Anthony starts his turn with Thassa, God of the Sea in play and draws a card. He continues his turn by declaring an attacking creature still during combat he realizes he forgot to scry. He indicates to his opponent Nigel that he forgot to scry and says he'd like to do so now as that would be the way to do it during a Regular event.

Nigel calls the Judge and claims: “My opponent forgot to scry and I realize that it's still within the turn, so the trigger could go onto the stack, but I feel that my opponent would gain information”. How do you react as a judge only knowing this?

Say you investigate on how Anthony forgot the trigger and you conclude that during the previous turn Anthony got information (through scrying) on what was on top of his deck. Anthony claims: “I didn't indicate the trigger because I was aware on what I was going to draw”.

Anthony than says: “Look, I'm not trying to cheat here or anything, but I believe that I used the rules to my advantage, you said so in the beginning of the tournament that triggers can be missed and as long as nothing serious happened that you could add them onto the stack within the turn” (note: I also said “but please inform me, before doing so, which Nigel did”). Anthony pleads further: “Look, I know what I tried to do sounds dodgy, maybe I should have called you myself upfront instead of my opponent. I was so excited that I saw an advantage in the rules and tried to use it. It only occurred to me during the combat phase that I could try this, I wasn't setting this up from the moment my turn started”

How would you react?
PS. I'm also interested in hearing what you would do if the player genuinely forgot Tassa her trigger.

Wow, that's a weird situation… First, regarding the PS: If Anthony genuinely forgot his trigger, just put it on the stack now, that's how we handle missed triggers. I don't see anything probelmatic here.

If Anthony is intentionally breaking the rules, knowing that he does so, and in order to gain an advantage, well, that's a textbook definition of a DQ. He thought he found an “advantage in the rules”, but alas, he hasn't. Include in your statement that you believe that it was not pre-intended, so a suspension may not be needed, but I don't see a reason not to DQ here.

Disclaimer: You had to be there, as always, but purely building on my inyterpretation of your report, this seems to me like a DQ.

Greetz, Dustin.

Edited Dustin De Leeuw (Oct. 21, 2013 04:43:20 AM)

You seem to have asked 2 questions here, so I'll respond in order:

Question 1: Assuming the player has drawn and then forgot to scry, do you put the trigger on the stack?

Answer: No. The JAR does not say anything about “within a turn cycle”. It does, however, say:

add it to the stack now unless it happened so long ago that you think it would be very disruptive to the game

I'd say Anthony drawing a card is significant enough to invoke this clause. There are other clauses in that same paragraph in JAR that I could point to for backup as well, but I'll leave it at this one.

Question 2: Anthony admitted that he tried to use a rules loophole + judge intervention to gain advantage. How do you educate Anthony about this, and what is the appropriate penalty (if any)?

Answer: Confirm Anthony's line of play. The way I read your post is as follows: Anthony Scried last turn so he knows the top of his deck. He thought he could bypass the trigger on the upkeep, draw his card, and then use the trigger after his draw, to get “extra value” out of the trigger. If this is the case, explain to Anthony that this is intentionally breaking the rules (as defined in CR) by trying to use an upkeep trigger in a phase that is not the upkeep. This is codified in Serious Problems in JAR and the recommended penalty in JAR should be applied:

Any player engaging in the following must be removed from your event

After explaining to Anthony that Magic is not Gotcha and the rules should be followed, I would DQ him from the event.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Oct. 21, 2013 05:18:00 AM)

Nigel's statement definitely makes me want to ask more questions. After investigating and hearing the rest of the story, I think DQ here may be a little extreme.

I am a softy when it comes to Regular events and try to make sure everyone has fun. Anthony did not actually do anything to gain an advantage, yet. He did not understand the instructions from the judge at the beginning of the tournament. If I was a new player and a judge said in his opening announcements “Don't worry about missing triggers because if you miss one I will add it to the stack later in the turn”, or something along those lines, I would have no idea that doing so intentionally would be cheating and could result in a DQ.

My ruling in this situation after hearing the full story would be to tell Anthony - “It sounds like you actually did scry this turn. You just admitted that you already knew the top card of your library and decided to draw it. That is essentially scrying in your upkeep and keeping it on top.” I would then clarify and explain how intentionally breaking the rules in any way is in fact Cheating and will result in a DQ. I am not DQing you this time because you did not actually know that purposefully missing triggers is cheating.

I think its a bad idea to go into rulings and fixes during opening announcements. A judge never needs to explain how he is going to fix things, especially at Regular where its so easy to deviate and the guidelines are not as strict.

Edited Brian Brown (Oct. 21, 2013 01:45:46 PM)

There does seem to be a bit of an oddity to this in that:
Given that this is “intentionally breaking the rules” it's a Serious Problem and rates a DQ at Regular
but:
Since the player is not “aware that he or she is doing something illegal” due to the judge's statement at the start making the player believe their action to be legal, this is not Cheating at Competitive (not only does it not meet the definition for Cheating, it's also downgradable per “If the judge gives a player erroneous information that causes them to commit a violation, the Head Judge is authorized to downgrade the penalty.”).

The JAR doesn't have the “you need to know you're cheating to be cheating” or “you can downgrade if it's the judge's fault” clauses, but I would suggest that the second one of those is a good general guideline for everything.

Assuming we believe Anthony is telling the truth about what happened, then I would (probably) not DQ him here as, in the situation as described, he was unaware his actions were illegal specifically due to information I had given him. Instead I would give him an explanation along the lines of the one Brian offers above. And then I'd keep a very close eye on him for the rest of the tournament in case we were wrong to believe his explanation of innocence.

James:

You are correct about no guidelines for deviating in the JAR, but the introduction of the IPG says:

If the judge gives a player erroneous information that causes
them to commit a violation, the Head Judge is authorized to downgrade the penalty.

I think this was placed in the document for good customer service. Although the IPG doesn't necessarily apply to Regular REL, the philosophy of good customer service should. :)

I would consider it too late to place that trigger on the stack because the top card has already been drawn and put in to the player's hand, whether or not he knew the top card of his library. I would only put a missed scry trigger on the stack if no cards have been drawn since it was missed. Is this incorrect?

With no past experience with Anthony to convince me otherwise, I would give him the benefit of the doubt. I would clarify what it means to miss a trigger and under what circumstances it could be put on the stack afterward.

I've been biting my tongue all day on this one, but the new JAR has just been posted and includes the `knowingly and intentionally` clause for the Cheating Serious Problem :)