Hi guys

At a Competitive REL event, a player draws their opening hand and sees that they still have proxies in their deck. They own the cards the proxies represent, but the physical cards are in another deck that they own. Upon seeing it, they call a Judge.

This is clearly a violation of MTR 3.3 however the cards they represent and as listed on the decklist are cards legal in the format.

A player asked me this question and it sparked a bit of discussion on the Judge IRC channel. I'm looking to gather a bit more perspective on the issue.

Cheers,

Fry

This is one of those things I've done my self in a tournament, although the
physical cards were left at home and I had to buy new ones from the store.
But that detail is largely irrelevant to the situation.

I can't seen any grounds for not giving the DDLP. Clearly I aren't going to
spend much time investigating for cheating, unless the proxies are
particularly stupid. (using an off colour basic with the name sharpied
across the card = good. Using another legal and plausible card to proxy for
a different card with no indication on the card, um that aint a proxy). But
this isn't really an exceptional case worthy of downgrading.

Remember to explain that the ‘reward’ for calling this on your self is that
you have avoided any chance of getting a DQ.


On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 2:48 PM, Simon Freiberg <
forum-4949-3b3c@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> Hi guys
>
> At a Competitive REL event, a player draws their opening hand and sees
> that they still have proxies in their deck. They own the cards the proxies
> represent, but the physical cards are in another deck that they own. Upon
> seeing it, they call a Judge.
>
> This is clearly a violation of MTR 3.3 however the cards they represent
> and as listed on the decklist are cards legal in the format.
>
> A player asked me this question and it sparked a bit of discussion on the
> Judge IRC channel. I'm looking to gather a bit more perspective on the
> issue.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Fry
>
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–
Gareth Pye
Level 2 Judge, Melbourne, Australia
Australian MTG Forum: mtgau.com
gareth@cerberos.id.au - www.rockpaperdynamite.wordpress.com
“Dear God, I would like to file a bug report”

Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

But this isn't really an exceptional case worthy of downgrading.

Remember to explain that the ‘reward’ for calling this on your self is that you have avoided any chance of getting a DQ.

It's worth noting, though, that in this case they called a judge on themselves while drawing their opening hand. Thus, the HJ may downgrade this penalty to a Warning, fix the deck, and have the player draw a new opening hand with one less card (per IPG 3.9).

I view it as an almost automatic downgrade. Nearly identical to a player realizing that he has not desideboarded.

Eric shukan



On 07/09/13, Vincent Roscioli wrote:


Gareth Pye
But this isn't really an exceptional case worthy of downgrading.

Remember to explain that the ?reward? for calling this on your self is that you have avoided any chance of getting a DQ.
It's worth noting, though, that in this case they called a judge on themselves while drawing their opening hand. Thus, the HJ may downgrade this penalty to a Warning, fix the deck, and have the player draw a new opening hand with one less card (per IPG 3.9).

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+1 to Eric Shukan and Vincent's posts. I see this as an automatic downgrade. If he can replace the cards, we let him and he draws a new hand (one fewer). If he can't we handle accordingly, but I don't think I would ever give him a GL in this situation.

Just to throw one of my trademark Monkey Wrenches in…

What if it's game 2? or even round 2? and he just says “I never drew it until now!”?

That is definitely a possibility… so I would ask him if he side boarded. If he did, then I am going to investigate a lot further. If he did not, then I don't see any difference in the situation. Game one is already over. He called a judge on himself and it does not really matter which game it is.

However, there is a possibility that he had drawn a card in the other game and had a strong board presence and did not mention it or play the bad cards. But if that was the case, why wouldn't he fix the issue mid games? Again, it would not make sense that he is gaining some kind of advantage here.

So, unless I am missing something obvious, I will stand by my original statement that the game makes no difference.

I believe it is a downgrade anyways, unless it is cheating.

The IPG states:
If a player commits an offense, realizes it, and calls a judge immediately and before he or she could potentially benefit from the offense, the HJ has the option to downgrade.
Now, if it is R2/G2, I would certainly look for cheating (has he seen the card and not called to avoid a penalty?). But if it is not cheating, I probably believe that he only just realized it. And why wouldn't he? What advantage does he gain from having a proxy in Hand in G1/R1 which he then cannot play…since it is a proxy?

Long story short: Unless I believe he is lying, I downgrade since I believe him that he discovered it just now.

Well, the advantage to be gained could be: “I just drew a proxy I forgot was in my deck. If I call a judge right now, I will get a game loss for having an illegal deck. If I just keep it in my hand and don't cast it, I can win this game. Then when I'm sideboarding, I can call a judge and say I just noticed.”

Obviously that is cheating, but that is the potential for advantage that you might want to consider during your investigation and ruling. That being said, if you investigate and believe the player really just now noticed and called you immediately, then downgrade seems fine.

As Eric said: this is similar to forgetting to desideboard.
This extends to the argument about drawing a proxy card in the middle of the game, when about to win.

What about when someone draws a sideboard card in the middle of game 1, when about to win? Yes this can happen, but that doesn't change the fact that we'll downgrade if called about it during the opening hand.

The chances of being caught there Josh are reasonably high if there are any
random spectators.

Plus with Sin Collector and other cards in the format that allow you to look at another person's hand, there would be a really high probability that he would be found out.

Aaron made my point exactly in that he may have drawn it in an earlier game and did not say anything as he was about to win. However, that would mean that he would have had the opportunity to fix the error between games. Yes it is cheating, but he would have a plausible reason in that he was sideboarding and found the cards. We as judges would question whether he drew it during the game, but would more than likely accept that explanation.

With that being the case, if he draws the card in game two of round 1 and called a judge on himself, I just don't see the logic in him not fixing the error mid game if he had known about it.

As always, investigate for cheating, but other than that, it is a downgrade.

While I can see the spirit of the Deck/Decklist Problem infraction being met, the actual definitions doesn't mention unauthorised cards, just amongst others illegal cards.

One could argue that you just discount the proxies and then deal with the deck as is - not matching the decklist, less than 60 cards etc.

Assuming these are very obvious proxies and we don't suspect the player was intentionally doing this to gain advantage and it really was carelessness that caused it I don't see much need to penalise unless the player is unable to immediately replace the cards. if they can't then we have to treat the deck as not having those cards and that's going to most likely result in not matching the decklist and most likely less than 60 cards.

Given the chance of this happening often is quite low I don't see a real need to add anything to the infraction definition, and neither would I be that bothered at inconsistent approaches by judges at different events.