You are the head judge of a PPTQ. Allan is playing against Norma. Alan is attacking with Anafenza the Foremost and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Norma blocks with two Elvish Visionary's. Combat damage resolves, and Norma starts moving her creatures to the graveyard. Allan say, “no, those are exiled and I get two zombies,” pointing to Kalitas.

Do you intervene, investigate, and/or infract?

(You have an inconsistent number of Ls in A's name).

I wouldn't do anything in this situation. A would be benefiting from his rules knowledge, which is fine to do. He's talking about Derived information (game rules), so he can't say something incorrect (lest it be a CPV). Applying Kalitas's replacement effect before Anafenza's is perfectly legal, just not optimal for N. A is under no obligation to list off all of N's available options.

Edited Matt Marheine (Feb. 3, 2016 12:45:55 PM)

What do you think? Has either player done anything illegal?

I find this situation similar to the “you should take my loxodon smiter with your thoughtseize.” AP is proposing a legal decision for NP to make. And its NP's responsibility to understand how replacement effects work, and if they are confused to call a judge. I'm calling this as no infraction.

This very situation arose in the finals of a PPTQ I was head judging. I intervened by telling A “I'm sorry, that is not a choice you are entitled to make” and instructed N to make a choice. I gave A a Warning for GPE:GRV.

Dan, this feels wrong to me. When I discussed this in the Northeast slack, the situation was a little different–cause I had Al(l)an ask “and I get two zombies?”

I hate hate hate situations where saying the exact right phrasing make the difference between a legit bluff and an infraction bordering on cheating. But in this case, by stating that Norma's creature don't go to the yard and that he does definitely get two zombies, I feel as though he's misrepresenting the rules and the state of the game.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

Dan, this feels wrong to me. When I discussed this in the Northeast slack, the situation was a little different–cause I had Al(l)an ask “and I get two zombies?”

I hate hate hate situations where saying the exact right phrasing make the difference between a legit bluff and an infraction bordering on cheating. But in this case, by stating that Norma's creature don't go to the yard and that he does definitely get two zombies, I feel as though he's misrepresenting the rules and the state of the game.

Just to be clear, though, you would need to investigate to determine whether this was misrepresentation or ignorance. In my case it was clear that A believed he had a right to make the choice.

Has either player done anything illegal?

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

Has either player done anything illegal?

Yes. A has made a choice which the rules of the game do not give him permission to make. Rather, his opponent has the right to make the choice, so by usurping this he has committed a GRV.

That seems like a big stretch. AP proposed an entirely legal outcome. If
NAP doesn't want AP to get zombies, NAP is welcome to interrupt AP's
shortcut and describe her own decisions of what replacement effect to apply
first - proposing and interrupting shortcuts is an entirely legal area of
game rules.

Don't try to talk yourself into Cheating here, you're never going to make
the case properly, you'll only waste your time. Even if it was illegal to
propose that your opponent apply replacement effects or stack triggers in a
certain order, you'd have to convince yourself that the player knew that.
99 times out of 100 a player who does this is simply using his superior
knowledge of the rules to gain an advantage, which is a fundamental part of
the game.

I agree with Matt here and 100% would not intervene. Players play organically like this all the time - “helping” each other resolve things correctly. In this case, a perfectly legal outcome was resolved. Both players agreed and no rules were broken. We should not offer Outside Assistance to one player because his or her rules knowledge or awareness was not sufficient to understand that the help offered by the opponent was not the most optimal line of play.

So James, is legal that the oponent make the choise?
As was said in the first post, the controller of Kalithas and Anafenza is making the choise instead of N.
Is the same scenario as a Furnace of Rath a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and a Lightning Bolt being cast to the angel controller?
If the oponent of the affected player interrupts him and say you take three for the replacement effects and mark the damage, then the affected player does the same. Is this right under the rules?

I see that this is action effect situation, the player affected is following the instructions of his/her oponent, not making a choice by himself/herself.

To add to what James said, part of a tournament is testing players on their ability to understand and apply the rules of the game. Al(llllll)an hasn't proposed an illegal sequence of events; Norma is under no obligation to make the correct play or listen to Alan when he proposes a path leading to a legal gamestate.

This automatically fails the Cheating test because Alan is not doing anything illegal. CPV is the next line of thought, but Oracle/rules are derived information and Alan isn't breaking any of the guidelines in the MTR Communication Policy.

It feels like one of those grey areas of “not unsporting, but not sporting, either”. I don't even get involved in the first place.

As Eli pointed out above, this is not exactly the wrong player making the choice. We cannot make rulings because of having to know if a sentence is toned as a question for confirmation or a statement to mislead. If you consider language issues further, this becomes even more muddy.

The opponent is NOT making a choice for the player. The opponent IS citing one potential, correct outcome and the player is confirming that choice. The player's agreement is that choice. Nothing illegal happened here. Our intervention is Outside Assistance because we are now giving play advice.

Originally posted by James Do Hung Lee:

As Eli pointed out above, this is not exactly the wrong player making the choice. We cannot make rulings because of having to know if a sentence is toned as a question for confirmation or a statement to mislead. If you consider language issues further, this becomes even more muddy.

The opponent is NOT making a choice for the player. The opponent IS citing one potential, correct outcome and the player is confirming that choice. The player's agreement is that choice. Nothing illegal happened here. Our intervention is Outside Assistance because we are now giving play advice.

Okey then.

It's seems as some kind of “lizzzten only to me, i am right in thizzz zzzituation, not you, prozzzeed azzz i command”, but legal.