Welcome to Personal Tutor, where we learn how to maximize our opportunities for education. Our goal is to transcend the basic answer to create an informative answer that the players will really remember and teaches them something about the rules, rather than just resolving this ruling. You may even find this process helps you come to a better understanding of the rules yourself.

For this month's scenario, you'll actually be shadowing another judge on the call:

You and Judge Jones are watching the floor at a GPT, when you see Alexanderson's hand raised. Jones makes it there first, and asks Alexanderson and Nelson to explain.

Alexanderson asks, “I attacked with a Summit Prowler. My opponent blocked with Custodian of the Trove. If I cast Dromoka's Command on my Prowler, can I fight my Nelson's Stampeding Elk Herd and then still kill the Custodian when we go to combat damage?“

Jones answers, ”I can't answer that, since I'd have to provide you with derived information.“

The player says, ”Um… okay. Well, my Howler will have 5 power, so it should kill the Elks, and since the Custodian blocked it, and it has 5 toughness, it'll still die, right? Even though my Prowler also dies?“

Nelson says, “Yeah, I'm confused now too.”

Jones responds, ”Sorry, I can't predict future game states."

Tell us what you do next. Do you intervene? Do you give Jones feedback away from the table? As usual, we're going to ask you to provide an actual quote from yourself in this situation, rather than a general description.

L1s and Judge Candidates, feel free to give your answers immediately. L2s, please wait a day to add your input. L3+, please wait two days.

Edited John Brian McCarthy (June 4, 2015 05:08:31 PM)

This is a really interesting situation. At FNM, I'd ask the players to walk me through each step of the proposed interaction but that's not appropriate at Competitive.

A has demonstrated awareness of how fight works - he mentions that he expects the Prowler to die, but is confused about the timing.
I would say this to the players:

After blocks are declared, both players get opportunities to cast spells. Once you move to the combat damage step, combat is resolved for any creatures still alive. Attacking creatures that were blocked (but their blockers died) only deal damage if they have trample. Attacking creatures that died aren't alive to deal damage any more!

Of course, in order to get to this point, we need to work out a way to diplomatically involve ourselves without damaging the integrity of the players' relationship with Jones (and indeed ours!)
I think it's important to intervene with the players - both express confusion and this isn't a positive interaction with the judging staff.

The simplest way is to look at Jones and say “May I?” - this acknowledges that Jones is making the call, and that you believe you have something that can help.
If then interacting directly with the players, I'd say something like this:

My colleague is correct in that we can't provide strategic information as judges, but we can help answer your rules questions. Which part of your plan has confused you?

This gets the player to talk about a card resolving, and the rules associated therein. The confusion is likely “I don't know if Summit Prowler will die from the fight before dealing combat damage” - which we can then clear up by explaining that state-based actions are checked after the resolution of the Command, and the Prowler will die due to lethal damage.

If interacting with Jones and letting him handle the call, I'd say something like:

Jones, remember that we are here to help and can answer rules questions. Perhaps asking where the confusion arises from will get them to ask a rules question?

Chatting to Jones about this call after the fact should be done, but without knowing the type of person Jones is, it makes it very difficult to plan out a conversation with him! I'd go for the reflective route and then talk about the philosophy behind judging, most likely.

FNM is one thing, of course - but this is a GPT and thus is being run at Competitive. Players at this level should understand the rules to a reasonable degree and better yet, understand their cards.

I'd ask the players to wait a moment, then pull Judge Jones aside. I'd suggest that he return to the table and add an additional question along the lines of what Jon just suggested, allowing Jones to take the step so he can learn from the experience. The advice I would give Jones would be to return to the game and ask Alexanderson first whether or not he has a specific rules question he would like to ask. I'd then suggest that if he indicates that he would like to, that Judge Jones should ask Alexanderson if he'd like to step away from the table to do so.

From that point, it depends one what Alexanderson asks, which we can't know at this point. I think the important part of this is giving the best customer service we can - by allowing for Alexanderson to ask a more detailed question away from the table, perhaps he can have a moment to think about the correct way to frame his question to understand the how SBAs would affect his proposed actions - or not.

I'd also ask Judge Jones to make sure he makes the same offer to Nelson before asking both players if there is anything else he can do before moving away from the table.

Assuming JJ leaves the table, I'd want to keep an eye on the game as it progresses from that point until they end either Combat or that turn to make sure no GRV's end up needing to be issued.