In a PPTQ, Albus attacks with Khenra Eternal. Neville blocks with Harrier Naga. Albus casts Gift of Strength, then says “Oh, wait, you lose 1 from Afflict”. Neville answers “No, that's too late. Since you cast a spell, the trigger is missed.”

Do you intervene? If you do, do you give a penalty to Albus Neville?

Edited Florian Horn (July 24, 2017 02:36:09 PM)

I think this is an infraction for Neville. As for which infraction it is, there are two options that make sense- either a GRV for incorrectly telling Albus that the trigger isn't on the stack, or a CPV for misrepresenting the missed trigger policy (which is derived information). I think CPV is the more appropriate of the two, since Neville is really talking about how triggers work in general- the current situation just brought the misunderstanding to light.

Edited Isaac King (July 24, 2017 08:18:15 AM)

I'm not sure penalising a player for not understanding how the Missed Trigger policy works is appropriate.

There will be people that think a Missed Trigger is the same as “forgetting” a trigger. Albus has definitely forgotten the trigger but it's still legal to cast Gift of Strength in response to the trigger, so remembering early enough is not a missed trigger.

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Yes, this is definitely an infraction. As for which infraction it is, there are two options that make sense- either a GRV for incorrectly telling Albus that the trigger isn't on the stack, or a CPV for misrepresenting the missed trigger policy (which is derived information). I think CPV is the more appropriate of the two, since Neville is really talking about how triggers work in general- the current situation just brought the misunderstanding to light.

From what I understood a long time ago, this only becomes CPV for Neville if he explicitly states that this is what the documents say.

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

I'm not sure penalising a player for not understanding how the Missed Trigger policy works is appropriate.

There will be people that think a Missed Trigger is the same as “forgetting” a trigger. Albus has definitely forgotten the trigger but it's still legal to cast Gift of Strength in response to the trigger, so remembering early enough is not a missed trigger.

I'm not sure I understand- isn't the point of derived information that players can't misrepresent it, even if it was because of a legitimate misunderstanding? If I say that my 4/5 Tarmogoyf is a 3/4, I've still committed a CPV, even though I legitimately didn't realize it was actually a 4/5.

Originally posted by Florian Horn:

If you do, do you give a penalty to Albus?

I'm confused, Florian - why would you consider a penalty for Albus?

d:^D

Originally posted by Isaac King:

I'm not sure I understand- isn't the point of derived information that players can't misrepresent it, even if it was because of a legitimate misunderstanding? If I say that my 4/5 Tarmogoyf is a 3/4, I've still committed a CPV, even though I legitimately didn't realize it was actually a 4/5.

I just don't believe we should be penalising someone for not understanding a policy that is relatively complex and something that judges can and do get wrong themselves. This isn't a simple case of mis-counting the card types in graveyards.

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

I just don't believe we should be penalising someone for not understanding a policy that is relatively complex and something that judges can and do get wrong themselves. This isn't a simple case of mis-counting the card types in graveyards.

I don't think complexity of the information is something we should be looking at when determining if a player has committed a CPV. Answering an incorrect power for a creature is always an infraction, regardless of how many different effects are changing its power.

Players always have the option to simply not say anything, and that's exactly what they should do if they are unsure.

There is no penalty for suggesting a competing reality. The correct AP's response here should be “No, I can do it in response to the trigger.”



While consistently “misunderstanding” board states and rules to their advantage could be considered Cheating, it would require more than one occurrence to warrant this penalty.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

why would you consider a penalty for Albus?

Thanks. That was supposed to be a potential penalty for Neville.

Originally posted by Russell Deutsch:

There is no penalty for suggesting a competing reality.

There certainly is. If I'm in a match and I suggest the competing reality of my Tarmogoyf being a 5/6 when it's a 4/5 in this reality, or I suggest that we're allowed to flip a coin to determine the winner of the match, there are most certainly penalties for those. In fact, pretty much any infraction can be framed as “suggesting a competing reality”.

But here, the competing reality is a possible reality. Suggesting a 4/5
Tarmogoyf is really 5/6 is not supported in most cases. In this case, there
is a specific possibility (casting an instant in response to the trigger)
that is supported by the rules.

“Suggesting a competing reality” is usually only a concern when there are multiple replacement effects and one player wants to lead the other player into making a strategic error. It's not suggesting a competing reality to suggest that a player who has acknowledged their trigger should instead “miss” it, it's suggesting that the player commit a GRV. (Afflict isn't optional, so there's no legal reality where a player acknowledges the trigger in time and then fails to cause the life loss).

I would intervene at the point at which Neville is teaching Albus an incorrect interpretation of the rules, so that Albus does not get confused and try to apply those rules in future himself, more as a teaching moment than a penalty moment. I would rule that Neville loses 1 life, no infraction, no penalty. Albus did not explicitly mention that the trigger was not on the stack, so it is legal to assume it is on the stack as per trigger policy, and Neville is allowed to misunderstand the rules and express to Albus the rules under an incorrect understanding, that's what we as judges are there for, to clarify these situations (or, one of our responsibilities; I guess we're mainly there to pick up trash and push in chairs ;-) ).

If Neville has a reputation or history of “misunderstanding the rules”, I might consider looking a bit closer into this situation and perhaps issuing Neville a CPV, just to keep on record that Neville has a history of this behaviour and it might be worth looking into more seriously, but as a one-off event I wouldn't issue any penalty.

Edited Lyle Waldman (July 25, 2017 11:47:43 PM)

I disagree with the idea that we shouldn't be issuing a penalty here. The only reason that we should be interjecting ourselves into this situation is if we believe a violation of the rules has occurred, which means that we should be applying the correction and education of a penalty (warning, in this case) to help prevent such things from happening in the future. (bold for my emphasis)

Originally posted by = IPG 1:

A judge shouldn’t intervene in a game unless he or she believes a rules violation has occurred, a player with a concern or question requests assistance, or the judge wishes to prevent a situation from escalating.

Originally posted by IPG 1:

Knowledge of a player’s history or skill does not alter an infraction, but it may be taken into account during an investigation.

The purpose of a penalty is to educate the player not to make similar mistakes in the future. This is done through both an explanation of where the rules or policies were violated and a penalty to reinforce the education.

Also, it is possible to commit CPV unintentionally, so we should not wait for a player to show a pattern of misunderstanding the rules to their benefit, as by that point we should be looking more closely at Cheating, so it would be too late to begin applying CPV warnings.

Originally posted by = IPG 3.7:

Clear communication is essential when playing Magic. Though many offenses will be intentional, it is possible for a player to make a genuine mistake and these should not be penalized harshly.

Neville should be reminded that if he thinks his opponent has missed a trigger, he should call a judge to help clarify the situation and the relevant policy rather than attempting to handle it himself and risk misrepresenting what policy says. Since he has, in fact, misrepresented derived information, he should be given a warning for CPV.