The new version of the MTR indicates that a player's energy reserve is a tracked total, and therefore cannot be represented using dice at Competitive REL. In my area, the most common way to track energy - by far - is dice on top of some sort of energy card (the official one from a booster pack, a Pokemon tcg energy, a custom token, etc). Is prohibiting this the intended reading of this change? If so, how do you recommend that I handle this situation at a big tournament?

The intent of this change is to protect such an important information from being easily lost by a hand gesture or manipulated with no strong method of backtracking.

The best advice would be to use the lifepad to take note of the amount of energy, just like players often did before for poison damage. Players might find the change obnoxious at the beginning, but with judges helping them to understand why it has to be in such way they should get used fairly quick.

OK, confirmed: the MTR does not allow tracking life, energy, or poison with “methods that can easily be accidentally changed (such as dice)”. The IPG does not mention an infraction for this, however.

So, handle it just like you would have before, if a player were tracking his life total in his head - educate, and tell them what they should be doing. Maybe even get them some paper and a pen(cil).

On a related note, Toby's updated the blog post and addressed some questions in the comments; if you read that right after it went live, I suggest revisiting it. Just one example - you still can't use your cell phone to track life totals, in a Competitive or Professional REL event; the original wording suggested you could.

d:^D

Originally posted by David Elden:

how do you recommend that I handle this situation at a big tournament?

1. Definitely include the information about the change in your opening announcement (business as usual as with other major policy changes).

2. After such announcement, is it possible/recommended to issue a Warning for USC-Minor in case of a player who still uses a die to track energy and admitted that they heard the announcement (the player ignored an instruction from a tournament official)? Or is it too much?

Originally posted by Milan Majerčík:

is it possible/recommended to issue a Warning for USC-Minor in case of a player who still uses a die to track energy

I wouldn't go that far, unless they refuse to do as they're instructed. Players “hear” announcements all the time, and some just decide “well, that doesn't apply to me”. Educate, encourage, and let the players play the game they love.

Originally posted by Milan Majerčík:

the player ignored an instruction from a tournament official

You may want to review USC-Minor; there's nothing that matches the language you've cited, there.

d:^D

Scott, example F of USC Minor seems to imply that what you're quoting is an infraction :

F. A player fails to follow the request of a tournament official to leave the play area.

But I agree with the fact that it shouldn't apply here. It would be more when you clearly tell a specific player to do or to not do something and he goes against your instructions. In our scenario that would be the case if after personnaly reminding the player not to use dice to count energy he kept doing it anyway.

Edited Àre Maturana (Jan. 17, 2018 09:15:56 AM)

Àre - correct, that example would match any direct instruction that's ignored, and we've traditionally held that players who refuse to follow directions from a judge or store employee (i.e., any staff) are Unsporting.

However, a general announcement should not be considered sufficient for this. It's really meant for “I need you to do (stop doing) FOO!” and the player says “screw you, buddy, I don't have to!”, or similar.

d:^D

So hold on a second here. If we see a player using dice, and tell them they need to use paper, and they decline we're going to give them USC - Minors? I'm not a fan of the change as is, and this seems like adding additional burdens to Comp REL when it already has plenty. Plus what happens when a player just doesnt have paper/pen (pretty common, esp early on)? Are we going to have judges running fetch for them?

Originally posted by Jeff Kruchkow:

So hold on a second here. If we see a player using dice, and tell them they need to use paper, and they decline we're going to give them USC - Minors? I'm not a fan of the change as is, and this seems like adding additional burdens to Comp REL when it already has plenty. Plus what happens when a player just doesnt have paper/pen (pretty common, esp early on)? Are we going to have judges running fetch for them?

Players don't get to decline to follow rules they don't like, and they don't get to decline to follow a direct instruction given to them. If the situation truly is a player outright refusing to follow this instruction, yes I would give them a USC minor.

I also doubt that a player, when asked, would outright refuse to use pen and paper. If the player doesn't have a piece of paper, that's not refusing to follow an instruction. At a PPTQ, just give them a piece of paper to use. The store will have some. At a GP in the first few months, that might be harder. There is plenty of paper at the venue, but also a lot of ground to cover. Maybe tell them for the sake of time, finish this game. Before the next round, see a vendor about getting a life pad. Maybe even see customer service to see if you can have a sheet of copy paper. (At large events, it would be prudent to have pens/paper available to be solution to this.)

Regarding not having paper or pen: then how is the player tracking their life total?

If they are using pen and paper for life, but refuse for energy, they're being pretty obtuse.

If the player isn't using paper and pen for life, then you have some educating to do!

in the same idea, do players have to count the number of spells (for storm deck) mana in pool …. on paper
or can they continue with a dice?

From the MTR:

2.14 Tracked Totals
The following values have higher requirements for how they are recorded and conveyed over the course of a
game:
• Life totals
• Poison Counters
• Energy Counters

Neither mana in pool nor number of spells played this turn are listed here, and there is no change in our policies regarding these information.

- Emilien