This thread is for discussing the article Communicating Policy by Alex Roebuck.

From today's article: “Example – Amy casts Surgical Extraction targeting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in Norman’s graveyard. Amy exiles the one from the graveyard, and then begins searching Norman’s library. She pulls out one Emrakul, then another, at which point Norman says “that’s it, I only play 3” and reveals his Emrakul-less hand. Amy stops searching and returns Norman’s deck. Several turns later, Norman uses his fourth Emrakul to win the game. There has been no infraction – the contents of Norman’s library/decklist are private information and he was not required to present them faithfully.”

I have issue with this because while you are not required to divulge the contents of your decklist, and you don't need to tell the opponent that they missed a copy of the card, the NAP here blatantly lied in an attempt to get the AP to stop looking through their library. MTR 4.1 States: “The philosophy of the DCI is that a player should have an advantage due to better understanding of the rules of a game, greater awareness of the interactions in the current game state, and superior tactical planning. Players are under no obligation to assist their opponents in playing the game. Regardless of anything else, players are expected to treat their opponents politely and with respect. Failure to do so may lead to Unsporting Conduct penalties”. How was the NAP in this situation being respectful of their opponent in anyway, by trying to get them to stop looking through their library? How is this not USC - Cheating?

If the AP had looked through the entire library, missed one copy and then asked if there was a fourth, that's one thing. This however was not prompted by a question from the AP, and rings of cheating in my head.

Thank you in advance for any and all responses to my concern here.

-Joe

What is in your library is private information, and you may lie about
private information at any time.

If someone says “I have three combat tricks in hand” to see if they can get
their opponent to not attack in, and you're standing behind them and know
it isn't true, would you also call that cheating?

Section 4.1 of the MTR explains what everyone can do with
free/derived/private information, and it specifically states that you only
must be truthful about free and derived information.

There is no infraction for lying about the contents of a hidden zone. You cannot lie about the number of objects in a zone. i.e. how many cards in your library.

No infraction means it is not cheating. This is not very sporting of the player to do this but they have committed no infractions.


Edit- Darn it CJ you is faster typist than I.

Edited Nick Rutkowski (June 17, 2014 05:34:42 PM)

This is one of the many situations that we run into as judges where a
player has not violated any rule of the game and isn't being sporting
towards their opponent, however they still have not been UNsporting and
this is a very important distinction to make. These situations are ones
that we should not try to police. As CJ pointed out you are allowed to lie
about your private information at any time and for any reason and these
sort of bluffs are something that players are allowed to do.

All in all, Surgical Extraction (along with spells of it's ilk) instruct the person resolving it to search the opponent's hand, graveyard, and library for all copies of the named spell and exile them. Therefore, it is up to Amy to search entirely through her opponent's deck for all copies of the named card. Norman isn't expected to help her.

Norman can lie about the contents of hidden zones.
Norman could also just be mistaken. Perhaps he thought he sideboarded 1 Emrakul out.

These options may be more or less sporting than each other (but neither ‘unsporting’), but hard to sort out and impossible to police.

Regardless of anything else, players are expected to treat their opponents politely and with respect. Failure to do so may lead to Unsporting Conduct penalties”. How was the NAP in this situation being respectful of their opponent in anyway, by trying to get them to stop looking through their library? How is this not USC - Cheating?

Bear in mind that there USC - Cheating is not the only Unsporting Conduct penalty. This section which you have quoted could apply to any of them, depending on the circumstances. Certain lapses of polite, respectful treatment will fall foul of USC - Minor, USC - Major or USC - Aggressive Behaviour, of which only one is handled with a Disqualification penalty.

As everyone has said before me, though, in this case the player has demonstrated a lack of sporting behaviour, but that is not necessarily the same as Unsporting Conduct.

Originally posted by Joseph Achille:

I have issue with this because while you are not required to divulge the contents of your decklist, and you don't need to tell the opponent that they missed a copy of the card, the NAP here blatantly lied in an attempt to get the AP to stop looking through their library. MTR 4.1 States: “The philosophy of the DCI is that a player should have an advantage due to better understanding of the rules of a game, greater awareness of the interactions in the current game state, and superior tactical planning. Players are under no obligation to assist their opponents in playing the game. Regardless of anything else, players are expected to treat their opponents politely and with respect. Failure to do so may lead to Unsporting Conduct penalties”. How was the NAP in this situation being respectful of their opponent in anyway, by trying to get them to stop looking through their library? How is this not USC - Cheating?

-Joe

I also don't like that this scenario is apparently allowed, but that's one of the reasons I chose to write the article and to include that example - it's really important as a judge to avoid trying to produce the results you would like to see by twisting policy to fit them (something judges in my own community know I'm sometimes guilty of). Sometimes you just have to put your gut feelings to one side, make the ruling that's actually supported by policy and then walk away from the table.

I'm not going to address other USC infractions here, but with regards to your question “How is this not USC - Cheating?” I will say that you've already provided your own answer. You've explained your own understanding of why the described actions are “allowed” (even if they're not polite/respectful/nice/sporting) and therefore can't be Cheating.

I still don't get it. In case AP asked his opponent about the number of
Emrakuls, NAP would be lying, and that's ok because it's a private zone.
But what NAP has done is encourage AP to commit a GRV (the card says to
search for all the copies). According to your example, NAP could even call
a judge because of that GRV, since AP didn't choose to “fail to find”,
right?

I can't complain about players being competitive-to-death, to lie to his
opponents about private information, or to remain silent about missed
triggers and questions, as long as they don't lie about public info, but…
encouraging the opponent to commit a rules error?


2014-06-19 1:37 GMT+02:00 Alex Roebuck <

Carlos, the player does not choose to fail to find, instead they are just not obligated to find all copies. Accidentally failing to find isn't a GRV. This isn't a rules error.

Originally posted by CR:

701.15b. If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that player isn't required to find some or all of those cards even if they're present in that zone.

Unless I'm mistaken, the function of the rule described by Jack is the reason behind the templating change between Extirpate and Surgical Extraction. The newer version makes it abundantly clear that leaving a copy behind is not a GRV.

This discussion might also be assisted by the Oracle text of Surgical Extraction, which reads in part:

…Search its owner's graveyard, hand, and library for any number of cards with the same name as that card and exile them. Then that player shuffles his or her library.

This discussion might also be assisted by the Oracle text of Surgical
Extraction, which reads in part:

…Search its owner's graveyard, hand, and library for *any number* of cards
with the same name as that card and exile them. Then that player shuffles
his or her library.

Jess, although I don't personally like this situation, you've given me a
key point to rule in favor of NAP.

Anyway, shouldn't we try to avoid giving these examples to players in order
to get a healthy tournament environment :P ?


2014-06-19 2:20 GMT+02:00 Jess Dunks <forum-10711-80c1@apps.magicjudges.org>
:

In my experience in Modern and from when Surgical Extraction was legal in Standard, most very competitive players are already familiar with exactly this scenario. Rather than try to keep quiet about it for the sake of our tournament environment, I think it's more important to educate the newer players judges to make sure that we understand what is and is not OK. This way, we can properly enforce the rules, and players will protect themselves by searching the whole deck, which they should be doing anyway to see what cards their opponent is playing/has boarded.

Personally, I don't find a player doing this particularly disturbing. It's a low-value bluff on the part of the Emrakul player because it's easy to check and prove wrong. When the fourth Emrakul is found, which it most often will be, he looks like a jerk. He's made no friends here, and everything else he says will be scrutinized for the rest of the match and possibly the rest of the event. Over time, the reputation for this kind of thing will cause all of his bluffs and word games to be worthless. Following that, players will most likely inquire with the judges about types of info and learn something useful, which they will take with them to other events. Looking at the big picture, someone trying to pull this off will end up bettering the community, unlike some of the more sinister “mind tricks” we could be talking about.