hmm… fair enough. I mean, a back-up would end up with the same result, just with a couple extra steps. At least in this situation.

What Mark and Brian said - just fix the simple dexterity error and move on.

d:^D

Thank you Scott and Brian for your guidance here.

Brian quoted the MIPG General Philosophy

Originally posted by MIPG General Philosophy:

If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene. If the players are playing in a way that is clear to both players, but might cause confusion to an external observer, judges are encouraged to request that the players make the situation clear, but not assess an infraction or issue any penalty. In both these situations, the judge should ensure that the game progresses normally. More significant violations are addressed by first identifying what infraction applies, then proceeding with the corresponding instructions.

This quote involves players resolving an error themselves to their mutual satisfaction.
After reading this an additional time it does also cover judges having players clearing up an unclear situation.


I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the guidance of

Scott Marshall
just fix the simple dexterity error and move on.

Specifically because of this:

MIPG Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation
Philosophy
While Game Rule Violations can be attributed to one player, they usually occur publicly and both players are expected to be mindful of what is happening in the game. It is tempting to try and “fix” these errors, but it is important that they be handled consistently, regardless of their impact on the game.

This line fills me with dread, so i did not choose that option during the event:
It is tempting to try and “fix” these errors, but it is important that they be handled consistently, regardless of their impact on the game.

MIPG Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation
Additional Remedy
If the infraction falls into one of the following categories, and only into that category, perform the fix specified unless a simple backup is possible:
• If a player made an illegal choice (including no choice where required) for a static ability generating a continuous effect still on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice. A simple backup to clear problems generated by the illegal choice may be considered.
• If a player forgot to draw cards, discard cards, or return cards from their hand to another zone, that player does so.
• If an object is in an incorrect zone either due to a required zone change being missed or due to being put into the wrong zone during a zone change, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it can be moved with only minor disruption to the state of the game, put the object in the correct zone.
• If attacker or blocker order has not been declared, the appropriate player orders them.

Otherwise, a backup may be considered or the game state may be left as is.

If this line in the Additional Remedy section was somehow phrased differently, I would have definitely gone with the quick fix in a heartbeat. But that “identity of the object was known to all players” prevented me from choosing that option.

If it was phrased like this "identity of the object was known/announced to all players“ i think that would go a long way to helping keep this type of GRV in the ”handled consistently" category.






Thanks,

Neil

Hi Neil!

Have you considered that maybe this isn't a GRV and therefore no dread need
be felt :)?

I won't reiterate too much on what has already been said but will mention
that basically a spell has been correctly resolved here. The error of
putting the wrong card in the graveyard is not a violation of a game rule,
it's an error of dexterity.

Kind Regards
/Eskil

What if it's the final round of day one of GP and a GW tokens player is 5-3 going into this round:

If s/he loses, the event is effectively over, but if s/he wins, then it's a chance to qualify for the top 8. This seems like a huge incentive to cast a Declaration in Stone “accidentally” and then desperately hope to draw a Secure the Wastes. If it gets caught before the draw step (or if they draw a card other than Secure the Wastes), they can say they thought it was Secure and just get a smaller penalty than disqualification (or, if the judge is convinced it was deliberate, then disqualification, but the effect for the tournament is basically the same as losing the round), and if they happen to draw Secure, then they get an efficient use of resources (card and mana) that they shouldn't have been able to use. In this situation, unless the Secure is known to have been in the player's hand, it seems like the player has a huge incentive to try to get away with this.

It seems to me that returning the Declaration in Stone to the player's hand, removing the tokens, checking to ensure Secure the Wastes is in the player's hand, and then continuing the game from the draw step is an approach that makes cheating less beneficial–this way, you don't get to use mana that you wouldn't have if you hadn't hoped to draw the Secure the Wastes. It does potentially “punish” players who carelessly put the wrong spell into the graveyard, but because they went through a draw step, I feel like the mistake has to be considered to be more than just a dexterity error. One of the players should have noticed the error, so a GRV seems merited, and there's significant incentive to cast a Secure when you don't have it and hope for the best.

Basically, I think that backing up or allowing the Secure and Declaration to just “switch” makes the expected value of cheating higher than not cheating in some situations in which it wouldn't be if you didn't allow that mana to be used. Returning the board state to what it was prior to the “Secure” being cast but having play resume from the draw step seems to disincentivize cheating. I also think that since the onus is on the players to play correctly, “punishing” a player for doing the wrong accidentally is not as awful as it might seem. The fact that we want to handle all violations consistently makes me think that we need to account for situations like this as well and try to find a solution that works well here.

I wouldn't get too hung up on Scott's use of the word “fix” as somehow being what the MIPG is talking about.

Scott's comment, in reference to what is being discussed as a “minor issue” or non-infraction worthy situation, is more about taking what could be construed as a “minimally invasive” resolution of the situation. That is, stepping in just enough to handle something that the players might readily handle themselves if we didn't happen to be standing there.

The “fix” line in the MIPG is more about trying to address the situation in some hypothetical fashion that somehow addresses a “gain or loss” from the player making a mistake. That is, the judge applies some kind of “repair” to make the game whole. That's not what we do, as while our remedies address the situations where we assess an infraction, they aren't about addressing “gain or loss” or otherwise making the game whole. The procedures outlined in the infraction is designed to be a neutral and consistent approach.

But again, the question you need to ask yourself (and the point of the section of the MIPG I quoted) is a simple one: Does this situation rise to the level of an infraction? Don't think about getting into the remedies or needing to assess penalty, think about it more simply. Do you believe a substantive error occurred here that requires you to be more involved in the situation, whether investigating or otherwise handling the error that was made?

I say that with caution, because it may come across as meaning that every situation we encounter carries some kind of significant weight or high bar to whether an infraction took place. That's not what I am trying to imply. Instead, what I would hope to suggest is that perhaps we consider whether there was any functional impact to the game or need for a judge to intervene in the situation.

That's why I suggested that “If the situation makes you uncomfortable as a judge, and there is concern about the significance of what has happened since the wrong card was used to represent the spell and subsequent put into the graveyard, then perhaps it is serious enough to treat as an infraction.” If that is your feeling, the likely it is because some element of the situation has caused your assessment to be that this is no longer a minor error and it has passed the threshold where we can be casually involved. It could be a comfort level element, or it could be something about the player's story that doesn't feel right. At that point, the situation probably does merit a judge to be more significantly involved.

But I was also pushing against the auto-consideration of infraction/penalty/remedy. That should not be our default thinking, even at CompREL. We can always construe various reasons why we would evaluate that as “non-issue” or “issue”. I can certainly recall many previous such discussions. Instead, I would hope that the point is more to illustrate how we might approach the situation and assess what our level of intervention as judges needs to be.

Originally posted by Samuel Lewis:

What if….

There are always a lot of what ifs, and assuming that everyone is going to cheat in certain situations is never a great path to go down when judging.

The likelihood of someone deliberately choosing to cast a spell they haven't got in hand, hoping their opponent won't notice the wrong card placed into the graveyard, and hoping they would draw the card seems low to me.

Would this be something I considered? Maybe depending on demeanour and some basic investigation, but in general simple mistakes are usually just that, mistakes. Over the many years that I've judged we've gone from a presumptive - everyone might cheat therefore we should punish everything severely to try to reduce that chance to what I feel is a much better environment - some people might cheat, but mostly people make mistakes and people enjoy themselves more when simple mistakes don't result in game losses/match losses or DQs.

If Natasha and Amy are both happy to resolve this themselves immediately I wouldn't intervene, but if I'm called to the table I'm already at the point where this is beyond a minor violation in my book.

The cheat is so low odds and high risk (DQs have potential impact beyond the current event) I'm willing to discount it as a motivation unless I've seen something really fishy.

The error here is that Natasha did not reveal the correct card when casting ‘Secure the Wastes’ and (ignoring cheating) we have two possibilities:

1) N had Secure in hand but revealed Declaration by mistake and has now drawn a random card.
2) N had Declaration in hand and mistook it for Secure and has now drawn Secure.

While 1 seems more likely we have no way to verify and we can't apply a GRV fix because the cards weren't known so I'm considering a back up or leaving the game state as is. I'm really uncomfortable with the idea that we just take N's word that she had a Secure.

Assuming head judge approval I believe I would back up placing a random card on top of the library and Declaration back in hand. The only other alternative seems to be leaving the gamestate alone which I think is substantially worse.

Originally posted by IPG:

…backups are regarded as a solution of last resort, only applied in situations where leaving the
game in the current state is a substantially worse solution

Hi Marc :)

If you truly were to believe there's no cheating here, then asking Amy
which card she drew for the turn should sort out any confusion.

However, I'm curious: If you believe being at the table constitutes “beyond
a minor violation”, how do you interpret previously cited text implying we
can, at the table, sort out things without resorting to Infractions?

2016-05-10 13:59 GMT+02:00 Marc Shotter <

Originally posted by Eskil Myrenberg:

If you truly were to believe there's no cheating here, then asking Amy which card she drew for the turn should sort out any confusion.

If we can do this here why not for HCE? I'm not willing to assume she cheated, but I'm unwilling to simply take her word for which card it was (nor am I going to ask her opponent to).

Originally posted by Eskil Myrenberg:

If you believe being at the table constitutes “beyond a minor violation”, how do you interpret previously cited text implying we can, at the table, sort out things without resorting to Infractions?

The cited text says the players can sort out minor violations:

If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene.

If I get called to the table then I suspect it's because one of the players is unhappy with the error made or they cannot quickly handle it.

Originally posted by Marc Shotter:

The cited text says the players can sort out minor violations:

If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene.

I would hope we all can acknowledge that sometimes a judge could nudge things in a reasonable direction.

Originally posted by Marc Shotter:

If I get called to the table then I suspect it's because one of the players is unhappy with the error made or they cannot quickly handle it.

Keep in mind that the OP mentions that the player who made the mix-up is also the one who called the judge. It is not impossible for the player to cheat and the attempt to disguise it by this means, but between “cheat” and “simple mistake”…

I didn't mean to ask for the card for the purpose of any fix, I meant to
rule out your option 2 :).

Regarding point 2. Fair, player(s) might very well feel unsure about how to
handle it.

I see a problem with equating being called to a table with there not being
a minor issue though. In this case, the issue is dexterous in nature, not
an infraction. At other times we'll have other reasons to say there's no
infraction, sort out the issue and move on.

I believe that's where we are in this instance.

2016-05-10 15:29 GMT+02:00 Marc Shotter <

Originally posted by Brian Schenck:

I would hope we all can acknowledge that sometimes a judge could nudge things in a reasonable direction.

Agreed :)

The second point I think we're in agreement on (?) - I'm not calling cheat here, just suggesting that we've moved beyond ‘quickly handled’ when the player (whichever) calls a judge.

Eskil - I'd come out the other side as I'm not sure it being a dexterity issue changes the fact that its a GRV, we still infract for LEC and that specifically lists dexterity issues. I'd also argue that this isn't really a dexterous issue but a lack of attention/concentration and the vast majority of infractions are caused by that!

Originally posted by Marc Shotter:

The second point I think we're in agreement on (?) - I'm not calling cheat here, just suggesting that we've moved beyond 'quickly handled' when the player (whichever) calls a judge.

That is certainly fine to to consider, but I would also evaluate events from the player's perspective. It is one thing for us to break down the physical actions that took place and evaluate them, it is quite another to consider them from the player's perspective in terms of the various elements. There are tokens to handle, cards to move, lands to untap, etc.

From the player's perspective, quickly handled could very much be “First time I've looked at my hand since casting the spell” as the player had to physically place their hand on the table to do everything necessary to maintain the game.

Regarding players calling a judge = more than just a minor violation handled by the players.

We regularly encourage players to call judges - if in doubt, call a judge. If you have a problem - call a judge. It's more than likely the player called a judge to a) make sure they looked like they were doing the right thing and b) to point out to their opponent they're not trying to hide their mistake and want a neutral arbiter to rule what happens.

If the judge call had been 2 or 3 turns later, we have a situation that is a lot less simple and harder to assess. Given this is something that has only just happened, is immediate enough given they've done something at the end of turn, untapped and drawn - we're talking a couple of seconds between casting the spell and realising the wrong card has gone to the graveyard I'm happy to correct the very simple error of dexterity, caution the player to be more careful when resolving spells and moving on.