From a tableside judge at the tournament:
"The conversation was about the triggers and stacking Beast Within. Nothing untoward or remotely sketchy occurred - it's just as commentary explained it after the fact, he just did not realize that yes, those triggers will resolve, but no they won't do anything. The Valakut player didn't sell him on anything - the player sold himself that those triggers would kill him, so he conceded.
Here's the thing folks. At Professional REL, judges are not there to teach you the game. When you ask a rules question, you'll get a rules answer. Questions that start with “If I do this, will this happen?” are not questions I am going to answer at Competitive REL, let alone Professional REL, because having a stronger knowledge of how cards work and the rules should absolutely give you an advantage when playing. The judge who took his call before making the play (former L5 and PT Head Judge Scott Marshall) did his best to answer the player's questions. But at the end of the day, nothing illegal occurred, and we aren't going to say a word in that situation - and we didn't. IF the player moved to resolve the Valakut triggers, we absolutely would have made sure they didn't do damage.
But he conceded. And that's that."
Edited Andrew Keeler (Dec. 11, 2017 10:26:04 PM)
Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:
Strictly speaking, the bolded statement represents a particular judge's stance on answering rules questions, so it is by definition a true statement. That said, I've (personally) tried to fight very hard against stances like this, because players do not, and should not, have the same level of rules expertise that we expect from judges.
While providing Outside Assistance is something that we should avoid, many judges err too far in the opposite direction by providing unhelpful answers to questions that are pretty clearly requests for information about how the game works. The quote you provide makes it sound like this may have happened here, where a player describes a line of play that they intend to make and a judge gives an incomplete and potentially misleading account of what the rules dictate would happen next. Strictly speaking, the player's question has been answered, but it has been answer in such a way as to give the impression that the rules work a particular way when in fact they work the opposite way.
I would argue that questions of the form "if I do , will happen?“ are the best kinds of questions for us to be answering. The player has done all of the strategic considerations for us already, and is asking for clarification that their understand of the rules is accurate. Giving a complete answer to these sorts of questions is much closer to the bare minimum of customer service than it is to inappropriate OA.
Edit: I'm also a firm believer that judges should never just answer ”yes“ or ”no" to a rules question. Players aren't required to know rules nuances, and the risk of obscuring a relevant interaction by not providing a full answer is not worth saving the 10 seconds it takes to give that full answer.
Originally posted by MTR 4.1:
Judges are encouraged to help players in determining free information, but must avoid assisting players with derived information about the game state.
Originally posted by Broc Woodworth:I can't remember when I first say it - maybe 17, 18 years ago? - but it's long been taught that we don't provide strategic or play advice via our answers, but only rules answers.
Questions that start with “If I do this, will this happen?” are not questions I am going to answer at Competitive REL, let alone Professional REL
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