Originally posted by Hugo Abraham Peña Ramírez:

Antonio asks me to take Eddie away from the game

This is where I would start with the investigation - Ask Antonio why he doesn't want Eddie to observe his game. Spectators at competitive REL are, after all, allowed by the rules to stand near tables and call judges. This request indeed makes Antonio suspicious.

If you want to determine if Antonio cheated by making Nora forget about her card draw and not calling out the mistake, you can ask Antonio why he played Chemister's Insight during his own end step in response to the Radical Idea. A player casting an instant card in a blue deck during their own turn is unusual to see at a tournament. I would also look into Antonio's play history with Nora (and his previous opponents if possible) to see if this was the first time he played Chemister's Insight during his own turn in response to an opponent's spell.

You can also look into what happened after Chemister's Insight was cast. Did Antonio say or do anything that misdirected Nora and caused her to forget about her Radical Idea on the stack? If that's the case, Eddie may have observed that and could give you details. :)

For me this is somewhere in between good strategy and cheating, i’ll explain.

When the board gets complicated or the quantity of the spells and abilities in the stack are many it is normal for players to do things or add spells or abilities to the stack that don’t do much just for the sake of distracting the opponent so the opponent miss something. If the missing part, it’s just an interaction or a play or a way out of the situation we end up with good strategy
But in the cases that the player is doing this so the opponent don’t finish the resolution of a spell or misses a trigger or don’t do something that is mandatory (clean up) and said player don’t mention it then clearly we have a cheater cause they did it just so the opponent make and error and to take advantage of it, especially if like in this case the missing part was the resolution of a spell casted

As a player we do this all the time, like looting (draw, discard) knowing that we don’t have something to draw that helps, or playing spells in times that seems odds. The difference is in what we hope to get out of it.

Originally posted by Mark Mc Govern:

- Eddie is being noisy
- Eddie is a friend of Nora and/or is speaking to Nora in a language Antonio doesn't understand
- Antonio is uncomfortable in crowds and prefers not to have people too close
- Antonio believed that it was ok to let Nora forget to draw, and is annoyed at Eddie for removing the advantage he thought he was entitled to
- Antonio knew he was cheating and would have gotten away with it if Eddie hadn't stepped in

As far as I know, Eddie was quiet until that point, he wasn't known by any of the players and all of them speak spanish. I know Antonio from a LGS and he doesn't have a record of cheating, but he gets a little nervous in crowds, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't invesigate, thoug.

Originally posted by Eric Paré:

u can ask Antonio why he played Chemister's Insight during his own end step in response to the Radical Idea

Antonio was playing izzet drakes while Nora was playing control. She tapped all her mana, so I suspected he played Chemister's just to avoid a possible counter.

I should pay more attention on these cases and allwas ask even if the situation is pretty clear.
Thank you all for the insight!

Edited Hugo Abraham Peña Ramírez (May 16, 2019 12:21:22 PM)

I want to first comment on the title here. “Cheating or good play?”

First off, this is absolutely NOT good play. Nothing about this is good play. Note that this is distinctly different from a missed trigger. We allow players to miss many triggers, but this is not a trigger. Missing the card draw for Radical Idea is not possible–it is the effect of the spell. If Radical Idea was not countered and the card is not drawn, the spell was not resolved properly. That's AT LEAST in the bucket of play mistakes and means players should receive GRV/FtMGS.

Now, was it cheating? This is much more interesting. There are 3 components to cheating:
1) Something illegal happened and the player noticed it
2) The player must be trying to gain advantage through their action (or inaction)
3) The player knew that their action was illegal.

I like to tell judges that cheating is like a 3-legged stool. If even one of these is not met, the stool falls over and it is not cheating.

Pretty clearly Nora wanted to draw a card, so not drawing does not meet #2 and Nora is in the clear.

Did Antonio notice the issue? When? Was it before or after the spectator said something? If they noticed when it happened, then #1 is met. Antonio did not point out the card was not drawn. Was that intentional, or was it that they really didn't notice it? You have to investigate to find that out, and Mark makes some good points here.

If you think it was intentional, then you have to answer point 3: Did Antonio know that not pointing it out was illegal? Maybe they thought the draw was a trigger for some reason, or thought that like a trigger they did not have to point it out. Newer players have an easier time convincing me of this, but someone who is a grinder has a harder time because they should know better.

If you are satisfied that all 3 of these are stable… then you have cheating.

Originally posted by Eric Paré:

Originally posted by Hugo Abraham Peña Ramírez:

Antonio asks me to take Eddie away from the game

This is where I would start with the investigation - Ask Antonio why he doesn't want Eddie to observe his game. Spectators at competitive REL are, after all, allowed by the rules to stand near tables and call judges. This request indeed makes Antonio suspicious.

Actually, MTR1.11 gives players the specific right to request that a spectator not observe their match.

Originally posted by Thomas Ralph:

Actually, MTR1.11 gives players the specific right to request that a spectator not observe their match.

Yes, but it's still a good line of investigation if we suspect that the player was Cheating.

While MTR 1.11 gives them this right, it also leaves it up to judge discretion. “They pointed out a rules violation and that was bad for me” is not a good reason. Without some other reason I would certainly deny this request.

Originally posted by Patrick Green:

While MTR 1.11 gives them this right, it also leaves it up to judge discretion. “They pointed out a rules violation and that was bad for me” is not a good reason. Without some other reason I would certainly deny this request.

We want players to make this request through a judge so that we know about any potential problems that have or may still occur, and we avoid player-on-player confrontation. Unless it's logistically impossible, I'll pretty much always honor a player's request to have a spectator leave. I don't believe it's my place to evaluate their reasons for not wanting someone around them, with the aforementioned caveat of investigation for Cheating intentions.