a judge over immediately and before he or she could potentially benefit from the offense, the Head Judge has the option to downgrade the penalty without it being considered a deviation, though he or she should still follow any procedures recommended to fix the error.

Do we meet this condition for downgrade?

Well, Nalick didn't technically call the judge, but a spectator stopped the match to get a judge for an unrelated event immediately after the infraction was committed. The match may have even been stopped before the infraction was noticed by Nalick. In addition, Nalick interjected to alert the judge to the problem as soon as it was his turn to speak when the extra card had not been mentioned (or apparently noticed) by any other party. I would submit this meets the intent of the “called it on yourself” clause.

The tricky part is “before he or she could potentially benefit.” This rarely applies to DEC, but let's look at this particular scenario two different ways:
1) Nalick is tapping out at the end of Anna's turn to draw a card and draws two cards. That means that he drew one extra card. The next action Nalick is likely to take is to untap and draw a card for his draw step, and he is currently tapped out. If we choose to rewind the second draw, Nalick will have gained no advantage as soon as he has a meaningful option to take another action. This, to me, says the problem was potentially caught within the appropriate timeframe to downgrade even if the match were going to continue. (Maybe Nalick has a Thassa or an Instant with Scry in his hand that would let him potentially gain some advantage during his Upkeep. But, in general, I think we should at least consider whether potential for advantage actually exists here.)
2) This match is over. Anna committed OA. Having an extra card in hand is of no benefit to Nalick. The only thing Nalick needs to contribute to this investigation in order to win his match is “Yup, they said that.” But he has chosen to volunteer that he has committed an infraction that potentially loses him a game. I really don't want to punish him for that at this point.

If I am the head judge at this event, I am going to ask some questions to confirm that Nalick hadn't noticed the extra card prior to the match pause. If this is case, I am going to thank him for his honesty and take the General Philosophy downgrade path to issue him a DEC- Warning.

Edited Joshua Feingold (Sept. 28, 2013 10:04:06 AM)

Originally posted by Patrick Vorbroker:

Nalick had drawn the card (or rather, two cards) before Jim asked them to pause the match.

Ooops, my bad… I was thinking it made more sens that he would have noticed (and called a judge) as soon as he drew them.
The fact that he only mentionned that after it was pretty clear that his opponent was getting a Match Loss would make me think that maybe he was not going to mention it otherwise. On the other hand, if he was cheating, all he had to do was shut up and no one would have checked his hand. Maybe a very short investigation is still in order?

As Nathanael pointed out - I would also be very suspicious about Nalick's call. Just try to see the situation through Nalick's eyes:

1) Nalick draws one extra card from his Charm. Either he does it intentionally or accidentaly, he finds out and doesn't say anything, because he knows he would receive a game loss for it.
2) The outside assistance chat occurs.
3) Jim, the spectator, stops the game and goes out to call the judge.
4) Nalick is afraid that Jim spotted his infraction. He is skilled in IPG matters and knows about the downgrade possibility, so before the incoming judge has a chance to say anything, Nalick points out his error.

I may look a bit paranoid here, but I already know players who are such cheating sleazy snakes…

Do you really believe there's a cheater out there who knows the ipg well enough to know that there's a potential downgrade for DEC, but wouldn't have called a judge on their opponent for OA?