Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool. This week we have another Silver scenario. L2s should wait until Friday to chime in.

You're the Head Judge of a Standard PPTQ and notice a match where Albert has a Walking Ballista in play with no counters on it. You inspect the match and see no other toughness pumping effect keeping it in play, so you step in and ask what's going on. Albert quickly realizes his error, picks up a die and sets it on Walking Ballista, showing 1 counter. Albert explains that he has cast Walking Ballista for 1 in each game of this match, and had forgotten the counter when he did so a couple of turns ago. Albert's opponent, Nikki, agrees that it should have one counter.

What do you do?

I'd issue Albert a TE-CPV for incorrectly representing derived information. Since Nikki agreed it should have one counter on it is unlikely that her plays were impacted by this error. Make sure the ballista has the correct number of counters on it and remind the players to play more carefully.

Oh…. a spicy one. Allright, let's dive in.

At this point we have a board state which is clear to both players, but confusing to outside spectators (including ourself). Since the players agree on the board state we can ask the to clear up the board state to make it understandable for spectators.

Now : Is there an infraction here?
The first one that comes to mind is TE-CPV as Albert is misrepresenting Free (the number of +1/+1 counter) AND misrepresenting a derived information (the Power/toughness of the creature). BUT it is misrepresenting it to spectators, as the board state seem clear to both players involved in this game.

So, should we issue the TE-CPV with a warning? I would, but what your thoughts?

Personally I would not. The game state is known by the players. Ask the players to correct this as both players agree it’s a 1/1. Ask them to play more carefully continue playing.

Sent from my iPhone

On 22 Feb 2018, at 14:42, Maxime Emond <forum-41630-4640@apps.magicjudges.org<mailto:forum-41630-4640@apps.magicjudges.org>> wrote:


Oh…. a spicy one. Allright, let's dive in.

At this point we have a board state which is clear to both players, but confusing to outside spectators (including ourself). Since the players agree on the board state we can ask the to clear up the board state to make it understandable for spectators.

Now : Is there an infraction here?
The first one that comes to mind is TE-CPV as Albert is misrepresenting Free (the number of +1/+1 counter) AND misrepresenting a derived information (the Power/toughness of the creature). BUT it is misrepresenting it to spectators, as the board state seem clear to both players involved in this game.

So, should we issue the TE-CPV with a warning? I would, but what your thoughts?

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There's a paragraph in the General philosophy section of the IPG:

If the players are playing in a way that is clear to both players, but might
cause confusion to an external observer, judges are encouraged to request that the players make
the situation clear, but not assess an infraction or issue any penalty

There is no need to issue a penalty.

I just realized this used to be an example in the IPG:

Imgur link

As a side-note on why this shouldn't be CPV, in judging the phrase “misrepresenting information” has a very narrow meaning. It generally only covers direct misrepresentations of the game state (like explicitly saying "this walking ballista has no counters on it" when it has one) but doesn't extend to indirect misrepresentations (which would be failing to point out the existence of the +1/+1 counter). That's the key distinction between Free and Derived information. Derived information allows a player to misrepresent by omission (which is a form of indirect misrepresentation), while Free information doesn't allow for this practice. Other indirect misrepresentations, like the one in this scenario, still aren't encouraged, but don't rise to the level of “misrepresentation” that the IPG is looking for with CPV.

Thanks for all the responses this week.

Petr has identified the section in the IPG that we need.

If the players are playing in a way that is clear to both players, but might cause confusion to an external observer, judges are encouraged to request that the players make the situation clear, but not assess an infraction or issue any penalty

There is no infraction. Both players knew and understood what was being represented, and now that there is a die on the Walking Ballista, we don't need to do anything else.

To address the CPV discussion, see Andrew's comment above. He is exactly correct in his reasoning, this isn't a CPV.

Edited Joe Klopchic (March 1, 2018 11:35:53 AM)