The situation is: at a team event, there is an issue requiring a judge to pull one player B away from the table. As it stands now, we let match A and C continue. This happened in a real event, and player A raised the concern that he didn't have a teammate to help him while his opponent did. He would've preferred match A and C paused.

I think his argument that being down a teammate matters is valid, and I also understand we want to keep the event moving. I am interested in everyone's thoughts on this.

Edited David Rockwood (June 11, 2018 11:40:54 AM)

I think the player's concern is valid. In a team event the unit is the team, not the individual player, and by pulling away a player you're disrupting the entire team. If that team is ok with continuing down a player, then by all means let them do so. But if one or both of the teammates wants to pause, they should be entitled to that.

I think it's a bigger concern given that pulling player B out, the opposition player B is now able to concentrate more on either of the other 2 matches, without having to worry about slow play on their own match.

I think it is appropriate to pause all matches and give extra time as the default and only if the team insists on continuing to play allow them to.

I have different approach. I was always told that while this is a team tournament, players play their own games. Also I would like to point out, that virtually all scenarios when you need to pull out one of the players probably is related to some kind of investigation, that probably requie attention from his opponent.

Let boil this scenario down to easiest version. Player B from team Audi ask for permission to go to toilet. Is this enough reason to stop match A and C because team Audi now have less members present at the table than team Nissan? In my opinion no, and this escalate for me to all kind of situations when I need player from match B but I don't need players from matches A and C.

If you say yes, then you still have an issue. It's not like all of the team-members will do nothing. Players A, B and C from Nissan team still are present and the table. While all three matches are stopped, they still have three-players strong “brain-power” while team Audi have only two-players strong “brain-power”.

Because of that I would say that stoping match A and C have insignificance influence on result and only might result in longer delay of the whole tournament (since you would issue that same time extension, potentially longer one, to all three tables)

Edit: After quick chat with local players about this scenario - instead of stopping match A and C, the best solution would be to move player B away from the table. This negates two disadvantages that I pointed out previously - there is no issue with more “brain-power” on one of the teams and we don't need to apply unnecessary time extensions

Edited Bartłomiej Wieszok (June 15, 2018 09:11:51 AM)

Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

Player B from team Audi ask for permission to go to toilet. Is this enough reason to stop match A and C because team Audi now have less members present at the table than team Nissan?

I don't think David (or anyone) was proposing that we pause the adjacent matches when the player chooses to leave the table for a non-essential reason. That's their choice to make; they could have just gone to the restroom before the round started. The issue is when a judge has to pull the player away, and the player has no say over it. (Or when the player calls a judge and wants to talk away from the table.)

Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

It's not like all of the team-members will do nothing. Players A, B and C from Nissan team still are present and the table. While all three matches are stopped, they still have three-players strong “brain-power” while team Audi have only two-players strong “brain-power”

I think that's pretty negligible. Magic is a game of hidden information, and there's only so far that one can plan ahead from a static game state. Have the player away for any more than a minute or two and both teams will have analyzed as much as they reasonably can.

And regardless, “this solution isn't perfect” isn't a valid reason to discount it if it's still better than the alternative. :)

Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

instead of stopping match A and C, the best solution would be to move player B Away from the table.

This is an interesting suggestion. However it has a few potential issues that I can see:

* Logistics. You have to find a place for the opposing player B to stand, and find a judge who can watch them the whole time they're away.
* Player response. Players are in general going to value their own teammates higher than their opponent's teammates, meaning that both teams would prefer for all the matches to be paused than to have to play without their teammate. A solution that makes both sides of the table unhappy is something that I think we should try to avoid. (Though it does sometimes have to happen.)
* Speed. If a player's teammates are still playing while that player is away, that player is going to want to return to the table as fast as possible. This may cause them to rush through whatever they were pulled away for, which could potentially lead to important information being missed. The judge is also going to feel like they're being rushed, which could lead to mistakes being made. (These concerns also apply to the option of not doing anything to the matches and letting the other 5 players play on.)
* Philosophy. What we'd be doing here is negating one team's disadvantage by giving the other team a disadvantage. This goes against the usual philosophy behind most tournament policy, where we try to negate any advantage gained but we don't punish the other player for something that isn't their fault, even if it would make the game more “fair”.
* Abusability. If team 1 notices that a certain player on team 2 is better than the others and is helping them play, the opposing player on team 1 can ask to speak to a judge about some made up issue and deprive team 2 of their most important player. And in the same vein, this opens up the possibility of accusations towards the judge for pulling away an important player in order to help the other team. (Judge accusations are also a potential problem for the option of not doing anything and letting the other 5 players play on).