A question came up recently at our local FNM and I offered to request clarification on a JAR interpretation.

The older JAR incorporated the clause regarding Tardiness into a paragraph describing upgrading to Game Losses. The clause is the same as it is in the Oct 2013 version of the document:

“A player that is more than 10 minutes late to a match is considered to have forfeited the match and should be dropped at the end of round if he or she is still absent.”

This clause, however, does not offer or suggest any provisions for tardiness within that 0-10 minute guideline. Obviously, player education takes the forefront here, and the late player should have a talk with the judge about the importance of being on time. However, the discussion came from an apparently inappropriate application of a Game Loss for tardiness at the 5 minute mark.

Should Game Losses be issued in Regular REL in cases of tardiness when 10 minutes has not been reached? Additionally, are there official provisions in policy that escaped me in the situation where the round finished early and the TO/Judge wishes to start the next round ahead of schedule? My customer service instinct is to give the players the full 50 minutes for the previous round, and thus if we're starting the next round early to give them leeway in the application of tardiness.

-Justin Miyashiro
L1 Fort Collins CO

Since the JAR doesn't authorize game losses for tardiness (or in fact any penalty at all other than the presumed forfeit that you quoted), and since we let players get away with huge game rule violations at Regular under the presumption that they don't know any better and Regular REL exists to educate these players, I don't see any reason to “invent” a penalty that doesn't exist.

This is all assuming that the round start time was fixed. If we're starting a round immediately after the end of the previous round, and that round ended early, it is excessive to penalize a player who may have stepped out to take a call or take a smoke just because the round started earlier than scheduled.

Maybe I'm way off the mark here, but the only case where I could see a penalty for tardiness under 10 minutes would be at least a third offence. My copy of the JAR has only one instance of the words “game loss”, and it's the one you alluded to regarding escalating penalties. That paragraph requires that the player have been previously warned and threatened with a game loss. Since it's poor customer service to threaten a game loss for a first offense, that probably means you won't get to any penalties until it happens at least three times. The first offense would be a “if you're going to leave the store please let us know where you will be and make sure you can get back in time for the next round”, the second offense would be a “seriously, please stay in the store or right out front so we can find you when the next round starts, if we can't find you at the start of the round we will game loss you next time”, and finally a game loss - that is, quite simply, the only to get a Game Loss out of the JAR.

Dan is correct, and proposes an interesting and good point:

FNM is intended to be fun. Hence why it is conducted at Regular REL. The purpose of Regular REL is to focus on education and a good experience for everyone. If a player is consistently showing up 5-9 minutes after the round has started and it is causing annoyance for their opponents or the rest of the group, you would want to pull the player aside and address them. Maybe there's a reason they're consistently late and you'll learn and can help them & others.

If they're just joshing around, you can explain that it's unfair to their opponents to lose time on the clock and that going into extra turns slows down the entire event. You can then instruct them that you need them to make every attempt to be in their seat at the beginning of the round.

Kudos to Dan for suggesting that you explain to the player on their 2nd offense that continuing their behavior will result in a penalty. They'll get the picture.

Edited Evan Cherry (Dec. 31, 2013 10:35:18 PM)

“If they're just joshing around, you can explain that it's unfair to their opponents to lose time on the clock and that going into extra turns slows down the entire event. You can then instruct them that you need them to make every attempt to be in their seat at the beginning of the round.”

While I agree it's not fair to the opponent, as he had to sit around waiting, and it's not fair to the tournament, as it holds them up, I don't agree that their opponent loses time. They paid for a 50 min round; give them a time extension equal to however late the tardy player was. Same goes for competitive. Give them an extension, even if one of the players got a game loss.

-bryan

Was there a time when it used to be 5m for a game loss, 15m for a match loss? I continually get this question at my LGS, and am assuming that it's coming from some long-forgotten judge lore, rather than simply being an apocryphal version of the JAR.

Alternately, is it still incorrect on some material being handed out in WPN distributions? Half the time, the store staff are the ones quoting the incorrect rules.

Since Regular REL got separated from the IPG and put into its own document (at least), the situation you cite has not been the case, John (in fact in the earliest version of the JAR, I don't think that there was anything written about tardiness at all).

Currently the JAR is not being distributed by the WPN and this kind of thing is not mentioned in the event fact sheets for store staff as far as I am aware, so I am not sure where these beliefs would be coming from.

Originally posted by John McCarthy:

Was there a time when it used to be 5m for a game loss, 15m for a match loss?

Not to my knowledge. It was 3/10 for a long time.

Toby

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

John McCarthy
Was there a time when it used to be 5m for a game loss, 15m for a match loss?

Not to my knowledge. It was 3/10 for a long time.

Toby

I am sure this was localized or regional practice. I remember the 5/15 “rule” being applied at some shops I worked with or played at in Chicago in the late middle 1990's.

Thanks for the responses! I guess we'll never know where the legend started. All I can do is correct it when it pops up, and hope it doesn't further grow to include the player being forced to play the rest of the night using the folding chairs with no cushions.

Just for reference, even the oldest version of the (then) “Penalty Guidelines” I could find, from September 1st 2000, references the 3/10 minute rule: http://www.wizards.com/dci/judge/mtg_dci_penalty_guidelines_print.asp (It's interesting what Google finds on wizards.com …)

116. Procedural Error-Tardiness

(…)
Penalty:
A tardiness penalty should not be given if a round started early and a player arrived at his or her seat before the originally announced start time. At lower RELs, the tournament organizer may elect to give players the amount of time allotted for the pre-game procedure (three minutes) to arrive before a game loss is awarded. At higher RELs, a game loss should be awarded as soon as the round begins. At any REL, if a player is not in his or her seat ten minutes into the round, he or she should be awarded a second game loss. If a player does not arrive before the end of the round, he or she should be dropped from the event.