Please keep the forum protocol in mind when posting.

Competitive REL » Post: Illegal Shortcut

Illegal Shortcut

Aug. 10, 2019 05:48:22 AM

Alexis Rassel
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

France

Illegal Shortcut

A taps 6 lands, shows Summoner's Pact and says : « Search Primeval Titan, play Titan, pick 2 lands at the same time ? »
B : « sure »

While A is searching for his Titan and his 2 lands, B says : « You can’t play Titan because of Damping Sphere »

A wants to pick another creature, B says that A has to pick Titan.

Infraction ? Penalty ? Remedy ?

Aug. 10, 2019 06:31:19 AM

Francesco Scialpi
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

Italy and Malta

Illegal Shortcut

Equivalent to the simpler:

Originally posted by Alexis Rassel:

shows Summoner's Pact and says : « Search Primeval Titan »
B : « sure »

While A is searching for his Titan, B says : « You can’t play Titan because of Damping Sphere »

A wants to pick another creature, B says that A has to pick Titan.

Infraction ? Penalty ? Remedy ?

A can change their mind until they present the deck after searching. B did talk too soon.

My two cents.

Aug. 10, 2019 04:15:01 PM

Isaac King
Judge (Level 1 (Judge Foundry))

Barriere, British Columbia, Canada

Illegal Shortcut

AP has proposed an illegal shortcut, which NAP accepted. Technically this falls under CPV as a violation of section 4.2 of the MTR, realistically I'm probably not going to issue that here. I'm definitely having a talk with NAP to see why they thought it was acceptable to lie about the resulting game state from that shortcut, and there's a reasonable chance that they aren't going to be in my event afterwards. If there's no disqualification I'll back up the game to right before the shortcut began and tell them to keep playing.

Aug. 11, 2019 08:42:06 PM

Scott Marshall
Forum Moderator
Judge (Level 4 (Judge Foundry)), Hall of Fame

USA - Southwest

Illegal Shortcut

This one's really tough, since so much depends on what was meant by that (very vague) “sure”, from NAP.

And there's no way to know that without doing some face-to-face investigation.

We've had countless discussions on what “OK” means; while there's no single, definitive answer, it generally means almost nothing. “OK” can mean “I understand, let me think”; “OK” can also mean “that resolves”; “OK” - or in this case, “sure” - might simply mean “go ahead and try that (but it won't work, heh heh )”.

Unlike Isaac, I don't predict a DQ arising from this - I see where he's going with that, but if NAP is clever enough to trick AP into attempting an action that NAP knows will fail, they're also likely clever enough to evade our investigation skills. NAP will simply tell us that “sure” meant “Yes, I understand”, but that they never said “that's a legal series of actions” or anything even remotely close to that.

Sorry, Alexis - interesting hypothetical (that probably actually happened, somehwere) … but I really can't attempt, nor endorse, any sort “answer”.

d:^D

Aug. 12, 2019 02:05:29 AM

Alexis Rassel
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

France

Illegal Shortcut

This indeed happened during a tournament.
I did not want to discuss about B’s DQ or not, but this : if during the resolution of a group of actions (shortcut) we notice that something is illegal to be performed, what shall we do : rewind everything or keep everything that was legal then stop.

Aug. 12, 2019 06:28:33 AM

Lev Kotlyar
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

Europe - North

Illegal Shortcut

I've had a series of discussions with several GPHJs on this topic while preparing a workshop on backups for Vienna conference. So, here's the common verdict from judges responsible for backups at GPs and MCs:

Backup to the point the error was actually made and not reverse the whole shortcut altogether.
Two key reasons that supported this decisions:
a) this way we discourage opportunistic cheating;
b) we don't allow changing mind after making a strategical error.

Kind regards,
Lev

Aug. 12, 2019 09:37:17 AM

Francesco Scialpi
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

Italy and Malta

Illegal Shortcut

Originally posted by Lev Kotlyar:

I've had a series of discussions with several GPHJs on this topic while preparing a workshop on backups for Vienna conference. So, here's the common verdict from judges responsible for backups at GPs and MCs:

Backup to the point the error was actually made and not reverse the whole shortcut altogether.
Two key reasons that supported this decisions:
a) this way we discourage opportunistic cheating;
b) we don't allow changing mind after making a strategical error.

Kind regards,
Lev

Interesting.
In the proposed scenario, what would you rule?

Aug. 12, 2019 04:52:59 PM

Andrew Keeler
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

USA - South Central

Illegal Shortcut

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

Originally posted by Lev Kotlyar:

I've had a series of discussions with several GPHJs on this topic while preparing a workshop on backups for Vienna conference. So, here's the common verdict from judges responsible for backups at GPs and MCs:

Backup to the point the error was actually made and not reverse the whole shortcut altogether.
Two key reasons that supported this decisions:
a) this way we discourage opportunistic cheating;
b) we don't allow changing mind after making a strategical error.

Kind regards,
Lev

Interesting.
In the proposed scenario, what would you rule?

By my reading, the proposal would be “You have found Primeval Titan with your Pact, but you can't cast it because of damping sphere. You don't search for any lands. Play on from here.”

This seems to match with the general way that we handle the proposing of shortcuts, so I'd probably handle it the same way if B had immediately said, “that's fine, but you can't cast the titan because of damping sphere.”

Aug. 12, 2019 04:53:33 PM

Andrew Keeler
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

USA - South Central

Illegal Shortcut

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

Originally posted by Lev Kotlyar:

I've had a series of discussions with several GPHJs on this topic while preparing a workshop on backups for Vienna conference. So, here's the common verdict from judges responsible for backups at GPs and MCs:

Backup to the point the error was actually made and not reverse the whole shortcut altogether.
Two key reasons that supported this decisions:
a) this way we discourage opportunistic cheating;
b) we don't allow changing mind after making a strategical error.

Kind regards,
Lev

Interesting.
In the proposed scenario, what would you rule?

By my reading, the ruling would be “You have found Primeval Titan with your Pact, but you can't cast it because of damping sphere. You don't search for any lands. Play on from here.”

This seems to match with the general way that we handle the proposing of shortcuts, so I'd probably handle it the same way if B had immediately said, “that's fine, but you can't cast the titan because of damping sphere.”

Aug. 14, 2019 02:36:04 AM

Lev Kotlyar
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program))

Europe - North

Illegal Shortcut

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

Interesting.
In the proposed scenario, what would you rule?
What Andrew said :)
GPE-GRV for illegal payment. Titan's in hand, lands are back in the library. Go on.