Last Sunday I was hanging out in a LGS. They had a game day going on. When one of the tables finished playing, another player asked the result and was displeased. He shouted he had bet money on the player who'd lost to win. I asked if he was serious and how much money. It wasn't much, equivalent to less than a dollar.

I brought this up to a guy who works at the store and was running the tournament. I gave him links to all the appropriate documentation and offered him my help approaching the player. I also said that it was his call and I would have to report to WPN if he decided not to disqualify the player. Ultimately, he chose not to, but had a talk with the player that it was not allowed instead.

I have mixed feelings about it as indeed it is a small amount but I understand why this policy is there in the first place. Also I realized I don't know, what the official channel to report stores to WPN is. So I would be grateful for a link or an e-mail.

EDIT: made the post legible removing autocorrect goofs.

Edited Arman Gabbasov (May 5, 2016 07:12:01 AM)

wpn.wizards.com has a contact link. That's the best place to start.

I have a somewhat similar scenario that I would appreciate feedback on. At my LGS the TO runs a “for fun” casual magic night. There is no entry fee, no prizes, and no comp for the judge. He asked me if I could be put into the casual event as a judge, since I come to play, where I said that's fine. Technically the event is still reported to wizards. A player there has been caught on a couple different occasions of blatantly cheating and lying about it. When I told the TO that I was going to disqualify him, the TO said “No, don't do it”, and instead he talked to him off to the side, explaining that his conduct was unacceptable. I have mixed feelings about this. Should I have pushed for the DQ anyway or should I wait unitl he is caught cheating again and then push for the DQ? Any thoughts?

Casual events don't even use the JAR, so in a sense I don't think a judge has authority to DQ. While casual events can be reported, players only get 1 lifetime Planeswalkers point for the entire event, so there is no benefit there. So you did the only other option I see here, which is talk to the TO. The TO can just not allow them play in the casual events if they want. If the other players have concerns then they should either talk to the TO directly, or talk to you and you pass on the concerns. TOs want as many people as possible to play in their store, naturally. So they don't like the idea of a DQ. But that's only one player. If other players stop playing he'll lose a lot more. That's a very useful argument if there's a problem player of any type (cheating, offensive, aggressive etc)

You also are not required to attend or act as a judge. There is nothing wrong with saying something along the lines of, “If you are not willing to respond appropriately to a player who is cheating, then I am not interested in being associated with your events,” and, if nothing changes, not returning.

You can also turn this around and ask: if the TO is not punishing cheaters, they do retain that one player's business, but how many other players' business are they losing as a result?

>Casual events don't even use the JAR

Wait a minute, is this true now? I've always heard (and said!) that
“there's no such thing as Casual REL”, and that casual is just another way
of thinking of Regular REL, from a policy standpoint. Do you have a source
supporting that there is a REL below Regular for sanctioned events?

To me Casual is basically Kitchen Table Magic. i.e. a bunch of players playing random games. Sometimes they'll be testing, so they'll change cards every game, or play only sideboarded games. Sometimes it's newer players playing 84 card tribal decks with cards from Onslaught to Shadows over Innistrad in a giant free for all game. Sometimes it's two players Winston drafting.

The “for fun” casual night Eddie described sounds similar to this. There was no entry fee or prizes, so nothing to stop players agreeing to friendly mulligans or changing their decks between rounds etc.

If it was me though I'd encourage running it at Regular REL, mostly so that there's scope to fix Common Errors and to handle issues like alleged cheating.

If the event is sanctioned and not Competitive or Professional REL then the JAR applies to the event as the event is being run at Regular REL. Regular REL is by its current definition the casual play atmosphere (i.e. your kitchen table, though I doubt anyone sanctions events that happen at their kitchen table). Since the event is sanctioned players must still adhere to and are bound by current tournament policy.

I believe that the problem is, that the word “sanctioned” does not always
have the same meaning in the official terminology. When MTR speak about
sanctioned tournaments, they don't mean the same tournaments as when
sanctioning tournaments in WER.

In WER you can sanction a tournament in any format, with no participation
minimum, etc. These tournaments are sanctioned as casual and award players
with only 1 lifetime PWP. But when MTR speak of sanctioned tournaments,
they list requirements. Section 10 of MTR (Sanctioning Rules) lists a lot
of requirements for a tournament to be sanctioned, and so do the other
sections (Eligible formats, participation restrictions, and a lot more).
But WER “sanctioned” casual tournaments are blatantly violating these rules.

MTR also differentiate the RELs (Regular, Competitive, and Professional),
and the list seems to be exhaustive. It doesn't list Casual as a REL, and
doesn't allow any other REL either. You might conclude that all sanctioned
tournaments need to be run at least on Regular, and therefore MTR and JAR
are applicable at all tournaments. And it's partially true. It's true for
all the sanctioned tournaments by the MTR definiton (MTR-sanctioned
tournaments).

But the WER (and reality) definition is wider. MTR-sanctioned tournaments
are only a subset of WER-sanctioned Tournaments. And in the same way IPG
does only apply on Competitive+ REL, MTR and JAR only apply on
MTR-sanctioned tournaments.

Which results brings us to the existence of Casual “REL.” Even though it is
commonly referred to as REL, it is not a REL as far as the MTR are
concerned. But it still is a REL-like category of tournaments. Casual
tournaments are all WER-sanctioned, MTR-unsanctioned tournaments. At these
tournaments TO is not bound by any documents (including CR) with the
exception of the WPN ones.

The fact that WER allows TOs to “sanction” tournaments that don't meet MTR
requirements as a special category needs to be interpreted as a Wizards'
approbation of the existence of these tournaments. Wizards admit that TOs
don't need to adhere to the documents in all their tournaments, and with
the introduction of PWP they also create a “sanction” for doing so - not
allowing the PWP gains for players participating in these events.

So, even though some of us might disagree with this, we need to accept that
this is the reality in which we live. TOs can decide by which rules the
event is run and if they WER-sanction the event as casual, there is nothing
we can do to stop it (with the exception of advising them not to do it for
whichever customer service reasons.) Of course if they want PWP for the
events, they need to adhere to all the relevant documents and
event-specific fact sheets.

2016-05-05 16:27 GMT+02:00 Nicola DiPasquale <

David, do you have a source supporting that there is a REL below Regular
for sanctioned events? Do you have a source supporting that the MTR does
not apply to casual events? Does this mean that I can use proxies, draw 20
extra cards, and beat my opponents up at casual events?

Proxies are one of the exceptions that were recently stated as a part of
the WPN requirements, so you still can't use these.

As far as the other questions go: MTR state they only apply to sanctioned
events, and then they state what a sanctioned event (MTR-sanctioned) means.
But WER allows you to sanction events where you don't need to meet these
requirements. Since you don't need to meet the requirements, you don't have
to use MTR (the other interpretation would be absurd, since you wouldn't be
allowed to run these events at all, since they would violate the MTR -
formats, participation minimum, etc.)

So when you are not officially bound by the MTR, you (as a TO) can run a
tournament where you would allow players to draw 20 extra cards per game
(it might even be fun). Proxies are banned as a part of WPN requirements
and beating opponents (physically, I mean) is banned (usually) by local
legislation.

But you can't do that as a player without TO's approval, since you are not
the one making rules. That's why at casual tournaments, the CR, MTR and JAR
are used as a guidelines, but certian rules might be changed, suspended or
added, and it's up to TO to specify what the changes are. (It would be nice
of them to specify it beforehand, but if they don't, it doesn't invalidate
the tournament, it might only lower the player's trust in the TO.)

2016-05-05 17:17 GMT+02:00 Dan Collins <

This scenario is a difficult situation because all the players are friends with each other including myself, so I don't really want to leave the store. But several players have brought the player's potentially cheating conduct to my attention.

I am seeing some disagreement as to what exactly I should do. The TO told me that he wants the atmosphere to remain fun and that a disqualification could ruin that atmosphere. What I think I'm going to do is if it happens again, I am going to strongly encourage the TO to allow me to DQ the player. Any reccomendations on what I should do if the TO is still against it?

Edited Eddie Mountney (May 5, 2016 11:50:29 AM)

Originally posted by David Záleský:

Proxies are one of the exceptions that were recently stated as a part of
the WPN requirements, so you still can't use these.

As far as the other questions go: MTR state they only apply to sanctioned
events, and then they state what a sanctioned event (MTR-sanctioned) means.

…

Your premise for the existence of a casual REL event is flawed for events sanctioned by Wizards:

Organizer Code of Conduct
2.2 Ensure that Events comply with all of Wizards' guidelines, codes of conduct, rules, regulations, policies, directives, decisions and all procedures set forth by Wizards from time to time in its discretion.

2.3 Conduct Events in accordance with the current applicable Game rules and
tournament floor rules.

Link to the OCC:
http://wpn.wizards.com/sites/wpn/files/attachements/en_wizards_of_the_coast_event_organizer_agreement.pdf

Sanctioned events by definition must follow all tournament rules and policies, just because certain sections of a document do not apply to certain tournaments does not mean the rest of the document does not apply. For example constructed tournament rules do not apply to limited tournaments, and vise-versa. While the sanctioning rules as currently written in the MTR may not apply to casual events as sanctioned by WER and as currently defined by Wizards the rest of the document still should and does apply to the event. Organizers by sanctioning their event using WER are implicitly if not explicitly agreeing to that.

@Eddie: Sometimes making the hard choice of DQing a player creates a more fun environment and experience. The immediateness of that choice has certain impact but over the long haul knowing that there is integrity to the events running at a store is just better for play experience.

Edited Nicola DiPasquale (May 5, 2016 12:02:21 PM)

There are three influence avenues that apply in varying ways at all events.

1) Official Influence
At Regular REL and for unscheduled play, there is very little official influence. At Comp and Pro REL, official influence is the final authority for most normal interactions. These guidelines are often well documented and not flexible. A casual event (scheduled or not) generally ignored official influence.

2) Organizer Influence
In order to play, people have to have space. The person who controls the space controls play. At the LGS, this person is the store owner and / or store employees. Judges who work events for an LGS may have some authority here, but I generally recommend that they advise and defer for anything that is outside normal game play. When an organizer's behavior doesn't conform to precedents set by official sources, reporting to the WPN may change behavior, but I find that having an open, honest discussion with organizers is more effective. It's best to avoid saying things in a way where you come across as telling the organizer how to run his store or his events. Instead, express concerns about the way the behavior might alienate players or harm a reputation. Sometimes pointing out an official source and suggesting that players will expect similar results in any event is enough. Be sure to listen as much as you talk so you can understand what the organizer's standpoint. Organizer influence can be as inflexible as official influence, but personalities often affect how people handle things.

3) Influence of Others
We can't (mostly) control official and organizer influence. But the other people in an event or hanging out at a shop do influence how people behave. I detest pitchfork and torches, but respectful conversations about behaviors can bring light to problems without burning down the whole castle. If a player does a thing to cheat but the TO doesn't toss the player, perhaps reminding everyone to be on the lookout for can be enough. Strategic “general announcements” that help other players resist the negative behavior and sends the message that the behavior is not welcome can make the negative behavior socially unacceptable enough that the player changes. And in cases where you directly witness something, speaking up can become an object lesson. In my own experience, I've used both techniques to emphasize welcoming new players and encouraging players to seek and give help such that the store is known as a good place for new folks. That may be as simple as saying, “If you're having trouble with building your deck, there are folks (point) who can give advice.” And "Whoa, there, , that's not nice. We love new folks.“

As a judge, players naturally expect you to provide guidance. You can provide a lot of ”Other" influence in your behavior and the example you set even without official or organizer authority.

Edited John Carter (May 5, 2016 12:06:47 PM)

Originally posted by Eddie Mountney:

The TO told me that he wants the atmosphere to remain fun and that a disqualification could ruin that atmosphere.

It's worth telling the TO that the atmosphere is already damaged because a player is being allowed free reign to cheat, and you've had a number of players complain to you.