To be fair, this …

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 10:27 AM, Brian Schenck
<forum-7834-694a@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
>rather than being very sporting. No different than if it were a
> situation involving “taksie-backsies” and bad, but legal, decisions.

… is entirely begging the question, because you're assuming that
this behavior is “very sporting” rather than just “reasonable
communication.”

> While I agree to extent, I think it's also important to consider that
> communication is a two-way process.

Not only is communication a two way process, it depends on context.
We can “presume that Ahmed's intent was just using a colloquial term”
because that's what the vast majority of his audience would presume.
If you asked 100 legacy players ”What creature type does Fish refer
to?“ I would lay odds that the percentage is >99%.

That's how communication works. The fact that ”Fish“ is a magic
creature subtype defined in the comp rules might decrease the
percentage from 99% to 95%… is that enough to say it's ”unclear"?
Does the fact that it's coincidentally a magic creature subtype
defined in the CR change the way we interpret the statement?

Gavin

As a Legacy player, the idea that someone was talking about anything
other than merfolk when saying “fish” sounds pretty silly to me. You
might as well try to convince me that he meant “jellyfish” (also a
creature type) or “starfish.” There is a lot more room to introduce
confusion into the game in Eternal formats, which is all the more
reason not to reward a player for doing so.

Originally posted by Gavin Duggan:

Not only is communication a two way process, it depends on context. We can “presume that Ahmed's intent was just using a colloquial term” because that's what the vast majority of his audience would presume. If you asked 100 legacy players ”What creature type does Fish refer to?“ I would lay odds that the percentage is >99%.”

That's how communication works. The fact that “Fish” is a magic creature subtype defined in the comp rules might decrease the percentage from 99% to 95%… is that enough to say it's “unclear”? Does the fact that it's coincidentally a magic creature subtype defined in the CR change the way we interpret the statement?

Absolutely. There's several aspects to consider, and what might be a perfectly reasonable presumption to you, may not be a reasonable presumption to me, and it might even vary depending on the person you ask. The reverse is also very true. Sure, I'd guess that a majority of players might say “He probably meant ‘Merfolk’ when he said that.”, I'd also wonder about the response of players if asked “If you confirmed ‘Fish?’ and your opponent replied ‘Fish’, would you change your answer?”

It'd be an interesting survey to actually conduct, since it might tell us a lot about behavior in such situations. And then we could move away from conjecture about such statistics.

I'd be happy to start polling my local players.

I play “fish” frequently in legacy events. While I am careful to name Merfolk with my Caverns so there is no confusion, I can see others being not as careful.

Luckily, Legacy players have a very active community on The Source.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27369-Cavern-of-Souls

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Nick Rutkowski
<forum-7834-abf5@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

Originally posted by Nick Rutkowski:

I can see someone trying to argue the similarities between something like Meddling Mage naming “bob” meaning dark confidant. or Pithing Needle naming “shackles” meaning Vedalken Shackles.

Most judges allow the nicknames to be used with those scenarios. In a legacy event shackles is a legal card albeit one that is not even remotely played.

Edit for some clarity.

Another counter-argument to that is that some of those nicknames are officially/technically allowed. You are allowed to describe a unique card instead of giving it's name when you're prompted to name a card.

I'm not sure if the same is true for naming creature types. I don't think the rules allow you to describe a creature type XD

Edited Toby Hazes (Jan. 9, 2014 05:18:59 PM)

We definitely allow players to describe a creature type. Wouldn't you allow
“Whatever Tarmogoyf is” as an adequate declaration for Cavern?

Well if you're not sure about his type how can you be sure he has only one?

How can you be sure you're actually uniquely identifying a card from your
description of it? Do both players actually require an exhaustive knowledge
of every card ever printed to make this determination?

The point is that the players need to understand without ambiguity. They
can always call a judge if they need Oracle text or if they aren't sure how
many creature types Tarmogoyf has. (But the reality is that Tarmogoyf has a
silly creature type that many Magic players don't know how to pronounce,
but that they would recognize in print.) As such, a description of its
creature type that is clear to both players is just as useful as a
description of a card.

We (Philip Böhm and I) also asked this question on the mtgjudge-channel on IRC (before this thread was opened).

Interestingly enough, the (undisputed) answer from multiple different judges on there was the ‘ruling by intent’ saying ‘he obviously meant merfolk, so I consider Merfolk to be named - he can cast his Cursecatcher’.

At our Judgemeeting, the answers also went from ‘I always let him cast Cursecatcher’ through ‘It depends on the circumstances - It is ok if he immeditely cast Cursecatcher/It might be ok if there is a language-barrier’ all the way to ‘It is always Fish no matter what’.

Good to see this discussion to take off that well :).

Originally posted by Philip Körte:

there was the ‘ruling by intent’

For the sake of clarity, I must point out - the key word in that phrase is “was”. As in, years ago, there WAS the concept of Ruling By Intent.

That is no longer part of the Judge Program Canon. Ruling By Intent is an obsolete article and concept; the parts we wanted to live on, are incorporated into the IPG and MTR.

d:^D

Originally posted by Philip Körte:

We (Philip Böhm and I) also asked this question on the mtgjudge-channel on IRC (before this thread was opened).

Interestingly enough, the (undisputed) answer from multiple different judges on there was the ‘ruling by intent’ saying ‘he obviously meant merfolk, so I consider Merfolk to be named - he can cast his Cursecatcher’.

I was a part of that conversation and I don't recall anyone using that phrase, as it would have been shut down for the reasons stated by Scott.

Edited Riki Hayashi (Jan. 9, 2014 09:31:46 PM)

It seems to me that the key factor here is that in the OP, Norbert makes a reasonable confirmation of the choice of “fish” as the creature type. Yes, as others have said, communication is a two-way-street, but I can't find in the scenario where Norbert acted wrongly. He could definitely have gone above and beyond to further educate Ahmed about the likely error of his choice, but that is nowhere indicated in our rules.

In any situation where I might rule otherwise, they seem narrow corner cases. For example, in Chinese, the term for merfolk is, literally, “fish man.” If I had sufficient reason to believe that there was a very real language issue and the speaker used a term not in his native tongue that was literally printed on the card he meant to describe, I could see a grounds for allowing the change. Otherwise, given that Ahmed named a legal creature type and Norbert further took action to confirm that choice, neither presented scenario seems sufficient grounds to allow a change.

Originally posted by Gavin Duggan:

Not only is communication a two way process, it depends on context.
We can “presume that Ahmed's intent was just using a colloquial term”
because that's what the vast majority of his audience would presume.
If you asked 100 legacy players ”What creature type does Fish refer
to?“ I would lay odds that the percentage is >99%.

That's how communication works. The fact that ”Fish“ is a magic
creature subtype defined in the comp rules might decrease the
percentage from 99% to 95%… is that enough to say it's ”unclear"?
Does the fact that it's coincidentally a magic creature subtype
defined in the CR change the way we interpret the statement?

As much as I agree with this (and believe me, I really do and would like this to become policy more than anything), I've had previous discussions where it's been heavily stated that this is not actually part of policy and hence we can't rule in this sort of manner. Recently (maybe a month or so ago) there was a discussion based on what the word “swing” means in game terms, and IIRC it was brought up that since that word has no official game meaning (in any of the official documents) then some ruling ended up being really weird (to me, anyway). I don't recall the details, but this is one example of something that comes up quite regularly on this forum.

Also, speaking as a Legacy player, when I need to name a card or a creature type or something else, I name my things properly unless the environment is super-casual, and I expect my opponents to do the same, because ambiguity is a thing. If my opponent calls “fish” on his Cavern of Souls and I allow it thinking he means Merfolk, and then I suddenly get blown out by some infinite combo involving Breaching Hippocamp and Cloudstone Curio, that's entirely my fault.

EDIT: Bad example; apparently “Whale” wasn't erased in the Great Creature Type Update.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Jan. 10, 2014 02:31:21 AM)

FWIW, whales are mammals, not fish. >___>

(cheap comic relief; not counterpoint)


2014/1/10 Lyle Waldman <forum-7834-4cdf@apps.magicjudges.org>