It actually doesn't - for the DEC-purposes, Notion Thief does the same thing (and even has inherit flash) ;).

Originally posted by Jeffrey Higgins:

When issuing a DEC, I would also speak with the Spirit of the Labyrinth controller and ask them to take some responsibility; for example when a draw spell is on the stack. They aren't going to let their opponent take-back the spell, but they can still make for a friendlier event.

Be careful how you frame this though, what would you say exactly? Keep in mind ultimately players are not responsible for a friendly event. It's a nice goal but we can't enforce it. As long as they aren't unsportive, we allow them to be not sportive.

Edited Toby Hazes (Jan. 30, 2014 04:03:56 PM)

Originally posted by Jeffrey Higgins:

I think if the same player has had multiple opponents game loss themselves due to SoTL, we should begin a different investigation.

I don't think so. Knowing the rules IS a skill check and if he is able to mind trick every opponent into a DEC with a Vialed Spirit of The Labirinth, well… the skill check proved his opponent poor rules knowledge. And it's pretty obvious players will learn from this (and penalties should always bring education).

BTW making an announcement could be useful to limit this problem.

Originally posted by Andrea Mondani:

Originally posted by Jeffrey Higgins:
I think if the same player has had multiple opponents game loss themselves due to SoTL, we should begin a different investigation.

I don't think so. Knowing the rules IS a skill check and if he is able to mind trick every opponent into a DEC with a Vialed Spirit of The Labirinth, well… the skill check proved his opponent poor rules knowledge.

Generally yes, but there is always the possibility that he's actually, say, dropping the Spirit into play without properly announcing it, and then misleading his opponent as to what happened and lying to judges very convincingly afterwards… not very likely, but isn't it because of potential situations like this that we do things like track FtMGS Warnings?

Originally posted by James Winward-Stuart:

Andrea Mondani
Originally posted by Jeffrey Higgins:
I think if the same player has had multiple opponents game loss themselves due to SoTL, we should begin a different investigation.

I don't think so. Knowing the rules IS a skill check and if he is able to mind trick every opponent into a DEC with a Vialed Spirit of The Labirinth, well… the skill check proved his opponent poor rules knowledge.

Generally yes, but there is always the possibility that he's actually, say, dropping the Spirit into play without properly announcing it, and then misleading his opponent as to what happened and lying to judges very convincingly afterwards… not very likely, but isn't it because of potential situations like this that we do things like track FtMGS Warnings?

But it's not a FtMGS. The SoTL player has made no errors. He just played correctly, a bit tricky even with the "Yeah, resolve Brainstorm!! … Judge!!", but that's no fault on his side.

Unsportive conduct isn't not-friendly conduct. And that's even more true in Competitive REL.

Originally posted by Joaquín Pérez:

But it's not a FtMGS. The SoTL player has made no errors. He just played correctly, a bit tricky even with the “Yeah, resolve Brainstorm!! … Judge!!”, but that's no fault on his side.

Unsportive conduct isn't not-friendly conduct. And that's even more true in Competitive REL.

Sorry, my referring to FtMGS was a bit confusing - I just meant that as an example of how we track things just in case we're missing something, not that it applies here.

What I meant is that we might want to monitor things if this scenario happens repeatedly with one player, in case he is in fact not playing correctly but is then doing a good job of lying to cover it up.

I don't see anything wrong with the scenario as described, it's open and shut - but if the same thing happens with the same player repeatedly, I'm going to start wondering whether it's more likely that:

a whole string of opponents were not suspicious of the (almost certainly relevant, given the timing) Vial move
or
in fact the SoTL player is actually not playing correctly after all

Edited James Winward-Stuart (Jan. 31, 2014 03:37:44 AM)

Originally posted by James Winward-Stuart:

Joaquín Pérez
But it's not a FtMGS. The SoTL player has made no errors. He just played correctly, a bit tricky even with the “Yeah, resolve Brainstorm!! … Judge!!”, but that's no fault on his side.

Unsportive conduct isn't not-friendly conduct. And that's even more true in Competitive REL.

Sorry, my referring to FtMGS was a bit confusing - I just meant that as an example of how we track things just in case we're missing something, not that it applies here.

What I meant is that we might want to monitor things if this scenario happens repeatedly with one player, in case he is in fact not playing correctly but is then doing a good job of lying to cover it up.

I don't see anything wrong with the scenario as described, it's open and shut - but if the same thing happens with the same player repeatedly, I'm going to start wondering whether it's more likely that:

a whole string of opponents were not suspicious of the (almost certainly relevant, given the timing) Vial move
or
whether in fact the SoTL player is actually not playing correctly after all

Of course, you must investigate the situation, more thoroughly as the number of judge calls increases :) but as long as nothing weird arises, it's perfectly legal and possible. Particularly the first weeks/months after SoTL is released, a lot of casual Legacy players won't be aware of the awful interaction between Brainstorm and this :)

Originally posted by Jeffrey Higgins:

We discussed this situation at the Portland Judges meetup last night.

The agreed-upon penalty is DEC, which fits. A few of us mentioned that making an announcement at the beginning of a Comp-REL tournament would be a good thing. “There is this card which adds a new twist to the game.”

…

This part is a trap. Don't be covering new card interactions during announcements. Judges have a couple of motivations for this: maybe they just want to be nice to players, maybe they just want to save themselves answering a FAQ repeatedly. But as noted elsewhere, knowing the rules and cards is a skill. Assume that the good players are aware of the interactions, and that bad players will be spotty on these and a million other things. If you're talking about interactions during announcements, the best case scenario is that you're boring the players because they already know all this. The worst case scenario is that you actually get it wrong (even if you just misspoke) and it bites you during the tournament.

A short, blanket statement like “if you're not sure how a card from last week's release works, please ask a judge first” or “if you're not sure how the new Missed Triggers policy works, ask a judge” is fine. This alerts casually competitive players that some big shift has just occurred, without bogging the player meeting down in the details. This also reinforces the idea that we want players asking judges before a problem occurs.

Originally posted by Tom Wyliehart:

The worst case scenario is that you actually get it wrong

Even when you get it right, the players won't necessarily understand, or listen to the entire explanation.

I wholeheartedly agree with Tom's comments - keep your announcements short.

Good: “There's been a small change in the rules about FOO, please ask a judge if you're not clear on that.”
Bad: “There's been a small change, and here's 1,000 words about that…”

It's never bad to remind players that judges are there because they can answer rules questions, and that doing so is much more interesting than pushing in chairs and picking up trash - so, please, give our day some highlights, and ask us questions!

d:^D

Edited Scott Marshall (Feb. 10, 2014 08:18:32 AM)

Oh definitely keep it short and sweet.

The more I try to communicate things to players, the more I realize that sloppy players are gonna be sloppy whatever you try to do. They won't listen your announcement, they won't read your posts, they won't pay attention to the font 250 thingy you just printed.

Making a short, small, easy step to keep updated players paying attention is useful and should be done. Doing small seminars before events (for example “my first PTQ” or “my first Prerelease”) is time consuming but awesome and helps events to be inclusive. But trying to reach 100% awareness is a battle that can only be lost, because some players just don't care.