Hi everyone!

I'm writing to talk a little bit about the current state of D/DLP policy in the judge program. The specific issue that has come up again and again in discussion and in rulings is how we draw the line between an “ambiguous or unclear” card name on a decklist and an “obvious and unambiguous” card name. This distinction is one that judges seldom agree on, yet it's one that can make or break a player's tournament–the difference between “unclear” and “obvious” is the difference between a game loss and no penalty. After analyzing a number of these situations, I've become convinced that this problem is solvable. We can, and should, amend policy to allow for a downgrade to a warning for when an otherwise legal decklist includes incomplete, abbreviated, or incorrectly transcribed card names.

Just a heads up: I started writing this post planning to have it go for just a few paragraphs, but after lengthy discussions at several GPs and work on deck checks at the SCG Open in Syracuse, I ended up with a lot to say. Thanks in advance for reading this–but if you'd rather have the TL;DR version, skip to the end for a draft of my policy proposal.

Preserving the Player Experience

The biggest reason to make this change is that this type of decklist infraction is one of the most frustrating penalties we can inflict upon a player. In many cases, we're issuing game losses for simple mental lapses. At the SCG Open in Syracuse, a player’s Jeskai decklist included 3 x Lightning Helix, 4 x Lightning. My team and the head judge all agreed that Lightning Bolt was by far the most likely card, but Modern has too many “lightning” cards to call this list “unambiguous”. The player got a game loss simply for becoming distracted midway through writing a word.

Game losses for ambiguity can also create an appearance of capriciousness because they are dependent on a constantly rotating format that players may not follow. Standard illustrates this; before EMN released, “Liliana” was an acceptable decklist abbreviation but “Chandra” was not. Even worse, “Kytheon” was unambiguous, but because players can list double-face cards by either face, “Gideon” was not. And note that “Liliana” is no longer acceptable post EMN, but it will go back to being okay once Origins rotates out!

I also want to discourage judges from dismissing this issue as one one that’s avoidable if players would just be less sloppy or lazy with their decklists. Even careful players can overlook some of these errors. For instance, one contestant at the Syracuse Open submitted a decklist with an ambiguous card name on it and was initially assessed a game loss. But the head judge downgraded the penalty when the player explained that his decklist was copy-pasted, error and all, from SCG coverage of a previous tournament!

These error are common, difficult to avoid, and harshly punished. If we can do away with them without compromising the fairness of tournaments, we should do so.


Maintaining Consistency Across Tournaments

Beyond the direct experiences of players, allowing a downgrade for an ambiguous deck list would be a big step in the Judge Program's push towards consistency across tournaments. We want players to have the same experience at any event they head to. When we require the Head Judge determine on a case-by-case basis whether to issue a game loss for an incomplete card name, we leave open the door for different events to be judged very differently.

As a team lead at GP Montreal, Steven Zwanger showed us decklist where an Atarka Red player wrote “Atarka Red” in place of “Atarka's Command,” momentarily getting the card name and the deck name confused. The team's opinion was split. Most of the team members who had paid attention to Dragons of Tarkir standard felt that “Atarka Red” could only be her Command, the card that gave the deck its name. But the judges who were unfamiliar with that format looked at a dozen cards on Gatherer with “Atarka” in the name and consistently voted for a Game Loss. And as Steve pointed out, both sides are correct! When a judge knows enough about the format to consider the card name obvious based on “what is written in the decklist,” he or she can downgrade, but we have no expectation that any given judge should have that knowledge.

From a philosophical perspective, I find it hard to justify having judges' format knowledge make the difference between no penalty and a game loss. Granted, this inconsistency isn't highly visible; we aren't likely to call a “no penalty” issue to a player's attention. But the inconsistency remains. And sometimes it does get noticed, such as when a player copies an error straight from SCG Coverage. By downgrading ambiguous-enough-for-a-game-loss abbreviations to a warning–and by upgrading ambiguous-but-not-so-badly incomplete names from no penalty to a warning–we come much closer to truly consistent adjudication.

Preserving Tournament Integrity

So would we be compromising the fairness of tournaments with a downgrade? This is a real concern; the IPG does state:

Ambiguous or unclear names on a decklist may allow a player to manipulate the contents of his or her deck…

However, I firmly believe that this risk is actually very small. The huge number of game losses we issue for this infraction are intended to discourage what amounts to a narrow corner case. Take a moment to consider just how many things need to go right for a player to gain advantage from submitting an ambiguous decklist to a constructed event:

• The player must find a pair of cards with similar names that are both good enough to run
  
• The player's mana base and card synergies must support both options
  
• The player must remember submitting a decklist containing an accidental ambiguity, or must include it intentionally
  
• The player must have reason to want both in his deck at different times, but must also be okay not having access to both at once
  
• The player must keep copies of the cards to be swapped in far enough from the sideboard to avoid a game loss during deck checks, but close enough to be opportunistically swapped in when no one is looking
  
• The player must convincingly lie to a judge if asked about deck contents during a deck check
  

In short, it's extraordinarily complex and inefficient for a player to actively take advantage of incomplete or partial items on a decklist. The (fortunately rare) calculated cheater will seldom, if ever, play under the confluence of conditions that this cheat requires. More importantly, as long as we flip through the decks of players who didn't realize they made this kind of error, they’ll never get a chance to swap. We needn’t worry about tempting otherwise honest players with a “cheat of opportunity.”

Maintaining a Timely Event

The Philosophy section of D/DlP suggests one reason that a judge might want to issue a game loss if a player submits a decklist with incomplete or inaccurate card names: time.

…needing to check the deck for confirmation is a sign that the entry is not obvious.

Deck checks are time consuming. If a common error consistently requires an 8-12 minute extension to investigate and address, it's probably disruptive enough to the tournament that it merits a game loss. If we had to do a full check on every list that includes an abbreviation, that alone would be justification for the GL.

But let’s go back to the player who had “4 x Lightning Helix, 4x Lightning” on his decklist. Why would I need a full deck check to resolve this issue, when I can solve it in 45 seconds? I ask the player to stand up from the match and to tell me what he meant to write (it's Lightning Bolt, obv), I flip through the player's deck and look for four bolts, and then I flip through the player's deck box and sideboard to make sure there's nothing like an Arc Lightning or Lightning Berserker that the player could swap in. Assuming everything is clear, I correct the decklist. Problem solved with a one or two minute extension. Time is not an issue unless we make it one.

Potential concerns

As with any major policy shift, lots of details remain to be ironed out. A few key questions:

1) Is there a point where a card name becomes so ambiguous that we shouldn't allow it?

My tentative answer: As long as we limit this new downgrade to something like “partial, incomplete, or mis-copied card names,” we should be fine. Anything truly vague like “burn spell” or a blank line would not be included in this downgrade.

2)Is there a point where a list has so many errors that it’s unacceptable?

My tentative answer: Probably but I’ve never seen one. I don’t like adding a specific numerical cap, but adding the phrase “a small number” gives the Head Judge an escape clause to Game Loss a truly egregious list.

3)Can we downgrade when a player accidentally writes the wrong card when cards have similar sounding names?

My tentative answer: I don’t think this is wise, as it would opens many more options to have players abuse policy and alter their decks mid-tournament. A legal card name is a legal card name, even if it makes no sense. The downgrade should explicitly exclude listings that are the name of format-legal cards, even if it was “obviously” meant to be something else. Thus, I would not support a downgrade for writing "Gigadrowse“ in place of ”Gigapede“ in legacy Manaless Dredge, but I would downgrade for ”Gigapede“ in place of ”Gigadrowse" in modern Taking Turns.

4) Will this policy encourage players be sloppy with deck lists? Will it make more work for judges?

My tentative answer: Given that this change would leave plenty of other ways for players to get game losses through decklist errors, and given that we’d still hand out warnings, players would be unlikely to use this downgrade as an excuse for sloppy decklists. In theory, this policy would make abbreviations “safer” than full card names, since writing “Rift” for "Flame Rift“ would earn a warning but writing ”Earth Rift“ for ”Flame Rift" would be a game loss. However, this is the kind of theoretical angle-shooting that is likely to remain just that: theoretical.

5) Is the benefit of carving out this exception worth taking time on policy development, carving out space in policy documents, and educating the judge community about this change?

My tentative answer: Absolutely. As I've laid out, these game losses are some of the most frustrating in competitive Magic. Players feel bad getting them and judges feel bad giving them. These penalties happen regularly at every major tournament, yet they do not contribute meaningfully to competitive fairness. A policy change, complex though it may be, is absolutely justified.

A First Draft

So with all this in mind, here is my proposal for an addition to D/DLP in the IPG:

Downgrade: If a decklist includes a small number of incomplete, abbreviated, or incorrectly transcribed card names that could refer to multiple cards, briefly look through the player’s deck. If the ambiguous names clearly correspond to specific cards in the player’s deck, the Head Judge may issue a warning and correct the decklist. The downgrade for “incorrectly transcribed card names” never applies to an item on a decklist that is the full name of a format-legal Magic card, even if the player obviously intended a different card with a similar name.

Edited Eli Meyer (Aug. 18, 2016 04:03:36 PM)

I like this. In some of these cases where a player could potentially be
trying to cheat with a similarly named card, I would like to do a targetted
deckcheck later in the tournament though.

2016-08-17 23:58 GMT-04:00 Eli Meyer <forum-29396-8a5a@apps.magicjudges.org>
:

This sounds like a brilliant way to go, I like this a lot, too. I would be very happy to reduce the amount of Game Losses for clerical errors that do not realistically offer a potential for abuse, and this one has been overlooked for way too long. Thanks for bringing this up, Eli!

While I appreciate the idea behind this suggestion, I have to disagree
strongly with it.

If we did this, we'd just be changing one flavor of judge discretion for
another. Instead of a judge downgrading on whether or not they know the
current format's metagame, now the downgrade depends on knowing the name of
every card in the format.

The current policy is simple and clear, demanding that the correction for
the error be “obvious and unambiguous” in order to downgrade whereas the
suggested change includes extra steps and more room for player unhappiness
through “arbitrary” decisions. I've always held by the belief that if you
need to actual look at the player's deck, then it's not obvious and
unambiguous and the game loss should apply in these situations.

I agree that we should try to make the application of policy more
consistent across tournaments, but there are some areas like this one (and
altered cards) where the opinions and experiences of the judge on hand is
going to heavily influence the outcome.

More consistent application of the current policy (perhaps with some more
official guidelines) and better education of its actual meaning is
sufficient to improve the situation here, in my opinion.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

But let’s go back to the player who had “4 x Lightning Helix, 4x Lightning” on his decklist. Why would I need a full deck check to resolve this issue, when I can solve it in 45 seconds? I ask the player to stand up from the match and to tell me what he meant to write (it's Lightning Bolt, obv), I flip through the player's deck and look for four bolts, and then I flip through the player's deck box and sideboard to make sure there's nothing like an Arc Lightning or Lightning Berserker that the player could swap in. Assuming everything is clear, I correct the decklist. Problem solved with a one or two minute extension. Time is not an issue unless we make it one.

My question for this point is, why wouldn't you do a full deck check even if there was an option to do so? You have a decklist that you know there is at least one slip of the mind error on are you willing to assume there aren't more or would you prefer to check that there aren't?

Originally posted by Dustin De Leeuw:

This sounds like a brilliant way to go, I like this a lot, too. I would be very happy to reduce the amount of Game Losses for clerical errors that do not realistically offer a potential for abuse, and this one has been overlooked for way too long. Thanks for bringing this up, Eli!

I like that Idea too!

Charlotte Sable
but there are some areas like this one (and
altered cards)

Please don't get altered cards mixed in here especially complete alters/removing the name/costs etc is ok “because it's such a format defining card”….

Originally posted by Charlotte Sable:

If we did this, we'd just be changing one flavor of judge discretion for
another. Instead of a judge downgrading on whether or not they know the
current format's metagame, now the downgrade depends on knowing the name of
every card in the format.

Which is not difficult. There's an app for that.

The current policy is simple and clear, demanding that the correction for
the error be “obvious and unambiguous” in order to downgrade whereas the
suggested change includes extra steps and more room for player unhappiness
through “arbitrary” decisions. I've always held by the belief that if you
need to actual look at the player's deck, then it's not obvious and
unambiguous and the game loss should apply in these situations.

While this makes a lot of sense, I think the counterargument I would like to make is that “Bolt” when you meant Lightning Bolt (despite, for example, Rift Bolt, Prophetic Bolt, and Forked Bolt) in a Jeskai Control list is sufficiently obvious. Regarding “unambiguous”, I think judge knowledge of the format is a good rule to use here. While I understand this is dangerous water, my rationale for this is that events tend not to hire judges who are completely unfamiliar with a format; I do not think it is an unreasonable expectation that a judge should be able to name 45/60 cards of the maindeck of the top 5 most popular decks in a format (maybe top 2 for Standard, I guess) as a prerequisite for judging an event of that format, for example, and given that as an assumption I don't think issues of inconsistency will arise much.

———————————————

@Gareth: Because, as Eli mentioned, deck checks are time consuming and have logistical issues associated.

@Eli: How do you feel about a card name which has a short form which is wholly another card's name? For example, Punishing Fire and Fire (of Fire // Ice; perhaps this is a bad example because Fire//Ice is a split card, but I'm sure there are other examples I'm not thinking of immediately)? While I agree similar sounding names being transcribed improperly don't fall within this proposed change, this case seems like a gray area.

Random trivia: A similar issue occurs relatively frequently when judging tournaments in languages other than English. One of my first tournaments judging in Japan, for example, was shortly after the release of Dark Ascension. In Japanese, the cards Falkenrath Noble and Falkenrath Aristocrat have the same printed name (Falkenrath Aristocrat has been errata'd in Japanese to have a different name), and this came up during a deck check I had to do in this tournament. I'm unsure if this is relevant to the topic at hand, but it is a possible area of interest and research.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Aug. 19, 2016 03:25:14 AM)

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

@Eli: How do you feel about a card name which has a short form which is wholly another card's name? For example, Punishing Fire and Fire (of Fire // Ice; perhaps this is a bad example because Fire//Ice is a split card, but I'm sure there are other examples I'm not thinking of immediately)? While I agree similar sounding names being transcribed improperly don't fall within this proposed change, this case seems like a gray area.

I'm pretty sure we already decided the issue with the "Pithing Needle naming Borborygmos" call :-)

Edit: also thanks to Jason Riendeau for providing a real-life example: a Pod/Chord list with Archangel listed in place of Archangel of Thune. I believe that list should receive a game loss even though Archangel is unplayable.

Edited Eli Meyer (Aug. 19, 2016 04:26:05 AM)

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

I do not think it is an unreasonable expectation that a judge should be able to name 45/60 cards of the maindeck of the top 5 most popular decks in a format (maybe top 2 for Standard, I guess) as a prerequisite for judging an event of that format

I think that this is absolutely an unreasonable assumption.

Understanding rules and policy are prerequisites for judging events, and being able to apply them to unfamiliar cards is a skill that gets tested every three months when new cards are printed. I've judged Vintage Championships twice, and while I can say I know a few of the iconic cards that make Vintage what it is, I couldn't recite decklists for even a single deck. That said, cards played in Vintage follow the same rules as cards played in Modern, Commander and Cube, so I didn't find it a hindrance.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

I do not think it is an unreasonable expectation that a judge should be able to name 45/60 cards of the maindeck of the top 5 most popular decks in a format (maybe top 2 for Standard, I guess) as a prerequisite for judging an event of that format

To follow up in agreement with JBM here. I cannot do this, does that mean I should not be hired as a judge for an event, despite my expertise and event experience? Thanks.

Thirded. I can do that, personally, but that doesn't make me more qualified to run an event than Nicola.

It DOES, however, mean that cards that are “obvious” to me might not be obvious to Nicola, and the same decklist would therefore get a pass at my event and a game loss at his. That's precisely what I want to avoid.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

While I understand this is dangerous water, my rationale for this is that events tend not to hire judges who are completely unfamiliar with a format; I do not think it is an unreasonable expectation that a judge should be able to name 45/60 cards of the maindeck of the top 5 most popular decks in a format (maybe top 2 for Standard, I guess) as a prerequisite for judging an event of that format, for example, and given that as an assumption I don't think issues of inconsistency will arise much.

Just to jump on this bandwagon. You're saying that a judge would have to play Legacy to judge a Legacy tournament. And how would you ever find a Vintage judge? There's probably only like 20 of them.

I'm not entirely sure I can name five of the top decks in standard having just judged a Standard GP last weekend. But I can tell you the most common five judge calls.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

@Gareth: Because, as Eli mentioned, deck checks are time consuming and have logistical issues associated.

And my point was is saving 4-8 minutes not doing a full deck check worth missing another error on a deck list you know has at least one error due to lapse in concentration? How would you handle it if during a full deck check in later rounds it turns out there is an error? Or it comes out that there is an error after a cut?

“Obvious” card names will always be a source of dispute. The only way to avoid that, is to remove all leniency the HJ has from the MIPG and issue a GL for every single spelling mistake a player makes. I hope we all agree that we don't want to go there.

I've never really encountered a decklist where judges were very divided on which card was meant; I have had countless discussions whether a specific decklist should be penalised or not. This is anecdotical evidence of course, but I have given many, many silly Game Lossed and never encountered a cheat of the type Eli described in his original post.

Originally posted by Gareth Tanner:

Lyle Waldman
@Gareth: Because, as Eli mentioned, deck checks are time consuming and have logistical issues associated.

And my point was is saving 4-8 minutes not doing a full deck check worth missing another error on a deck list you know has at least one error due to lapse in concentration? How would you handle it if during a full deck check in later rounds it turns out there is an error? Or it comes out that there is an error after a cut?

One thing I was taught to do when I was first taught the remedy for this type of DDLP was to say: “I have fixed <the error that was mentioned in the DDLP investigation>. This does not mean your deck/list is free of errors, and there may still be other issues with your deck that may get caught in future deck checks”, or something to that effect. If such an error is caught later in the event, then, you have opened that window that you did not do a complete decklist fix and instead only focused on the issue at hand. I would expect something similar here.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Aug. 19, 2016 04:53:45 AM)