The following situation came up during the finals of a PPTQ on Sunday, and has sparked some discussion as far as if this is outside assistance or not. Before getting into the situation, I want to point out that the main point of this issue is potentially slightly different from the situation as presented, for reasons that I will explain later.

So the first question here is: is a spectator interjecting into a match in order to prevent an illegal play considered Outside Assistance? Is this a hard line “yes”, hard line “no”, or a “depends on the situation”? The idea here is something like: player declares he's attacking with a Thing in the Ice. NAP is contemplating his blocks when the guy in the next match over says “dude, you can't attack with that”. OA?

So, on to the situation that happened!

As I said, this was the finals and we had two L1s sitting on the match, while I was chatting with an off duty L1 about how the day went. Our conversation is stopped when I overhear one of the players loudly state “dude, you can't just commit outside assistance like that”. I immediately step in to find out what happened. AP has a Leonin Arbiter in play and has used his Ghost Quarter to blow up one of his opponent's lands (of which he had two in play, both of which were tapped). NAP moved his land to the graveyard and went to pick up his deck, and then a spectator said (as was described to me at the time), “you can't do that.” The exact wording was not clear, despite the fact that there were 4 people around the match at that point (mostly I just don't remember, it was a long day and I've been working a lot of overtime). I ask the spectator to step into the hall, and instruct the players to continue with their match.

In my talk with the spectator, I inform him that he has not committed Outside Assistance (the relevant text being “A player, spectator, or other tournament participant does any of the following: Gives play advice or reveals hidden information to players who have sat for their match.”) Preempting an error does not strike me as play advice nor hidden information, so this does not meet the criteria of OA. I do explain to the spectator that he has broken a rule, though it is not one covered by an infraction (MTR 1.11 states “ Spectators are responsible for remaining silent and passive during matches and other official tournament sections in which players are also required to be silent. If spectators believe they have observed a rules or policy violation, they are encouraged to alert a judge as soon as possible. At Regular or Competitive Rules Enforcement Level, spectators are permitted to ask the players to pause the match while they alert a judge. At Professional Rules Enforcement Level, spectators must not interfere with the match directly.”).

I then returned to the match, which had concluded, to explain my decision to the table. There was a lot of back and forth between myself, another spectator, and AP from the above example. The argument is that NAP got a clear advantage in that no penalty was assessed (as no infraction occurred). He made it clear that it was possible that the outcome of the match may have been different had his opponent received his penalty, and that as such it should either be considered as OA for the spectator or the infraction that was preempted should have been assessed. I disagreed with that assessment, and we agreed to disagree.

Earlier today, as a sanity check and to spur some discussion, I posed this scenario in the Policy channel for the NE Judge Slack. I had numerous people who confirmed that they had the same views on policy as I did. Stopping a player from making an error is not the same as play advice. While this is against the tournament rules, it does not fall in line with Outside Assistance.

In the afternoon I had a message from the player's friend, who had tweeted at an L3 judge, where he states that the situation as presented (which differed slightly from above, only with the wording) he would consider Outside Assistance.

The issue that I think faces us is that now we have a high profile, high level judge who has publicly stated one thing, while there is a group of judges (including another L3) who feel the opposite. This is very possibly going to lead to inconsistent rulings in different areas, and it's a big deal to have OA assessed incorrectly. So the real question is: what is the “official” stance on this situation and how should we handle it? This also isn't the first time something like this has come up: this tournament report had a similar situation where a spectator was issued OA for pointing out a GRV.

To clarify a bit after some feedback: the intent of this post is not to call anybody out, but rather to try to make sure we're all on the same page as to how situations like this should be handled. The conversation I had with the player's friend hinged heavily on the fact that it seems strange that something with such impact on the event for somebody can have such differing opinions, and that being consistent seems even more important here than with things that only carry a warning.

Edited Chris Wendelboe (Oct. 5, 2016 07:17:32 AM)

Deleted because missed the question for an official answer

Edited Markus Dietrich (Oct. 5, 2016 04:04:37 AM)

The poster requested answer so I don't think we should start a
discussion :)?

Den 5 okt 2016 09:26 skrev “Markus Dietrich” <

Oh sorry, missed that part :(

Sorry if I was a bit misleading, I think a discussion of the merits of either side is a good idea, especially when I believe that the stance will likely be “it's a judgement call”. Determining where the line is could be fairly productive.

Not to mention the fact that, as alluded to, I think that there are some situations that would be very cut and dry (such as my first example, attacking with a defender) and that the situation I found myself in was rather exceptional in comparison (because of the option to pay mana to still search).

I could see an argument for “it's always OA to talk about the game currently being played”. After all, we want people to pause matches and get a judge rather than blurt things out, because missed triggers definitely *are* OA, and making everything OA makes that nice and clean and consistent. That would probably warrant an example in the IPG, so it's clear without awareness of judge consensus that pointing out both missed triggers and GRVs qualifies as OA. The annotated IPG does have this to say:

As soon as a player has sat for a match, he or she is not allowed to get instructions or information about the match from other people. Casual chat is not forbidden, unless such chats include information which may benefit the player’s match. This does not include asking for advice at the pairings board or dealer booth, or outside while smoking a cigarette. Players are going to chat about decks they played against or think they have to play against. We cannot control what they talk about in the restroom.

This route has the downside of feeling really bad to a player who's committing OA. “But…they did something illegal! They're supposed to follow the rules!”

If not that, I think it should never be OA to point out a GRV or GRV-in-progress. “She has a Thalia” “”He has a Leonin Arbiter“ ”You have to pay for that“ ”you already played a land“. None of those are strategic advice, and not paying for it is not an option the way missing your own triggers is. This has the benefit of ”feeling“ right to people, but is also the impulse that leads people to point out ”Avacyn flips", which we'd rather they not do.

Edited Ellen McManis (Oct. 5, 2016 05:33:47 AM)

I can't for the life of me see how pointing out a GRV that has just happened, or is happening, can be OA. Missed Triggers are a different kettle of fish altogether, as the player is responsible for his/her own triggers.

When there are spectators watching a match and making such comments, I always remind them about OA and to be careful what they say regarding the match, and I've fortunately not had a problem as a result.

Is it just me or was AP fishing for a penalty? He should have been the one to point out the Arbiter restriction, and in fact that is exactly the reason for playing those cards.

Waiting for the opponent to pick up his deck to search for a land, then getting mad that a spectator pointed out that he couldn't, is shady. I'm looking at Example B of USC Minor here, he was clearly angling for a penalty for someone, and he was frustrated in his attempt for that to be his opponent by the spectator.

Originally posted by Ben Quasnitschka:

Is it just me or was AP fishing for a penalty? He should have been the one to point out the Arbiter restriction, and in fact that is exactly the reason for playing those cards.

Waiting for the opponent to pick up his deck to search for a land, then getting mad that a spectator pointed out that he couldn't, is shady. I'm looking at Example B of USC Minor here, he was clearly angling for a penalty for someone, and he was frustrated in his attempt for that to be his opponent by the spectator.

In my opinion: yes, the player was fishing for a penalty and his only hope for winning the game was for his opponent to get a penalty upgraded to a game loss. No, this is not an infraction in and of itself. The player in this case is not responsible for stopping his opponent from making an error, but rather only in raising awareness of the error as soon as it happens. The player had yet to pick up his deck at the point the spectator pointed out what he was about to do was illegal.

There is a fairly significant difference between pointing out a missed trigger and pointing out some other game play error: triggers can actually be missed and if they are currently being missed they are likely to continue to be missed. The spectator in this case is offering play advice, in that they are telling the player they will be doing better if they remember their triggers (note: I find it highly unlikely that spectator pointing out a detrimental missed trigger is OA, but I suppose anything is possible). In the cases of non-detrimental triggers being missed, we wouldn't intervene so it would be very wrong for a spectator to. Going back to GRVs, if a player points out an illegal play that has happened or is about to happen, there is functionally no play advice given, especially when you consider that a judge in that situation would have relayed the same information: “You've committed an error by picking up your library to search without having paid 2 mana for that Arbiter”. While we are not supposed to intervene to preempt an in-game error from occuring, I don't see how it would be considered OA if we did. If it wouldn't be considered OA for us, I don't see how it would be for a spectator.

Waiting for your opponent to actually make a mistake, rather than anticipating and preventing one that may be about to happen, is fine. Players are not required to predict the future.

Originally posted by Christopher Wendelboe:

an L3 judge … states that the situation as presented (which differed slightly from above, only with the wording) he would consider Outside Assistance

After speaking with that L3 judge, I can confirm my suspicion - the “slight differences” were actually quite significant, in that the spectator interrupted *before* the player started to search (and didn't mention that it was Ghost Quarter) - that is, at a point where the player still had the opportunity to pay for the Arbiter. That would, in fact, be Outside Assistance.

With an effect like Ghost Quarter, putting the land in the graveyard is part of the resolution, and at that point, it's too late to pay for Arbiter - even though that's a “special action”.

CR 115.1
115.1. Special actions are actions a player may take when he or she has priority

You don't get priority between putting the destroyed land in your graveyard, and searching for a basic land. However, until you begin to resolve the effect, you do get priority and can pay 2 for the Arbiter - thus, when the spectator points out the Arbiter's effect is a critical difference.

Now, Christopher's logic in the original scenario is reasonable. Consider the spectator, as the player is starting to search after ‘binning’ the land, saying the following:
Judge, he can't do that because of Arbiter!
Hey, you can't do that because of Arbiter!

If the statement would be fine, were it addressed to the judge, then it's a matter of educating the well-meaning spectator if they instead address the player(s).

The frightening danger here is that there are so many things in Magic where a well-meaning spectator can create strategic advantage for a player, despite their good intentions (triggers, anyone?). Because of that, we need to be diligent in educating the players about what to do when they think something's gone wrong, and that they shouldn't do anything if something's about to go wrong. Judges shouldn't insert themselves to prevent errors, says so right in the beginning of our beloved IPG - players absolutely shouldn't, either.

d:^D