On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:58 PM, Eli Meyer
<forum-29396-2fb7@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> But let’s go back to the player who had “4 x Lightning Helix, 4x Lightning”
> on his decklist. Why would I need a full deck check to resolve this issue,
> when I can solve it in 45 seconds? I ask the player to stand up from the
> match and to tell me what he meant to write (it's Lightning Bolt, obv), I
> flip through the player's deck and look for four bolts, and then I flip
> through the player's deck box and sideboard to make sure there's nothing
> like an Arc Lightning or Lightning Berserker that the player could swap in.
> Assuming everything is clear, I correct the decklist. Problem solved with a
> one or two minute extension. Time is not an issue unless we make it one.

So what happens when the player has copies of Lightning Berserker or
Arc Lightning with them because they did a draft between rounds, they
have a trade binder, or they brought them to be signed by an onsite
artist?

Originally posted by Kevin Binswanger:

So what happens when the player has copies of Lightning Berserker or Arc Lightning with them because they did a draft between rounds, they have a trade binder, or they brought them to be signed by an onsite artist?

See the original post. Up until the point of discovery, they could have played 4x Lightning Berserker in their deck without playing the 4x Lightning Bolt. This does not sound like a huge advantage to me, at all.

My question is: does the Game Loss stand because the player happened
to have this card with them?

On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 12:17 PM, Dustin De Leeuw
<forum-29396-2fb7@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

I'm gonna throw out a thought here.

Why is tardiness a game loss? Even if they are 40 seconds late? One (of a few) reason is because giving a warning for tardiness doesn't actually provide a player any incentive to be on time. The player has no incentive to hurry back because a warning is “just a warning” and not likely to be upgraded at an event.

Neatness on a decklist can be seen the same way. If we allow incomplete and ambiguous names, there is no incentive for players to create complete lists. It's not a penalty that's going to be upgraded, so they can save themselves some effort and write sloppy and push that burden of figuring out what they meant onto the judges.

now, do I think a lot of players are intentionally sloppy now? (Not to cheat, but they make the conscious desicion to cut corners while writing the list) no. But that's because they “know” we check these things and they have to be right. With a warning, the incentive to care about that goes way down.“, and you will see an increase. Players hate writing these things out. They only do it because we make them.
Dude gets a Warning for writing ”4x Lightning", he's probably gonna do that next time. The lesson from the warning has been lost.. Same dude gets a GL, he's never doing it again. The lesson stays with him.

Kevin, under the scenario you've described the player would get a game loss even with a perfect decklist, because the cards would be considered part of the sideboard.

I'm going to echo Bryan, that most decklist errors are clerical and not deliberate mistakes and that the only way we have to incetivise players to take more care is to write more clearly and correctly is the penalty Game Loss.

If a player received inconsistent results because at one event they received a warning because a judge knew that 4x Lightning Helix and 4x Lightning wasn't ambiguous but at another event where they did the same thing they received a game loss, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it because if they had written it out correctly the every time, or received a game loss the first time then perhaps they wouldn't have done it again.

We should not be looking for more reasons to downgrade decklist errors, we should be following the IPG -

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.

I think too many people focus on the is it obvious part and not is it obvious and unambiguous because they don't like giving players game losses. Just because you know what the card should be (it's obvious) does not mean it is unambiguous.

Edited Mark Brown (Aug. 18, 2016 06:52:11 PM)

The incentive still exists because we only allow a small number of errors.
If the player writes “Lightning” instead of “Lightning Bolt” as their only
error, it's not a huge deal to fix. If the player has multiple errors due
to minimal effort, Game Loss it is.

2016-08-18 19:52 GMT-04:00 Mark Brown <forum-29396-8a5a@apps.magicjudges.org

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

If a player received inconsistent results because at one event they received a warning because a judge knew that 4x Lightning Helix and 4x Lightning wasn't ambiguous but at another event where they did the same thing they received a game loss, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it because if they had written it out correctly the every time, or received a game loss the first time then perhaps they wouldn't have done it again.

I agree with Mark and Bryan. Right now, it's easy for a player to understand why he or she a Game Loss - that's the penalty specified for committing the infraction, and there's literal paper evidence that the player didn't specify the card. The downgrade clause is there to cover things that don't require any checking or debate - if you see judges start to argue about whether something is obvious and unamiguous, that's a good sign that it's not obvious and unambiguous. These are a few other signs that a decklist error isn't obvious and unambiguous.

The other factor that I don't think has been discussed yet is that we're not the only consumer of decklists. If we have lists that are more likely to be error-prone (due to players not caring as much since they're not going to get a GL), we're going to be shipping inaccurate lists to Coverage more often at GPs, PTs and Opens. That leads to some awkwardness when they review the lists or type them up and get something wrong (remember that they have to type a lot of lists, and don't have the same amount of time to do detective work that we do).

I agree that the inconsistency here is a problem. However, I'm not sure if downgrading it to a warning is the best way of fixing it. As Bryan said, the GL is much more likely to get the player to correct their behavior than a warning is. Allowing people to “get away with” more errors will, in my opinion, cause more issues than it solves. However, I see another possible way to resolve the inconsistencies- Remove format knowledge from the decision of whether the name is “obvious and unambiguous”.

We shouldn't put the burden of knowing the format on the judges, it's the player's responsibility. Writing “good Liliana” or “Helix” should, in my opinion, always result in a game loss. It shouldn't be up to us to decide whether a card is “good enough” to be taken into consideration, that's not a judge's job. After all, I've met several newer players who would consider Warleader's Helix to be a better card than Lightning Helix. I believe the only time a name should be ok to not penalize is when it's actually unambiguous, such as “WUG Tamiyo” or “Lighting Bolt”.

Originally posted by Bryan Prillaman:

Neatness on a decklist can be seen the same way. If we allow incomplete and ambiguous names, there is no incentive for players to create complete lists. It's not a penalty that's going to be upgraded, so they can save themselves some effort and write sloppy and push that burden of figuring out what they meant onto the judges.

Weighing incentives on players is always a tough call, but the claim that this downgrade would leave “no incentive” to players is simply not true.

First, game losses are still on the table. Regardless of the final language of this downgrade, players will still be able to get penalties for incomplete or inaccurate lists. And as Dominik pointed out, the “small number” language, which I hope remains if this proposal becomes policy, means that excessively messy lists will still get dinged.

Second, warnings are enough for many (I'd even say most) players. Yes, some small percentage of grinders just shrug off warnings. But in my judging career, I've seen plenty of players react to warnings in ways that make it clear they want to avoid them. Heck, I've had FtMGS appealed even after I've explained that it literally doesn't matter, just because a player didn't want a W on his record! A warning, even one that never upgrades, is definitely an incentive to do better.

Mark Brown
I'm going to echo Bryan, that most decklist errors are clerical and not deliberate mistakes and that the only way we have to incetivise players to take more care is to write more clearly and correctly is the penalty Game Loss.

I don't agree that it's the “only” way.

Suppose you deck check a player who has all her tokens and morph overlays in the same sleeves as the rest of her deck. This is an explicit violation of Magic tournament rules, one that could potentially waste a judge's time if the tokens get shuffled in with the deck by mistake. However, her error doesn't merit a Game Loss–it doesn't even merit a Warning. Do you believe that, without policy support for a Game Loss, you can't possible incentivize her use different sleeves for tokens at her next event? And if you do think you can get her to sleeve properly at the next event, why can't you apply that same strategy to decklists?

Game Losses are meant to stop time-consuming errors from creating large delays in the tournament, and to make sure that opportunities for flagrant cheating end up with low EV for the cheater. They're not our only tool (thank goodness) for correcting bad behaviors and incentivizing proper play. If “4x Bolt” on a decklist is more time consuming to fix than I think it is, or if it's more prone to abuse than I think it is, that's a reason to keep it on the same tier as “4x _______” or Marked Cards Upgrade. But we cannot justify denying countless players the chance to play Magic solely because we want to discourage a behavior that's a moderate inconvenience. And I firmly believe that most of the errors I've described are nothing more than an inconvenience.

Warnings do nothing, yes some less experienced players get worried when they receive warnings, but eventually after the 2nd or 3rd or 10th warning they realise that they mean nothing until they receive more than 1 or 2 of the same infraction.

When it comes to tokens accidentally being shuffled in, that's an issue that is almost too easy to fix without much impact to anything. The judge quickly looks through and removes the tokens, or gets the player to just reveal if they ever draw a token and draw the card they were actually supposed to draw.

Any decklist problem is disruptive to the event, if there is a discrepancy between the list and the deck there is an investigation, a chat to the player, we're basically adding 10-15 minutes to the event for every deck check with an investigation, and 6-10 minutes for every deck check without an investigation.

It also won't necessarily be a concious part on the players realising they won't get game losses, but if players are not getting a relatively severe penalty - a game loss makes the entire match sudden death for that player now - they will unconciously not think about being more careful in future.

I've seen a lot of players receive game losses for carelessness on decklists, and I've seen most of them use that game loss as motivation for making sure their decklist is correct for their future events.

Honestly, I would rather there weren't as many options to downgrade deck/decklist problems because this is one infraction that is the absolute easiest for the player to never receive; all they have to do is be more careful when writing their list and not try to be smart/funny by using nicknames for cards.

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

I've seen a lot of players receive game losses for carelessness on decklists, and I've seen most of them use that game loss as motivation for making sure their decklist is correct for their future events.

I think you're assuming a lot about human behaviour. Conversely, most of the D/DLP Game Losses I've handed out (4 at my first GPT, 2 handed to *grinders*), I do not believe have affected those individuals' chances of making similar or same mistakes on future decklists. I'm pretty sure it depends on players' personalities. It may motivate someone, but really, I don't think you're changing a players' habits down the road unless he's received frequent enough game losses to start being careful. (Though you may be right for more serious grinders.)

Just as never using nicknames or making spelling errors is a part of the way my brain works, so is doing things like that a part of the way many players' brains work. It's a psychological make-up thing, and not that easy to Game Loss out of a person. I have received lots of punishment for various faults of mine, and yet I still manage to make the same mistakes over and over. (Magic-wise, and other-wise.)

Heh, has anyone considered using positive reinforcement to promote
behaviour we want in players? “What a perfect decklist! Here's this sweet
foil collectible token!”

2016-08-19 5:27 GMT-04:00 Dominik Chłobowski <

I imagine that very quickly becomes a giant negative feeling when you don't get your token because of a minor typo…