Magic Judges Forum / Competitive REL / Outside assistance by calling a judge

Tim Boura · Sept. 3, 2018 09:52:44 AM

At the English Nationals I was playing in the Last Chance Trials to get a bye for the following day. During one of the matches I had an incident happen that I wasn't sure about how it should be handled but felt wrong.

I was playing vs an opponent who had an active Scarab God and a single zombie. They missed their Scarab God trigger and drew a card, started to take their turn.

At that point their friend watching …

At the English Nationals I was playing in the Last Chance Trials to get a bye for the following day. During one of the matches I had an incident happen that I wasn't sure about how it should be handled but felt wrong.

I was playing vs an opponent who had an active Scarab God and a single zombie. They missed their Scarab God trigger and drew a card, started to take their turn.

At that point their friend watching asked us to pause the game and fetched a judge.

I made a mistake at that point by telling the judge that my opponent had missed the Scarab God trigger…rather than pointing out that it was outside assistance since the mere act of the observer asking for the game to be paused at that time had reminded my opponent of the trigger. (As soon as the pause was asked for he immediately realized what he'd done).

The judge ruled the trigger missed and handled the part he was aware of correctly. I have no complaints about that.

However in retrospect I believe I made a mistake in not pointing out that this was outside assistance and also that the damage was now done since my opponent would not make that mistake again.

What is the correct thing that

a. me
b. the judge if aware of the full facts

should have done in this situation?

[Expand/Collapse Forum Post]

Edited Tim Boura (Sept. 3, 2018 09:53:38 AM)

Scott Marshall · Sept. 3, 2018 11:32:49 AM

The observer did exactly what we expect of spectators - pause the game and get a Judge, but not mention any specifics about what they've seen. The fact that this reminded the player of their Missed Trigger is coincidental, and doesn't change what we want spectators to do.

Or, short version: definitely, absolutely not Outside Assistance.

d:^D

Shawn Doherty · Sept. 7, 2018 10:19:39 AM

So one thing that I don't think has been discussed in the situation is how
the judge should have handled the situation.
When a spectator stops a match and gets a judge, the judge should speak to
the spectator away from the match to determine why the spectator stopped
the match. This give the judge a chance to first determine if anything
illegal has happened. In this case, if the spectator explained that the
player missed the trigger, then the judge could explain to the spectator
that there wasn't an infraction and the match didn't need to be stopped.
Then the judge can let the players know that they can continue play.
This prevents the judge from provide information about the missed trigger.
The judge may need to investigate more, if it isn't clear what the error
may have been, but I wanted to show that there are ways to avoid passing
information to the players, even after a match is stopped.

And to be clear: A spectator telling a match ‘Hey stop, I’m getting a
judge' is not the same as saying ‘Hey you missed your trigger’. The former
is not OA, while the latter is.

On Fri, Sep 7, 2018 at 11:02 AM Tim Boura <

Erin Murphy · Sept. 8, 2018 05:54:48 PM

Originally posted by Shawn Doherty:

wasn't an infraction

This just isn't correct though, just because an infraction has no penalty associated with it, does not mean that there is no infraction being committed.

Players are entitled to stop a match whenever they believe a rules or policy violation has occurred, and a rules violation has definitely occurred (they've missed their trigger).

I'd definitely investigate, insomuch as ask “What's happened, why did you feel the need to stop the match”, but you're almost never disqualifying a spectator; simply because they're never going to be so brazen as to turn around and say (or elude to) "I'm making sure my friend doesn't miss their trigger because ".

Please keep the forum protocol in mind when posting.

Sept. 3, 2018 09:52:44 AM [Original Post]

Outside assistance by calling a judge

Sept. 3, 2018 11:32:49 AM [Marked as Accepted Answer]

Outside assistance by calling a judge

Sept. 7, 2018 10:19:39 AM

Outside assistance by calling a judge

Sept. 8, 2018 05:54:48 PM

Outside assistance by calling a judge