Card Arrangement Guidelines and Communication Policy
Hello there!
As you all are probably already aware, Communication is the key in a good game of Magic and a lot of it is actually done through common practices (or “defaults”) and shortcuts. Some of them are encoded in the MTR, some of them are just assumed by common sense, and some others were recently added in the section 2.13.
With all of this in mind, we can in fact classify a set of actions made by a player as “usual” and others as “unusual”. Section 4.2 teaches us that, in case of a dispute between players, the ones who adhere to estabilished, and thus “usual” shortcuts, are generally favored as “correct” in their interpretation of the game flow and a judge ruling will likely support the version of those who played within the aforementioned guidelines.
Now, the introduction of section 2.13 has the potential to give an important tool to all the judges (and not just the ones in charge of competitive/professional featured matches): given that there now are officially “usual” and “unusual” ways to arrange your cards, in case of a dispute, will the “usuals” be rewarded as they are playing/making their assumptions within the guidelines?
Generic example:
-AP, looking at the board state of NAP, makes the assumption X and makes a play based on X
-NAP, without any clear indication, actually meant something completely different from X which is labeled as “unusual” for the expected board representation
-In general, would you rule in favor of AP because he made an assumption within the guidelines and NAP wanted to deviate without being clear enough?
Greetings,
M