Hi everyone

Had a situation at a recent WMCQ that prompted me to post this:

In short, the game has gone to time and is in extra turns. Alfred had a Ravager of the Fells on the battlefield, two 3/3 beast tokens and a 2/2 wolf token against Nigel's empty board. On his turn, Nigel plays two Champion of the Parish and passes. Now on the last extra turn, Alfred then “forgets” his Ravager trigger, and swings for lethal.

This occurred while I was standing next to the table. In the particular scenario at my tournament, Alfred would still represent lethal damage had the Ravager transformed, and Nigel had no cards in hand. But it got me thinking - if this situation occurred, while you were standing at the table, and Alfred needed those extra 2 points of power from the Ravager in order to win the game. Noticing this, how would you proceed as a judge? Would you stop the game on the spot, or would you let the game conclude and then investigate? And what questions would you ask of each player?


Very interested to hear everyone's thoughts on the subject
Thanks

Edited Anastacia Tomson (May 7, 2015 12:40:24 PM)

From my understanding, Ravager's trigger is not generally detrimental, so it shouldn't be pointed out to its controller. Additionally, if the player's opponent wanted it to flip to avoid the loss, he or she has control of that situation. I would follow up with a quick, “offhand” investigation as the match finishes up if I felt the player was aware enough of the board for me to be suspicious of the missed trigger.

Intentionally forgetting triggers is cheating, as per IPG 2.1: “Players are expected to remember their own triggered abilities; intentionally ignoring one may be Unsporting Conduct — Cheating (unless the ability would have no impact on the game…)”

If we are going under the assumption that the player intentionally forgot his trigger, then stop the game immediately: “Judges should not intervene in a missed trigger situation unless they intend to issue a Warning or have reason to suspect that the controller is intentionally missing his or her triggered abilities.” Of course, this is hard to gauge just by seeing them forget it. After all, we would not normally intervene since it isn't generally detrimental, and Cheating is determined moreso by an investigation.

So, let's go with the more likely scenario: you see this player miss this trigger, but don't suspect Cheating right off the bat. Let the game first finish since we don't intervene in this scenario since there is no current penalty. Afterwards, as Alex suggested, begin an investigation with focus on the Ravager player. Questions that I would ask would, of course, focus on the bigger question: “Why didn't you flip Ravager during your upkeep?”

If the player honestly forgot about it in all this excitement and we believe it, then everything's fine. After all, his opponent has some responsibility for paying attention to his opponent's triggers, although he isn't required to point them out. However, if the player states that he knew that he could just miss the trigger and get away without a penalty, then we move onto the second part of the investigation regarding if he knew what he was doing was Cheating.

Assume cheaters are smart, of course. We aren't going to get the exam-question quality response of “Of course I know what I just did was illegal, Mr. Judge!” My questions would tend towards the player's reasoning of why he could forget a trigger and get no penalty. If I believe that he did, in fact, know that he was breaking the rules to his advantage, then I would issue the DQ (or inform the HJ, assuming that I am a FJ). If I believe that he was egregiously misinformed or completely misunderstood what the policy actually meant, then I would take the time to educate and give him a very strict warning (not of the penalty type) to discontinue that practice.

Just as a comment on Peter's response - please let the head judge know if you suspect cheating as soon as possible during the investigation! They generally would like to be involved in the decision not to DQ someone who might have been cheating as much as being involved in the decision to DQ them.

If the player forgot to flip the Ravager intentionally it is cheating, no question. But given the Boardposition described, I can not see any potential for cheating. No rational person would put a sure win away by intentionally forgetting to flip the ravager in the aforementioned situation. Even if he had not forgot to flip Ravager to Huntmaster, the easiest play would be to attack for max, play no spell and then deal the additional 2 damage by flipping the huntmaster back into ravager.

I think here he just “rushed” the win in his brain and did indeed forget it. Those situations occur because players are forced to think multiple steps ahead when playing.

To clarify the situation (removed all the unnececary stuff for clarity purposes):

I am at 4 Life. I have no Board, you have Ravager of the Fells, I played 2 spells. It is currently my turn, and we are in extraturn 4.
If you ‘forget’ to flip Ravager in your upkeep, you swing for lethal and win in your turn (ET 5). If you flip it into Huntmaster, you will swing for 2, leaving me at 2, and Huntmaster will never flip back to deal the 2 damage needed (since the Match ended with the end of your turn).

Therefor, it was not just ‘rushing’ the win, it was winning where it would've been a draw if played properly.

Besides that, I think Peter hit it spot-on (besides the fact that I as a FJ would not handle the Investigation (myself) unless my HJ told me to for whatever reason).

Originally posted by Philip Körte:

To clarify the situation (removed all the unnececary stuff for clarity purposes):

I am at 4 Life. I have no Board, you have Ravager of the Fells, I played 2 spells. It is currently my turn, and we are in extraturn 4.
If you ‘forget’ to flip Ravager in your upkeep, you swing for lethal and win in your turn (ET 5). If you flip it into Huntmaster, you will swing for 2, leaving me at 2, and Huntmaster will never flip back to deal the 2 damage needed (since the Match ended with the end of your turn).

Therefor, it was not just ‘rushing’ the win, it was winning where it would've been a draw if played properly.

Besides that, I think Peter hit it spot-on (besides the fact that I as a FJ would not handle the Investigation (myself) unless my HJ told me to for whatever reason).

I completely agree. My initial response was a little bit mixed in the role that I would have played in the situation. If you, the HJ, had witnessed this, then I believe that my explanation is fitting. However, you'll usually be the FJ in this kind of situation. This is where I believe Kim's correction is very much appreciated - if you believe that the player intentionally forgot his trigger (which takes some, but very little investigation to be suspicious), then get the HJ before proceeding to the actual investigation, preferably by having another FJ watch the players while you can talk it over with him/her for the Cheating investigation. ;)