Hello judges and welcome to another installment of the Knowledge Pool where we hope to teach you the finer workings of the policy behind the document we learn to love, our dearest IPG. As this is a SILVER scenario I would like to ask all level 2 and higher judges to wait until after their FNM so the level 1's get a chance to get some discussion going.

The scenario: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1203

Louis is playing in a GPT, of which you are head judge. As you are checking decklists, you notice Louis's list ends with the line “23 ______________” with no card name filled in. The remainder of the list contains 37 cards, all of which are either blue or artifacts.

What do you do?

Edited Josh Stansfield (Nov. 19, 2014 07:49:37 PM)

Louis has committed a tournament error: deck/decklist problem.
Find the player, check his deck.
I expect to find 23 islands. If so the potential for abuse was low and I downgrade his penalty to a warning.
If I find less then 23 islands, he could have played anything in that spot.
That would allow for abuse and then he gets the regular gameloss penalty

For clarification, is it just “23” or does it actually have the line?

Either way, I think I'd talk to the player and have them complete the decklist. I would give a game loss for D / DLE on the next game they play. It's easy to guess that they meant 23 Islands, but we can't assume. Maybe they meant 23 lands, and not all islands? I would also compare the list to the deck once they have filled it out, just to be sure. And then give time extension as needed.

The philosophy of TE – Decklist Problem says:

Ambiguous or unclear names on a decklist may allow a player to manipulate the contents of his or her deck up until the point at which they are discovered. The Head Judge may choose to not issue this penalty if they believe that what the player wrote on their decklist is obvious and unambiguous, even if it is not the full, accurate name of the card.

Therefore, for this case we need to know if it’s obvious or not which cards are missing. Assuming that if you have to check the deck to see which card actually it is, it's not obvious. So we see that it is not an obvious case, and we can't downgrade the penalty. I would give a game loss for TE – Decklist Problem at the start of the next round to Louis, and ask him to complete his decklist correctly.

Game Loss for TE-D/DLP. Check his deck and figure out what he has 23 of. Correct the list to reflect that. If it's not as simple as 23 Islands or 23 lands, dig a little deeper.

Obviously, this is TE-DDLP, which is normally a GL. I believe that this is downgradable to a Warning though because the intent is clear. I remember hearing about this from a higher level judge who said he wouldn't even bother deck checking the player, but my instinct is that I would still run a deck check.

Before reading other responses:

Not including a name at all certainly qualifies as an ‘ambiguous or unclear name’. That said, if Louis's decklist contains no other basic lands, I think there's only one card the 23 ____ could refer to - 23 islands. There are only a small subset of cards that one could legally have more than 4 of in a deck, and nearly every deck contains approximately 40% land cards. I would be willing to assume that the entry refers to 23 islands, even without checking the deck.

So, I would not issue an infraction. I would talk to Louis, double-check that the line is in fact 23 islands, and perform a deck check anyway (if there's one obvious error, there is more likely to be an unobvious one.) I would then remind him of the importance of a a correctly filled out decklist, and change the decklist to match the deck.

Issue an appropriate time extension, and continue the match.


After reading other responses:

It's worth remembering that, after a recent update to the IPG, there is no ‘downgrade’ for D/DLP. You either issue the infraction, with a penalty of game loss, or you don't issue it.

The Head Judge may choose to not issue this penalty if they believe that what the player wrote on their decklist is obvious and unambiguous, even if it is not the full, accurate name of the card. This should be determined solely by what is written on the decklist, and not based on intent or the actual contents of the deck; needing to check the deck for confirmation is a sign that the entry is not obvious.

(emphasis mine)

It's my opinion that with a deck of ‘blue and artifacts’, 23 ___ refers to 23 of a single, appropriate card (Island). There certainly will be disagreement on this point between judges, which unfortunately leads to a bit of inconsistency in rulings, but it's inconsistency the player could have avoided by correctly filling out a decklist in the first place.

Also, while “needing to check the deck for confirmation is a sign that the entry is not obvious.”, I will still almost always prioritize a decklist with an ambiguous but obvious name for deckchecks. Even though on its own the decklist is not worthy of a penalty, I feel it's more likely that there's an additional unnoticed error on the decklist, given that it was filled out sloppily.

While the 23 cards are most likely islands, a blank space it certainly is not obvious and unambiguous. If the person had drawn a little blue mana symbol, I could interpret it as obvious and unambiguous. As I recall Toby's policy preview stated that the intent was not to cover for people who had an incomplete decklist but to protect people who clearly indicated which card they were using but might have entered it incorrectly.

Some examples that would be acceptable in standard would be:
Ajani, Mentor
Xenegos Planeswalker
G/W Fetch Land

Some examples that would not be acceptable would be:
Ajani
Xenegos
Monastery

Leaving something blank is never obvious and unambiguous. I have the feeling that we could say that a litmus test is “If you don't even have to deck check the deck to know exactly what the card is, don't issue a penalty.”

This should be determined solely by what is written on the decklist, and not based on intent given the actual contents of the deck; needing to check the deck for confirmation is a sign that the entry is not obvious.

Deck/Decklist - Game Loss

“…This should be determined solely by what is written on the decklist, and not based on intent or the actual contents of the deck; needing to check the deck for confirmation is a sign that the entry is not obvious.”

This seems to me like a TE - D/DLP that we cannot choose to not penalize.

I say “_____” - do you know what card I just “wrote” down? No.

You will know the card is an Island by looking at the entire Decklist and taking into account the intent of the player, using these islands to produce blue mana for his blue spells/artifacts. But that is already a problem for the exception. Besides that, he could as well need swamps, because the artifacts offer blue and his stuff needs black, who knows, just to mention that.

Edited Thomas Ludwig (Nov. 20, 2014 12:19:28 AM)

Originally posted by Thomas Ludwig:

he could as well need swamps, because the artifacts offer blue and his stuff needs black

The scenario was clear that all spells were blue or artifacts. And, like any scenario, when you start messing around with the dials, knobs, and buttons, the machine goes a bit haywire…

d:^D

To the best of my reasoning this seems pretty cut and dry. It does not feel like just leaving it blank is obvious or unambiguous. Therefore this would be TE-D/DLP ,issue a game loss for the next game, correct the error and remind him to fully write out his list next time.

From the IPG 3.5 TE-D/DLP:

Ambiguos or unclear names on a decklist may allow a player to manipulate the contents of his or her deck up until the point at which they are discovered. The Head Judge may choose to not issue this penalty if they believe that what the player wrote on their decklist is obvious and unambiguous, even if it is not the full, accurate name of the card. This should be determined solely by what is written on the decklist, and not the deck; needing to check the deck for confirmation is a sign that the entry is not obvious.

If this is a Standard GPT, it would be obvious that it was 23 Islands. When I do a deck check, if there is a different number of Islands and/or other cards, I will issue a Game Loss, as per the IPG. If there is exactly 23 Islands, I will not issue the penalty, but I will tell the player to be more careful and change the “23 _________” to “23 Island”.

What is the format of the GPT? This is relevant for the ruling.

The big question is whether this falls under the “obvious clerical error” downgrade option for D/DLP. It has been made clear in the past that “if you have to check the deck it's not obvious”, but in this case it's so black-and-white that I consider it obvious regardless. In Standard and recent Limited there are only 5 legal cards for the blank spot, and checking the rest of the decklist narrows that down to one.

If the format is Standard or a recent Limited, then I rule D/DLP, GL downgraded to Warning because of an obvious clerical error. It's not just obvious that Island was intended, the deck is simply not technically playable with any other choice. (Yes, I know about blue-producing mana rocks but this is not Magical Fantasy Land.) I wouldn't even bother to do a full deck check. Just deliver the warning and have a brief Educational Experience with Louis.

If the format is older I rule D/DLP, GL penalty, do a deck check. No downgrade because Snow-Covered Island exists, which makes the intended card non-obvious and ambiguous. Then you actually need to examine the rest of the deck for snow mana interactions to know what was intended.

In either case, fix the decklist to match what Louis is actually playing.

Edit: split a run-on sentence…

Edited Ernst Jan Plugge (Nov. 20, 2014 01:52:17 PM)

Originally posted by Oscar Chan:

If this is a Standard GPT, it would be obvious that it was 23 Islands. When I do a deck check, if there is a different number of Islands and/or other cards, I will issue a Game Loss, as per the IPG. If there is exactly 23 Islands, I will not issue the penalty, but I will tell the player to be more careful and change the “23 _________” to “23 Island”.

I am inclined to do what Oscar said. Unfortunately I don't know of anything in the IPG that would support me doing this. So, for the sake of consistency in judging, I would follow the IPG Give the TE-D/DL Game Loss.

This seems like a DDLP - GL to me. "23 “ is neither obvious nor unambiguous; the player could very easily have thought to themselves ”I have 23 more slots, I'll figure them out in the morning“, wrote ”23" on his list to remind himself, and then finished his deck without updating his list, and not be playing 23 of anything at all. This definitely requires a deck check, and is hence DDLP.