Hello fellow and aspiring judges! Today we bring you another Knowledge Pool scenario. This one's rated SILVER.

The blog post can be found here: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=672

You are the Head Judge of a PTQ that is halfway through round 4. Amleth, a player with a 3-0 record, calls a judge over because one of his cards has become creased in the process of shuffling his deck. The judge brings you to the table, and you notice that his Snapcaster Mage in play has a scantily clad female in a suggestive pose altered onto it and has become unrecognizable. When you ask him about it, he says all four of his Snapcasters look like that. After you disallow the cards, he complains that he only has two unaltered copies of the card with him, and asks you to give him proxies for the other two.

In this situation, what is the best Infraction, Penalty and Fix for the creased card and 2 missing Snapcasters?

EDIT (Josh S.): Just to clarify (since there seems to be some confusion), the bent card is NOT one of the Snapcasters. There are 4 altered Snapcasters PLUS a 5th card (of irrelevant name) that has become marked/bent during shuffling.

Edited Josh Stansfield (May 2, 2013 05:34:26 PM)

I would issue no penalty, as no infraction has been committed at this point. Assuming that the crease just happened in that moment when he called you over, he has not been playing with marked cards thus far in the tournament. Because he notified a judge immediately when the crease occurred, it is immediately evident that the potential for abuse is effectively zero.

I note that alters are not per se illegal (nor do they constitute marked cards on their own), and are at the discretion of me, as head judge. However, as the alters are obscuring the original card art, I am strongly inclined to disallow them, as it is difficult to verify their legality, and, in international tournaments, create barriers of understanding for those who must identify cards in a foreign language by card art. That they are of a provocative nature and may be offensive to some, also factors into my decision to disallow them.

I would require that the individual either get unaltered Snapcaster Mages or replace them with Basic Lands of his choice, in accordance with the policy for marked or otherwise illegal cards in the deck. However, in the interest of maintaining a reasonable pace for the tournament, I would issue temporary proxies valid only for the duration of the current round, and require that he make the decision to replace the cards, either with unaltered Snapcasters, or with basic lands of his choice, by the start of the next round (waiting until then is supported by MTR 3.11). Since the other card was damaged over the course of the tournament, I would issue a proxy for that card valid for the remainder of the tournament. I would also require him to notify me of his decision regarding the Snapcasters by the time the next round begins, and inform him that he will be deck checked the following round.

Finally, it is necessary to educate the player about why we frown upon card alters, and to stress the importance of getting any such alters verified with the head judge prior to the tournament.

The card art is illegal, it states in the tournament rulebook in section 3.3 Authorized Cards that the artistic modification can not make the card art unrecognizeable.

I would not deviate from what the IPG states, I would indeed proxy the card that was unintentionally damaged. However if the player can only come up with 2 snapcasters then I'd have the player replace the other 2 with basic lands of their choice and modify the decklist accordingly.

Issuing a proxy that is only playable for 1 round is a pretty significant deviation of the policy. Why do you think you would need to deviate like so?

No infraction based on the above scenario.

Edited Cris Plyler (May 1, 2013 08:21:29 PM)

With the cards being damaged intentionally (altered) by the owner, no proxy should be provided. Because the proxy is only a placeholder in the deck, and the original, damaged card must be placed into public zones in place of the proxy, issuing one would not only be a deviation from policy, but solve nothing concerning the altered art. In this case, give the player a reasonable amount of time to find replacements, and then have him replace the altered cards with either suitable Snapcasters or basic lands.

The card that became damaged during shuffling, however meets all of the requirements for issuing a proxy. Take out your basic land and sharpie, and instruct the player to treat is similarly to an Innistrad block checklist card.
(These are based upon MTR 3.4 and IPG 3.8

Originally posted by Cris Plyler:

Issuing a proxy that is only playable for 1 round is a pretty significant deviation of the policy. Why do you think you would need to deviate like so?

Players have the right to find a replacement card within a reasonable amount of time. However, if this occurs in the middle of a round, I do not, as head judge, feel comfortable telling the person to immediately go up to the store and purchase new cards or otherwise acquire them, as there is likely to be significant delay to the tournament. At a PTQ that's going to be 7-8 rounds + Top 8, this few minutes is very important.

In short, giving players until the start of the next round to acquire replacement cards / sleeves is supported by the MTR in section 3.11 in the interest of maintaining a reasonable tournament pace. Because there is the potential for offense based on these alters, I want the cards gone from the match as soon as possible, but I do not believe it is prudent for the tournament as a whole to stop the match immediately to have the player get up and get replacements, which may take a significant amount of time and cause indirect damage to the tournament as a whole. In the interest of customer service (not to the one player with the alters, but to the players in the tournament as a whole), I would make the decision that I laid out. I don't believe that it's a decision wrought in the letter of written policy, but I believe there is philosophy to support it.

Originally posted by MTR 3.4:

Proxies are not allowed as substitutes for cards that their owner has damaged intentionally or through negligence.

I have always been curious to know what standard of care is expected here with regards to the definition of “negligence.” If a player puts his drink on the table and he then accidentally knocks it over onto a card, is that negligence? What if his neighbor knocks it over (which many would argue is reasonably foreseeable in the usually cramped table space of a PTQ)?

In the present scenario, concerning the non-Snapcaster damaged card, do we need to investigate what sort of shuffling technique the player was using when the card was damaged? If he shows us that he was riffle shuffling and bridging the cards, is that sufficient to establish negligence given that bridging is commonly known to impart a bend to cards? What if he naturally shuffles in a very aggressive manner? I would be inclined to ask these questions before deciding to issue a proxy for this card.

As for the Snapcaster mages, I see no reason to deviate from policy here. Find replacements within a reasonable time (say 10 minutes of time extension) or replace with basic lands.

No infraction as defined by the MIPG has been committed, so I won't issue a penalty. But how should we fix this situation?

The creased card and the three other Snapcaster Mages are two different issues and should be handled differently.

The damaged card meets all criterions for a card that the MTR (3.4) instruct us to replace with a proxy. Since the artwork does not only make the card unrecognizable, but also offensive, the original card should not be used in public zones. The MTR allow us to handle it this way.

"The original card is kept nearby during the match and replaces the proxy while in a public zone as long as it is
recognizable.".

The other cards shouldn't be replaced with proxies, because that's just not what proxies are made for. The cards aren't damaged or marked in any other way. We, being the headjudge of the tournament, just disallowed them because the MTR instruct us to do so (MTR 3.3). We should treat these non-damaged Snapcaster Mages like any other card that's in the deck but shouldn't be there: We instruct the player to find suitable copies within a reasonable amount of time. Waiting for the end of the round to do so can be acceptable, because in this situation the player can use the cards that need to be replaced without having an advantage in the game. This depends on how offensive the cards are. I'm not joking here: If I think the cards are offensive enough, I will instruct the player to find replacements immediately. We just cannot ignore the fact that many tournaments involve minors. If the player fails to find suitable replacements, the cards are replaced with basic lands of his/her choice.

In the given situation, 2 suitable copies of Snapcaster Mage can be found. There are three cards to be replaced with original copies, because the damaged card can be replaced with a proxy. So one Snapcaster Mage is replaced with a basic land of the player's choice. The card that's replaced is not marked, but the respective remedy looks appropriate to me, see IPG 3.8, MTR 3.11.

I will also instruct the player to let the headjudge check his altered cards next time.


I like the idea of providing temporal proxies for the remainder of the round, but I don't see the MTR give us the chance to do so, especially because the cards we're talking about are not damaged.

Edited Jasper König (May 1, 2013 11:40:08 PM)

I'd be inclined to take the opponent aside and ask if he or she has any problem with him using the cards for the remainder of the round. If the opponent is fine with it, allow the player to keep using the altered cards for the remainder of the round and ask them to replace them between rounds. This minimizes the effect on the tournament as a whole while respecting the opponent who is most directly affected by the altered art.

Obviously, this isn't perfect as neighbouring players are also subjected to the cards, so I'd make a judgement call weighing how offensive the cards are vs how impressionable the nearby players are.

If the cards needed to be replaced immediately, if I were the HJ making the decision on this, I would make temporary proxies for use for the remainder of the round. The MTR doesn't specifically allow for it, but I'd be willing to deviate from policy in order to avoid disrupting the integrity of the entire tournament. I would rather deviate, than have 100 angry customers waiting an extra 10 minutes because one player had to search for replacements.

I'd avoid putting the opponent on the spot on whether to allow the cards for the current round. He or she might feel pressured to allow them, or if they were disallowed, the rest of the round could get quite frosty. As judges we're there to make the decision so that the players don't have to.

Clearly all four cards have to be replaced immediately. I agree with Trey above on the best fix. Temporary proxies just for the current match.

For those recommending replacing the two remaining Snapcaster Mages with basic lands mid-game (assuming the player cannot find additional copies), how do you determine which copies to replace?

@Vincent, maybe you are overseeing something but if you have 4 naughty snapcasters and you take 4 out, bring 2 clean ones in and 2 basic land… I don't see any problem?

I mostly follow along the lines of what is being suggested, but I was wondering if nobody was thinking along the line of letting the player play with the naughty snapcasters and use his nice ones when they are in a public zone. Maybe that gives problems in games where there are more than 2 snapcasters at the same time in public play, but I think it could be a good “we meet in the middle” approach.

Alhough for a PTQ, I would definitely lean more towards either replacing them all or putting in basic land.

On Thu May 02 15:30, Niki Lin wrote:
> @Vincent, maybe you are overseeing something but if you have 4 naughty snapcasters and you take 4 out, bring 2 clean ones in and 2 basic land… I don't see any problem?

But this is mid game. Lets say 1 is in hand, 1 is in play and two are in the library. Do you replace the one in play, the one in hand or the ones in the library with basic lands?

Matt

Originally posted by Niki Lin:

@Vincent, maybe you are overseeing something but if you have 4 naughty snapcasters and you take 4 out, bring 2 clean ones in and 2 basic land… I don't see any problem?

The players are in the middle of a game. At least one of the Snapcaster Mages is in play. The others are possibly in the player's hand, his graveyard, or his library. How do you determine which of these suddenly turn into basic lands?

Replacing the known Snapcasters with clean versions does the least damage to the game. The players have until now been operating as though there is a Snapcaster in play so lets leave it at that. Snapcasters in the library are “blanks” already (in a sense).

This breaks down if too many Snapcasters are known, but it's a start.

Snapcasters in a library are not blanks. They have an unknown location, but
players can (and should) use the contents of the random portions of their
own libraries to make tactical decisions.

There is absolutely no justification for Extirpating these cards if the
only problem with them is that the alter is in poor taste. If you want to
be really pro-active about removing the offending cards, you can proxy each
of them as it is revealed. (i.e., Milled or played, not drawn.) Do not
search the player's library for duplicates, since that would tell the
opponent how many Snapcasters are left to be drawn.

Personally, unless I felt the situation was really urgent for some reason
(maybe the kids from the Pokemon league are wandering around the event and
the alter was extremely racy), I would just issue the proxy for the bent
card for the remainder of the round and require the player to find 4 legal
Snapcasters before the start of the next round. Given that the bent card
should not be put into play if the proxy were drawn in a subsequent match,
it would make no sense to allow the player to play 3 Snapcaster + Proxy.