Hi again friends! Welcome to our next Silver Scenario of the week. Feel free to comment, discuss and share. We will be posting our answer by Aug 11. L3+ please wait until Wednesday to join in with your responses. Good luck!

You are the Head Judge of a Modern 1K run at COMP-REL. A floor judge comes up to you during round one and tells you when scanning over decklists they noticed Jack, playing Boros Energy, has just “Ajani” registered on their decklist. You look and there are 15 min left in the round and the players are currently sideboarding for Game 3.

 

What do you do?

I'm not penalizing here, but I am informing the player after the match that this could rightfully end up with a game loss, why it isn't from me, and why it's important that they be clear when registering their list. 

If they're on Boros energy, then it's clear to me that the only Ajani it could be is Nacatl Pariah/Avenger. Even more so if it's in their list with the rest of the creatures. If there are other Ajanis it could be mistaken for, that is something I would consider. But as on now I'm not aware of any seeing relavent play in Modern.

My first instinct when seeing Ajani written for Boros Energy is Ajani Nacatl Pariah.  I would first ask the floor judge which Ajani they believed it to be and check Scryfall for any cards I think could cause me to doubt this assumption.  I would also look to see if the list included other cards common in Boros Energy that Synergize with this particular Ajani - Ocelot Pride and Guide of Souls namely.

Assuming all of this checks out, I would fill in the missing portion of the name, then discuss with them afterwards about the mistake.  

I would pull the player aside after the match ends, issue them a game loss at the start of the next round, and correct the decklist, with the option to perform a deck check on the spot to ensure there are no other errors.

 

Example C from the IPG describes the issue: "A player lists ‘Sarkhan’ in a format with both Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker and Sarkhan Unbroken."

 

This excerpt from Philosophy explains that we should not interrupt the match to apply the penalty unless it was discovered as part of match procedures: "Penalties for decklist errors discovered outside the context of the match and its procedures (such as those discovered through decklist counting) are issued at the start of the next match unless the judge believes there is strong evidence the deck itself is illegal."

 

The bit about "discovered through decklist counting" could apply here, but seems very disruptive to me and could create a situation with the player.  I don't want to pull them from an active game unless they explicitly listed something illegal (Underground Sea instead of Underground River in Modern.)  To me, issuing a game loss at the start of the next match is much less disruptive to the player and the tournament than pulling them from their match and telling them they lose.  This is not the correct place to debate policy philosophy, but I disagree with ending a match over a partial name on a decklist.  If we are performing a full mid-round deck check, I would be more agreeable to issuing the game loss for the current round given that the act of deck checking comes with the understanding that a game loss is possible.  Per policy, it should be an immediate game loss, but I would personally deviate to a game loss the following round on a courtesy check.

Edited Jordan Powell (Aug. 4, 2025 03:50:42 PM)

In this case, the first thing we need to review is whether we believe that anything incorrect has happened. It's not stated in the problem but I'll assume that "Ajani" is the only Ajani on the decklist. Most of the time, this is probably referring to Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, a card from MH3 that traditionally gets played in Boros Energy. I think the first step is to look at the IPG where it states that:

 

Truncated names of storyline characters on decklists (legendary permanents and planeswalkers) are acceptable as long as they are the only representation of that character in the format and are treated as referring to that card, even if other cards begin with the same name.

 

Clearly this could apply, Ajani is a storyline character, so we can investigate whether Ajani refers to a unique card in Modern (it doesn't, so this doesn't *really* apply.)

 

The next step is this:

 

The Head Judge may choose to not issue this penalty if they believe that what the player wrote on their decklist is obvious and unambiguous, even if not entirely accurate.

 

I believe that it's fair to take into account the first section mentioned here, and determine if a violation has occurred based on whether it is *obvious and unambiguous* which Ajani this refers to. The options are listed here on Scryfall (14 options). In a deck without green mana, a player clearly didn't intend to register a green planeswalker, so we can narrow the search to this (9 options).

 

We have a pretty long list of options here, but the decision here is somewhat intended to be up to judge discretion. Given that this case was essentially presented to us as "a player registered 'ajani' but they meant 'Ajani, Nacatl Pariah'", and that I arrived at the conclusion that the player meant to register Ajani, Nacatl Pariah with no doubt for the entire post, I would consider "ajani" in this case to unambiguously refer to "Ajani, Nacatl Pariah."

 

(There should be a small note here referring to the assumption I made earlier, that there was only one ajani on the decklist. If there are multiple then it isn't unambiguous which cards are in the decklist and we should assign a decklist problem warning along with everything that follows)

 

Now we have determined that there was no wrong-doing. I would find the player after their match, review their deck to confirm that we're on the same page, and remind them that they should make an attempt to make decklists as clear as possible, since not every judge will be familiar with the modern format and know that the only Ajani that a player would consider registering in their RW Energy deck is Ajani, Nacatl Pariah.

Edited Luke Brandes (Aug. 4, 2025 04:00:05 PM)

Does it matter than Ajani Vengeant, while not popular currently, did used to see significant Modern play a few years ago?

Would it affect the situation if you know that Jack is a returning player who hasn't played in a while, or if there are other atypical cards on the list?