Hi guys,

let me share with you a situation from GP Prague, day 2 (Modern). Two players shuffle each other's deck before game 1 when one of the players drops and flips over a Liliana of the Veil from the deck he is shuffling. His opponent calls for a judge. I came to resolve this and since I believed that it was accidental (sometimes I also shuffle cards and this just might happen), I suggested a warning for Looking at extra cards (as per IPG) and shuffling the deck again properly. His opponent appealed this because of the fact that his opponent knows a card from his deck that narrows the number of possible archetypes of his deck a lot. The appeal judge just confirmed my ruling (as I expected) and the play continued.

Why am I writing this post? When I think about this, I find this unfair exactly as the player whose card was revealed. If I could choose whether to get a warning and see a key card from the opponent's deck OR to achieve none of those, I would choose the first option, since it might help me a lot to win (at least) game 1, since it can influence my mulligans and my strategy for the first few turns of the game.

I can think of some more possible solutions of this, however none of those are good enough in my point of view:
1) Reveal a random card from the other deck as well. Not good enough, since it might or might not be a key one.
2) Reveal the other deck completely. Also not good enough, because it becomes unfair for the other player if the flipped card was not a key card.
3) Reveal both decks completely. This is absolutely fair (and this is actually being automatically done in the top 8), however the players might not like this, as it takes away the possibility to surprise their opponents with a new archetype.
4) Let the player whose card was flipped over choose whether 3) will be applied, otherwise apply the fix from the IPG (a LEC warning and shuffling again). However, this results in a less surprising game for the two players compared to the other tables, which leads to an inconsistent tournament.

If no IPG existed (or I had no idea of what's written in there), I would personally do the option 4, as the downside, in my opinion, makes least people unhappy.

I am really interested in your opinions of this. Being the IPG fix option 0, which of those would you prefer and why? Or can you come with something else, potentially even better?

Thanks a lot!

Hello,

I think you are trying to solve the wrong problem. You want to try to make the information that both players have about each other's deck equal. Once one player has seen any part of the other's deck, then this task is impossible. The ideal solution is to have the player forget that he saw the card. Obviously this is impossible. All of the suggestions proposed are trying to “balance” the amount of information known to make the advantage “even” or “fair”. However, in all of these “fixes”, one of the players will end up with some advantage over the other. So since there is no way to balance this equation, the solution is to do nothing to try.
The actual fix is to shuffle the known card into the library so that neither player knows the location of the card within the deck. That is a all we can do.
Is this solution “fair”? Yes. Is one player harmed by the infraction? Yes. When players make mistakes, we often end up in situations that benefit one player over another. If a GRV happens and it's too late to backup, usually one player will benefit, sometimes even the player who make the mistake. We can can do small, simple things to mitigate the damage, but sometimes the damage/advantage cannot be undone.

As for the idea that players will drop cards on purpose: 1) That's cheating; 2) Repeated behavior is costly.

So short answer: I appreciate the search for a better solution, but Option 0 is the right way to go.

Shawn

What Shawn said.

If you believe that the current remedy by itself is not sufficient to repel cheaters, you may be right. However also note that during the same GP a player was apparently disqalified for a similar behaviour (stacking the deck and dropping a card from opponent's deck at the beginning of a game).

Confirming what Shawn said, and adding this: the IPG doesn't attempt to make things fair, or to undo all damage done; there are cases where the Additional Remedy may appear to be trying to do that, but that's not really the goal - we know we can't fix everything that players do. Our goal with any Additional Remedy is to minimize and correct any (potential) damage that may result, or may have already resulted, from the infraction.

Originally posted by IPG:

Some infractions include remedies to handle the offense beyond the base penalty. These procedures exist to protect officials from accusations of unfairness, bias, or favoritism. If a judge makes a ruling that is consistent with quoted text, then the complaints of a player shift from accusation of unfairness by the judge to accusations of unfair policy. Deviations from these procedures may raise accusations against the judge from the player(s) involved, or from those who hear about it. These procedures do not, and should not, take into account the game being played, the current situation that the game is in, or who will benefit strategically from the procedure associated with a penalty. While it is tempting to try to “fix” game situations, the danger of missing a subtle detail or showing favoritism to a player (even unintentionally) makes it a bad idea.

d:^D

Edited Scott Marshall (Aug. 28, 2018 10:38:11 PM)

Originally posted by Karel Jílek:

If I could choose whether to get a warning and see a key card from the opponent's deck OR to achieve none of those, I would choose the first option

Your reasoning would be sound if every time a card falls from opponent deck, it was a key card. Not so, obviously.

If you could choose whether to get a warning and see a *random* card from the opponent's deck OR to achieve none of those, would you choose the first option?

Please record when the infraction takes place (like prior to Game 1), so that the infraction can be put into better context.

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

If you could choose whether to get a warning and see a *random* card from the opponent's deck OR to achieve none of those, would you choose the first option?

If I had no warnings for L@EC, this situation happened in the last or the last but one round, and I played at table around 10 (meaning I have a reasonable chance in achieving the top 8), I would try that, maybe I get lucky and the random card is a key card. (For sure, personally I would *never* cheat, I am just speaking as a highly competitive player who wants to win regardless of his reputation and any possible consequences.)

@Riki: Thanks for a great article! It made me thinking about the infraction in a different way and I agree that the Option 0 is a sufficient way. If the same thing happens to the same person in round 14 at 4 out of the last 5 GPs, we might be pretty sure that something nasty is going on here.

Edited Karel Jílek (Aug. 29, 2018 05:51:12 PM)

Originally posted by Karel Jílek:

I would try that, maybe I get lucky and the random card is a key card.

What you’re describing is Cheating, no matter how hard it might be to detect.

We have policy for Cheating, and a separate infraction in the IPG. Looking at Extra Cards is not meant to remedy nor properly punish Cheating; like most of the IPG, it’s appropriate for an honest mistake.

d:^D

Originally posted by Karel Jílek:

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

If you could choose whether to get a warning and see a *random* card from the opponent's deck OR to achieve none of those, would you choose the first option?

If I had no warnings for L@EC, this situation happened in the last or the last but one round, and I played at table around 10 (meaning I have a reasonable chance in achieving the top 8), I would try that

And for exactly the same reasons, a wise judge would investigate, and ask more than a few questions.