Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool! As a reminder, Silver scenarios are designed for those who are working up to an L2 level of IPG understanding. As such, if you are L2 or higher please refrain from responding or guiding others until Friday. This gives those who are still growing in their IPG knowledge ample time to learn from each other and have a conversation.

The blog post for this scenario can be found here:
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1006

During a deck check in round 4 of a PTQ, you do a quick ‘fan’ of the player's deck, face down. You notice that ten of the cards seem to be in sleeves that are a millimeter or two smaller than the rest. Those ten cards are 3 Hero's Downfall, 3 Dreadbore, and 4 Ultimate Price. You ask the player about his sleeving process, and he says that he sorted the deck, filled out his deck list, then sleeved. He also mentions that he had to use two packs, because the first pack only had 50 sleeves. You've ruled out any type of Cheating. What do you do?

A couple millimeters are pretty noticeable, and have a reasonable chance to compromise the game, especially since all the cards in question are pretty scary removal cards. An opponent who picks up on this pattern will be able to use this knowledge to his great advantage, and now that the player is completely aware of this problem he too would definitely be able to use this knowledge as well, even if he doesn't mean to.

I would rule this as as a TE-MC, and help the player resleeve his cards so that they are all properly uniform. I would also explain to the player that he should always shuffle his cards before sleeving, to prevent this situation from happening again. I would also talk to the Head Judge about upgrading this penalty to a game loss because the similarity of these marked cards makes it very hard to believe that this situation wouldn't compromise the integrity of games played with this deck, be it for this player or his opponents' advantage. This would also give for more time to fix the sleeving problem, as I can imagine that even with help, obtaining new sleeves and resleeving them will take a significant amount of time.

It is apparent that these cards are being described as “marked”. A millimeter or two is enough to easily tell the difference when shuffling or even just looking at the top of your deck. We are told that this is not cheating and that the player was not aware that the cards are marked. The infraction is TE-MC.

Marked Cards usually carries a warning, with an upgrade to a game loss if “a player noticing the pattern…would clearly compromise the integrity of the game” at the discretion of the head judge. We are not evaluating whether the player intended to compromise the integrity of the game, or even if they intended to create a pattern - the fact that we have ten similar spells all marked the same way is sufficient for this, so our penalty is a game loss.

Our “fix” is that we explain to the player that we determined that a number of their cards are marked, in a way that could potentially create an advantage for a player noticing the pattern. While we're convinced that they didn't do this on purpose, the penalty is still a game loss. They must make their deck consistent by replacing either the marked sleeves, or all of them, or by playing without sleeves. I suggest the player do the same to their sideboard, as those cards are likely marked in the same way. I also suggest that the player shuffle their cards before sleeving in the future to avoid any easily recognizable pattern like this. They will receive a time extension for the deck check plus 3 minutes, the player must fix their deck in a reasonable amount of time, and then they will play an unsideboarded game 2.

These cards have a feature that a player could use to distinguish them from other cards in the deck. They are marked cards, so the player has committed Tournament Error - Marked Cards. The penalty for this is a warning. Given that there was a pattern to the marked cards, and a player noticing this pattern could gain an advantage, the head judge has the option (but not the requirement), to upgrade to a game loss.

As an additional remedy, the player needs to bring his deck to a not-marked condition, probably by resleeving. I would give a time extension based on how long it takes to resleeve, although this isn't explicitly supported in the IPG under additional remedy.

I agree with the posts made about TE-Marked Cards with possible upgrade to Game Loss. He can play without sleeves if he has them or he can replace them. Time extensions for the deck check should include resleeving time but not time to go and buy more sleeves if he doesn't have them.

Being pretty familiar with Standard I'd want to check to see if there were four Dreadbores and four Hero's Downfall in the deck. I'd expect people to run more of these than the Ultimate Price which I see more commonly as a 2 of with additional in sideboard. I know we're ruling out cheating but if he's got 4, 4, 4 of these cards, his sorting story doesn't quite line up. If he's got just the 3, 3, 4 then he's fine.

Seems like pretty obvious TE - Marked Cards. I've had this problem myself before (as a player) but have never been able to notice which sleeves are smaller, so I'm not sure I would recommend the upgrade to a game loss. On top of which, this is presumably a beginning of round deckcheck, meaning that giving a GL wouldn't “save time” (as someone above suggested); both players would have to wait to start the match anyway, and we have no reason to believe that these players will even go to time in the first place.

Additional remedy is of course to re-sleeve the deck. If possible, I would ask a judge (or do it myself if I didn't have other responsibilities) to assist the player in resleeving his deck away from the table to speed up the process. A simple de-sleeve, shuffle of the sleeves, then resleeve should be sufficient to remove the marked pattern. As suggested earlier in the thread, pretty much all sleeves have variations, so asking the player to go out and buy new sleeves for this occasion is not required here.

@Marc DeArmond: We are assuming that the problem is being noticed during a deck check (it says so in the statement in the OP) so we already know the contents of the deck. Assuming “no cheating” means the story lines up with what we know, which is the contents of the deck.

I agree with all the TE-Marked Cards assessments, and I also agree with the upgrade to a Game Loss. The fact that the Judge noticed the marking without a whole lot of effort means it would have been possible for someone to gain advantage from it. Cheating was ruled out, so the Judges don't think the player was aware of the marking, but even if no player has noticed it yet that doesn't mean no one will in future games.

A very similar thing happened to me as a player a couple years ago. The Judge staff did their job right with the investigation and interviews. They believed my (true) explanation for the root cause of the marking, and I guess what they heard from my opponents indicated I was either completely oblivious to the marking or the most incompetent cheater ever. The explanation I got for the infraction assessment, Game Loss penalty, and proper remedy was very thorough and satisfying. For a Game Loss, it was a very positive experience.

This brings to mind a very clever investigation done by Jared Sylva at an SCG Invitational where I judged.

There was a similar issue with sleeves that raised eyebrows. Rather than approach the player, the judges just moved the sleeves around so they would follow a very different pattern. The next day they did a deck check first thing in the morning and discovered that the marked sleeves reverted to their earlier pattern. I'll leave the penalty issued as an exercise for the reader.

Of course, if we can rule out cheating then I agree with many of my colleagues in issuing a game loss.

Samuel; interesting line for investigation. Is SCG Invi a 2 days event for every player, or has a cut on day 1? Allowing such a long time investigation is quite risky, because you can't assure the integrity of the tournament during quite a long time, and you allow a player to play with marked cards all day 1. It would be awesome if you or Jared could open a thread on “Tournament Operation” with this story, I thiink the disscussion would be quite valuable.

Well done everyone! This is a situation which can arise pretty easily, and the answers you gave tended to be spot on. This is definitely marked cards, due to the varying sizes of the player's sleeves. In addition, because of this line in the IPG,

The Head Judge has the option to upgrade this penalty to a Game Loss if he or she believes that a player noticing the pattern of markings would clearly compromise the integrity of the game.

we have encountered a situation in which we should upgrade the penalty to a game loss. While we don't think the player has been taking advantage of the situation, if noticed there's plenty of potential for them to do so, since all 10 of the different sleeves contain removal spells. The player should replace their sleeves immediately, with completely new sleeves. Advise the player to shuffle their sleeves together in the future before putting their cards in them, and keep in mind that the sideboard sleeves should be replaced as well. If possible, assist the player in their re-sleeving process, and remember that the resleeving needs to happen away from their opponent.

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Edited Patrick Vorbroker (March 12, 2014 01:59:31 AM)