We just had a discussion on the german judge-discord with a hypothetical situation:

A1 plays against A2 at table 1.
B1 plays against B2 at table 2.

A1 says to table 2 “If you guys draw, so do we”. Is this legal?

Is the preceding agreement/offer at table 1 “If they draw, then we draw” legal?

I believe the relevant infraction, if any, would be IDAW:

A player uses or offers to use a method that is not part of the current game (including actions not legal in the current game) to determine the outcome of a game or match.

The point of discussion more or less boiled down to “Is your neighbors ongoing match a method?”.

We agree that taking your neighbors result into account is legal when making a decision, e.g. “B1 won, so with a draw we are both in top 8 - do you want to draw?” is legal.
Does this change if table 2 has no result yet if we are talking about what their potential outcome is, rather than working with definite information that has already happened?

Greetings,
Philip

Edited Philip Ockelmann (Nov. 20, 2017 12:35:11 AM)

My point of view on this: The agreement/offer “if they draw, we draw” constitutes IDAW.

Another ongoing match is something with multiple possible outcomes which is not part of our current game.
We also have no direct influence on how it ends, so for A1 and A2, the result of table 2 is essentially a game of chance (where both players may have different ideas of what the chances are, but that doesn't matter too much I think).
Thereby, match 2 becomes an outside method on which we base the result of our match.

If A1 offers “do you want to draw if table 2 draws?”, that is not significantly different from “do you want to draw if i roll even on this die?” to me.


Essentially, table 1 can only use definite information in their decision process for their match (table 2 has drawn), but not potential information (if table 2 draws).

Edited Philip Ockelmann (Nov. 20, 2017 12:44:50 AM)

Dang, this one nearly slipped through the cracks…

Philip, you need look no further than the MTR's definition of Bribery:

Originally posted by MTR 5.2:

Players may not reach an agreement in conjunction with other matches.

This is definitely not acceptable, and is Unsporting Conduct - Bribery and Wagering.

d:^D

Also another scenario to give more light onto the possibilities : (knowledge pool : Back to the drawing board)

https://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/39279/

MTR 5.2 covers a lot of different things that are not exclusively “IPG: Bribery”. It starts with a paragraph about what Bribery is, goes on with two paragraphs about what Bribery is not, then covers IDAW in the next paragraph, then covers that players are not allowed to reach an agreement in conjunction with other matches and finally describes legal options to split in single elimination rounds.

The definition of Bribery by the IPG is:

A player offers an incentive to entice an opponent into conceding, drawing, or changing the results of a match, or accepts such an offer. Refer to section 5.2 of the Magic Tournament Rules for a more detailed description of what constitutes bribery.

As I understand this, it exactly fits the first paragraph of MTR 5.2. Could you explain why this falls under “Bribery”, other than that it is forbidden by MTR 5.2 (which is also true for improperly determining a winner, which is definitely not Bribery), and not either IADW or no infraction (like pile shuffling multiple times is forbidden by the MTR but not by the IPG)?

Edited Konrad Eibl (Nov. 30, 2017 07:19:00 AM)

My understanding / best guess is that Improperly Determining a Winner (IDAW) is for mostly random, non-game related actions in order to distance Magic from gambling. Bribery is for situations where something is offered or exchanged for results.
In this case, the “incentive” that makes it bribery is fixing the results of certain other matches, which could change who would make a certain prize cut or Top 8.

I suggest not writing more in this thread and awaiting Uncle Scott's reply,
so we can keep the thread and inboxes clean :).

Den 2 dec. 2017 00:57 skrev “Jason Stewart” <

Is it possible to still get an official answer to my last question? :)

Edited Konrad Eibl (Jan. 11, 2018 05:01:22 AM)

Konrad - it's really largely irrelevant, as long as the result is Disqualification; I don't think anyone much cares if you DQ for Improperly Determining A Winner, or for Bribery & Wagering.

The initial scenario offered an incentive - we all have a better outcome - and did so in violation of the MTR's Bribery section. For me, that's sufficient to DQ for Bribery.

Technically, this is really more akin to what we once called Collusion; MTR 5.2 was titled “Collusion and Bribery” up until the October 2015 update. I don't recall any specific reason for that change, and Toby's blog post just mentions “the usual grammar cleanup”.

If you feel strongly that this must be IDAW, and you choose to apply that infraction instead - well, as long as you DQ for that, I'm not going to argue.

d:^D

Thanks for you insight Scott, always appreciated! Wanting to define everything as precisely as possible and to apply rules as literal as possible might be a German trait…