Lets see the Cheating definition:

A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a tournament official, or notices an offense
committed in his or her (or a teammate's) match and does not call attention to it.

Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:

• The player must be attempting to gain advantage from his or her action. (Not get a Warning/Game Loss)
• The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal. (Knew there was an infraction and didn't call the judge)

I'm not saying this is cheating, but at least it fits the definition.

Do you think the situation is different if they are trying to avoid a Game Loss instead of a Warning?

The responsability of the player is to call attention to it. The documents don't say he has to call a judge attention to it. A player who call attention of his opponent is fulfilling his responsabilities and cannot be cheating. We would still prefer that he also calls a judge, but that's room for education, not cheating.

Players are responsible for:
Bringing to a judge’s attention any rules or policy infraction they notice in their matches.

Tournament Rules 1.10

Why not post the article and then the people can talk after reading?
The spanish judges know perfectly who writes the article…

Calling a judge when your opponent breaks the rules or policies is always OK, even if it feels like they're rules lawyering. We want players to call judges so that fair fixes can be applied and the players can play more magic.

Not calling a judge and trying to fix the issue yourself is a grey are in practice (though not in policy - if a player notices that somehting has gone wrong, they should call a judge). We all know that players will fix out of order sequencing, incorrect activation of mana abilities during the casting of a spell (in this example, fixing the lands before the game moves on is probably OK) and in most of these scenarios I would not penalise a player for not calling a judge.

I've already stated my opinion in that FB post (hell yeah, Spanish community has made some kind of flame-war there… :D). I think it's extremely competitive playing, certainly not sportive nor nice. But that's completely legal, even if disgusting, IMHO.

Baiting an opponent so they walk right into a penalty is not inherently bad within the rules of the game. It is very not sporting but it is not unsporting. If you catch my drift. People believe that playing the rules is part of playing the game. We cant force our personal beliefs on a player if we don't agree with their actions. Unless they break a rule.

In my experience players who choose to be this type of player are not good at the game and they use “tricks” to compensate.

We are Judges not the Jury nor the executioner!

Originally posted by Josh Stansfield:

“B. A player inappropriately demands to a judge that her opponent receive a penalty.” doesn't sound like it fits here.

Just to emphasize the distinction here, it's fine for a player to wish and hope that their opponent gets a GL or DQ. There's absolutely no “pure intentions” check here.

What they can't do is try to influence the judge's decision on whether to issue a penalty to their opponent by openly requesting that result. They also can't lean on the judge by voicing what they think the correct outcome should be.

Issuing penalties is very much like an umpire calling balls and strikes. There's some subjectivity at the edge of the plate, but it's the ump's job to make the call on his own. As baseball fans know that if a batter starts arguing “that should have been ball four” he's going to get ejected so fast it will make your head spin. Even if a player were correct that their opponent should be penalized, they have no standing to be making such argument and even hearing it out would make the final determination seem (or actually be) less impartial.

Originally posted by Glenn Fisher:

What they can't do is try to influence the judge's decision on whether to issue a penalty to their opponent by openly requesting that result. They also can't lean on the judge by voicing what they think the correct outcome should be.

MtG isn't baseball. It's not necessarily a problem for a player to ask “shouldn't my opponent get a game loss for that?” It's only really a problem if you say “No” and then they continue to demand some kind of harsher penalty or otherwise question your final ruling.

Regarding to the main questions

Yes, it's ok to call a judge everytime you need help or sense anything is
wrong.
Yes, it's ok if a player asks if a penalty is appropiate for his opponent,
as long as he doesn't incurs into USC-Minor
Yes, I'd upgrade a third penalty. That's what the IPG tells us.
Yes, although I'd prefer players to call a judge when they notice anything
wrong, but it's ok for me if they fix it by themselves as long as they
don't break the rules. “You took 3 from my Nacatl; ok; no, wait, 2, you
take 2”. If both players are ok, I'm not gonna get into that game and issue
a penalty. And I don't think is cheating.

For the Goblin guide question I sense I'd need to know more, to investigate
a bit, because in case I came to the conclusion that the blocking player
forced the situation in order to make his opponent make a mistake, I'd give
no penalty for Missed trigger, and instead I'd check if a Cheating is
happening, or just a player unaware of the rules trying to be competitive
as hell.

The same for asking about discard. I'd investigate a bit, although It seems
to me more of a deeper knowledge of the rules than an attemp to lure his
opponent into making a mistake.

I believe that the rules and infractions of a game are rights and dutys to
players, not tools.


2014-06-13 23:47 GMT+02:00 Josh Stansfield <

I see no problem here with that player's behaviour.

1) If his opponent repeatedly “forgets” the Guide trigger and he just reminds the opponent, then we might be letting a cheater go by. So yes, he should repeatedly ask “May I block?”. Tbh, it's not like he's going to be attacked by Guides all day long.

2) This one is more obvious. If you don't ask before discarding you run the risk of giving info to an opponent that might have EoT action.

@OP: Unfortunately I was unable to understand your examples. Could you be a bit more clear? Specifically, I didn't understand which side of the table (in the first, the controller of Goblin Guide or the opponent, in the 2nd the player discarding or the opponent) he was. This changes how I would respond to your question.

@Bryan: It's noteworthy that one of your silly examples, “My opponent looked at his hand before deciding whether to play or draw”, is a “legitimate” judge call (defining “legitimate” as “a judge call based on a player performing an illegal action”). In this case, the fix is relatively simple and well-known among judges, but to players it may not be.

Edited Lyle Waldman (June 24, 2014 01:47:25 PM)

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

@OP: Unfortunately I was unable to understand your examples. Could you be a bit more clear? Specifically, I didn't understand which side of the table (in the first, the controller of Goblin Guide or the opponent, in the 2nd the player discarding or the opponent) he was. This changes how I would respond to your question.

Lyle, I think we could safetly assume that the situation is not about performing illegal stuff, but improperly (or not) calling a judge for infractions.

Therefore, the example of GG involves NAP facing a GG and saying “may I block?” before calling a judge, because AP didn't tell him to reveal (GPE-MT). And the other involves AP saying “may I discard?” and calling a judge, because his opponent said yes and then played something (GPE-GRV).



I think the worst case scenario in current Standard is Desecration Demon, wich is discussed in another post. The controller should almost always remember the opponent that he has the opportunity to sac, even if he doesn't attack. And not doing so is GPE-MT (as DD ability is detrimental). I do enforce that and apply the sanction, but I have had twice players facing a DD that do stuff like saying “end” after drawing, and when the opponent tries to take his turn calls a judge to get the infraction. Seeing the infraction when you are not called is even worst, cause you should intervene, although almost no judge I've seen cares about it. After the discussion in that post I just took Scotts advice and start the torunaments explaingin they should almost always remember their opponent they have a chance to sacrefice (at least for a while). Still, I think we need to stick to the rules on this cases, is the players right to call us, and we shouldn't deviate from the rules just because they call us to often. Bryan option is Ok too, but you need to be careful about those examples (as Lyle says).

Edited Joaquín Ossandón (June 26, 2014 09:12:32 AM)

Please, can somebody post a link to that article?

http://winandin.es/blog/judge-its-a-trap-por-dani-toledo/

It's written in Spanish.


2014-06-26 14:51 GMT+02:00 Javier Martin <