Trolling for some experienced judge input here.

Scenario: Abdul casts Griselbrand, and Naomi counters it with a Pact of Negation. Later in the turn, Abdul calls a judge over and asks to discuss a ruling away from the table. The discussion lasts for approximately five minutes. Abdul then returns to his seat and says, “go.” Naomi untaps her permanents and draws her card for the turn. Abdul informs her that her Pact of Negation trigger causes her to lose the game. Naomi calls another judge, who investigates and determines that Abdul called a judge for a lengthy ruling question with the sole purpose of causing Naomi to forget her delayed trigger. What's the infraction and remedy, if any?

As a fairly new judge, I don't like players trying to game the system in this way, and I'd really like to DQ Abdul for Cheating. There's a problem with this, though - Cheating has two specific requirements: that the offending player has knowingly broken a game or tournament rule or lied to a judge, and that said player has done so with the intent of gaining an advantage. No actual rule has been broken here, so Cheating is not the appropriate infraction. So is there an infraction at all?

The HJ still has the final say in what's considered unsporting. Were it left to me, I would consider any intentional and gross misuse of tournament resources - judges - to be majorly unsporting as it affects the overall operation of the event. In the scenario above, a GL would probably be sufficient; DQs are messy things that require a lot of investigation and paperwork, and they should not be administered lightly. But are there other scenarios that don't fall under the usual DQ-able infractions under Unsporting, which a HJ should have more leeway in upgrading? (The hate speech example jumps out at me, but then a truly directed instance of this would likely be considered Aggressive Behavior.)

Actually, this falls under Stalling, since the judge determined that the player intentionally ran out time in order to gain an advantage. One of the examples from the IPG is: “A player playing slowly appeals a warning in an attempt to gain advantage by having more time to make a decision.”

This is a very close scenario to what you have described, as the player intentionally asks a long, pointless rules question to gain an advantage by having the opponent's memory fade over time. Therefore, I would rule a Disqualification for Stalling in this scenario.

Edited Peter Richmond (March 11, 2013 04:12:34 AM)

Originally posted by Aaron Huntsman:

DQs are messy things that require a lot of investigation and paperwork,

Please, don't ever let this be a reason to not DQ someone.

Peter Richmond
it would fall under Stalling

But, the player isn't trying to abuse the time limit; while it could be Slow Play, I'd hate for a player to avoid calling judges for help, because they're afraid of a Slow Play Warning.

Now, as to the “trick” in this scenario: it's not illegal. It's not very sporting … but it's also not Unsporting. It doesn't fit any of the examples. At least, not without a disturbing bit of stretching the rules.

The problem we have here, is that what the player did is all within the rules, and he or she should be afforded the opportunity to enjoy our services, in exactly the manner he did … even though he did so to set his opponent up for a mistake.

The part that people seem to be missing: the Pact player has a burden of responsibility here, to remember her trigger. This trigger has such a severe drawback, we changed the rules to help (we now allow ‘reminders’ to be placed on top of the library).

Yes, Abdul used the system to his benefit, and set Naomi up for failure. She had every opportunity to avoid that mistake, and failed.