Hmm. It might :) Good point.
—– Original Message —–
From: Paul Smith
To: eshukan@verizon.net
Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2013 5:02 AM
Subject: Re: Personal Tutor #1 - Yes and No (Competitive REL)


I'm wondering if opinions on this topic will neatly divide between the
Americans who are used to playing/judging in an environment where crystal
clear English is the norm, and the Europeans where ambiguous use of
imperfect English is the norm.

Upon first glance, I feel I should say:

“Define what you mean by, ‘do damage’.”

But, since that may not actually get us anywhere (Neurotoxin would probably wonder what I mean by that question, turning the tables of ambiguity), I reconsider and say:

“Can you tell me what you want to happen, and I can tell you whether it will or not?”

I think think there are three important things to note here:
1) Regardless of the likelihood that “do” means one thing or another, we can't be 100% sure we actually know what it means. However,
2) We can't just ask Neurotoxin to define the term–that's putting him or her back into the same position he or she just put us (i.e. asking a question where the purpose is not clear). Therefore,
3) We need to find out, somehow, what information Neurotoxin is trying to acquire.

I.e. I don't believe that “yes” or “no” is sufficient, or appropriate, despite Neurotoxin's phrasing seeming to indicate an understanding that Inkmoth keeps infect. For example, perhaps Neurotoxin only thought Inkmoth had infect because he forgot Melira removes infect? Now his words are implying to us an understanding that doesn't necessarily exist.

I don't see a problem with telling a player exactly what the outcome of a proposed scenario will be if they provide all of the variables. ‘Coaching’ comes into play when you tell them what would happen in a scenario that they hadn't considered.

E.g.: A) ‘Judge, can I Cancel my opponent’s Abrupt Decay?'
'Yes.'

B) ‘Judge, will Abrupt Decay be countered if I cast Cancel targeting it?’
'No. Cancel will resolve and Abrupt Decay will remain on the stack.'

Rules are considered free information and it's more reasonable to directly answer an ‘if/then’ question than to give the player access to the Comprehensive Rules and have them work through the solution themselves.

Originally posted by Cameron Bachman:

I don't see a problem with telling a player exactly what the outcome of a proposed scenario will be if they provide all of the variables. ‘Coaching’ comes into play when you tell them what would happen in a scenario that they hadn't considered.

E.g.: A) ‘Judge, can I Cancel my opponent’s Abrupt Decay?'
'Yes.'

B) ‘Judge, will Abrupt Decay be countered if I cast Cancel targeting it?’
'No. Cancel will resolve and Abrupt Decay will remain on the stack.'

Between “Can I declare a spell Abrupt Decay under control of my opponent as a target for my spell Cancel”
and “Will Abrupt Decay be countered during the resolution of a spell Cancel targetting it?” is a chasm of intermediate free-form questions.

“Can I Cancel my opponent's Abrupt Decay” is not a clear question, it is up for interpretation.
As the simplest proof: there is no verb “cancel” defined in CR.

Cameron, does your answer change if I point out that the rules of the game are actually derived information?

Originally posted by Magic Tournament Rules 4.1:

Derived information is information to which all players are entitled access, but opponents are not obliged to assist in determining and may require some skill or calculation to determine. Derived information includes:

• The number of any type of objects present in any game zone.
  
• All characteristics of objects in public zones that are not defined as free information.
  
• Game Rules, Tournament Policy, Oracle content and any other official information pertaining to the current tournament. Cards are considered to have their Oracle text printed on them.
  

Originally posted by Cameron Bachman:

E.g.: A) ‘Judge, can I Cancel my opponent’s Abrupt Decay?'
'Yes.'

I think this situation is slightly different for the reason that Denis pointed out. You can answer more appropriately by saying “Abrupt Decal is a legal target for Cancel.” That removes the ambiguity and answers the question he was asking.

Edited Eric Crump (Oct. 8, 2013 03:33:07 AM)

Originally posted by Cameron Bachman:

E.g.: A) ‘Judge, can I Cancel my opponent’s Abrupt Decay?'
'Yes.'

I have seen this question in many forms, usually after a player accidentally casts a counterspell towards Abrupt Decay.

If a player asks what happens after Cancel is cast: “Abrupt Decay is a legal target for Cancel, and Cancel will have no effect when it resolve” is a concise answer.

If the question was “Can I Cancel an Abrupt Decay” before Cancel was cast, though, I believe the answer cannot be ‘No’ and the answer, equally, cannot be ‘yes’ as the question is too ambiguous.

As judges, we should generally be able to answer questions like “My opponent and I did A, B then C, what happens next?” in order to establish game state and correct errors if any, without presuming any choices that players could make between each step. “A, B and C happened, what would happen if I did D?” is a murkier area, because while we would generally be fine answering such questions outside of a game, or even during a game at FNMs, what it boils down to is the player wanting to know if it's better for him/her to either do D or not do D based on the rules.

Paul rather hit on it: judges aren't walking rulebooks, even though we tend to know the rules rather well and enjoy putting that knowledge to use. On the other hand, answering questions is one of our fundamental responsibilities, and declining to answer a question in a game shouldn't be done without consideration. For instance, couldn't that player get the same information - and therefore the same possible strategic guidance - by posing the same question in more generic terms without referring to the current game state? Are we punishing players for not speaking Judge-ese?

As I mentioned earlier, the way the question is phrased identifies the knowledge gap - there is always a knowledge gap, of course, but the gap exists either in the overall rules, or within interactions between certain cards or effects that may or may not be part of the questioning player's current game state. This is what makes hypothetical questions during a game a trap. “What happens if I Cancel an Abrupt Decay?” is too vague a question simply because there are many things that can happen between Cancel being cast and its resolution. “What happens if I block Melira with Inkmoth Nexus, assuming nothing else happens?” is a trap because even if the question assumes no other effects, the game itself can present others. Questions like “Can I do X?” tend to be gaps in rules knowledge, which is why you have to be picky about things like “do damage” and “cancel a spell” which, while they may be in common Magic parlance, are ambiguous as far as the rules are concerned.

Just to throw another monkey wrench in the discussion, as I was pondering the original question I was looking at Gatherer just to see the extra rulings on Melira, and I realized that the “Display rulings” section is collapsed by default. I hadn't thought much of it before, but it dawned on me that since it's okay for a player to refer to the Gatherer site via smartphone/tablet/etc., do the rulings default to being collapsed since reading the Melira/Inkmoth blurb would be an illegal note? It could be that we consider such rulings “strategic information”, but I'd like to ask a Gatherer dev how that came about.

Any information on the Gatherer page is ok for the player to see, so the rulings are not illegal notes.

Well, it's time to wrap up this edition of Personal Tutor. This week, I presented a very contentious scenario. We saw a wide variety of responses from “yes” to fairly lengthy explanations of card interactions.

Before I get into specifics though, I want to review our policy guidance on giving answers.

From section 1 of the IPG, “Judges should be seen as a benefit to the players, helping to ensure the consistent and fair running of a tournament. Players should be encouraged to use judges as needed, and should not be afraid to call a judge when one is required.” MTR 1.8 tells us “Judges will not generally assist players in determining the current game state but can answer questions about the rules, interactions between cards, or provide the Oracle™ wordings of relevant cards.” And, of course, we cannot give play advice, as noted in the Outside Assistance infraction.

This means that “Yes” by itself is an entirely acceptable, but suboptimal answer. We are certainly in no danger of providing Outside Assistance, but we are also not acting as a benefit to the players, nor are we living up to our capacity to answer questions about interactions between cards.

However, we do have the competing interest of avoiding Outside Assistance. To start with, we should dispel the notion that our answers should not affect the way a player plays a game. Players ask us questions about the rules precisely so that they can make game decisions based on those answers. And that's fine. What we want to avoid is telling the players about what else they can or should do as a result of rules or how cards they didn't ask about (and may be on the battlefield) might change our answer for this game.

We can also draw on some inspiration from a 2009 article written by Jurgen Baert and Nick Sephton: “Judges can make use of a concept we would like to call the virtual game state. Define, outside the ongoing game, a set of objects or effects, as chosen by the player, and consider a game state made up of these objects and effects only. Within this so-called virtual game state, treat all derived information as though it were free information and answer questions that the player asks. When making a ruling, be very specific about that ruling applying in the theoretical game state that was created.”

In the scenario presented, we have been given a virtual game state by the player. Melira is in play. Inkmoth Nexus gets activated and blocks. Nothing else happens. So, what's the deal with combat damage?

The rules interaction here is that damage is dealt, but no damage is marked as a result. If you don't already know this interaction, there is no way you would ever be able to generate the right questions to ask a judge. As a result, we should not hold Nureotoxin to the standard of asking the question in a way that is phrased technically correctly. He clearly believes something strange may be going on here, and that's what he's brought a judge over to explain. So we should do our best to provide an explanation.

Essentially, we have two ways to approach this question. One of them, is to simply state the relevant rules with no value judgements involved. “If Melira is in play, and you activate and Nexus and block, Nexus will deal combat damage. This will not cause damage to be marked on Melira.” This is acceptable, but perhaps begins to enter a gray area given the vague nature of the initial question. We want to avoid phrases like “but it won't do anything useful,” which suggest that we think that isn't a very good play.

The other way is to let the player walk us through the scenario in the virtual game and correct his rules errors as he makes them. “This is a fairly subtle interaction, so go ahead and walk me through what you think is going to happen. When we encounter some place where you've gotten it wrong, I'll jump in and explain the correct rules interaction.” Then, when he says something like “so Melira will have 1 damage on her,” you can provide the explanation above of “damage dealt, not marked” that we mentioned above.

By prompting the player to walk us through the virtual game, we avoid giving any advice (he makes all the decisions) and answering questions that were not asked (each step comes with an implicit “is this still right?”) but we also avoid giving a player an answer that will make him feel like he was gotcha'd by the judge.

Disclaimer: This is not an Official answer. It was written solely by me after reviewing policy and consulting with HL judges.

If you would like to comment, contribute scenario suggestions (which don't have to involve danger of coaching), or become a member of the Personal Tutor team, please send me a private message. Thanks, everyone for your participation, and we'll back next month!

EDIT: Bracketed letters eaten by forum.

Edited Joshua Feingold (Oct. 11, 2013 12:01:04 AM)

I'm a little confused with this solution. What's the difference between a “virtual game state” and the player just walking you through what's in the real gamestate. The key cards and interactions are the same. We don't want judges giving advice on identical “virtual game states”. That's still outside assistance.

I'm inclined to agree with Turner on this one. It seems like virtual game
state is really the exact same. I have a concern about things where I'm
describing in exact detail what's on the table and then getting an answer.

The difference is that in a virtual game state, the player put everything
there when they asked the quesiton. They are aware of everything in the
virtual game state, because they put it there. You cannot as a judge
accidentally make them aware of anything in that virtual game state,
because they created it.

The real game state is less clear - they might have forgotten a card was in
play that substantially affects the answer to the question.

We absolutely do want judges advising on virtual game states - it's the
clearest expression you can get of what a player is already aware of.

Paul Smith

paul@pollyandpaul.co.uk

I strongly disagree. You can very well give too much information when speaking of a virtual game state that mirrors the actual game state. Then it doesn't matter that the game state was virtual. Put it in the terms of outside assistance. If a spectator gives play advice but says he was commenting on a virtual game state, would that make it no longer outside assistance? I don't think so and it doesn't make it no longer coaching either on a judge call.

+1 again to Turner. We're not worried about the judge missing some subtle
interaction in the game state, we're worried about them giving absolutely
too much information. The concern here isn't “are we bringing in outside
knowledge of cards” it's “are we giving them additional information about
the rules” which is something we should very much be concerned about. As
it's been noted a few times, providing customer service for this player in
this instance is definitely robbing the opponent of an advantage that they
should be entitled to.