Originally posted by Mike Noss:

He did not intentionally put the Azorius Charm in the graveyard from the get go planning this elaborate scheme.

I'd like to point out that regardless of what happened subsequently, it was correct to put the Azorius Charm in the graveyard. It would have been a GRV to return it directly to his hand.

Originally posted by Mike Noss:

Immediately the NAP noticed that the Azorius Charm was not in his hand as he wanted it to be, but chose not to say anything.

It sounds to me like NAP was aware of his trigger at the time that it triggered (i.e. just after Azorius Charm was put into the graveyard), and he chose to ignore it.

As described, this unequivocally seems like Cheating - Fraud to me. From the IPG:

Players are expected to remember their own triggers; intentionally ignoring one is considered Cheating — Fraud.

By the player's own admission, he intentionally ignored a triggered ability triggering with the hopes of having it placed on the stack at a later, more strategically advantageous time. However, this does appear to depend significantly on the player immediately declining to point out the trigger, before it was too late and would have been considered missed anyway.

If the player had clearly missed the trigger (realizing, for instance, during his opponent's draw step), would the situation be the same? I am inclined to say so, given that:

it is Fraud if a player (or teammate) notices an offense in his or her match and does not immediately call attention to it

and it is (I believe) an offense to miss a trigger, even if it is not detrimental. I would be curious to hear other thoughts on this, however.

Originally posted by Dillon Plunkett:

As described, this unequivocally seems like Cheating - Fraud to me. From the IPG:

Players are expected to remember their own triggers; intentionally ignoring one is considered Cheating — Fraud.

By the player's own admission, he intentionally ignored a triggered ability triggering with the hopes of having it placed on the stack at a later, more strategically advantageous time. However, this does appear to depend significantly on the player immediately declining to point out the trigger, before it was too late and would have been considered missed anyway.

If the player had clearly missed the trigger (realizing, for instance, during his opponent's draw step), would the situation be the same? I am inclined to say so, given that:

it is Fraud if a player (or teammate) notices an offense in his or her match and does not immediately call attention to it

and it is (I believe) an offense to miss a trigger, even if it is not detrimental. I would be curious to hear other thoughts on this, however.

Hi Dillon

Two things I would like to point out:

1. One thing I missed in my original response is that Tamiyo's emblem creates a “May” ability.

2. The original poster stated that the player did not intentionally miss this trigger. He just missed it and realized afterwards, then tried to get it put on the stack at a more advantageous time.

For me, this comes down to a player saying the following:

“Judge, there is a card in my graveyard that could have been in my hand if I had not forgot about my trigger. Can I put it in my hand now that he has declared attackers?”

My answer would simply be no.

Edited Bob Narindra (Oct. 22, 2012 09:43:00 PM)

Saying nothing at the time it triggered doesn't seem so bad. Lots of players ignore may abilities that they don't want to use.

However, when he brings attention to it later, he KNOWS that he has chosen not to use it by failing to draw attention to it at the right time, so by trying to get at it later, he is Cheating - Fraud. Basically, his lie comes from knowing that he has chosen not to use it, and now calling a judge to try to get to use it at a later time.

I'd be ok if he didn't draw any attention to it because he wasn't going to use the may ability. But, he can't choose to not use it now and then try to get it later legally. The OPPONENT has that option, because the IPG gives him that option, but the trigger player CANNOT miss his own triggers intentionally. By trying to get at the trigger later, the guy has intentionally missed his own optional trigger and is now trying to get the option later, which he KNOWS he can't do.

It's a stupid lie, but still a lie. And he CAN gain advantage by it. Aside from the fact that he gives the opp a chance to err by allowing it onto the stack, the judge might make an error and put it on the stack anyway. Hoping a judge makes an error is not cheating. But, lying first and trying to get a judge to make an error that rewards your lie is cheating.

So, I'd have to be there to see how hard he's pushing it and how it gets presented to me. But in the abstract, I can see DQ'ing someone for this. I can also see ways that it could go down which might result in a stern chat, but yes, for me a DQ is a possibility here.

Eric Shukan
L3
Woburn, MA USA
—– Original Message —–
From: Steven Zwanger
To: eshukan@verizon.net
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: Possible Cheating Scenario (Competitive REL)


Mike Noss
He did not intentionally put the Azorius Charm in the graveyard from the get go planning this elaborate scheme.

I'd like to point out that regardless of what happened subsequently, it was correct to put the Azorius Charm in the graveyard. It would have been a GRV to return it directly to his hand.


Mike Noss
Immediately the NAP noticed that the Azorius Charm was not in his hand as he wanted it to be, but chose not to say anything.

It sounds to me like NAP was aware of his trigger at the time that it triggered (i.e. just after Azorius Charm was put into the graveyard), and he chose to ignore it.

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Eric's last paragraph is important in discussions like this. In almost all cases, a DQ decision will be a “had to be there” answer. We can't read the player, ask the player questions, etc. So you can make abstract calls, like Eric did, but you really can't say “oh, this is a clear DQ situation”. If you could, you wouldn't have to ask in a forum to figure it out. :)

Originally posted by Eric Shukan:

By trying to get at the trigger later, the guy has intentionally missed his own optional trigger and is now trying to get the option later, which he KNOWS he can't do.

I'd like to further clarify something here. The player in question does not know he can not do this. In fact he does call a judge because he believes he can do this within the rules. He merely waits to call the judge for a time at which it is most advantageous to do so.

I will also echo Shawn's most recent point about needing to be there to be able to read the player and ask further questions. I will say though that it is these possibilities that make it worthwhile to discuss how slightly different events may change your ruling and where you should be paying attention during an investigation to find these points out.

On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 4:19 AM, Shawn Doherty <
forum-1656@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> 2) There is a difference between not committing an infraction and
> receiving no penalty for committing an infraction. Any time you don't
> acknowledge one of your triggers, you are committing an infraction “Missed
> Trigger”. However, a player only receives a penalty if it was detrimental.


Even if every judge in the world is exceptionally clear that they are
awarding Missed Trigger but there is no penalty because of XY&Z I wouldn't
expect more than 25% of players to remember this difference. Also I'd
expect every such ruling to take much more time and leave the players
confused.

Hence I'm not sure I would expect players to act as if doing something that
has no penalty was bad. And thus not DQ them for attempting to abuse
something that they believe and really isn't punished.

–
Gareth Pye
Level 2 Judge, Melbourne, Australia
Australian MTG Forum: mtgau.com
gareth@cerberos.id.au - www.rockpaperdynamite.wordpress.com
“Dear God, I would like to file a bug report”

So what did you do?

Originally posted by William Anderson:

So what did you do?

It's hardly been a day, I'd like to leave it open to discussion for little while longer before sharing how I handled the situation.

Sorry everyone for the very delayed response here. I was also hoping the discussion would continue, but without further delay, this was my answer to the solution.

The player had chosen to not use an optional trigger at the time it triggered. Despite the player wanting to use the trigger at a later point in time, he had already missed the opportunity at the appropriate time. His misunderstanding of the new policy caused him to call a judge at a later point in time thinking he would be able to put the trigger on the stack. I ruled that no cheating had occurred due to the fact that the trigger had been optional. Had the trigger not been optional, he would have intentionally not said anything about his trigger, which he noticed at an appropriate time, and as Dillon pointed out above would have gotten him disqualified for Cheating-Fraud. As such, I felt he did not actually do anything wrong, but his thought process in his actions were not something we wanted to encourage so I gave him a stern talking to and instilled quite a bit of fear into him to not think like that anymore due to the infraction he could potentially commit and the resulting penalty.

Thank you all for participating in this discussion.

-Mike