But if you would've just said that you believe that ruling to be suboptimal
and not entirely correct, then you wouldn't be making the ruling judge lose
face or anything.
I've been in a situation plenty of times where I called a judge on myself
and, after listening to their ruling, explained how I feel that ruling
should be.

There's no reason to immediately appeal the ruling, you can reason with the
ruling judge first. I believe that, as long as you do this in a
constructive, supportive way, you're not undermining their authority nor is
consistency affected. Of course, if the ruling judge disagrees and lets
their ruling stand, then you'd have to accept that, continue play and talk
to them later or indeed appeal the ruling.

I must be honest and say that I can't remember a case where the ruling
judge still disagreed and let their ruling stand, but I can see it
happening. And I would be perfectly fine with that. Depending on their
explanation I would either appeal or not.

Kind regards,
Richard Drijvers



2013/9/9 James Bennett <forum-5811-8272@apps.magicjudges.org>

Hi,

Personally, I think it comes down to the question: “How competitive are
you?”. Even if the tournament is a GPT and not a Pro Tour with the Top8 on
the line, If you have a very competitive mindset, you will tend to not
appeal something that is in your favor. We can rationalize the thought by
saying things like “I don't want to undermine the Judge in the tournament”
or “It wasn't that big a deal” but that's all it is: Rationalizing an
action you wanted to take (or in this case, not take). It's neither right
nor wrong, it's human.

Would I condemn a judge if he did it? No, not really. It's the same as not
telling the whole truth on derived information: It's not nice but it's okay
to do at competitive level and a judge playing a competitive tournament is
a player as well…

I personally would appeal but that's probably because I'm not competitive
and don't really care :)

greets
jeremie

Well since it seems like there are actually people who are saying they wouldn't appeal here and not having their heads chopped off for it, I'm going to add my voice to that chorus.

Here's how I see it: As stated earlier in this thread, knowing the rules of the game is a skill. Just like any other skill, players have various levels of proficiency at it. We so often like to say “Magic is a skill game”, meaning that when we play Magic, we don't always play perfectly, and when we judge Magic, we don't make the players play perfectly. We do what is within the rules and use what skills we have to get an edge. That can be done in any way; it can be game related, as in getting a 2-for-1, shuffling away the right cards with our Brainstorm, or sandbagging that removal spell for the bomb. It can be metagame-related, as in bluffing our cards, playing to our outs, or watching our opponent as he shuffles with his deck tilted toward us so we can see all the cards in his deck (that last one is a personal favourite of mine). It can be rules-related as well, as in blowing up our last nonland permanent in response to your opponent's Oblivion Ring or, in this case, taking advantage of a bad judge call.

These are all equivalent to me; they are all mistakes (or advantages) based on skill, and if you have sufficient skill, you can “play around” any one of them. If my opponent doesn't play around these sorts of things, then he will get caught by them, and I have no problem using these things to my advantage. Conversely, if my opponent uses one of these things to gain advantage from me in one of these ways, it's not his fault for being “slimy” or “scummy” or whatever; these are not “slimy” or “scummy” activities. He's within his rights to do any of these things, and it's my responsibility, as his opponent, to not make such misplays as would allow him to gain these sorts of advantages.

Of course, all this comes with the following caveat: I will tend to be more competitive at more competitive events and with more competitive players. I'm not going to scumbag some newbie out of a game win at FNM because he didn't know that “On page 52, paragraph 4, line 7, of CompRules, it says…”. That's bad, just as a general community thing. This has nothing to do with my role as a judge; it's more that it's actively bad for the game to have new players think we're all cheating scumbags (even if it's not actually cheating, it can feel like cheating to a new player) right from the get-go. However, at a Competitive REL event or against a more competitive player who obviously knows their stuff, it's no holds barred, IMO.

I am more or less ok with Lyle's line of thinking, with one major caveat: anything you do to gain an advantage should stay within the confines permitted by the rules. For that reason I would not consider your example of “watching our opponent as he shuffles with his deck tilted toward us so we can see all the cards in his deck” to be ok - seeing your opponent's deck in this way accidentally is LEC, seeing it intentionally is Cheating.

Again, the potential issue I see, is that when a judge does engage in “sharky” but otherwise legal behavior, there should not be repercussions for it from within the judge program. But if there are going to be consequences to a person's proverbial ‘judging career’ for these actions, those consequences should be VERY explicitly laid out, and I think we'd be owed an explanation as to why they are there.

Edited Colleen Nelson (Sept. 10, 2013 05:20:18 AM)

A related anecdote: In round 1 of an old Extended PTQ I played in, my Mono
Red opponent cast Browbeat, and I reflexively asked him who it targetted.
He said it targetted me.

A few things happened here.

I realised my opponent was at his first PTQ from our pre-match chatter.
I knew I couldn't beat the burn deck even if he did let me draw 3 cards.
Everyone at the event (in Birmingham) knew me as an established UK judge.

I took a quick look at the risk/reward of this, and decided to ask again.
“I think you should read your card - who are you targetting?”

He still targetted me.

I gave him one last out:

“Your card says ‘target player draws three cards’ - are you sure you want
to target me?”

Finally he realised his error and correctly targetted himself.

Net result, I got crushed in that game, lots of people talked about the
benevolent judge who asked his opponent 3 times what he targetted with
Browbeat, and my opponent had a good day (and incidentally, targetted
Browbeat correctly from then on)

I'm just telling you all this because I still think it's a funny story.

Bottom line, if you're an established judge and you're playing where people
know you, as much as you want to play like a competetive player you are
still a judge and your actions whilst playing will colour people's opinion
of you, and by extension possibly their opinion of the judge programme as a
whole. I believe it's up to you whether the difference you make to those
opinions is more or less valuable than winning the game you're currently in.

By way of counterpoint, an L1 judge who is far more well known as a Pro
Player than a judge was playing in a World Championships in the Legacy
portion of the event, and asked the judge if he could Evoke an Ingot Chewer
for {R} whilst Trinisphere was in play. The judge said he could, so he
did, and went on to win that game. I don't think there was anything wrong
with accepting that judge's ruling and playing accordingly. Sure, he was a
judge, and strongly suspected the ruling was wrong, but he was in the World
Championships and was way too involved in the game to worry about whether
that judge's ruling was actually correct.

Thank you for indulging my little story time.

Paul

Paul Smith

paul@pollyandpaul.co.uk

Originally posted by Colleen Nelson:

“watching our opponent as he shuffles with his deck tilted toward us so we can see all the cards in his deck” to be ok - seeing your opponent's deck in this way accidentally is LEC, seeing it intentionally is Cheating

Nope. If your opponent is revealing information, you don't have to tell them or look the other way.

There is some confusion about this, possibly due to a high-profile DQ a few years ago. A famous player noticed he could see the reflection of his opponent's cards in hand, in that opponent's glasses (or sunglasses). This came to the attention of the judges (don't recall how), and the famous player denied it. He was DQ'd for lying to the judges, not for seeing his opponent's cards.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

At US Nationals several years ago, “John Doe” - then L3 - was playing; I was Head Judge. On day 2, he received a Warning that, had the floor judge asked the proper question (“have you had any Warnings before during this event?”), would have been upgraded to a Game Loss. John Doe said nothing - and then his conscience drove him nuts. He came and talked to me and Andy Heckt, and we agreed that he had no obligation - per policy! - to remind the floor judge of his duties. (I also quickly reminded all the judges to ask that question!)

So, “official” answer, if you will: you do NOT have to appeal an incorrect ruling.

When I play, I almost always appeal - whether the floor judge is right or not - because I want to see how the floor judge and the Head Judge handle that. I have to admit, it's kind of fun to watch an L2 squirm a bit when I tell them “you better get the HJ, I just earned a Game Loss here…” :)

I am glad to see that you share your experience with us! I highly appriciate it! And i think your way to handle things such “I almost always appeal” and your reasoning around the communication between FJs and HJs.

I'd like to say that, for sure, I'd appeal the ruling. However I also know that when I'm playing a competitive event (Magic or otherwise), I get my thrill by being competitive minded. To read and learn the rules, and then use any edge I can in their limits to defeat less prepared, less creative and less focused opponents, from which I expect to bring their A game. That's what I enjoy about the event and why I travelled, prepared, and enrolled in it.

I intellectually understand why I should appeal (a lot of really good reasons have been given in this thread) but, as other human beings, I'm not a fully rational creature. I sometime do stupid things and sacrifice long term benefits of the group for selfish short term benefits. For these reasons, I cannot tell you for sure what I'd do until confronted to the dilemma. It's easy for me to tell you what is the good solution in a detached discussion, but I cannot swear I'd still do it the in heat of the match. I know cheating is off limits, because it's not how I get my fun, but anything that is allowed… I will be tempted to use it. Even if I know that doesn't give me the moral high ground, and could reflect poorly on me afterward. And again, I'd like to say I'd be strong enough to not do that.

I wanted to express this opinion so that any judge who have the same feelings and insecurities about being able to be the paragon we'd like him to be don't feel too bad after reading these majority of judges telling that they would for sure sacrifice their victory for moral reasons while not being sure he would do the same.

- Emilien

Sporting behavior is something to encourage, recognize, and acknowledge. These are acts outside the rules that have a positive customer experience and community acceptance.

Unsporting behavior is something to work to eliminate, penalize, and reprimand. These are acts prohibited by the rules that the community wishes to eliminate and hurts the environment of all players.

Competitive behavior is neither. Acting within the rules, trying to win, and distrusting your opponent is at the base, what tournaments are. Just because a player (a judge or not) is not acting in a sporting behavior does not mean they are being unsporting. We allow, encourage, promote, award competitive behavior.