Hello everyone!

I recently Head-Judged a 19-players GP Trial for a new TO in my city who was at his first Competitive event.
After the end of the Swiss portion of the tournament, the Top 8 players asked me for a few minutes to discuss an evenly split of the 48 BNG boosters prize and it was soon clear that they had all agreed to that option.

This is what MTR 5.2 tells about this situation:

"Players in the single-elimination rounds of a tournament offering only cash and/or unopened product as prizes may, with the permission of the Tournament Organizer, agree to split the prizes evenly. The players may end the tournament at that point, or continue to play. All players still in the tournament must agree to the arrangement."

I intentionally stressed the “may” line since it questioned me the most.
This is what happened in short order: I announced that I was intended to drop 7 players and have a GPT Winner of their choice (…because I do need to get a GPT Winner out of this, don't I?), the players wanted to have PWP points form the Top 8 results and they didn't want to get the drop (the GPT was happening to be played in the last day for the PWP season), and finally the TO was quite stunned and counted on me to manage the situation – ASAP.
In the end, they decided how to concede every single match without even sitting down, until we got eventually to a final match where I dropped the conceding finalist. The TO gave 6 BNG boosters to each of the Top 8 players, and we called it a day.

Now, with all my rights and wrongs (because I don't deny I may have done a few wrongs in that GPT), I'd like to go further in order to understand once-for-all what is the correct way for a Judge to manage a Top 4 or Top 8 split during a Competitive tournament awarding unique prizes like a 2-Bye reward for a seeded GP.

Thanks in advance to anyone will reply! :)

“…offering only cash and/or unopened product as prizes…” <- This
doesn't apply to GPTs since there are byes awarded as part of the prize.
It is allowed at these specific events because there is no need for a
winner and cash and packs can be evenly divided. A 2-bye prize cannot be
divided and can only be awarded to the winner.

offering *only* cash and/or unopened product as prizes may, with the
permission of the Tournament Organizer, agree to split the prizes evenly.

Only. There is more than cash and/or unopened product as prizes. The
players need to play on because there are 2 byes in prize pool.

To my understanding, it's perfectly fine for the top 8 to agree to split the booster prizes evenly and then continue playing for PWPs and the byes.

While the part of the MTR that you quoted may not technically be applicable (after all, a GPT offers not “only cash and/or unopened product as prizes”), I don't see how it would be illegal in any way for those eight players to agree to split their combined prizes any way they want, as long as it doesn't happen in exchange for certain match results. After all, how is this really different from just two players agreeing to an even split of their prizes and then playing it out?

Thanks for your answers

So… I assume you suggest to drop all the Top 8 players, unless they want to play out the rest of the tournament for PWPs and Byes?

I was pretty sure that a final winner was always needed for this kind of tournament, and the drop-everyone road was not to be taken.

The prize split of booster packs works because at the end of the event, 8 people will receive some distribution of 48 boosters, and they can meet up and share them equally if they so choose. On the other hand, byes are non-transferable prizes. Top 8 can't say “it's OK, player A really wants the bye, so we all agreed to give it to him” because no one is in a position to give him those byes - WOTC awards it to the person who was the properly determined winner of the event. So my understanding would be that Top 8 can say:

• We all agree to split all 48 booster packs equally among ourselves at the end of the event
  

• We all agree to concede to player A if we are paired against him, and otherwise the worse rank concedes to the best rank player, so we don't have to play out top 8
  

• We all agree to drop except for player A
  

But top 8 cannot say:

• We agree to split all 48 booster packs and give the byes to player A (the byes can't be given away, they must go to the winner)
  

So, you can't drop all of the top 8 players from a GPT, someone has to be the winner. They can tell you who that winner should be, and everyone else can drop, or you can generate the top 8 bracket and each pair of players can tell you who concedes to who if they want the PWP, or they can play out top 8 after agreeing on a prize split. One way or another, if it's a GPT or a PTQ or anything that awards non-transferable prizes, you need to have a winner.

Edited Dan Collins (March 12, 2014 10:34:42 PM)

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

One way or another, if it's a GPT or a PTQ or anything that awards non-transferable prizes, you need to have a winner.

It's more strict than that. The “everybody drops” clause can only be used, as Shawn pointed out, where only cash and unopened product are prizes. If there is a trophy or a mox, that's just as good as an invite or byes at blocking that clause.

If the players agree to who gets the Byes, I'm pretty sure a “legitimate” winner of the event (“legitimate” in the sense of “actually played all his matches and won each one”) is not necessary. I did this myself (as a player) in a GPT about 3 or so years ago, where the finals was me against a friend of mine and my friend didn't want the byes, so we agreed to a prize split and I got the byes.

The philosophy behind this, if I was asked, would be similar to how IDs work. We can't force the players to actually play Magic. We can force them to sit at a table (to an extent), but we can't make them take game actions. If we went by this method, the only thing that would happen is that everyone but the predetermined winner of the event would sit and do nothing and waste everyone's time while the predetermined winner beat all their faces in. Better to save everyone time and trouble.

Lyle, I'll point out that your example was “about 3 or so years ago”, and that you were in the finals (which used to be a specific exception to the others rules).

This is an area that is getting a great deal of attention from various folks, both among the high-level judges and within various departments at Wizards - legal being just one. This is an issue that crosses and blurs a lot of lines; we keep working towards clearer and fairer definitions, but I'll admit, they're elusive.

And, while it's true that we can't prevent players from conceding in such a manner that they arrive at a consensus winner of the byes (for example) - doing so violates the philosophy we've tried to express.

It's OK for a store to run a $500 cash tournament, and have the Top X players agree to an even split of all remaining cash or unopened product.

It's OK for the Top 8 of a GPT or PTQ to agree to evenly split all cash and/or unopened product, and then play to determine a winner. (I have long advocated awarding product prizes based on final Swiss standings, and only having the Top 8 play for the byes or invite.)

It's not OK for the Top 8 of a GPT or PTQ to agree to split everything but the byes/invite, and then manufacture a winner in any fashion other than playing it out.

Hopefully, that's a bit more clear?

I think it should probably be clarified, the exception for the finals is still in place:

Players are allowed to share prizes they have not yet received in the current tournament as they wish and may agree as such before or during their match, as long as any such sharing does not occur in exchange for any game or match result or the dropping of a player from the tournament. As an exception, players in the announced last round of the single - elimination portion of a tournament may agree to divide tournament prizes as they wish. In that case, one of the players at each table must agree to drop from the tournament. Players are then awarded prizes according to their resulting ranking.

(Emphasis mine)

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

It's not OK for the Top 8 of a GPT or PTQ to agree to split everything but the byes/invite, and then manufacture a winner in any fashion other than playing it out.

Hopefully, that's a bit more clear?

Sorry Scott, but I really don't understand that point. How can we avoid players conceding each other?? I mean, they talk, OK to split prizes, we do the split, and then one player says “I'd like the byes”, no other player wants them. I'm pretty sure that if this situation arises and we force them to play, players will simply concede anyway in order to get that player to first place.

Originally posted by Joaquín Pérez:

I mean, they talk, OK to split prizes, we do the split, and then one player says “I'd like the byes”, no other player wants them. I'm pretty sure that if this situation arises and we force them to play, players will simply concede anyway in order to get that player to first place.

We've had this come up at some of our GPTs as well. Everyone's ready for the event to be over, and only one player wants the byes. Unfortunately, this player that wants the byes also wants the Planeswalker Points. No one else does, so they discussed “just letting him win.” I feel like this is the situation we want to avoid, and I'm getting the impression that's why we request that anyone not willing to continue playing drop.

In practicality, how heavy-handed do we appear if we tell players “you can concede at any point in your match” and then say “NO YOU CAN'T JUST CONCEDE EVERY MATCH OF THE TOP 8”? Players can request their opponents concede to them in any round. How do we enforce what Uncle Scott is saying if the players are jovial enough to allow the “I want my byes and PWPs” player to continue playing in the Top 8, and everyone who plays him concedes, and everyone else concedes one way or another or agrees to drop?

They're willing to keep sitting down while I run pairings and enter results to obey the letter (and philosophy) of the law, but as Lyle is pointing out, it's a farce at this point and we're going through the motions at the expense of people's time. We're upholding “philosophy” but can't realistically enforce what we really want.

Scott Marshall
Hopefully, that's a bit more clear?

Nope. :D

Originally posted by Evan Cherry:

Scott Marshall
Hopefully, that's a bit more clear?

Nope. :D

OK - how would YOU word it?

I'm very much on Evans side here - not because I think that players should manufacture a winner for the GPT, but because I can't really stop them from doing so.
If they already agreed on splitting the prices - which they are allowed to do as we learned in this thread - and only one person goes to the GP/does not have 2 byes and noone else wants them, and they agree that this person should be considered the victor of the GPT…how can we stop them manufacturing the result?
As Even said: ‘You cannot call him the winner, I need you to play the top 8’ - ‘…but we can decide to just concede to him in every match?’ - ‘yes, you can concede your match at any point in time’ - ‘…so we can decide to call him the winner?’ - ‘no’ - ‘ok, bye guys, I will not show up for my quarterfinals’ ‘same goes for me’*6.

Same result as what I am supposed to not let happen.

it's ludicrous to try to stop players from conceding to each other. if i
was running a gpt, and the players all agree at some point that a certain
player wins, then i would just enter that into the software. there's
absolutely no point in doing anything else.