Under Deck/Decklist Problem, it says:

Use of a truncated name that is not unique may be downgraded to a Warning at the Head Judge’s discretion if he or she believes that the intended card is obvious and the potential for abuse minimal. When determining if a name is ambiguous, judges may take into account the format being played.

Could someone give me a few examples of when you would take the above factors in account and when you wouldn't?

Garruk in Standard would be unacceptable.

Garruk in Innistrad Block would be acceptable.

On 6 May 2013 17:43, “Toby Hazes” <forum-4108-ba31@apps.magicjudges.org>
wrote:

Under Deck/Decklist Problem, it says:

Use of a truncated name that is not unique may be downgraded to a Warning
at the Head Judge’s discretion if he or she believes that the intended card
is obvious and the potential for abuse minimal. When determining if a name
is ambiguous, judges may take into account the format being played.


Could someone give me a few examples of when you would take the above
factors in account and when you wouldn't?

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“Jace” - two options, just in Standard - too ambiguous.
“Ajani” - for a Standard event, there's only one possibility; for other formats, that's not unique enough.
“Aurelia” - so far, only one of these - in any format.

Does that help?

Edited Scott Marshall (May 7, 2013 07:53:25 AM)

Hi Scott

How about a player that registers 4 Stomping in a Modern tournament?

There are only two modern legal cards that have the name stomping in them:

Stomping Ground and Stomping Slabs

Is Stomping was listed with all his other land would you think about downgrading to a warning after talking to the player?

I may not be scott but I would have to say that “Stomping” is insufficient
to identify the card in modern. Just because a player registered all of
their lands on one part of the deck list doesn't mean there can't be other
cards mixed in. some players have both lands and non-lands across the
whole decklist. Even if we can infer what they mean, that doesn't give us
support to justify it when it is not acceptable based on policy.

Can it clearly be more than one card in the format? Yes. = Not obvious
Can more than one of the possible cards be reasonably be played in deck? Yes (assuming he has other red sources) = potential for abuse NOT minimal

Remember this is an *optional* downgrade. Don't feel guilty punishing players for not being clear enough.

Hi Patrick

I tend to agree with you, but wanted to have a discussion about it.

You could argue that it is acceptable based on policy as the referenced section does allow head judge discretion on this.

Also, most of the examples that were given by Scott and Jason reference storyline characters which are explicitly exempted in policy if they are the only one legal in that format.

“Truncated names of storyline characters (legendary permanents and Planeswalkers) are acceptable as long as they the only representation of that character in the format and should be treated as referring to that card, even if other cards begin with the same name”

The Aurelia example does not really apply here as the referenced section specifically says, “Use of a truncated name that is not unique may be downgraded to a Warning at the Head Judge’s discretion”

I was trying to provide an example of a non-storyline character card with a non-unique name. Otherwise there does not seem to be much point to having that statement in the IPG at all.

At SCG Open Milwaukee, we had someone put “4 Root” in his land section.
Although we were 90% certain he meant Rootbound Crag, it was possible given
the land base that it was Rootborn Defenses.

Dominick Riesland, aka Rabbitball
Creator of the Cosmversal Grimoire
“As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then
their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to
destroy.”
– Christopher Dawson

Bob,

I understand your intent behind the question. I would echo what shawn already said, in that the passage you reference is an optional downgrade, and given that the potential for abuse is there I would stand with the basic GL penalty and not opt for a downgrade. As with any discussion of this type it's going to depend situation to situation, which is why that optional downgrade clause is there in the first place.

OK, another example, more to the point some are raising, I suspect.
“Tragic” - that's unique in Standard, and we probably all know that means Tragic Slip. That's clear enough - downgrade, but I'd still caution the player to be more complete.
“Turn” - well, that's probably Turn // Burn - but what about Turn to Slag? “But, NOBODY plays Turn to Slag!!!?!???!?” - no matter what the player might think of the playability of the card, it's their responsibility to achieve clarity and certainty. I would not downgrade.

In other words, it seems this clause has no real application? None of these examples show a truncated name that isn't unique as being downgraded. The storyline characters have their own separate paragraph to indicate “no infraction”, and a truncated card name isn't ambiguous if it's the only one in the format.

So the question is whether the Head Judge really has any “discretion” here at all, or whether this clause should just be removed altogether. In what situation is it appropriate to say “I believe the intended card is obvious and potential for abuse minimal”?

Here's an example I ran into: A Modern player writes “Blackcleave” in the land column for a Red/black burn deck. Technically, this could be Blackcleave Goblin or the card we all know it actually was. Downgrade or no?

OK, maybe Turn to Slag is a bad example. It's actually reasonable to downgrade for that one. (I just re-read Pat Chapin's article on SCG, and every reference to Turn // Burn in those deck lists is, simply, “Turn”.)
And, yeah, “no one plays Turn to Slag” could be fairly convincing, when it's close to a true statement. “No one” is too general to ever be 100% correct, but I'd give it high-90s … and thus, probably downgrade.

Maybe a more extreme case:
3 Boros C
4 Boros R
(written by someone who was obviously in a hurry)

Boros Reckoner seems obvious, and I bet most of you immediately thought of Boros Charm. What about Boros Cluestone? Can we be sure that “no one” plays the new fixer/cycler? Could your decision to downgrade there change over the next few weeks?

Those are the sorts of things you need to take into consideration, when deciding if you'll downgrade, or not.

As for specific examples - a lot of the discussion that led to the current wording in the IPG stemmed from a well-publicized Legacy event, where a combo deck player wrote “Ancient” (Tomb) with his other lands, but had access to Red mana and thus, conceivably, could be playing Ancient Grudge. (He wasn't.)

What's “obvious” to one judge isn't going to be obvious to all judges, but this IPG language does empower the Head Judge to offer a reasonable level of forgiveness to players who aren't trying to abuse policy, but just made a fairly inconsequential error.

Better?

Edited Scott Marshall (May 7, 2013 08:53:28 AM)

Yes, that helps show that there is at least some possibility to apply the downgrade clause, but it seems that it's dependent on a judge's knowledge of what sees real play in a format, and discretion can change as cards come in or out of favor. Does this lead to a situation of “I got screwed because my HJ didn't know this deck obviously plays Boros Charm and not Boros Cluestone…” and possible inconsistency in application of policy? Or is more of a case of “You got lucky that your judge knows this deck plays Boros Charm even though you were the sloppy one…”

Edited Josh Stansfield (May 7, 2013 09:08:30 AM)

At a Modern PTQ I judged last season, the Head Judge and I used this clause to downgrade the penalty for a player writing “Glen Elendra” on a Birthing Pod decklist. There are actually four Modern-legal cards with “Glen Elendra” somewhere in their name, but given that only one of them is even somewhat played in Modern and useful in a Pod deck, we felt comfortable downgrading.

During a Modern PTQ we had an affinity player write “Champion” on their decklist which was downgraded.