Hey folks, welcome back! This week's scenario is rated Silver, so as with recent weeks i'll ask our L2+ readers to please give our L0 and L1 judges a day or so before posting your thoughts. The blog post for this scenario can be found here:

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=787

And here's the scenario! Good Luck!

Ann and Nathan are playing a standard match in their local GPT. Nathan has been to a few of these types of events, but Ann is relatively new to Magic and this is her first Comp REL event. This game has lasted a long time, and at the end of Nathan's turn Ann is down to 2 life and zero cards in her library. After he passes the turn to her, she untaps, doesn't draw a card, then taps all her lands for a Sylvan Primordial. As she's deciding on a target for the Primordial's trigger, a person observing the match asks them to pause their game and calls for a judge.

After arriving and hearing what the situation is, you decide to investigate for cheating.

When you ask Ann about her current turn, she tells you:
“I decided not to draw my card this turn because I think you lose for drawing from an empty library, right? And I'm pretty sure you don't have to draw if you don't want to, so I decided not to. I think I can maybe still win with the cards in my hand.”

When you talk to Nathan, he says:
“Well, I noticed that she skipped her draw, but I didn't want to point it out to her because that would make her feel bad. Plus, I can just kill her with this Shock on my turn, so there's no harm in letting her play one more turn.”

Your investigation is complete, and now you have to decide: Is there foul play here? What infraction do you rule in this situation, and what penalty does it carry? Is a fix necessary, or are one or more players from this match going to be Disqualified?

Edited Patrick Vorbroker (July 31, 2013 06:31:57 PM)

I agree with David in not applying USC-Cheating in this scenario. The definition of Cheating in the IPG lists two conditions: To be cheating, players must (1) be attempting to gain advantage from his or her action, and (2) must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.

As David stated, Ann is clearly trying to gain advantage, but the investigation has revealed that she legitimately did not understand that her actions were illegal. She should be instructed on the relevant game rules (drawing a card is always mandatory), and should receive a GRV - Warning. Nathan is clearly aware that Ann was performing an illegal action, but it can be argued that he couldn't gain an advantage from withholding information. I would caution him that any illegal game action that he sees should be reported immediately, but that in this case, because he was not gaining an advantage, he would only be receiving the FTMGS - Warning.

My caution for Nathan would likely also include that this sort of situation is extremely delicate, and that the condition that he not be “attempting to gain advantage” is fairly loose. If Nathan notices a player cheating, and allows the player to take the illegal action with the knowledge that the player will be DQ'd once a judge is called, then Nathan would also be cheating at that point; Constructing a situation in which your opponent is DQ'd from your current match definitely has the potential for him to gain advantage.

Ann wasn't aware that you couldn't choose not to draw, so she's missing the “player must be aware something she's doing is illegal” element of UC-Cheating.

For Nathan, the situation was caught before he could gain advantage from it, and he didn't actually try to gain advantage, so he doesn't meet UC-Cheating either.

I don't see any foul play. No DQs.

I'd give Ann a GPE-GRV, resulting in a warning. The IPG gives a list of additional remedies, the second of which is “If the player forgot to draw a card… that player does so.” While she didn't forget, I think we fix this. This does result in her losing the game, but I wouldn't specifically award her a game loss. I'd also reassure her that the warning doesn't have any lasting effect on her unless she does the same kind of thing again, so not to worry. (the first warning I received was scary, but the judge helped put it in perspective.)

Without other input, I'd give Nathan a GPE-FtMGS, warning. But I'd want to talk to the head judge about downgrading if possible. Accidental FtMGSs happen, and I wouldn't want this to cause a future accidental one to be considered a repeat given why he did it.

Edited Chris Nowak (July 31, 2013 08:35:26 PM)

And, once again: “i'll ask our L2+ readers to please give our L0 and L1 judges a day or so before posting your thoughts”.

Thank you all for abiding by that simple request.

The two main criteria for USC - Cheating are (1) knowing that what you're doing is against the rules, and (2) attempting to gain an advantage by breaking the rule(s).

Ann was trying to gain an advantage, by, well, not losing. But she didn't know that the turn-based action of drawing a card is required, so she's in the clear.

Nathan knew that not drawing for turn is illegal, but he's not trying to gain advantage from allowing Ann to break the rule, because she's “dead on board” anyway. He's in the clear.

They do each get penalties, though. Ann gets a GPE - GRV for not drawing for turn. Nathan gets the corresponding GPE - FTMGS for allowing Ann to skip her draw for turn. Since Ann's GRV is skipping a required draw, she does so, and subsequently loses immediately when state-based actions are checked.

I'd also mention to Ann that Judges are there to help, and that she should feel free to call a Judge at any time to clarify any questions she has about how things work. Players are expected to play by the rules, but there are a billion of them, and Judges are there to help. And then I'd mention to Nathan that his kindness is appreciated, but that breaking the rules, or allowing someone to break the rules, is not allowed. Even if you're not gaining anything from it. It's probably worth mentioning what our definition of Cheating is, just to make sure he's properly educated. No one likes to be lectured, but dealing with Disqualifications is even worse. And again .. if something odd is happening or might potentially happen, call a Judge. That's what we're here for! :) And, good luck in the next round.

Ann is not aware her actions were illegal - cheating is not substantiated. GRV - Warning is issued.

Nathan is aware her actions are illegal, but does not gain a competitive advantage, because he would have won anyway. No foul play, however, GRV - Warning for FTMGS. The only fix I see is that is that the game is over, as Ann has lost, because she was unable to draw a card during her draw step.

No Foul Play, no DQ's.

Edited George Bochenek (Aug. 2, 2013 01:41:24 AM)

Originally posted by Unca Scott:

Thank you all for abiding by that simple request.

Does the forum support temporarily locking these threads just for Level 2s? I don't think I've seen a KP thread yet where the request has not been ignored.

Originally posted by Dominik Chlobowski:

Unca Scott
Thank you all for abiding by that simple request.

Does the forum support temporarily locking these threads just for Level 2s? I don't think I've seen a KP thread yet where the request has not been ignored.

Problem with this Dominik is that in situations like this the L2+'s are there to help guide the discussion as neccessary, a ‘time lock’ would prevent this

(sorry for derailed response)

I feel somewhat awkward derailing things, but the thread's pretty much done.

To be honest, there's more than enough L3+s and L2 Forum Moderators to guide the discussion. The time lock would only prevent the subset of L2s that are not Mods and are unnecessarily posting ahead of time from posting.

Also, I think there's been a recent (accidental?) shift of the Bronze definition to Silver. This may partly explain why L2s have no qualms answering the level that used to be partly aimed at them. =)

Edited Dominik Chłobowski (Aug. 5, 2013 09:47:21 AM)

Originally posted by Matt Wall:

As David stated, Ann is clearly trying to gain advantage, but the investigation has revealed that she legitimately did not understand that her actions were illegal.

I as a judge am always genuinely confused about this. What if Ann played 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 20 gpts. At what point do we consider her to know the rulings. She plays in a competitive event, she should know the rules. This is very contradictory to a lot of players as they use it in their advantage against judges.

I genuinely feel and believe in this scenario Ann is considered cleared of cheating. But I know a lot of players in my game community, that I even know personal for quite some time, that would use this excuse to a judge (even me): “Oh sorry I didn't know that”, simply to get away from the cheating. And quite frankly, it sucks as a judge to “believe them” as I can't proof as a judge that “they don't know something”

I am all for “judges need to help where possible and aid newer players”, but the point is that at certain points we also should say to players: “look this is homework for you guys if you want to play GPTs”. The problem is with newer players playing in Competitive events is that they -unfortunately- sometimes set examples that should be covered with the “mantle of grace” unfortunately setting patterns that other players use to their advantage.

Sorry if this derails a bit the original topic of this KP, but I wanted to chip this in.

Originally posted by Niki Lin:

Matt Wall
As David stated, Ann is clearly trying to gain advantage, but the investigation has revealed that she legitimately did not understand that her actions were illegal.

I as a judge am always genuinely confused about this. What if Ann played 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 20 gpts. At what point do we consider her to know the rulings. She plays in a competitive event, she should know the rules. This is very contradictory to a lot of players as they use it in their advantage against judges.

I genuinely feel and believe in this scenario Ann is considered cleared of cheating. But I know a lot of players in my game community, that I even know personal for quite some time, that would use this excuse to a judge (even me): “Oh sorry I didn't know that”, simply to get away from the cheating. And quite frankly, it sucks as a judge to “believe them” as I can't proof as a judge that “they don't know something”

I am all for “judges need to help where possible and aid newer players”, but the point is that at certain points we also should say to players: “look this is homework for you guys if you want to play GPTs”. The problem is with newer players playing in Competitive events is that they -unfortunately- sometimes set examples that should be covered with the “mantle of grace” unfortunately setting patterns that other players use to their advantage.

Sorry if this derails a bit the original topic of this KP, but I wanted to chip this in.

You don't need a proof that a player does know that particular rule. You just need to be sure enough, that this player in your opinion did know the rule and intentionaly violated it to gain an advantage.

If a player played in multiple PTQs I would be very suspicious that he doesn't know that he had to draw a card each turn. There is a chance that during the investigation he can make me believe he doesn't know the rule, but it is very unlikly.
That is why we do an investigation. If you have the feeling that a player isn't telling the truth, investigate and if you certain enough that the player is lying take the appropiate action.

Alright folks, it's Tuesday, so let's wrap this one up!

The newest iteration of the Cheating infraction falls into Unsporting Conduct. A player has committed USC-Cheating when:

A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a tournament official, or notices an offense committed in his or her (or a teammate's) match and does not call attention to it.
Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:

• The player must be attempting to gain advantage from his or her action.
• The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.

Now, let's assess each player's testimony and see if it falls under this infraction.

Ann broke a rule- she didn't draw a card during her draw step. She also was attempting to gain an advantage by not losing the game. However, as a brand new player she didn't know this was an illegal action. She is therefore not guilty of USC-Cheating. Instead, she has committed GPE-Game Rule Violation. She should receive a warning and, as a partial fix listed in the IPG, she draws the card now that she should have drawn at the beginning of her turn.

Nathan noticed an offense committed in his match but didn't call attention to it. He was also aware that skipping the draw was illegal. However, he was not attempting to gain an advantage (he was letting his opponent NOT lose the game!). Therefore, he is not guilty of USC-Cheating. Instead, he has committed GPE- Failure to Maintain Game State. He receives a warning.

Final Note: Keep in mind that we are arbitrators of the game, but we do that as part of our capacity of customer service to the players. Always be careful to give the correct ruling, instead of a hasty one that seems obvious at first but may be incorrect given more information. In this case, a hasty decision to DQ one or both players would have caused both players to be unhappy, when the correct call is simply to drive the game to its natural conclusion.

Well done those of you who avoided this trap. Under our previous documents both players would have been disqualified, so it's great to see we're keeping up with the document updates. Tune back in tomorrow for the next scenario. Same judge time, Same judge channel.