Welcome to another marvelous and scintillating week of the Knowledge Pool. This week we have a Silver scenario, which means that if you are level 2 or higher, we would like you to wait until Thursday to add your thoughts.

Setessan… Something

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=939

You perform a mid-round deck check on Alex during round 6 of a Theros sealed 5k, of which you are head judge. You quickly discover that he is playing a Setessan Battle Priest in his deck, but no copies of this card are marked in the Total column on his deck registration sheet. When you investigate further, you find that a Setessan Griffin is marked in his Total column, but it is not in his pool. When you speak to Alex, he says he didn't notice the error because the card wasn't in his main deck, so he didn't bother to check that it was right on his sheet. As usual, the players had been instructed to confirm the contents of their pools before beginning deck construction.

Based on interviewing Alex, you believe that the pool has always contained the Battle Priest and not the Griffin. What do you do?

Because the card is in his SB, I would rule that he gets a deck/dl problem and ask the HJ if we can downgrade this into a warning. The reasoning behind the downgrade is that the card is not in the main deck, but in the SB. Moreover, the person who passed the pool was the one who made the initial error. Also, cards from Sideboards go missing often, especially cards that “are not in the main deck.”

Just what I think, I may be wrong.

Edit: I would downgrade, and give a warning. I would then correct the deck list after confirming.

Edited James Arriola (Dec. 13, 2013 04:16:55 AM)

This seems like a pretty open & shut case of Tournament Error - Deck/Decklist Problem. The contents of Alex's deck & sideboard don't match the registration sheet. So we give him a Game Loss, fix his registration sheet, and be on our merry way.

I suppose maybe we could consider a Warning for Tournament Error - Failure to Follow Official Announcements, since Alex didn't confirm the contents of his pools like he was supposed to. But this seems like a case of a root cause (not double checking the registration sheet) causing two infractions, so we'd only apply the more severe one (GL for D/DLP).

Now that I think about it some more … I guess this isn't as “open & shut” as I thought! … Alex most likely wasn't the one who originally opened and registered the pool. Do we need to go after whoever that person was? I don't see anything in the IPG or MTR about that. Maybe a Caution? If it was Alex who registered it, then it could just be rolled in with the other two infractions.

So yeah, final answer: Alex has committed TE - D/DLP and TE - FTFOA, with the harsher penalty (GL for D/DLP) being applied. Find the player who registered the pool, and administer a verbal Caution (if it's a different player).

Originally posted by James Arriola:

Because the card is in his SB, I would rule that he gets a deck/dl problem and ask the HJ if we can downgrade this into a warning. The reasoning behind the downgrade is that the card is not in the main deck, but in the SB. Moreover, the person who passed the pool was the one who made the initial error. Also, cards from Sideboards go missing often, especially cards that “are not in the main deck.”

Just what I think, I may be wrong.

James Arriola, just a heads up in this scenario you are the head judge

Assuming we believe Alex, this seems like a simple TE-D/DLP Game Loss. If he was just missing the Griffin that was registered, we wouldn't bother with a penalty, since the IPG notes “If sideboard cards are lost, make a note of this, but issue no penalty,” but the appearance of cards not on the list has the potential for advantage, so this wouldn't apply. We should fix the decklist to note the Battle Priest instead of the Griffin, following the philosophy of fixing the decklist to match the deck, and set the players up to start game 3 (or sign the slip if this results in a 2-0 win for Alex's opponent).

I disagree with Jack on adding on a TE - FTFOA; the definition and examples for this tournament error seem to be things that aren't also penalized in other ways. Adding it on here would lead to tacking it on to tons of other penalties - for example, even though we announce, “Make sure not to improperly determine a winner” before posting the final rounds' standings, we aren't going to also give them this penalty after disqualifying players. Same thing on insufficient randomization and slow play if your opening announcements include reminds to shuffle thoroughly and play quickly.

No infraction for Alex. Relevant ruling comes from the final paragraph in the IPG defining TE:D/DLP:

…This infraction does not cover errors in registration made by another participant prior to a sealed pool swap, which should be corrected at the discretion of the judge.

Definitely confirm with Alex that the pool is corrected properly, but he should be fine after that. Issuing an infraction to Neil (the sealed pool registerant in the scenario, left unnamed initially) is possible, and I'd say in that case the infraction is FtFOA. I'm inclined to issue the infraction unless the floor is very busy for the sake of ensuring players are aware these things are important. However, the mistake is pretty minor and going out of my way to track down Neil when there is a lot to be done already seems like a detraction from the overall event.

It appears to me this is a simple deck/decklist error, so the decklist should be corrected to match the deck, and a game loss should be issued. Although he did not register the pool, he is responsible for it's verification. The fact that the card was in his sideboard doesn't seem like enough reason to downgrade.

I think the phrase in the IPG is to stop people from simply ignoring registration errors committed by another player for fear of recieving a penalty. After pool verification responsibility for these errors should fall on the player verifying the pool.

Actually i don't know if i would correct the decklist. i would ask him if he has a Setessan Griffin in his pocket (or can get one from anywhere), to make his deck/sideboard match his decklist…..if not he has lost a sideboard card no infraction for that. He has a deck that didn't match with his decklist. so he issued a D/DL proplem. No downgrade possible here for me, because i can't get the point, how i can be sure that the pool always contained the Battle Priest, unless i saw the pool on my own at the start of the pool registration.

Edited Patrick Morina (Dec. 12, 2013 03:59:37 PM)

“Based on interviewing Alex, you believe that the pool has always contained
the Battle Priest and not the Griffin. What do you do?”
seems like you definitely do think the pool should have battle priest in
it…

but i can't just believe a person with a D/DL problem just by interviewing him
additionaly just belive him isn't something that makes his D/DL problem less relevant

Edited Patrick Morina (Dec. 12, 2013 04:27:22 PM)

Originally posted by Patrick Morina:

but i can't just believe a person with a D/DL problem just by interviewing him
additionaly just belive him isn't something that makes his D/DL problem less relevant

In the real world this is a judgement you will have to make for yourself. However, for the purposes of this hypothetical Knowledge Pool scenario as presented, we are to assume that you can indeed believe him just by interviewing him. If you start selecting parts of the premise that you can't agree with, then the whole Knowledge Pool thing becomes useless as a learning tool :)

sorry for don't clearing this up. i just want to say, that it doesn't matter if i believe him or not. it will be a bad feeling for me to give him this gameloss, but in my opinion i have to. Thats what i've wanted to say with my comment above. hope this clears it up….if it is still not asked for this scenario than just ignore what i've said. and if im wrong i would love to learn from this scenario^^

Edited Patrick Morina (Dec. 12, 2013 04:42:16 PM)

Originally posted by Patrick Morina:

sorry for don't clearing this up. i just want to say, that it doesn't matter if i believe him or not. it will be a bad feeling for me to give him this gameloss, but in my opinion i have to. Thats what i've wanted to say with my comment above. hope this clears it up….if it is still not asked for this scenario than just ignore what i've said. and if im wrong i would love to learn from this scenario^^

But would you still look to correct the deck/pool to match the registered cards?

Originally posted by Gareth Tanner:

Patrick Morina
sorry for don't clearing this up. i just want to say, that it doesn't matter if i believe him or not. it will be a bad feeling for me to give him this gameloss, but in my opinion i have to. Thats what i've wanted to say with my comment above. hope this clears it up….if it is still not asked for this scenario than just ignore what i've said. and if im wrong i would love to learn from this scenario^^

But would you still look to correct the deck/pool to match the registered cards?

yes. i would correct the pool. two people confirmed that the card in his pool should be Setessan Griffin (probably three if he wasn't the person who rechecked the regestrated pool before swap) He confirmed that pool too. so he is playing an illegal card that shouldn't be in his pool. if it is a card out of his maindeck (which it isn't), he can find a replacement or he has to replace it with a basicland of his choice. out of his sideboard, he is allowed to find a replacement or that card is removed from his sideboard
(To note: the replacement has to be a Setessan Griffin). Thats my opinion on this.
I can see an argument to replace the griffon on his decklist with the priest. This argument would be, that he played the card in the round we check the deck. Like in a constructed format, where you match the decklist to the deck (if the card isn't illegal (Cheating if he uses it, knowing its illegal)), if something goes wrong. But that is not true for illegal cards. The Priest is general legal for use in a theros seald tournement, but its not legal for his deck (it wasn't in his pool/is not on the list of his pool)

Edited Patrick Morina (Dec. 12, 2013 08:01:58 PM)

are you able to imagine a situation in which a certain card is opened in
the pool, but a different card is marked on the sheet?