What's the philosophy behind not upgrading FtMGS? While it's not originally their error, it is still them allowing the game state to become corrupted.

Hi,

FtMGS is given quite often in situations when a judge is called by a player who did not commit the infraction. Moreover it is easier to miss an error caused by an opponent's card than by my own. Although both players are responsible for the correct game state.

Players would probably stop calling judges if they learned that they could eventually receive a Game Loss for pointing out an opponent's errors. And this could lead to very upleasant places of Cheating and general bad customer service.

Originally posted by Isaac King:

What's the philosophy behind not upgrading FtMGS? While it's not originally their error, it is still them allowing the game state to become corrupted.

Because your opponents can do mistakes that you can't prevent. Sure, you call a judge as soon as it happens, you have great awareness of your game… but anyway, the error has happened.

It's unfair to have your penalty upgraded. It's only tracked for investigations (well, if a player has a HUGE amount of some specific situation FtMGS, maybe it's worth looking for a reason…) and is not upgraded.

Side note - you won't get FTMGS if you call a judge straight away. Only if the game has continued since the initial mistake, or it was a judge or spectator who spotted it.

I suspect the reason for no upgrade is mainly because you can't prevent your opponent from committing infractions. We expect a player to know how their own cards work, but we don't expect they are as familiar with their opponent's cards. The fact that it's non upgradable means it functions as sort of a halfway point between “take no action” (which means the player doesn't learn anything) and an upgradable penalty (which would be a bit too harsh on someone who's opponent(s) was/were sloppy; and it would discourage people from reporting mistakes). By not upgrading, it hits the sweet spot of “try not to let this happen, but you're not in big trouble”.

By the way, Annotated IPG is quite a good resource for answering these “behind-the-philosophy” questions. Albeit it is not up-to-date at this moment.

http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Annotated_IPG

A lot of players get upset about FtMGS Warnings, even if they are not upgradeable. Because it serves as a reminder to pay more attention to the game, a caution if you will, would there be any room to repurpose the Caution penalty purely for FtMGS purposes?

Regards
Tomas Sukaitis

Cautions don't go into WER, so we would lose the ability to spot someone receiving far more FTMGS Warnings than is normal, which could mean there's a deeper problem, or that the player could benefit from help playing in Comp REL tournaments - either from a judge or someone who plays more competitively in general.

I know what you mean about players getting upset, but how you word and explain the penalty can go a long way towards reducing any negative feelings.