Hey all! These 2 situations happened at a GPT I was judging yesterday in Osaka, Japan (the fact that it was in Japan is relevant to one of the questions). I was wondering how these usually get handled in normal circumstances:

1) While doing a deck check, one of the other judges noticed that two cards currently legal in Standard have the same name in Japanese. Both Falkenrath Noble and Falkenrath Aristocrat are named ファルケンラースの貴族 in Japanese. This presents issues on decklist sheets of Japanese players when they write out their decklist in Japanese. If a Japanese player presents a decklist with this card on it, how does it tend to get handled? The way we handled it is we allowed either of the two possible cards to be in the deck (it was Falkenrath Aristocrat, as it turned out). Is this the correct policy? How is this policy different from writing, say, “Jace”, on your decklist in an English event?

EDIT: Apparently Falkenrath Aristocrat has been given erratta to fix this problem. However, it seems players are unaware of the erratta. As a suggestion to the Higher Ups, Falkenrath Noble sees significantly less Constructed play than Aristocrat. Can we reverse the erratta on Aristocrat and instead erratta Noble, since that may cause less confusion?

2) I was watching the last match of the round. There was a lot of time left on the clock. The following sequence of plays occurred:

AP: Attack with Angel of Serenity.
NAP: Azorius Charm targetting Angel of Serenity.
AP: Restoration Angel, using my Cavern of Souls set to Angel.
NAP: “OK”
AP: Target my Fiend Hunter, target my Angel of Serenity
NAP: Snapcaster Mage, Rewind, Rewind your Restoration Angel. Untap 4 land.
AP: “My Angel is uncounterable, sorry bro”
NAP: *frowny face, exiles his Rewind*

At what point would you step in as a judge and correct the situation? Personally, I thought the players were playing at a good pace, it was the last match of the round, and it was very obvious to me given the game state that the Rewind being in the graveyard or the exile zone was not going to matter enough to be worth stepping in and breaking the players' concentration (the fix being to give both players a Warning and put the Rewind back in the graveyard) given my second-language Japanese, so I decided to just watch and say nothing. I asked the HJ about it afterwards and he said he would have stepped in, but I thought stepping in at that moment was, while correct according to MTR, probably more trouble than it was worth in this particular state. What do you think?

Edited Lyle Waldman (June 24, 2013 12:13:47 AM)

1. If you're counting decklists when you discover this, you might want to set it aside for a targeted deck check in the next round. You could also ask the player which card he's playing, and then mark that on the decklist somehow (i.e. “4/1” or “2/2”). If you catch this issue while doing a deck check, then your solution seems fine.

This is different because in your case, the player has done nothing wrong - he has written the full name of the card on his decklist. Any instance where the card name is fully written out is *technically* a Deck/Decklist problem, but we are lenient because we can figure out what card they meant (by correcting spelling, taking the format into account, etc.) It's when they don't write the full name out AND we can't figure out what they mean that a problem ensues. We can't (or shouldn't) penalize a player who hasn't done anything wrong.

2. It's not your job to determine whether Rewind being in exile or the graveyard will “matter enough”. It's your job to step in when you see that an error has occurred. In this case, an error occurred, so you should step in. How would you feel if, later in that game, the opponent cast a counterable spell, and the player were sitting with a Snapcaster Mage in hand?

Originally posted by Jason Wong:

2. It's not your job to determine whether Rewind being in exile or the graveyard will “matter enough”. It's your job to step in when you see that an error has occurred. In this case, an error occurred, so you should step in. How would you feel if, later in that game, the opponent cast a counterable spell, and the player were sitting with a Snapcaster Mage in hand?

Sure, makes sense. I mean, given the game state at the time I could tell that that was almost certainly not going to happen (plus I believe there were multiple copies of Rewind or other hard counters in the graveyard at the time anyway). The main issue is one of breaking player concentration versus keeping an intact game state. I saw this as a “yeah, the game state is a bit broken, but not broken enough as to be worth imposing myself into the game as it was progressing”. I probably should have said something anyway.

How was exiling it a mistake? The angel was a legal target, so the lands untap, rewind resolves and gets exiled. The angel just doesn't get countered. Is this incorrect?

There was a fair amount of Out of order sequencing, since the 'Target Fiend Hunter, Target Angel of Serenity ' only go on the stack after the Restoration Angel resolves; and both triggers can be responded to.

I'm not sure if you meant to not allow the Rewind to be played, because the Restoration Angel is uncounterable, or because the Restoration Angel already resolved. In the first case, casting the Rewind is a valid play (maybe even to also untap some Nephalia Drownyards?), in the second case, you were watching so you can see if AP rushed through the target announcements on all the triggers, and whether it's still OK to cast the Rewind.

Either way, if you see an error, step in. Simply ask the players what is happening, and then decide whether a GRV occured, and whether the game needs fixing.

Originally posted by Justin Rix:

How was exiling it a mistake? The angel was a legal target, so the lands untap, rewind resolves and gets exiled. The angel just doesn't get countered. Is this incorrect?

The NAP has said “OK” to the Restoration Angel which is generally accepted as “I have no response that spell resolves” meaning trying to Rewind it once the ability has triggered is not a legal play.

Originally posted by Jasper Overman:

There was a fair amount of Out of order sequencing, since the 'Target Fiend Hunter, Target Angel of Serenity ' only go on the stack after the Restoration Angel resolves; and both triggers can be responded to.

I'm not sure if you meant to not allow the Rewind to be played, because the Restoration Angel is uncounterable, or because the Restoration Angel already resolved. In the first case, casting the Rewind is a valid play (maybe even to also untap some Nephalia Drownyards?), in the second case, you were watching so you can see if AP rushed through the target announcements on all the triggers, and whether it's still OK to cast the Rewind.

Either way, if you see an error, step in. Simply ask the players what is happening, and then decide whether a GRV occured, and whether the game needs fixing.

As Gareth said, there was an “OK” between “Angel” and “Fiend Hunter”; the angel definitely resolved there. I think NAP just forgot he said “OK”. If it was OOOS it wouldn't be an interesting question ;-)

Anyway, I think an answer has been reached. If someone wants to close this thread (and let the higher ups at the DCI know about the naming issue), that's fine. Otherwise, you guys can chat amongst yourselves.

Originally posted by Gareth Tanner:

The NAP has said “OK” to the Restoration Angel which is generally accepted as “I have no response that spell resolves” meaning trying to Rewind it once the ability has triggered is not a legal play.

“OK” is not a standard tournament shortcut in English (I have no idea what any Japanese equivalent might mean). Based on the players' nonverbal communication, you might decide that the NAP implicitly passed priority, but the “OK” is only a small part of that.

In general, “OK” doesn't mean anything in Magic. By itself, it does not pass priority.

The fact the AP said ‘My Angel is uncounterable’, could mean that apparently, AP still thinks the Restoration Angel is on the stack. NAP certainly thinks that, otherwise he wouldn't try to counter it.

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 issue any penalty.

Which is part of the IPG entry for ‘Game Rule Violation’. It seems applicable to me, as it fits the sequence of plays as described.

Both players have indicated that they think the Angel is still on the stack, the NAP simply made a poor strategic choice. Since there was no investigation by the judge, we will never know for sure :/

Originally posted by Oren Firestein:

Gareth Tanner
The NAP has said “OK” to the Restoration Angel which is generally accepted as “I have no response that spell resolves” meaning trying to Rewind it once the ability has triggered is not a legal play.

“OK” is not a standard tournament shortcut in English (I have no idea what any Japanese equivalent might mean). Based on the players' nonverbal communication, you might decide that the NAP implicitly passed priority, but the “OK” is only a small part of that.

In general, “OK” doesn't mean anything in Magic. By itself, it does not pass priority.

Any sort of affirmative comment while a spell is on the stack means the spell has resolved, while not a tournament shortcut it is the most common behaviour of players. I personally see very few players say “resolved” most of the time it is a comment such as “sure/OK/Yea/etc” to mean they have no action. I might be out of line policy wise and if I am told that I am I will change my line on these but to me as it is accepted by most players then “OK” has to mean “I have no response that spell resolves” otherwise we are then leaving an area open for players to find the right wording to be able to find out what a player plans to do with a creature ETB effect or other spells that require a choice and then just counter it depending on the players choice.

Jasper - As the AP started naming targets I'd see that as they thought it had resolved.

Edited Gareth Tanner (June 25, 2013 03:38:51 AM)

Actually, it's not so rare to see players say OK as “I acknowledge that you're playing that” instead of “OK, it resolves”. It happens especially with non-native English speakers.

It's true that OK usually means letting something resolve, but you should always try to determine what it means to the player, especially at international events.

Originally posted by Oren Firestein:

The NAP has said “OK” to the Restoration Angel which is generally accepted as “I have no response that spell resolves” meaning trying to Rewind it once the ability has triggered is not a legal play.

If I cast a spell and my opponent says ‘OK’ and does nothing otherwise, I assume that it resolved and start choosing targets for things it triggers. I would hope that just about every Judge would reinforce that if my opponent tries to counter the spell then, after I declared my intentions and triggers after the spell (would) resolve.

I see the ‘Ok’ as a way of implicitely passing priority unless the player saying ‘Ok’ does something at the same time.
If you want to do something with your priority, you should do it, since by shortcut, you have priority after your opponent cast a spell unless he specifically says so (and is the AP). If you do basically anything besides announcing a spell/ability, or saying something along the terms of ‘wait, I need to think’ that passes your priority.
'Ok' (without anything immediatly following it), in my book, is not along this, so you passed priority.

On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Philip Körte <
forum-4740-0854@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> *Oren Firestein*
>
> The NAP has said “OK” to the Restoration Angel which is generally accepted
> as “I have no response that spell resolves” meaning trying to Rewind it
> once the ability has triggered is not a legal play.
>
>
> If I cast a spell and my opponent says ‘OK’ and does nothing otherwise, I
> assume that it resolved and start choosing targets for things it triggers.
> I would hope that just about every Judge would reinforce that if my
> opponent tries to counter the spell then, after I declared my intentions
> and triggers after the spell (would) resolve.
>
>
However, there are cultures where ‘OK’ means: “I acknowledge that you
correctly played this card. Give me a moment to respond.” Assumptions are a
very tricky thing.

Adam

Originally posted by Philip Körte:

If you do basically anything besides announcing a spell/ability, or saying something along the terms of ‘wait, I need to think’ that passes your priority.'Ok' (without anything immediatly following it), in my book, is not along this, so you passed priority.

While that might be a fine way to deal with most situations, would you rule that way even if it becomes obvious that OK doesn't mean the same thing to the players? I'm used to the same kind of meaning of OK, but every once in a while I've stumbled with players who don't use the expression in the same way, and whose knowledge of English is so limited that expecting them to be completely clear in their communication is impossible (although we can suggest ways to improve it, like flashing an open hand to imply that they don't want to move forward).

I feel we're now taking this discussion into a tangent. What they actually said is not important: in such a situation, a judge should always ask a few questions to understand what has happened and determine what needs to be done, if anything. I just mentioned the different ways that players consider the “OK” statement because I thought it was a good idea to talk about it, especially since many judges might find themselves judging at an international event in the future. And by the way, Japan is one of those countries in which the “OK” statement is used as just an acknowledgement quite often.

So, as I said, investigate, find out if the NAP thought that the targets were chosen when casting the creature, and therefore tried to cast the counter at an inappropriate time. Find out if AP knew about it and decided to use the opportunity to make his opponent lose a card. Once you determine what is more likely to have happen, proceed from there.

Originally posted by Carlos Ho:

Actually, it's not so rare to see players say OK as “I acknowledge that you're playing that” instead of “OK, it resolves”. It happens especially with non-native English speakers.

There have been a number of instances, at Grand Prix and Pro Tours, where a Japanese player said “OK” and meant “I understand what you're doing, I will respond soon”. It's true that many European and North American players use “OK” to mean “that resolves” or “no response” - but, as Carlos and Adam have pointed out (from first-hand experience), that's not global.

Considering that this event took place in Japan, I'd say that we can not assume the North American or European significance of “OK”.