Hello, and welcome to another installment of The Knowledge Pool! This week we look at a a tense situation between two fabled captains. Today they pilot decks instead of ships, but the tension has never been higher!

As always, there is a blog post to accompany this question, which can be found here:
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=698

Nemo and Ahab are playing in the second to last round of a GPT at which you are the only judge. Their game is near its end, with Ahab at 3 life and Nemo at 1. Ahab controls an Invisible Stalker and will be able to attack for the win on his next turn. During his own turn, Nemo is tapping lands in preparation to cast a spell when Moby, a player who is done with his match and is standing behind Ahab, says, “Wow, I didn't know they made a textless Negate!” Moby then gets a horrified look on his face as he realizes his mistake, but the damage is done. As you assess the situation, you notice that Nemo has only two cards in his hand, Mountain and Demonfire, and that with the information he just gained, Nemo will know to play his land before the Demonfire and win the game.

What infractions have been committed, and by whom? What is the proper penalty for each of those infractions? And finally, how do you rectify the game state now that Moby's comment has surely altered the outcome?

It seems like the only person with an infraction here would be Moby with a Tournament Error - Outside Assistance. That carries a match loss, which means that he's done playing for the day since it's the second to last round.

I'm much less sure about what the appropriate fix is. There's no way to rewind this sort of this, so the game is irreparable. If I were the HJ here, I would just say “play on” while feeling bad for Ahab who has now surely lost when he might have won before.

I'm curious to see what other opinions are on this one. This is the most difficult SILVER I've encountered. :)

By the book, I believe Joe is correct. The only infraction committed here is Outside Assistance on Moby's part, and he will receive a match loss for the next round. Nemo has committed no infraction because he did not solicit the advice.

This is one area where, in my opinion, the policy documents could be improved. The IPG has no “additional remedy” section for Outside Assistance, and yet it is precisely in cases like this (where one player gains a significant external advantage through no wrongdoing of his own) that additional guidance would be very helpful. Simply saying “too bad, play on” does not seem to provide for adequate vindication of Ahab's expectation of fair treatment and rules enforcement, and it is very likely to leave him with a negative experience as a customer. I can't say exactly what remedy would be appropriate here–perhaps in cases of Outside Assistance the non-benefiting party should be given the option to have the game be a draw–but I certainly feel that applying no remedy at all is not good customer service.

Edited Robert Hinrichsen (May 16, 2013 02:46:02 PM)

Originally posted by Robert Hinrichsen:

By the book, I believe Joe is correct. The only infraction committed here is Outside Assistance on Moby's part, and he will receive a match loss for the next round. Nemo has committed no infraction because he did not solicit the advice.

This is one area where, in my opinion, the policy documents could be improved. The IPG has no “additional remedy” section for Outside Assistance, and yet it is precisely in cases like this (where one player gains a significant external advantage through no wrongdoing of his own) that additional guidance would be very helpful. Simply saying “too bad, play on” does not seem to provide for adequate vindication of Ahab's expectation of fair treatment and rules enforcement, and it is very likely to leave him with a negative experience as a customer. I can't say exactly what remedy would be appropriate here–perhaps in cases of Outside Assistance the non-benefiting party should be given the option to have the game be a draw–but I certainly feel that applying no remedy at all is not good customer service.

Well, here's the first question we need to answer: why is there no fix in this situation? Obviously, no fix is needed if one of the players performs such an action, but what happens when there is unsolicited information? There are many situations where this is the case; telling what cards are in hand out loud, giving specific strategic information, there are a number of things that can offset the game tremendously. However, there isn't a “fix” per se.

The Match Loss that we give is primarily, in my eyes, designed so that if a player that is actually in a current match solicits outside assistance, the advantage is irrelevant as the match is now over. This becomes an entirely different story when the information is unsolicited by either of the active players. The issue here is how one could possibly apply a fix without it being partial and unfair. Restarting the game or a draw, as you mentioned, severely favors whoever was “losing” at the time and punishes the “winner. ” Leaving the game as-is accomplishes the rough equivalent. You can't just erase the memories of the players there-and-then (else this question would be extremely simple) so we have to think of what's best for the players and the tournament.

I believe that this point of “fixing” should be the topic of discussion for a while, since the infraction and penalty are relatively by-the-book and obvious. In addition, it may help if someone who's been here a while could give us a history lesson about the Outside Assistance penalty and if it had any fixes to begin with that were later removed or anything interesting like that, which would help steer this topic to the “solution.”

How do you know that Nemo, whilst tapping his lands, wouldn't realise of
his own accord that a hellbent Demonfire is a good play, play his mountain
and then cast the Demonfire?

The Infraction is Outside Assistance and thereby a ML for Moby.

Besides that, there is no fix. Yes, this doesn't exactly feel ‘fair’, but then again, I think it is the fairest thing we can do. We cannot really force the player to play as he would have had he not gotten the additional information (esp not in a more complex situation).
This way, we at least can say ‘the documents have no appropriate fix for this (thereby shifting the tag ’unfair' from you to the documents, which is kinda important, esp at smaller competetive events, because you don't want players to not call you because you rule unfair), because there would be too much potential for abuse if there were (maybe throw in an example after the match if the players come to you/you have time to come to them), and the rulings would be inconsistent.'
This gives the players the feeling, while the ruling doesn't exactly feel ‘fair’ in this seperated situation to them, they can be certain that it becomes ‘fair’ on the grand scale because it will be the same no matter gamestate, situation, location, or judge.
Make sure to point out to both players that if the information is solicited, the penalty is a Matchloss, but in this case it wasn't.
You might also want to make a point that these penalties are tracked to find a pattern in order to prevent abuse, if Ahab complains about Moby costing him the game or you feel the threat of the situation escalating. In this case, you also might want to take Moby away from the table to have a chat with him, both for education (even though he seems to have realized that he did something terribly wrong and already received a ML for this) and to extract him from the situation to prevent escalation, as wekk as to show Ahab that you take this seriously and ‘do something about it’, to the extent you can.

On a more specific note:
Offering the draw to the player at the disadvantage is not really an option. Way too much potential for abuse here, what if Achmed is playing the last round of a PTQ and is paired down - a draw would secure him top8, but his opponent has to win for top8. Now Achmed has a friend, Olaf, who is way out of contention anyways, and they notice this as they go to the pairing-boards. Now Achmed tells Olaf ‘when you have time and we are in G3/I am loosing, come by and give my opponent some sort of useless Outside Assistance, the ML doesn’t really affect you and I get to draw into top 8'.
There is no chance for us to detect this, really, and it won't happen often, but these situations will stick in the players heads and feel waaaaaaaay more ‘unfair’ than the ‘no fix possible, sorry guys’-approach.

Edited Philip Ockelmann (May 16, 2013 06:52:46 PM)

The only infraction here has been committed by Moby, and the penalty is a match loss. There's no fair and consistent way to fix these kinds of situations, and despite the change in the outcome of the game we really have no other actions to take here.

It's pretty clear that we're all in agreement that Moby gets a match loss and probably a stern talking to. However, what I'd like to see from other judges is how we'd investigate something like this. It seems unsolicited, but could Nemo and Moby be in collaboration? I'd ask Nemo if he and Moby are friends.

Also, I would remind the players that while no penalty would be issued to either of them, they can concede at any time. Nemo may take that opportunity to do the “right thing” and forfeit the game. Of course, I write “right thing” with quotation marks because while a noble thing to do, it's not our job as judges to ensure that it happens.

Originally posted by Samuel Nathanson:

It seems unsolicited, but could Nemo and Moby be in collaboration? I'd ask Nemo if he and Moby are friends.

Being friends with someone who's sometimes a bit stupid isn't an infraction though and collaboration is hard to prove. And I don't think Nemo wouldn't have played the land before anyways since it was his last turn and keeping a bluff card in hand with being tapped out isn't that big move you want to see in a gpt ;)

Also only Moby made an infraction, Tournament Error - Outside Assistance and cause of this a matchloss for him. There is no apparent remedy.
Ff Moby and Nemo are highfiving after the match has finished and laughing about how easy it is to fool judges ;) or you find out that there was a similar situation in the rounds before you could DQ them for unsporting conduct.

Edited Johannes Wagner (May 17, 2013 03:35:02 AM)

I agree with everyones assessment so far that hte only penalty is to Moby for TE-Outside Assistance where the ocrrect penalty is a match loss. There is unfortunetly no fix for this situation and I would instruct the players to Play on.

The other thing to remember is that while the situation for Ahab seems grim at the moment the match is not lost for him. As there is still a draw step to go and the potential for another land to say be drawn, thus preventing hellbent - so the outcome is not guarenteed as another land could be drawn preventing hellbent, or any other card that nemo cannot be afforded to play while casting demonfire for enough for the kill

According to the scenario, this is happening during Nemo's main phase, he just tapped mana to play a spell, but hasn't announced the spell yet. Thus he could still play the land, then cast the Demonfire for the win (assuming he hasn't already played a land yet this turn.) Perhaps the fact that in this case, A is the nonactive player and N is the active player may have caused confusion.

From the scenario given, it looks like Nemo is preparing to cast Demonfire without hellbent. If he decides to play the land after tapping the mana, but before casting Demonfire, I think a short investigation is in order to determine why he decided to change the line of play. Was he using the information provided by Moby? If I think from his responses that he didn't come to winning line of play on his own, then he would be culpable of accepting the outside assistance and I would award a match loss to him. However, I do not rule out the possibility that he could come to the correct line of play on his own. It would all have to depend on what I feel his intentions were and what information he was using when he decided to cast the Demonfire.

Even though the IPG doesn't mention this scenario explicitly in the definition of “Outside Assistance”, in the philosophy section it says “Tournaments test the skill of a player, not his or her ability to follow external advice or directions.” If Nemo can convince me that his change of play was due only to information he had access to, then that's not outside assistance. For example, maybe as he's about to play Demonfire, he caught another glimpse of the hellbent text and realized “I need to play this card last.” But if he says “He has a Negate in his hand,” the next question is “how do you know?” and things get a little messy from there. As this is technically a deviation, it would not be a hard sell for Nemo to convince me he was not trying to actively use the outside information. I'm not trying to force a penalty on him. But if he tells me “Moby mentioned the Negate in Ahab's hand,” then he's admitting to using the outside assistance, which goes directly against the philosophy provided in the IPG.

As for Moby, obviously he is guilty of outside assistance. However, I don't think that he should be awarded the match loss until after the match is over, lest we “confirm” that what he's saying is true. I feel like if we award him the match loss on the spot, we are basically telling Nemo “yes, there is in fact a textless Negate in Ahab's hand.” I'd probably issue a generic caution like “please remain silent while spectating.” Then I'd wait until after the match is over (and I've dealt with Nemo, if necessary.) I'd have to tell Moby that spectators are responsible for remaining silent and passive during matches. He is being awarded with a match loss which applies to his next match.

The IPG defines the outside assistance infraction as Seeking advice, giving advice, or looking at notes. It doesn't penalise you for using advice that was unsolicited. I suspect the main reason is that nobody can really know what the player was going to do before advice was given.

In this situation, the players were interrupted before Demonfire was cast. How are we to know that he wasn't going to notice Hellbent as he was about to cast it? It happens all the time that a player reaches to finally play a card and then goes “no wait, ” and does something slightly different.

This may be a bit technical, but the IPG only specifies giving the outside assistance penalty for requesting advice or information, not actually using unsolicited information.

Yes, I recognize it as a deviation (and commented as such,) but I'm still going to ask him about it, because he can flat out say, “I was going to make the mistake, but Moby pointed out something I hadn't considered.” This would basically be the only case I would issue the match loss. As the HJ of the event (the only judge according to the scenario) I have that discretion.

Like I said, my default assumption is that he came to the play on his own, but I want to spend just a little bit of time to make sure that's the case, that way when Ahab comes to me later, I can say “I have confidence that Nemo would have made that play regardless of Moby's comment.” It would only take a few seconds to verify this with Nemo, and 99% of the time he doesn't get the penalty.

Originally posted by David Carroll:

Yes, I recognize it as a deviation (and commented as such,) but I'm still going to ask him about it, because he can flat out say, “I was going to make the mistake, but Moby pointed out something I hadn't considered.” This would basically be the only case I would issue the match loss.

What are the significant and exceptional circumstances that lead you to believe we should deviate from the IPG's definition of Outside Assistance in this case?