So, this happened today at the SCG OPEN in Worcester, MA USA. Interesting scenario.

A player hands in a 59-card decklist. At the beginning of round 2, a judge goes over to the table, and informs the player. The judge and player quickly find the missing card, Abrupt Decay, which IS in the 60-card deck but is missing on the list. Player gets GL for DDLP, and the list is corrected by adding Abrupt Decay.

In round 4, the same player is randomly deckchecked, and while deck and sideboard are nominally correct, there are 3 cards extra at the back of the sideboard box, separated by multiple ddeckbox dividers and several tokens. These extra cards are in clear double-sleeves, as opposed to the rest of the deck and sideboard which are in orange sleeves. The extra cards in the box are playable and quite useful in the player's Jund RGB deck.

When questioned, the player claims that he was trying to decide what to play as the last card right before the tourney started, and he finally went with the Abrupt Decay (which he failed to list but was included in his deck). These cards were his other options and he had no place else to put them. He also claims that the cards had been there right from the start, including when the judge had come to fix the decklist in R2, but because the missing card was easy to identify and verify in the maindeck, the judge never looked inside the deckbox or checked the sideboard. The R2 judge confirms this.

Consequently, the player, who did not know that keeping extra cards there was illegal, was now faced with a second DDLP. The indicated penalty is GL. However, had the judge looked through the entire deckbox in R2, this would have been noticed in R2, and then the entire DDLP would have been resolved as a single GL, as is our usual policy. On the other hand, correcting a single card doesn't usually require looking through the entire deckbox, and I believe that most judges would not do so.

There's no cheating. There's no more or less to this situation. The player has some responsibilities, and so do we. What would you do?

Eric Shukan
Woburn, MA L3

There are many situations in which a judge's negligence or error
results in a GL. We are human beings. We make mistakes. We don't do
everything as necessarily thoroughly as we should at times. Things
happen.

The fact is that during Round 4, the player had cards in his deckbox
that could have been used to sideboard. Regardless of anything that
happened prior to Round 4, do we assess a penalty? Then I think we
should assess the same penalty now.

It is very tempting to allow guilt at your own or another judge's
mistake cloud the issues. I did it a lot more when I first started
judging than I do now, although it is always tempting. This is doubly
so when a player is losing out through little or no fault of his or
her own. But, often the attempt to fix the situation only makes things
worse.

What about the player who had those cards in his or her deckbox but
wrote out the correct decklist? Why does a player who made a different
mistake that results in a GL get different treatment? DDLP GLs always
feel a bit wrong anyway, since they are almost always clearly innocent
mistake. The potential for advantage, however, underpins the fact that
they are GLs. That potential for advantage exists regardless of
whether that same player previously received a GL.

The judge made a mistake in round 2. We don't want to give out penalties as the result judge mistakes.

This also happened at an IQ I ran with the help of a new L1, and this is how I handled it:

I corrected it, had a chat with the player, and let the tournament proceed. Then, away from the table I talked to the judge about doing a thorough check when giving out a ddlp.

I believe this is consistent with policy.

Did the judge in round 2 actually make a mistake? Are we actually responsible for completing a thorough and complete deck check in an instance we are sent out to fix a specific problem? Conceded, we are supposed to fix all problems we know about/find. So do we perform a complete deck check for every DDLP we hand out in round 2 (if we perform a service for one player are we not expected to perform it for all)? Perhaps there are some cursory things we can do to avoid situations like this (for example look into the deck box as mentioned in the op). But even that is a fine line as to when do you stop or how much is enough. Additionally what happens in the situation (all too often) where the judge has to hand out two (or more) penalties in that round? Does he complete the full deck check both times? I believe performing a complete deck check in a situation like this would be dilatory. I do not believe in this case the savings would justify the cost of implementing such measures both in use of a judges time as well as time for the tournament.
Thanks.

If we do not give the 2nd GL here - let me play devils advocate a little - that means that if I hand in a problematic decklist and get the R2 GL without the judge looking though my things thouroghly, I can basically play a sideboard as big as I wish it to be starting round 3, since if I get DC'ed again, I just say that I already got a GL and the R2-Judge missed the additional cards with my Sideboard?

Have these cards been there R2 already? Likely, they have been. Has the R2-Judge made a mistake? Possibly, though depending on the circumstances*, it is very natural not to look at the Sideboard if the error is quickly caught and easy to fix. Is the player still responsible for his deck and sideboard? Yes. Is the potential for abuse still there (which is, as Jacob pointed out, the main reason this is a GL)? Very much so. Potentially, it is even greater since the player feels ‘safe’ now that he has already gotten a D/DLP GL.


*I remember GP Utrecht, where I was in the Deckcheck team, and when we got around to handing out GLs for incorrect decklists, we had more than 1.5 problematic decklists per judge, on average, across the complete Mainevent Staff :>.

EDIT: I would give the player another GL. Appologize to him that this has not been caught at R2, but remind him that keeping his deck legal is his responsibility and explain to him that there is great potential for abuse here (first paragraph of this post), which is why we need to give him another GL.

Edited Philip Ockelmann (July 7, 2013 10:57:01 AM)

Let me play devil's advocate here as well - but now for the other side of the story. What we can learn from this situation, is that some judges are very bad at their jobs, resulting in players getting extra penalties they should not have gotten had the judge done their job better. So, every time a player gets a D/DLP GL, he should insist on the judge checking everything he can possibly think of, in order to avoid future GL's. So, after a deckcheck which results in a penalty, a player should know to ask the judge to check sleeves, SB, any unclear or truncated names on the DL, and insist on the judge taking at least 10 minutes to do this as thouroughly as possible, preferrably appealing the penalty so also the HJ can confirm that there are no additional mistakes to be discovered later on.

I think this is terrible customer service; there is the potential for abuse, although I think it's rather small in this specific case. I don't think the integrity of the tournament is in danger here, but I do think that our image as judges is damaged if we punish a player for a mistake we could have but did not notice on an earlier occasion. Yes, it's still the players mistake, it's still his responsibility to know the rules, but is it also his responsibility to check whether the judge has done his job well enough?

@Dustin: Woah, hold on. This is not an appropriate thing to say, “What we can learn from this situation, is that some judges are very bad at their jobs, resulting in players getting extra penalties they should not have gotten had the judge done their job better.” While it is true that some judges may not be as efficient or highly skilled as others, that does not make them terrible or “bad at their job(s)”. Nor does it make the example judge a terrible judge, in this case for not checking the contents of the players box.
Lets focus on the issues here, taking 10 minutes every time to thoroughly deck check a player when for a round 2 DDLP is not always possible. As Phillip and I have pointed out there are many times where judges have more than one DDLP to hand out. What happens to that second one you have to handle, did you stop them from starting their match? Do you take 10 minutes each extending the round by 20 minutes? This does not seem practical as I have stated previously.
Additionally, I believe that Philip is correct in his points about additional potential for abuse, what is to stop me if I get a DDLP in round 2 and then have a similar situation later from just saying well the judge should have caught it in round 2. Perhaps maybe he should have, maybe not, we are all human here and it is my belief that the judge in round 2 solved the problems that he was aware of and while he did no more that does not make him at fault for much of anything. The judge checking for the problems he was aware of does not absolve the player of his responsibilities. Beyond all of this the player knew he had extra cards there, what about his responsibility to say something about those cards, he could equally have asked about them when the judge approached him round 2 (not saying that necessarily players would know to ask, but that is an atmosphere we are going for, when in doubt ask a judge). That being said, as a courtesy we could include other items (investigate a little) to check when handling these type of round 2 penalties, but there needs to be a balance between what services we offer and how much time we take so we can efficiently handle them. I do not believe a complete deck check is the answer.
Thanks.

Edited Nicola DiPasquale (July 7, 2013 05:25:14 PM)

I agree mostly with Dustin, although Nicola (and Phillip) made some good points as well. Here's my opinion:

In this case, it seems pretty obvious that the judge who did the first deck check made a mistake. The judge (as I understand the situation) did not even think to check that there were some extra cards there and see what they were. In this case, the judge is in the wrong and the player is in the right; the judge did not do a thorough deck check, should have noticed the problem, and notified the player that this was illegal behaviour and assessed that as part of the first DDLP. Given the situation as it stands, I would not give a second penalty.

However, as both Nicola and Phillip pointed out, there is room for abuse here. Here is my proposed fix: When doing a deck check, if there are extra contents of the deck box, look at them and see what they are. It should take a whole extra 10, maybe 15 seconds of your time. All you need to check is “are any of these extra contents Magic cards?” You do not even need to check what cards they are. If there are extra cards among the contents of the box, notify the player that he should not keep extra cards in his box as part of assessing the DDLP. Then the player knows about the issue. The next time that player gets a deck check, if he continues to have those cards in his box, and if the situation requires (the cards are legal in the format, they are playable in the player's deck, etc), then a second DDLP can be assessed, because by notifying the player of the problem the first time, you have shifted the blame from “judge made a mistake” to “player is rebellious”. If the player uses the “I didn't know, the judge never told me” excuse, it's easy enough to find the judge who did the deck check, ask him if he notified the player, and say “Sorry, player, I asked the judge, he said he did tell you, and now your simple GL for DDLP has been upgraded to a DQ for Lying to a Tournament Official. You also may be investigated for UC - Cheating. Have a nice day”.

Edited Lyle Waldman (July 7, 2013 05:50:14 PM)

@Nicola: Just playing devils advocate here, and while exaggerated, I'm afraid this is how lots of players will react on it. While jduges have the full right to make mistakes, I'm not sure if we should let this specific player bear the consequences of that. While I completely understand your and Philip's reasoning, I'm very concerned about our image and what kind of customer service we are delivering here.

My thinking here is this:

When logistically possible, every deck list problem deserves to have a full deck check performed. (In my event it would have been possible had the judge thought to do it.)

When not logistically possible, the judge should still do a cursory check of the deck box and sideboard to catch common errors such as the original problem and failure to desideboard, especially because the game the player is about to enter is likely pre-board.

So, as it turns out, we have an interesting continuation on Sunday. We were discussing whether we'd do full checks in similar DDLP list errors, and we originally decided Not to do such checks. After a couple minutes discussion, we changed our minds and instead decided that we would check everything. The manpower issue was very close, but we had an incredibly talented staff here, so we went the full check.

In r2, we issued a DDLP for 59 cards listed. In the ensuing full check, we found a 3of and a 4of that had been switched at the last minute but not listed as switched. This error was corrected at the same time as the 59 cards, and we gave only the one GL. Had the full check not been performed, this may have resulted in another DDLP being awarded later on, GL or not according to whatever philosophy you choose to apply.

So, would you give another GL for DDLP if this had happened? And if your answer is different than in the previous case, please explain why it is different.

I'm not making this stuff up. after I posted yesterday from Saturday's incident, BAM! Sunday gives us another :)

Eric Shukan
Woburn, MA USA. L3

It really seems to me that we are putting way too responsibility on
judges. We are not there to prevent players from making mistakes. We
are there to maintain the integrity of the tournament and help where
we can. If we can help prevent a player making mistakes, great. I have
a very hard time, however, shifting the burden to judges to fix
everything. We must remember to be fair to judges as well as players.

In most Competitive REL events, there just is not the staff to deck
check every player who receives a decklist GL. One PTQ I HJed, we had
to resort to highlighting names on the pairings sheet in three
different colors and having 3 stations for judges to hand out GLs to
the ~15 people who got them. Even if there were the staff, I don't
believe it is policy that we do deck check every player who receives a
GL.

These are interesting situations. My thoughts on it are as such:



1. We want to make sure it’s still the players responsibility to ensure that their decklist is correct at all times throughout the tournament. Shifting that responsibility, or even sharing it creates lots of room for abuse. As judges we should not do anything to take that responsibility away from the players.



2. We do want to provide good customer service, and when possible I think a full deck check should be done to reduce D/DLPs.



I think it’s a good thing for head judges to remember to ask their deckcheck team to do a full check when issuing a D/DLP at an event, but we shouldn’t require it, or guarantee it simply because we will have situations arise where doing so would create a significant delay in the tournament. And as such, I think that doing a full check is something that should be left to the head judges discretion.



One other thing I would like to note, is how few people know that they aren’t allowed to have other cards in their deckbox unless they also present their sideboards. To be perfectly honest, I learned that this was a rule while on staff at one of my first competitive events and my deckcheck team lead noticed the cards in the deck I was checking and explained it to me. There is great opportunity for player education on this topic.



Mike White

L2, Ontario, Canada

I looked up the policy on this as per the current iteration of the IPG. I'll quote it to save others time:

Judges are human and make mistakes. When a judge makes a mistake, he or she should acknowledge the mistake, apologize to the players, and fix it if it is not too late. If the judge gives a player erroneous information that causes them to commit a violation, the Head Judge is authorized to downgrade the penalty. For example, a player asks a judge whether a card is legal for a format and is told yes. When that player’s deck is found to be illegal because of these cards, the Head Judge applies the normal procedure for fixing the decklist, but may downgrade the penalty to a Warning because of the direct error of the judge.

In this case the judge did not give the player erroneous information that caused them to commit a violation. It is dangerous to downgrade because if a judge had done more or seen something else, it might have prevented the error.

How is this a mistake by a judge?
Could you clarify for me, what exactly, did the judge say that was incorrect or do that was wrong?

Do you intend to say that a judge, by giving a DDLP, is “legally” claiming that the deck is correct
and it is now okay to play it? I am unable to find anything like that in the IPG.

If a traffic cop fines you for a busted headlight, do you later get a free pass if your brake lights don't work
either? “I've already been fined for another light today, officer, you can't fine me again!”