Hey there I've recently passed my L1 and have been judging FNM for a while now.
During last FNM a match went to time and ended as a draw, Player A mentioned how his opponent should have played quicker as he would have probably won the game. His opponent (Player B) then said ‘Oh I was playing for the draw’. Player A then said that he shouldn't stall the game and should play at a reasonable pace.
I didn't interfere at the time but should I have done? Or should I just keep an eye on this player or have a quiet word about ensuring he plays at a reasonable pace?
P.S. this is the first time stalling has been an issue while I've been judging.
Thanks in advance,
Sam

Slow Play and/or Stalling can exist at FNM.

It's also possible that neither took place, judging these requires watching of the match and determining if it is happening.

It's quite reasonable for a player to maintain their normal pace of play as the end of the round draws closer. There is no requirement that a player speed up. What isn't appropriate is slowing down or taking advantage of the time limit.

Slow Play falls under “General Unwanted Behaviors” at Regular REL, so if you have watched the match and feel that one of the players is playing too slowly you should definitely talk to them and explain how that isn't appropriate behaviour and everyone needs to maintain a reasonable pace of play.

If they are deliberately trying to take advantage of the time limit, at Competitive REL this would result in a Disqualification, it's not specifically called out under “Serious Problems” in the Judging at Regular REL document so I would hesitate with disqualifying the player unless you have spoken to them on several occasions about this issue and they are continuing to “stall” the games.

It's worth asking if ‘playing for the draw’ meant deliberately clogging the board and making decisions based on staying alive rather than winning, or if it did mean playing slowly, he may not have actually slow played based on the answer to this. Assuming it was slow play however…If it seemed like they genuinely thought it was okay to play in such a way then you definitely need to educate the player. Because it's regular REL, and stalling is in the IPG but not the JAR, it isn't something we are going to DQ them for unless there was knowledge that it was a bad thing to do, but it's also not ok to let it slide with out some sort of conversation. Maybe let them know that it is DQ'able at higher level events to drive home just how unwanted a behavior it is.Keeping an eye on them in the future for at least the short term is a good idea regardless.
My $0.02 :)


Subject: Intentional slow play (Regular REL)
From: forum-26982-c02a@apps.magicjudges.org
To: sean_crain14@hotmail.com
Date: Sun, 8 May 2016 23:34:16 +0000

Hey there I've recently passed my L1 and have been judging FNM for a
while now.
During last FNM a match went to time and ended as a
draw, Player A mentioned how his opponent should have played quicker
as he would have probably won the game. His opponent (Player B) then
said ‘Oh I was playing for the draw’. Player A then said
that he shouldn't stall the game and should play at a reasonable
pace.
I didn't interfere at the time but should I have done? Or
should I just keep an eye on this player or have a quiet word about
ensuring he plays at a reasonable pace?
P.S. this is the first
time stalling has been an issue while I've been judging.
Thanks in
advance,
Sam

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Thanks for the quick replies :)

I should probably clarify that I wasn't watching the game but I did start watching when time was called. And the Player seemed to be taking a long amount of time on each decision (from what I gathered).
The Player seems to have listened to his opponent about playing at a reasonable pace, which is why I didn't interfere.
If I see the Player intentionally slow playing should I have a word with them? Or give a verbal warning?

Thanks,
Sam

Originally posted by Sean Crain:

It's worth asking if ‘playing for the draw’ meant deliberately clogging the board and making decisions based on staying alive rather than winning, or if it did mean playing slowly,

Seconded for emphasis. Actions that 1) take unnecessarily long to perform, or 2) do not advance the game state at all, are not allowed and may constitute stalling if intentional. Actions that extend the game, but advance the board and are performed quickly, are legal.

Here's an example. Imagine a legacy player activates Sensei's Divining Top at his opponent's end step and sees Terminus, Terminus, Entreat the Angels. His opponent has a Tarmogoyf in play and is at 4 life. The opponent has no cards in hand; Entreat end of turn is guaranteed lethal damage. Which of the following is legal, and which is not?

1) The player looks at all three cards and spends 2 full minutes deciding on the order of the cards.
2) The player puts Entreat third from the top, then the two Termina. He activates the second part of top, draws a card, and choses to put Tarmogoyf on the bottom with a Miracle'd Terminus.
3) The player puts the cards down Entreat, Terminus, Terminus. Then, he activates Top and puts them down Terminus, Entreat, Entreat. Then, he taps another land, picks up the cards, and puts them down Terminus, Terminus, Entreat.
4) The player activates Top and makes Angels. On his turn, he choses not to attack, holding them back to block.

If you see it again, it's never bad to just say something that amounts to “I need you to make a decision” or “you need to play a bit faster.”Often they will understand and their opponent will definitely appreciate it.

I had a player that would consistently take a long time playing the first game, go to time, and while in turns play all of his powerful spells / creatures and win. then game two he would draw the game and get the win. while playing lots of removal and boardwipes is fine and a valid strategy, intentionally playing slow is not (he played normally during turns). We talked to the player a couple times, and finally I let him know the next time would be a DQ. After that it wasn't an issue.

Let the player know that while FNM is regular REL they can still get DQ'ed for certain unwanted behavior. Let them know this is a serious issue, one that won't be tolerated.

Originally posted by Sal Cortez:

I had a player that would consistently take a long time playing the first game, go to time, and while in turns play all of his powerful spells / creatures and win. then game two he would draw the game and get the win.

It's early morning here so maybe I'm not parsing something, but the above doesn't quite make sense to me. If time runs out during game 1 (which is in itself a strong indicator of something odd going on) and it goes to turns, game 2 isn't started. Can you help me understand?

He would stall so long that he would win game 1 in or near turns, then game 2 is a draw so he basically wins while only playing one game

I had a pair of years ago (i think this was 4 years ago actually) a simmilar situation, now thinking a little bit of let's see if i had taken this action would be resulted in a good decision.

First the scenario, two friend playing a regular duel commander tournament, there's a prize, they're at the 3 round of a 4 round tournament, both of them now what result would let them play for prize (Abel needs a win or draw, for Ned only a win gives him the chance).
One of the rules for this tournament is, when the time is called there's no additional turns (best of 1 game at 50 minutes of play).
The odds are in favour of Ned, he only needs an attack to win, the active player is Abel, i'm looking as spectator (former L1 judge) the game and because I know both players they never ask me to leave the play area and some time to time we make comments about gamestate that don't give information to any player (comments like, what a big creature with 10 counters +1/+1 on ot, or how it's possible that this trample also).
Abel knowing the situation and having like 20 permanents on play decide to start activating abilities and winning time (the time for end of turn is 3 minutes or less).
Ned says him to speed up the pace, but Abel tells him that he can win now but he has to activate some abilities first (watching his hand I know that this is a bluff).
Ned now tells him that's a lie and he only want to finish the round in a draw, Abel answer negative and keep telling him that he can win.
The time is called, the TO ask for result and Abel says that is a draw, Ned don't say anything about Abel trying to win time (me neither because i thought that he will say something) and leaves the tournament venue upset.
Abel don't admit that he was trying to winning time and maintain his version.

After this situation, I should have told the TO about this problem and suggest to give them additional turns.
This is correct solution when you watch a play and thinks that there's a player trying to stall the game due the tournament rules?

Now I look to this with other eyes, but back then It was a very awkward to interfere in this situations to me.

Greets! :D