Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Is it? If you do a Deck Check and discover that a player has shuffled a token into their deck, is that a TE-Deck Problem?

No, but if I discover while doing DC that player have 56 cards marker on their decklist and four tokens, then they presented 56 cards. In OP situation, player have 56 cards marked on their decklist and 4 “not-yet approved proxies”, basically, 56 cards and 4 cards that are not on their list.

Edited Bartłomiej Wieszok (March 16, 2019 09:46:54 AM)

Originally posted by Isaac King:

This isn't quite the same though- if we treat the proxies similar to tokens and just ignore them, the deck will only have 56 cards in it.

Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

if I discover while doing DC that player have 56 cards marker on their decklist and four tokens, then they presented 56 cards

Correct - I just wanted to see who was paying attention. :)

Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

player have 56 cards marked on their decklist and 4 “not-yet approved proxies”, basically, 56 cards and 4 cards that are not on their list.

This part, I don't agree; the fact these proxies are “not-yet approved” is a bit of a red herring (translated: an interesting but distracting fact that's not as relevant as it might seem). The fact that the player didn't seek approval of these proxies is the important point - and we've already covered that, above.

d:^D

While I agree that IPG 4.8 isn’t a good fit, I argue it’s the best fit at least as a first step that you have to go through and actively dismiss if your investigation turns up without support, before you move on to the other infractions. My reason for this is the following:

Think of the following scenarios in COMP REL
1) A fake card is discovered of a real card.
2) A fake card is discovered of a made up card.
3) A Modern card is discovered in a Standard tournament.
4) A proxy card is discovered from previous tournament due to damaged card.
5) A proxy card is discovered from a previous tournament, due to replacement card for premium card (nexus of fate)
All of these situations are what’s covered by MTR 3.3 under the term “not Authorized cards” and are not allowed in a sanctioned tournament. MTR seems to cover what’s happening before a tournament going in. IPG on the other hand assumes MTR 3.3 is already fulfilled – IPG covers what’s happening during a tournament. That’s why there seems to be a bad fit when comparing the two rule sets.

So what can the course of actions of judge be? Shouldn’t IPG be applied and covered by the same infraction for all of the above mentioned situations? So we start at IPG 4.8 and investigate for cheating as the situation fulfills the definition “A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents”. This should be the first step you as a judge take, it’s not the last step, but it is the first and you can end up here and issue this infraction without going further.
“This sentence is an exhaustive list of the situations that can be considered Cheating. If the basic situation does not match one of these three categories, it is not Cheating. Moreover, all intentional violations of the tournament rules fall under the provision of Cheating (except for Slow Play, which is Stalling), and should not be treated simply as upgraded versions of other infractions.
The phrases “breaking a rule” and “notices an offense” include violations of the Comprehensive Rules and of the Magic Tournament Rules.
“

If we are to apply IPG 4.8 two criteria has to be fulfilled:
“Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:
The player must be attempting to gain advantage from their action.
The player must be aware that they are doing something illegal.”

Now the investigation starts, what is meant by:
A. The player must be attempting to gain advantage from their action
B. The player must be aware that they are doing something illegal.

To start with B. I argue that B is fulfilled.
We should hold players in COMP REL tournaments to a higher standard. If we require them to know which cards are legal in the standard format and which are not (ie modern, legacy cards etc) and not play with fake cards, we should also hold them to what an Authorized proxy card is seeing as its covered in the same paragraph under MTR 3.3. In the same paragraph you can also read that a proxy is issued for that tournament by the head judge as well as reference to MTR 3.4 for additional proxy information.
MTR 3.3 “ The Head Judge of a tournament may issue a proxy (see section 3.4) for a card that has become worn or damaged during the tournament.”
A proxy has not been issued by the HJ. So the player is aware of this “ in Magic, cheating is always a deliberate action, or conscious lack of action.“ It is a conscious lack of action to not have a proxy issued by the HJ. The reasoning by the player behind this is not necessary for B. criteria to be fulfilled.
MTR 3.4 “Players may not create their own proxies; they may only be created by the Head Judge who has sole discretion as to whether the creation of a proxy is appropriate. When a judge creates a proxy, it is included in the player’s deck and must be denoted as a proxy in a clear and conspicuous manner. The original card is kept nearby during the match and replaces the proxy while in a public zone as long as it is recognizable. A proxy is valid only for the duration of the tournament in which it was originally issued.”


MTR 3.4 also covers the information regarding “The card is a foil card for which no non-foil printing exists” so if a player is aware that premium card receives special set of rules for issuing proxies– the fact that they are using a proxy, instead of real cards, and they didn’t call a judge to this attention during the game, should also mean they are aware of this set of rules. If I discovered a proxy in my deck during a tournament, where I know I have not been issued a replacement proxy by the HJ (MTR 3.3), I would think about it. If I know I had it because I had a premium card I know (at least partly) that there are a set of rules applied to it (MTR 3.4). Therefore I argue that players should also know that they are only valid for one tournament.

The texts in question are also written in very clear English that is easy to understand and easy to find. So there shouldn’t be much discussion that even if the player had read the sections, they didn’t understand its implication (which could be the case with complicated card rules interactions).
Is the problem here that while we can hold players to MTR 3.3 (i.e they should know which cards are legal in the format etc) we cannot hold them to this clarification in MTR 3.4 that a premium card received preferential treatment and/or proxy is only valid for one tournament?

Also how long has this rule been in power 10, 15, 25 years? Its not a new rule and the player base should know it by now. Maybe you can be a bit more lenient on a new player… but probably not. Same rules for everyone.

Regarding A) “The player must be attempting to gain advantage from their action” I think can be discussed. While I agree that it’s not clearcut what the advantage is for playing a proxy card, it’s still think there is one:
Maybe the player didn’t want to risk not getting issued proxies for their premium cards (due to them not know the rules so they were hiding it from the judge so they could play their cards in this tournament knowing that the cards used were not authorized)?
Maybe they didn’t want to call attention to themselves for using unauthorized cards (if they discovered it later, and didn’t call a judge on themselves to avoid an infraction)?
Maybe they didn’t want to buy new cards for this tournament (maybe they thought they should have replaced them with new cards in the same way as proxies for damaged cards, but didn’t want to do it)?
Maybe they didn’t want to play with their original copies because they thought they were warped and didn’t want to risk getting an infraction?
Playing with a proxy of nexus of fate is better than a basic mountain (deck vs decklist? The basic land used is often different from the lands used in the deck, to differentiate proxies better – ie it’s a disadvantage colour wise, but advantage as an extra land, and definite an advantage if played as both a land and a proxy spell)?

I think one of the examples listed in the rules can be used as an analogy “G. A player realizes they have accidentally drawn an extra card, then fails to call a judge in order to avoid a penalty.” Rewritten as:
“A player realizes they are accidently playing with a not authorized card, then fails to call a judge in order to avoid a penalty”

However if you don’t think A and/or B is fulfilled you can move on to other infractions that are less severe. If you do, I disagree on B but might agree on A. 

Additionally, I think there is much similarities between the 5 scenarios I wrote about at the beginning
A fake card is discovered of a real card. –
• a player was given a GL for using counterfeit cards had to replace with basics (aug 2018 – I think it was COMP REL – was a modern PTQ, discovered during a deck check. Player had borrowed the deck) 5000 people voted on a poll, where 60% thought the ruling was unfair and that the player should only have had to replace the cards, while 40% thought the game loss was fair.
• Player DQ from GP for intentionally playing with counterfeits https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpsea15/disqualification-in-round-3-2015-11-07
• “If the player knew they were playing with counterfeits, things are pretty simple. They’re out of the tournament. Make sure you get email confirmation from them in their DQ statement in case Wizards wants to follow up.If they aren’t aware that they have a counterfeit card, remember that they had no idea that they were doing anything wrong and now have the double-whammy of a Game Loss and knowledge that a card they bought/traded for isn’t a real card. Be understanding of their situation. Obviously they have to replace the card (and possibly with a basic land), but give them a little time to do so, and be sympathetic to their plight. They’re a victim here.”https://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2014/02/17/counterfeit-concerns/

A fake card is discovered of a made up card.
A Modern card is discovered in a Standard tournament.
A proxy card is discovered from previous tournament due to damaged card.
A proxy card is discovered from a previous tournament, due to replacement card for premium card (nexus of fate)

The same 5 scenarios should also be taken into consideration when you apply the remedy provided you didn’t DQ them for cheating. Will you allow a person with fake cards to replace those cards with the same cards? How do you handle modern cards in a standard tournament? An old proxy card due to a damaged card?

Or should they all be replaced by basic lands?
Historically if you were discovered by a judge (through gameplay, deckchecks etc) with unauthorized cards, and did it with intent – the penalty was a DQ. If you played without intent, it was a GL (barring if there were other issues in the investigation that weren’t mentioned in the announcements) the judge guidelines are also clear on this. Maybe the rules should be updated to separate out proxies or fake cards so that the other situations aren’t dealt with quite as severely. There is still the option if you don’t find intent, but if you think a GL is too severe, than yeah it’s rough and hard to make the call. You could perhaps give a less severe penalty if they called it in on themselves when they first discovered it.

It wasn’t mentioned in the announcements if there were other issues found in the investigation, but the players who got penalties for playing with fake cards – didn’t attempt to gain any advantage, they would have gained the same advantage if they had played with real cards. So they received the penalty due to not playing with authorized cards (and perhaps not calling a judge on themselves - see G) example) – same as it should be for proxies.

I mean, all situations are unique but there are also similarities and should be handled the same seeing as they are all dealing with unauthorized cards. I will not go into depth on these as that might bring the discussion too far off topic. But I thought their theoretical existence had relevance for the questions that OP brought up.

Lastly if it a situation happens and we discover an unauthorized card a judge should not give preferential treatment and downgrade infractions and penalties just because that player bought and played with a premium card. The judge should apply the rules equally regardless of cards played. The only preferential treatment a judge should give is when issuing a proxy for a premium card. This can happen when a player asks for a proxy or when a judge issue one as a remedy after an infraction. The infraction is still there and should be applied. There has been no mention (as far as I know) that any exceptions are to be made for premium card in regards to infraction handling. The players should still bear the full weight of their infraction even if the remedy is to issue them new/the same proxies. Even though its bad customer service, if we don’t have policy guidance we can’t change the rules even if they are harsh.

IPG 1.2 “Judges are neutral arbiters and enforcers of policy and rules.
This is probably the single most important concept in the document. Whenever there is an issue, judges should evaluate the situation without bias and in accordance to the rules and policy documents. It should be inconceivable that a judge ruled in favor of a player because they are friends or because somehow the judge likes one player more than the other. Being impartial is a fundamental concept in the Judge Code of Conduct. Judges are viewed with respect, in large part, because they are neutral and because they enforce the policy equally. It should also be unimaginable that a judge creates rules or rulings without policy guidance.

Edited Adam Höstman (March 17, 2019 07:35:16 AM)

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

While I agree that IPG 4.8 isn’t a good fit, I argue it’s the best fit at least as a first step that you have to go through and actively dismiss if your investigation turns up without support, before you move on to the other infractions.

Adam, this is very nearly the opposite of what we want judges to do.

Yes, we do some degree of investigation with every judge call; most often, the investigation requires a few seconds and one or two questions, and the remote possibility of Cheating is quickly dismissed.

However, we do not start from the perspective of “let's make sure they're not Cheating before we decide what infraction applies”; rather, we ask questions to find out what happened, in order to help us determine if an infraction has occurred at all - and to provide us with information to consider, in case we do suspect Cheating. Or: Cheating is a conclusion reached at the end of an investigation, not the premise with which we begin investigating.

Also, if it isn't a good fit - if it isn't an exact fit - then it most certainly is not Cheating.

You obviously put a great deal of effort into your post, and present your logic in a thorough manner. However, you seem quite set on the idea that this player is doing something wrong, and they knew it was wrong. Instead, it seems clear that this player was simply continuing what they thought they should do - and probably because this was what they were directed to do by another judge, at another event - but apparently without full understanding, esp. of the duration limitation. We can't know, but I'd be very surprised if that player heard that other judge say “you can only use this today”, or similar wording.

As for your consideration of advantage: you imagine a number of remote possibilities, but I don't see you considering the most important step: ask the player. (Obviously, you and I can't ask the player, but I need to emphasize: don't imagine the worst, just ask.)

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

Will you allow a person with fake cards to replace those cards with the same cards? … should they all be replaced by basic lands?

In that same GP where a player was DQ'd for intentionally using counterfeit cards, we handled a number of other instances of counterfeits. I recall one instance where it became immediately apparent that the player both had no idea he'd acquired fakes, and was horrified to discover it when his opponent noticed and called me. We gave him the opportunity to correct the problem - i.e., find replacements - with the option of replacing them with basic lands. That same approach was used for some of the other instances, when it was determined by talking with the player that they had no idea their cards weren't legal.

Originally posted by IPG 3.1 Tardiness:

If … a player requests and receives permission from a judge for a delay for a legitimate task, such as … finding replacements for missing cards, that player has up to 10 minutes to perform that task before they are considered tardy

This is the guiding principle for such a situation. Once we confirm an issue such as a fake card, we grant permission to the player to correct the issue. (A judge may assist in this process, if feasible, but it remains the player's responsibility to correct the problem.)

Summary: as I stated in my other ‘O’fficial answer, this is not an infraction; it's simply a player trying to comply with a misunderstood rule. Correct the misunderstanding, and help them comply going forward.

d:^D

Edited Scott Marshall (March 17, 2019 07:55:19 AM)

Judge - “Did you know these are proxies?” *looks at sharpied mountains*
Player - “Yes” (If they answer “No”… I don't what to think about that - lying to an official maybe?)
Judge - “Did you ask the HJ for this tournament to issue them for you today?”
Player - “No”
= Proven intent.

It is obvious they are proxies, while it's not as obvious with fakes. Its much easier to determine what is a proxy than it is to determine a fake. Its so easy that there can be no doubt what so ever that the player didn't know they were playing with a proxy.

If the policy guidelines says that its enough to DQ a player if they knew they played with fakes. The same holds true for proxies because both fakes and proxies are unauthorized cards.

Therefore, the rules and policy both support that unauthorized cards = DQ investigation, if intent not found GL and replace.

Player - “Do I have too? I got those from a judge at my last event, I thought they are still fine”

-> No intent.

It's way less hassle to just allow those proxies. And way better customer service to NOT DQ the player for such things.

Edited Johannes Wagner (March 17, 2019 09:22:23 AM)

Originally posted by Johannes Wagner:

Player - “Do I have too? I got those from a judge at my last event, I thought they are still fine”

-> No intent.

It's way less hassle to just allow those proxies. And way better customer service to NOT DQ the player for such things.

Again, im not arguing that i think it should be this way. I'm saying that from my understanding of the rules and the policies, this is what is written. Which i have supported with direct quotes, practical examples and argumentation.

If I have missed some policy announcements please educate me.

IPG 1
"
Judges are neutral arbiters and enforcers of policy and rules.

This is probably the single most important concept in the document. Whenever there is an issue, judges should evaluate the situation without bias and in accordance to the rules and policy documents. It should be inconceivable that a judge ruled in favor of a player because they are friends or because somehow the judge likes one player more than the other. Being impartial is a fundamental concept in the Judge Code of Conduct. Judges are viewed with respect, in large part, because they are neutral and because they enforce the policy equally. It should also be unimaginable that a judge creates rules or rulings without policy guidance. “

”The Rules Enforcement Level, round of the tournament, age or experience-level of the player, desire to educate the player, and certification level of the judge are not exceptional circumstances.

Some of these situations might make it seem like it’s OK to deviate, but it’s not. You are to enforce policy regardless of whether it’s the last round, regardless of if the call is at table 1 or table 101. The opponents might be an exceptionally young age, but that age difference is not significant in terms of policy. The player might be new, and not know that rolling a die to determine a winner is prohibited; that player is still going to be Disqualified regardless of whether you think it is ‘fair’ or not. And finally, being a Level 3 Judge does not bestow upon that judge the right to deviate. In truth, they are held to a stricter standard, as lower level judges are watching and learning from their actions."

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

The player might be new, and not know that rolling a die to determine a winner is prohibited; that player is still going to be Disqualified regardless of whether you think it is ‘fair’ or not.

This is not true; please review the latest updates to the policy documents.

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

Judges are neutral arbiters and enforcers of policy and rules.
This is probably the single most important concept in the document.

I won't disagree with this, but I am trying to explain why you're not correctly applying policy. This player is still complying with policy to the best of their knowledge. Do not “reverse engineer” - i.e., find reasons to apply the infraction you want to assess - but instead consider what's actually happened (or happening), and determine if there is an infraction. (In this case, there isn't.) If there is an infraction, assess the appropriate penalty (if any) and apply the remedy.

Please do not approach each situation from a standpoint of “I can imagine ways this could be Cheating, so I have to rule that out first.” Instead, talk to the player(s) while determining what's happened, and see if there are concrete reasons to be suspicious. (As I said in my previous post, you're coming at this backwards.)

I'll repeat this, since it's been ignored: The ‘O’fficial stance on this is that Eli handled this situation, as described in his original post, correctly; there is no infraction, just a need to educate the player and help them follow the rules.

d:^D

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

Judge - “Did you know these are proxies?” *looks at sharpied mountains*
Player - “Yes” (If they answer “No”… I don't what to think about that - lying to an official maybe?)
Judge - “Did you ask the HJ for this tournament to issue them for you today?”
Player - “No”
= Proven intent.

There's another requirement - “The player must be aware that they are doing something illegal.” (IPG 4.8 - USC Cheating). This is also true at Regular REL - “intentionally and knowingly breaking … rules” (JAR - Serious Problems).

In the quoted example, we have established that the player did something illegal (illegal proxies). Let's assume that the player did it on purpose to avoid the “grabbed wrong cards” corner case. The head judge doesn't ask the question “Why not?”. We have no idea whether the player knows that proxies need to be issued every event.

(spoilers: probably not - I've been judging for a decade, and the first time that I thought about proxies from a previous tournament was earlier this week)

Originally posted by Jason Riendeau:

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

Judge - “Did you know these are proxies?” *looks at sharpied mountains*
Player - “Yes” (If they answer “No”… I don't what to think about that - lying to an official maybe?)
Judge - “Did you ask the HJ for this tournament to issue them for you today?”
Player - “No”
= Proven intent.

There's another requirement - “The player must be aware that they are doing something illegal.” (IPG 4.8 - USC Cheating). This is also true at Regular REL - “intentionally and knowingly breaking … rules” (JAR - Serious Problems).

In the quoted example, we have established that the player did something illegal (illegal proxies). Let's assume that the player did it on purpose to avoid the “grabbed wrong cards” corner case. The head judge doesn't ask the question “Why not?”. We have no idea whether the player knows that proxies need to be issued every event.

(spoilers: probably not - I've been judging for a decade, and the first time that I thought about proxies from a previous tournament was earlier this week)

The problem here is where do we draw the line what knowledge the players are assumed to have.

The IPG supports that players should have knowledge about some information, and will be penalized for not complying this.

For example IPG 1
“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.”

The term “legal” (from my findings scrutinizing the IPG) refers to a card that is not “banned” in the format. The IPG presumes the player has knowledge of the ban list, and receives a warning for not complying to it.

The IPG does not technically cover cards not “legal” in the format - ie modern card in standard format. Those are instead referred to as “authorized cards”. The term “authorized cards” are not found in the IPG only in MTR. So one could make an argument that “legal” also applies to “authorized cards”

If we do so, we look at the same example again.
“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.”

So if we assume that, the IPG gives support that players should know about what cards are standard-cards and which are modern card and not allowed to be played.

If a judge gives the player this wrong information regarding legality, the penalty is downgraded to a warning. But the initial penalty, if a judge had not given this wrong info instead the player had acted on their own, would have been a more severe penalty than a warning.

My point being, is that they should know that if they use proxy the head judge of this tournament have to issue them for them to be “legal” (MTR 3.3) and that they are only valid for this tournament (MTR 3.4)

One could make an argument if its the same HJ in both tournaments they could still comply with MTR 3.3 but break MTR 3.4. But in OPs case, this doesn't seem to be the case.

(Edit: Seriously if this post doesn't convince you guys that proxies deserve at least a GL than I don't know what will. The example provided had info from a judge and that was a warning minimum!)

Edited Adam Höstman (March 17, 2019 01:29:25 PM)

I'm just curious Adam, as an arbiter of the rules of the game, whose primary goal is the integrity of the event, which do you think is more disruptive to tournament integrity:

1/ You take the 4 legal proxies made for them by the judge of a previous event, duplicate them exactly only with today's date on them, and they continue playing.

2/ You disqualify the player, removing them from the tournament in the middle of a round, because their deck was 100% legal potentially as few as 6 or 12 hours ago, and would be rendered legal identically by 10 seconds of work by the head judge.

I understand the issue you take with the strict letter of authorized cards including that a proxy is only legal for the event in which it was created. But if you consider the -intent- of the rules around proxies, especially as regards premium-only treatments, why do you seem so unwilling to consider, in a judging system where we actually have quite a lot of explicit leeway to determine how to rule given the particulars of the situation, that somebody who had 4 proxies made of a marked premium-only card in a tournament last week could have decided they could save the head judge some hassle by just continuing to use the judge-issued proxies they already had?

Why do you want to assume malicious rather than completely considerate and generous intent on the part of the player?

Originally posted by Daniel Ruffolo:

I'm just curious Adam, as an arbiter of the rules of the game, whose primary goal is the integrity of the event, which do you think is more disruptive to tournament integrity:

1/ You take the 4 legal proxies made for them by the judge of a previous event, duplicate them exactly only with today's date on them, and they continue playing.

2/ You disqualify the player, removing them from the tournament in the middle of a round, because their deck was 100% legal potentially as few as 6 or 12 hours ago, and would be rendered legal identically by 10 seconds of work by the head judge.

I understand the issue you take with the strict letter of authorized cards including that a proxy is only legal for the event in which it was created. But if you consider the -intent- of the rules around proxies, especially as regards premium-only treatments, why do you seem so unwilling to consider, in a judging system where we actually have quite a lot of explicit leeway to determine how to rule given the particulars of the situation, that somebody who had 4 proxies made of a marked premium-only card in a tournament last week could have decided they could save the head judge some hassle by just continuing to use the judge-issued proxies they already had?

Why do you want to assume malicious rather than completely considerate and generous intent on the part of the player?

Because the problems is with the rules that probably was implemented a long time ago and are not in line with the current reality. I have argued for many years that MTR 3.3 is a HARD rule. It has now gone so far that the judges, who are supposed to enforce the rules, don't even enforce it because they consider it to be “unfair”. Same is true by the players.

But, the rules are still the rules. We judges should enforce them regardless of personal opinion. If the rules allow us we can be lenient. But the problem is MTR 3.3 is a HARD rule with little leniency.

The solution should not be to not apply the rules, the solution should be to flag it, and make the rulesetters change it to better reflect the situationen we judges have to handle in our daily life.

The judges don't want it
The players don't want it.
The stores don't want it.
WotC probably dont want it - given that they printed the premium-only treament card, and will probably contintue doing so in the foreseeable future

But the worst thing we can do - is to not enforce the rules, then we lose all purpose for having judges in the first place.

(I interpreted your question about choice to be a rhetorical questions, if you want I can answer it specifically. But i think my post answers your real question?)

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

The problem here is where do we draw the line what knowledge the players are assumed to have.

The IPG supports that players should have knowledge about some information, and will be penalized for not complying this.

If you are referring to “Players are expected to know the game’s rules and be familiar with the policies and procedures, but unintentional errors are not punished severely” from the definition of Competitive REL per the MTR, expectations are a very different thing from assumptions. We expect that players are familiar with the rules and policies involved, but we don't take it for a fact.

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

My point being, is that they should know that if they use proxy the head judge of this tournament have to issue them for them to be “legal” (MTR 3.3) and that they are only valid for this tournament (MTR 3.4)

They are expected to know that, not required to know that. If we assume that all players in a given event know every single comp REL policy, then why do we have the “ must be aware that they are doing something illegal” clause in Cheating? We should DQ right away based on the assumption that they know their Competitive REL things.

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

If the policy guidelines says that its enough to DQ a player if they knew they played with fakes. The same holds true for proxies because both fakes and proxies are unauthorized cards.

And I would like to take this quote from one of you previous posts and give it an interesting twist.
We might DQ that player because they might probably know that they cannot use counterfeits, and use them anyways because they don't own the real cards and are needed on the deck. So we have a rules-break (not using real Magic Cards), intention of getting advantage of it (not owning the real cards and playing them anyways), and awareness (they knew they couldn't use counterfeits). In this case we have a rules-break (playing proxies that were not authorized for the event), but do we have the other two? If they have the physical copies of Nexus of Fate, which is the advantage gained for not playing them?

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

But the problem is MTR 3.3 is a HARD rule with little leniency.

Its not a hard rule, and with a lot of leniency(in some way). Most of it is common sense.
The alteration part in that same paragraph is a whole other problem in itself because of cultural reasons and such.

Edited Johannes Wagner (March 17, 2019 02:05:51 PM)

Originally posted by Julio Sosa:

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

The problem here is where do we draw the line what knowledge the players are assumed to have.

The IPG supports that players should have knowledge about some information, and will be penalized for not complying this.

If you are referring to “Players are expected to know the game’s rules and be familiar with the policies and procedures, but unintentional errors are not punished severely” from the definition of Competitive REL per the MTR, expectations are a very different thing from assumptions. We expect that players are familiar with the rules and policies involved, but we don't take it for a fact.

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

My point being, is that they should know that if they use proxy the head judge of this tournament have to issue them for them to be “legal” (MTR 3.3) and that they are only valid for this tournament (MTR 3.4)

They are expected to know that, not required to know that. If we assume that all players in a given event know every single comp REL policy, then why do we have the “ must be aware that they are doing something illegal” clause in Cheating? We should DQ right away based on the assumption that they know their Competitive REL things.

That's not true. Why else are they receiving a warning? If the player weren't required to know things than the judge wouldn't have issued a penalty at all or even involved themselves in the situation right?

I won't get into an argument how much of comp REL policy players are required to know. But I argue that they should know some parts, and that there are support for it in the IPG, and that MTR 3.3 is part of that required knowledge (maybe MTR 3.4 also - most likely).

Originally posted by Julio Sosa:

Originally posted by Adam Höstman:

If the policy guidelines says that its enough to DQ a player if they knew they played with fakes. The same holds true for proxies because both fakes and proxies are unauthorized cards.

And I would like to take this quote from one of you previous posts and give it an interesting twist.
We might DQ that player because they might probably know that they cannot use counterfeits, and use them anyways because they don't own the real cards and are needed on the deck. So we have a rules-break (not using real Magic Cards), intention of getting advantage of it (not owning the real cards and playing them anyways), and awareness (they knew they couldn't use counterfeits). In this case we have a rules-break (playing proxies that were not authorized for the event), but do we have the other two? If they have the physical copies of Nexus of Fate, which is the advantage gained for not playing them?

I answered this situation in my longer post. Please refer to it i wrote multiple situations where an advantage could be gained and proved without a doubt that awareness was there.

I will do a twist on yours though - what if the players with the fakes have real copies with them, in their binder because they didn't want to play with the real one cause they are expensive? Do we consider cards that are outside of a players deck when assessing what the deck is? The intention of the player (after investigation) is, did the player intend to play unauthorized cards (proxies) in their deck? - Yes. Is there an advantage to play with unauthorized cards (and avoid calling a judge on yourself thereby avoiding a penalty)? - yes. Is the player aware that they played with unauthorized cards - yes.

But even if you did not find intent to be fulfilled for a DQ according to IPG 4.8 the penalty is at least a GL.
If a judge (but not the HJ) told you to play with a unauthorized proxy, the penalty is at least a warning or higher. This was not the case. I find it hard for the answer to be just a warning or even below there. There is no support.

Edited Adam Höstman (March 17, 2019 02:33:26 PM)