Say you observe the following:

Ashling attacks with a bunch of creatures, including a Two-Headed Cerberus enchanted with Dragon mantle. The aura is physically under the card, not on it, and when Ashling attacked she turned the creatures sideways but the auras remain upright. Nath assigns his blockers. The Traveling Philosopher he uses to block the Cerberus he puts physically in front of it in such a way that the Mantle is completely obscured. Then Nath casts a combat trick involving some other creatures and after both players finish casting tricks and resolving heroic triggers, Nath asks “first strike damage?” (there are multiple first strikers on both sides of the board) and Ashling says “sure” (with a bunch of red mana up). Then when normal damage it dealt, both the Philosopher and the Carberus die.

Do we do anything here?

PANTS!

I should read the cards better.
I retract my previous comment.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Perhaps you should ask Nath about his way of blocking, but I doubt something will come of it.

-R.

I agree, there is nothing wrong here.

Even if you thought there might be how can you address it without giving serious strategic advise to Ashling?

If N placed his blockers deliberately in such a way as to obscure a card, that's straying dangerously close to cheating, is it not? While A should certainly be aware enough to catch this, it's certainly shady from N.

Originally posted by Huw Morris:

straying dangerously close to cheating, is it not?

What infraction has been intentionally and knowingly committed?

d:^D

I don't see anything wrong here. You could make a case that Nath is depriving Ashling of access to Derived information in the form of Dragon Mantle's text, but I don't think there is anything illegal about that. If Ashling had tried to access that information, and then Nath had tried to stop them that is a much stronger case for Unsporting Conduct - Minor.

I don't see any infraction here, even if Nath deliberately covered Dragon Mantle, it was not done in a way that was disruptive to the game, and Ashling should be able to remember that their creatures are enchanted even if it's not clear.

I have another case that might be more suspect.

Nathan controls Chained to the Rocks enchanting his Mountain. When Chained to the Rocks entered the battlefield some time ago, it exiled an Aetherling which his opponent Arnold, had forgotten to leave mana up to protect. Arnold casts Planar Cleansing, but since Aetherling and Chained to the Rocks are hidden under Nathan's Mountain, Nathan doesn't put Chained to the Rocks into his graveyard when Planar Cleansing Resolves, although he does place his other non-land permanents there.

Here it appears that obscuring cards on the battlefield facilitates cheating via GRV later in the game, but in the Ashling/Nath scenario, I don't see a way for this to happen. Perhaps if the Aura had been Ethereal Armour on a creature without first strike naturally.

Matthew's alternate case is different to me since it changes how a spell's
resolution is handled (from correctly to incorrectly). In our original
case, Nath is at worst deliberately concealing options from Ashling but is
not preventing anything legal from occurring the way it is supposed to.
He's putting his creature in the graveyard correctly and having Ashling
put hers in likewise, and his block was legal. I see no problem here,
especially since neither player called for a judge.

I would also suggest that it's pretty difficult to place a card down
completely covering another card without looking like you're obviously
trying to do so. That doesn't really impact the handling of the situation,
but it's worth considering that it might have been pretty difficult for
Nath to perform his physical concealment without Ashling being aware of it.
Intervening in the game may spark something (perhaps Ashling wanted the
Cerberus to die for some reason) that would otherwise go unnoticed. I
think we ought to be careful about such interventions, particularly where
it is not at all clear that anything illegal has happened in the first
place.

Scott the infraction is TE - CPV:

“Players may not represent derived or free information incorrectly.”

Auras on a creature are free information, since they are an in-game object.

To this end (of the CPV suggestion), let me provide a couple scenarios a fellow player brought up to me a few months back.

First, he wanted to play Magic as a game of sleight of hand. This included stacking creatures on top of one another in such a way that they looked like one card, then attacking with the stack. “Since I technically tapped both creatures and said ”attacking,“ this should be fine if my opponent doesn't confirm the damage or number of attacking creatures, right?” The argument lies within the opponent's failure to explicitly ask for the full free information.

Second, he wanted to know if he could mix his battlefield around as much as he wanted, keeping a personal drawing of the game state as a private note as the game went on (while maintaining the status of all objects intact). His question was whether or not such an activity was permissible in a tournament. He would answer all free information questions honestly, with the only goal being to make his field as difficult to understand in an attempt to trip up his opponents. Assume that he could do this in a quick manner, thus ruling out Slow Play and Stalling.

My question to the younger judges is: If he did this at a Comp REL environment, are there any infractions committed in these scenarios and, if so, which ones?

Edited Peter Richmond (Dec. 9, 2013 07:56:07 PM)

Originally posted by Jeffrey Higgins:

Scott the infraction is TE - CPV:

“Players may not represent derived or free information incorrectly.”

Auras on a creature are free information, since they are an in-game object.

What, exactly, is being represented incorrectly? In fact, what information is being represented by Nath?

Free information includes the name of a visible object. If Nath is intentionally hiding the aura including name, this would actually be Cheating.

Originally posted by Jeffrey Higgins:

Free information includes the name of a visible object. If Nath is intentionally hiding the aura including name, this would actually be Cheating.

I think this line under Player Communication is relevant:

“If a player is ever unable or unwilling to provide free information to an opponent that has
requested it, he or she should call a judge and explain the situation.”

At what point did Ashling request information?

I am going to stress again that a CPV must include some form of communication, 99% of the time verbal. “Hiding a card” is not communication.

Just a personal note: I consider hiding a card as a form of communication. At least if you look at it from a technical communication perspective. The act of hiding the card upholds communication that a player has an interest in obscuring the card (for whatever reason). Another communication a player could make by doing this: “I don't know any better than placing it right under my card” or “There is such a lack of space, I'm forced to do this clunky type of card placement”.

If a player stacks all his lands on top of each other (yes I'm looking at you Commander players :p). I believe most of us would intervene, especially if he taps it in clumps at least to check out if the mana was spend correctly.

I'm not saying that I would intervene in the above example though. I would have a chat with both players (after the game) stating that they shouldn't obscure cards like they do and that certain calls or decisions could swing one way or another if we found out that cards have been obscured. I would do this as a costumer service note, not as an this is an official instruction.

Although I agree on the baseline that CPV talks mostly about verbal communication, it should be noted that any type of acting (or not acting), is also a form of communication. (But let's not get into this meta discussion, because we are going to get a lot of cultural debate on this as well)

Communication is the action of attempting convey thoughts/messages to another party. Yes, you can have non-verbal communication - pointing and nodding fall into this. Covering a card, intentionally or unintentionally, is not trying to convey any kind of message, and so cannot be communication.