With the new morph rule, how would we handle the following:

Neelix and Anna are playing in a KTK draft. It's game 1. Neelix has several morphs on the battlefield. Neelix concedes and Anna asks to see his morphs. Neelix says he doesn't need to reveal his morphs and scoops. Anna then calls you to the table. Neelix says he misunderstood the rules. He doesn't sound sincere, but you don't have any evidence that he's lying. Neelix has not committed any other infractions at this event, but he has a reputation for gaming the IPG.

In this case, Neelix has improved his chances by denying information that Anna would use in the following games. Would this still just be a warning?

Edited James Ribe (Dec. 13, 2014 08:57:12 AM)

Either you don't believe him enough you think he is lying and in fact knows he should reveal his morphs and didn't to gain an advantage in which case you disqualify him for cheating. Or you believe he honestly misunderstood the rules change meaning he didn't knowingly break the rules issue the warning, correct hi understanding/give the don't be a dummy talk and keep an eye on him

This is an upgraded GRV, so no warning but a game loss.

Edit: Only edited out the bit where I was wrong

Edited Mark Dragstra (Dec. 14, 2014 01:35:42 PM)

Mark - you appear to have missed an update: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2014/12/12/changing-morph-handling-in-the-ipg/

Indeed I have, thanks for the link.

I wonder if it's worthwhile in a situation like this to go into the long-winded explanation of the rule that was broken and the prescribed penalty.

“So this is a GRV, and since your opponent was unable to verify the legality of the play, we typically upgrade that from a warning to a game loss…” At this point, I might insert pregnant pause here to see if Neelix moves to correct me, thus demonstrating an understanding of the rules (and, thus, he was lying to a judge…). If not, I continue with “however, there was a recent update to the IPG that keeps this particular GRV a warning. Now that you've been apprised of the rule and its penalty, I'll ask you to sideboard and prepare for your next game.”

Does that particular sequence step over a line?

I've posted the rules change to my relevant Facebook groups and will be making an announcement at the beginning of my events. That way the “misunderstood” excuse won't fly.