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Competitive REL » Post: Neighbor hit my library..

Neighbor hit my library..

July 22, 2014 05:09:46 PM

Katsuhisa Kanazawa
Judge (Level 2 (International Judge Program)), Scorekeeper

Japan

Neighbor hit my library..

I believe it is already answered, but I could not find by search, so ask what is suitable…

I was a floor judge of modern PTQ. It was close to full of venue capacity (200), so player space was bit smaller than usual. Alan placed his library at right hand side. Bob, his neighbor at next table, placed it at left hand side, so their libraries were side-by-side. Alan activated fetch land, and hit Bob's library accidentally. Bob's library top were slipped off to his space.

Fortunately, slipped off cards kept its order and nothing revealed. So I put back those cards to Bob's library with the order and asked Alan to be careful going forward without any penalty. If Bob's library top was splashed and revealed any cards, what is the infraction ? or still no penalty ?

July 22, 2014 05:20:27 PM

Mark Mc Govern
Judge (Level 2 (International Judge Program))

United Kingdom, Ireland, and South Africa

Neighbor hit my library..

An interesting question. The Definition from the IPG says “A player looks at a card they were not entitled to see”. Strictly speaking, if the neighbour knocks one of Bob's cards face up, the neighbour has indeed seen a card they are not entitled to see. As such they would get the usual Warning, and you would apply the usual fix.

Alternatively, you could argue that the Neighbour's clumsiness and carelessness has caused enough disruption to warrant USC-Minor, but I think that would be stretching that infraction definition exceptionally far.

I think that, weird as it is, L@EC is the way to handle this.

July 22, 2014 05:27:56 PM

Scott Marshall
Forum Moderator
Judge (Level 4 (Judge Foundry)), Hall of Fame

USA - Southwest

Neighbor hit my library..

USC should not be applied to accidents. (Reckless behavior that results in an accident might be USC, but that's a different story.)

I'd give Alan Looking At Extra Cards, mostly just to record it. It's highly unlikely he's doing that on purpose, but if so, a pattern of behavior gets recorded and may be investigated.

d:^D

July 28, 2014 02:56:00 PM

Nicholas Murado
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Southeast

Neighbor hit my library..

it's a L@EC warning for looking at cards in a completely different match?

July 28, 2014 03:14:23 PM

Monsuporn Lauhaphand
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

Southeast Asia

Neighbor hit my library..

We give penalty because we want player to be more careful in future even
it's not his match. Without given a penalty, sound like we let players can
commit an accident to different match without consequence (which we do not
like it.)

July 28, 2014 11:53:29 PM

Talin Salway
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Pacific West

Neighbor hit my library..

In this situation, if Alan had 2 previous offenses for L@EC (say, for looking at too many when scrying), should the Warning in this case be upgraded to a Game Loss?

I would imagine the first 2 Warnings would have Alan playing pretty carefully to not get a 3rd, but Bob's actions are presumably outside his control.

July 29, 2014 01:12:15 AM

Dennis Nolting
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

German-speaking countries

Neighbor hit my library..

But in the given situation Alan is the one not playing carefully isn't he? To hit his neighbours library doesn't seem careful to me^^

Edited Dennis Nolting (July 29, 2014 01:12:51 AM)

July 29, 2014 02:54:34 AM

Talin Salway
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Pacific West

Neighbor hit my library..

Originally posted by Dennis Nolting:

But in the given situation Alan is the one not playing carefully isn't he? To hit his neighbours library doesn't seem careful to me^^

Ah. I realize now that despite rereading the scenario a few times, I thought Bob had knocked Alan's library, not the other way around. I definitely agree that the player who accidentally knocks the library merits the Warning.

so, in this scenario, Bob (who's library was knocked) would not receive a Warning for L@EC?

July 29, 2014 12:40:02 PM

Maykel .
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

Southeast Asia

Neighbor hit my library..

We shouldn't give penalty to Bob, for what Alan did. He is sort of the “victim” in that scenario. He didn't commit any infraction.

About the upgrade if Alan has 2 prior warning for L@EC, there's no reason not to upgrade. He has been warned to play more carefully before (twice), which he has failed to do. So an upgrade to Game Loss should be applied.

July 30, 2014 09:55:45 PM

Matthew Turnbull
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Great Lakes

Neighbor hit my library..

I would have done the same thing as you here, and would have of course cautioned Bob to be more careful in the future but don't want to give a penalty here because it doesn't fall under anything I see.

If the cards had been revealed I would have given Bob L@EC and used the standard remedy there, but not Alan since he was in no way responsible for looking at the cards in the same way we don't give player's opponents L@EC for seeing the extra cards that were revealed by the player receiving the penalty.