At SCG Atlanta, my first major event, I made an incorrect ruling during a regular REL situation. I need your feedback on how to handle the situation.

I'm head judging a draft. A player comes to me with a Djeru's Resolve and asks me about the interaction between damage prevention and trample: What happens if I block a creature with trample, with the creature targeted by Djeru's Resolve? I had a general inclination to say that, because trample requires the attacking creature to deal lethal damage before dealing damage to the player, and because the damage would be prevented so that any amount of damage would not be lethal, that therefore the defending player would not be dealt damage by the attacking creature. I expressed this to him, but wanted to check the ruling to be certain.

However, upon trying to look up the answer on my phone, I realized that not only was my phone battery very low, the webpage was not loading at a reasonable pace. After several minutes of standing waiting for my phone to load the MTR, and getting several notifications in the meantime about my battery life, I finally gave up and told him to play according to my original ruling. After making the ruling, I was quickly pulled away by another player (the on-demand events were very busy that day and I was the only judge for the events), so I soon forgot that I wanted to verify my ruling with another judge. Obviously, I now know that my ruling was incorrect.

I was called over by the same player a short while later, after the player had cast Djeru's Resolve on a creature and blocked the Honored Hydra that was attacking him. Both the opponent and a spectator believed that my ruling was incorrect, to which I responded that I could check with another judge about the accuracy of my ruling. The defending player stopped me, saying, “Hold on, I already cast the spell because you told me that's how it worked.” I was now stuck between a rock and a hard spot, because I know that I could have been wrong about my ruling and it would be too late to fix it. I had made an incorrect ruling that resulted in strategic decisions and information being revealed that was irreversible.

I upheld my original ruling and told the players to play according to my ruling, and informed the players that I would check with another judge. After approaching an L2 on the matter, I learned that I was indeed wrong.

What would you do in this situation? If this were a competitive event, what would you do differently?

Edited April Miller (May 7, 2017 08:10:40 PM)

I don't know the specifics of the situation, but you should probably not have told the players to play according to a ruling that you had a strong suspicion of being incorrect. Even if it has already disrupted the game to some extent, it's generally better to correct the problem as soon as possible, or at least find out what the correct answer is before making that decision. (Of course this depends on external factors- if you're needed for other tasks or the round is about to end, that might change your best course of action.)

Additionally, at Regular REL you have a lot of leeway in how to fix problems. Backing up to before the Djeru's Resolve was cast doesn't fix the information gained, but it does undo some of the disruption.

Also, I would recommend getting an app for your phone that stores the official documents locally, so you don't need to worry about your internet connection. MTG Familiar is very good for Android, and I believe some judges just released/updated one for iOS.

(I assume you meant that were trying to load the Comp Rules? The MTR doesn't talk about trample :).)

Edited Isaac King (May 7, 2017 11:17:27 PM)

I agree with Isaac – getting an app for your phone so you don't have to go to the internet is a lifesaver. If you're on an iphone, the best app I've heard of is called MTG Guide.

As for the ruling, if you have multiple players saying they believe your ruling is incorrect, it's worth the time to double check with another judge. I would try to stress to the players that you're doublechecking to make sure they get an accurate ruling for their game (a positive) rather than saying ~“ummmmm… I don't know…I'm going to get someone else to take over” (a negative). There's nothing wrong with wanting to check with another judge about giving a ruling, but the way that decision is presented to the players can have a big impact on their day – it's the difference between the players thinking “the judges really wanted to take care of us and make sure everything was right” and “the judges didn't know anything and had to talk over every ruling.”

In the past, when I have given a player bad information that causes them to make a poor play, I have backed up to the point of their play if possible. It is possible they were making decisions based on my wrong information before that, but there's no way to fix that – all we can reasonably do is undo the most recent mistake for them. In this case, I would allow the player to untap their mana, put the Resolve in their hand, and move back to the point where the Hydra was just declared as an attacker.

1) As others have said, get an app for your phone that allows you to access the documents offline. As an Android user, my personal app of choice is MTG Judge Core. MTG Judge Core is not available on iOS apparently though, and for that I would defer to others with more iOS experience than myself.

2) If you are unsure enough about your ruling that you need (but are unable) to check the documents, I would advise holding the call and checking with another judge on the spot. Don't give a (possibly) incorrect ruling that you are unsure of for expediency; as you could see with this example, players are much happier waiting for a correct ruling than having an incorrect one quickly. This is one of the most important skills to learn as an L1: In the judge program, we take customer service seriously, and to that end, doing our job right is more important than doing our job quickly.

3) If you have given an incorrect ruling and players (whether the actual players in the game or spectators) contradict you, this is even more reason to double-check. It is always best to be able to say “I checked your ruling, here's where it says you're wrong in CR, my ruling stands” (obviously not in those words, but you get the point) or “I'm sorry for my error, you are correct”. The time you spent discussing with the players who wanted to contradict you could have been better spent finding a second judge to corroborate (or in this case correct) your ruling.

4) If all else fails and you realize your error, in general you should, if reasonable, back up to the point that a player made a play based on their incorrect understanding of the rules based on your error. As said above, this doesn't fix the information gained, but it at least corrects the game state and fixes the future problem where the same situation occurs again but the way the game operates is inconsistent.

The first thing you want to do, is to realize that you are only human and you are going to make mistakes. How you deal with those situations is very important. You need to rectify the situation with the players for two reasons.

One, you don't want players to go home thinking an incorrect ruling is correct and then applying to that to future tournaments, explaining that to their friends at the kitchen table, and so on.

The second reason is your own personal integrity and your position as a judge. Players can understand and empathise with an incorrect ruling. It is a complicated game after all, and sometimes you make a mistake, but if you fix it and own your mistake, players will understand that. Players will respect you a lot less if you don't do this. .

Now to the question of how to fix an incorrect ruling. At regular you have a lot of leeway when it comes to fixing a gamestate. You can look at what play was made because of the incorrect information and see if a partial fix is possible. Otherwise you can always try a back-up. If none of these are possible, all that's left for you is to just leave the game as is. In these (rare) instances, if the game cannot be satisfactorily fixed and the impact to the game is substantial, I am in favour of reminding the players they are always allowed to draw a game at any point. It is rather likely they will take this option, especially at Regular REL.

As you can see, none of these fixes are very elegant. So maybe it would be better to prevent those mistakes. Yes, you can study the rules better, but even then I doubt you will never encounter a situation that you are not completely sure on how it works. It is more relevant to know where to get information. The apps that were mentioned above in this thread can be very useful. Having a second judge to verify things with can also be a great treasure. Some players might also be very knowledgeable on the rules. Identifying these players and asking them for input can also be of great help.

There is nothing wrong with telling players: “I want to verify something before I give my ruling, to make sure I give you the correct ruling.” They may have to wait a bit longer, but they will also be happy, because they are receiving good customer service. Personally, I've always had more respect for judges who aren't afraid to check when they are in doubt, than for judges who blurt out incorrect rulings in an attempt to appear knowledgeable.