In an interesting situation from last night's weekly modern event, my spidey sense went off telling me to step in on a game but I didn't. Should I have? (I'm pretty sure yes but I want to present it to you all.) Here's the situation.

The final match of the night is going and heading towards time. As I collect the other match slips I wander over and see it's a white knuckle, beat down brawl between Blue White Control and Blue White Tron. Blue White control has a Teferi with many counters and a Jace, the mind Sculptor with many counters and a Damping Sphere. (Goodnight tron mana.)

I step away as there's 10 minutes left in the round and go to enter my match slips and banter with some coworkers about the exciting matchup, little did I know about what I would come back to.

So when I do come back, BAM Emrakul, the Aeons Torn hardcast by the UW Tron player. I didn't see it happen but I'm seeing the extra turn taking place, and it's looking bad for UW Control fellow. But wait, there's only 14 lands used to cast that Emrakul. I count again, and a third time, yup, 14 lands. I see no signets and I don't want to go through the player's graveyard to confirm and distract from them playing through this match as it's drawing close to time, but this is where I was thinking I should have.

The game ends in fairly quick fashion (Eldrazi Titans do tend to do that) and after the match ends before the players scoop up I ask about how the Emrakul was cast, specifically referencing the land count and the lack of signet or any other mana generation I can see. Tron players says “Tron lands.” I remind both players of the Damping Sphere. They both have the “Oh… we were paying more attention to the other ability” moment and I explain to them that it's not really a problem since both of them missed it, though the Tron player would have the incentive to cheat, I'm quite sure he didn't in this case, and I reminded them both to play more carefully.

The question to you all is, should I have stepped in? Damping Sphere introduces a replacement effect so casting the Emrakul would be a GRV at Competitive, and the Damping Sphere controller would have a Failure to Maintain Game State. But the fix for the improperly cast Emrakul would have been easy when I could have caught it.

I feel like I failed the UW tron player here as it looked like he had it in the bag.

Thanks for reading.

I agree with you - I think you should have stepped in at the time. If you had stepped in and asked “Hold on a second - how was this Emrakul cast?” it would have been a fairly easy fix, as you noted. The downside, potentially, would be that the Tron player spreads out his lands better and shows you 15, or points at a Simian Spirit Guide in exile that you'd missed, or something like that – they were paused for less than 30 seconds and can continue their game, reassured that judges are watching out for them.

We should step in when we see something illegal happening, as well as when we believe something illegal may have happened. We can always issue a time extension, but it's better to be sure than not.

To add to that - don’t let external factors prevent you from doing what you need to. Players with 49 minutes left on the clock are entitled to the same Judge service as players with 49 seconds on the clock. And in this particular case, the two potential outcomes from this are (a) Emrakul was legally cast somehow, play on, and player probably wins in turns; or (b) Emrakul was illegally cast and you’ve fixed a game that could have gone very wrong.

Fixing errors when they occur is our primary job as judges. Yes, you should be doing that. :)

Delaying the match can be easily solved by giving them a time extension.