I agree, that Adam's behavior may not be sporting, but I'm not a huge fan
of penalizing it either. Players should have limited trust to ther
opponents. If win or loss was going to be dependant on Nichole's
counterspell, why wouldn't Adam just cast the deciding spell? Nichole
revealed hidden information known to her legally and willingly. She might
have chosen not to. That was her decision and I think she should deal with
it's consequences.

What I'm trying to say is, that Adam's behavior might not be exemplary, but
it's Competetive REL after all. That means, that most of the players are
highly competetive, so they do anything they are allowed to win. Actions
described in the scenario were perfectly legal within bounds of current
rules and policy. Considering that, I'd personally be hesitant to threat
even a simple UC Minor, as it does not fall into the definition other than
disobeying an official instruction.

Of course at Regular REL it would be an entirely different story, but we
aren't disscusing that right now, are we?


2014-06-08 14:07 GMT+02:00 David Murray <

Originally posted by Matt Sauers:

It's a total dick move. I can't find a rule against it.

I might choose to notify the player that it's because of plays like that that folks like me avoid playing Magic at public venues.

To what end? To make him avoid playing Magic in turn? This course of action would only serve to perpetuate the cycle of bad feelings, and would be improper to do from any kind of standpoint as a judge (and keep in mind that even when you are out of uniform, local players may recognize you as a judge).

Yes, players like this may lead to bad feelings that convince people like yourself to not play Magic, but the answer is not to ostracize such players. As has been pointed out, education and customer service can win the day.

> On Jun 8, 2014, at 2:10 PM, Riki Hayashi<forum-10521-d900@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
>
> Matt Sauers
> It's a total dick move. I can't find a rule against it.
>
> I might choose to notify the player that it's because of plays like that that folks like me avoid playing Magic at public venues.
>
> To what end? To make him avoid playing Magic in turn? This course of action would only serve to perpetuate the cycle of bad feelings, and would be improper to do from any kind of standpoint as a judge (and keep in mind that even when you are out of uniform, local players may recognize you as a judge).
> Yes, players like this may lead to bad feelings that convince people like yourself to not play Magic, but the answer is not to ostracize such players. As has been pointed out, education and customer service can win the day.
>

My apologies for my lack of clarity.

Playing Magic outside of public venues is, indeed, still playing Magic; my understanding is they are the bulk of players of the game. I highly encourage gaming, and doing it well. Our group has been playing Magic since 1994, and rarely play in public venues because exactly this kind of act is allowed and enabled.

Back in topic: I felt my response was exactly what you recommended. I would not ostracize him (to exclude him) because he hasn't committed an infraction. Had this happened in a home group, I would educate the player, and I thought my response indicated that.

I selected a form of response to match the obscenity of the act. This kind of act damages the integrity of gaming. I would likely state this more formally than colloquially were I the judge at this (apparently fictional) event.

So, yes educate the player, do so from a customer service point of view, remembering that you are providing service to those who rely on you to correct other players.

Originally posted by Matt Sauers:

I selected a form of response to match the obscenity of the act. This kind of act damages the integrity of gaming. I would likely state this more formally than colloquially were I the judge at this (apparently fictional) event.

Please do that second thing, not the first thing. We're human, we want to express ourselves, and sometimes the fear of God is what people need to snap out of going down a bad road when they're on the verge of a DQ. This was some shady behavior, but not illegal (or particularly close to it IMHO).

Even tense and blatantly malevolent situations can and should be handled with restraint and integrity. We have to be professional, and we want to educate them to continue to play. We should avoid any comments or conduct that usurps either of those two things.

> On Jun 8, 2014, at 8:50 PM, Evan Cherry<forum-10521-d900@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
>
> Matt Sauers
> I selected a form of response to match the obscenity of the act. This kind of act damages the integrity of gaming. I would likely state this more formally than colloquially were I the judge at this (apparently fictional) event.
>
> Please do that second thing, not the first thing. We're human, we want to express ourselves, and sometimes the fear of God is what people need to snap out of going down a bad road when they're on the verge of a DQ. This was some shady behavior, but not illegal (or particularly close to it IMHO).
>
> Even tense and blatantly malevolent situations can and should be handled with restraint and integrity. We have to be professional, and we want to educate them to continue to play. We should avoid any comments or conduct that usurps either of those two things
> .
Definitely. We comport ourselves with the dignity correlative to our station and the event.

In this scenario, I can barely imagine it actually happening; but “back in the day” before there was a rule about non verbally revealing a card equalling playing that card, I heard shenanigans did abound.

I remain disappointed that this scenario doesn't seem fantastical to us all.

I did have a couple players once meet at a PTQ I was HJing, and these gentlemen had a history. Their interactions degraded through the match, to where their match slip wouldn't be signed until they were sure there weren't some penalties the other deserved. I did investigate both separately, and while I super wanted to DQ them both for being basically assbags to each other, they didn't actually commit a DQ offense. They did hit most of the UC Minor examples, and they got warnings for those.

I think it's also acceptable to share with them your feelings, but it should be done professionally and generally clinically to avoid the appearance of favoritism in emotionally charged situations.

i don't understand why everyone is so up in arms about this. as a judge,
arbiter of fair play and rule-following, there is only illegal, and legal.
there's nothing in between that, and the player in this scenario did
something legal, so we should leave him alone, rather than trying to guilt
him into playing in a certain, other, also legal way.

Originally posted by Sam Sherman:

i don't understand why everyone is so up in arms about this. as a judge, arbiter of fair play and rule-following, there is only illegal, and legal.

That's true for everything that is covered by hard rules, like Magic Comprehensive Rules. A play is either legal or not based on this document supposed to cover every single possible interaction.

But once we speak about human behavior, then it's not that simple. There is the sportive conduct, that we promote and encourage, there is the unsporting conduct, that is an infraction and penalized, and there is the grey zone, that is neither sportive or unsporting, where things are not explicitly illegal but could still be perceived as unpleasant.

Part of the role of a judge is to educate players and encourage them to stay away of the grey zone, for their own good and the one of the community.

emilien, there are documents that lay out specifically what is illegal, and
everything else is legal. you can't just invent additional rules to make
things you find undesirable to be illegal even though they are legal by the
rules. it's simply unfair to players who study the rules and try to be
creative to get an advantage within those rules. if making a play like the
one outlined above was enough of a concern, it would be illegal. as is, the
fact that the player knows it is not illegal should afford him the benefit
of being able to use that to his advantage.

Sam, What Emilien said is exactly what I would have said.

The IPG is not comprehensive. Not every scenario is handled by it mostly because human interaction allow for an infinite number of different problems. An action not being illegal does not mean it is something we want to have at our tournament.

You have to use your own judgement here but I think Emilien brought it to a point when he said:

Originally posted by Emilien Wild:

Part of the role of a judge is to educate players and encourage them to stay away of the grey zone, for their own good and the one of the community.

You may not agree with this but I don't think you will be able to convince me (or Emilien) that whatever is not written in the IPG is allowed.

Now let's get back to the topic of this thread….

Andy attacks Nick. Nick says “I think you've got me,” and he lays his hand face up on the table. Nick is not dead on board, but he is going into a situation where he has no conceivable outs. Andy says “Good game,” and scoops up his cards. Now Nick tries to say he never actually conceded and, moreover, that Andy has actually just conceded to him!


As a judge do you ever allow Nick to get away with that? While Nick didn't explicitly say the words “I concede to you,” he has gone through a series of actions that any reasonable human Magic player would understand as a concession.

I think we can say the exact same thing about the original scenario. While the precise act of concession never explicitly occurred, a reasonable human Magic player understands that as the outcome of this series of events. I believe it is entirely appropriate to hold players to that.

Edited Joshua Feingold (June 9, 2014 01:01:49 PM)

Kim, I do believe it to an imperfect fit, as I said in my post. The closest violation of policy I can see is that Adam lied about an action he was taking (concession conditional on revealing a counterspell). Since current actions are free information, then this would be a CPV.

The closest violation of policy I can see is that Adam lied about an action he was taking (concession conditional on revealing a counterspell). Since current actions are free information, then this would be a CPV.

Saying ‘I will concede if you show me a Counterspell’ is a statement about a conditional future action, rather than a current action. This is what makes this kind of situation really complicated.

Does it matter to any of us how Adam and Nick explain it? The answer to “What did you mean by that?” is a powerful thing. If it's “I meant show me the card ‘Counterspell’ and I'll concede” and you believe him, is it different from “Uh I said a thing… technically… what I meant was… uh…” or “It was a bluff and I shouldn't be held to it”?

This weekend, I had a call about whether or not a player confirmed an ability could resolve. When asked “Well did you confirm it?” the player stammered and hemmed and hawed and used the term “technically” a lot. This indicated that the player feels he confirmed it, but wants to get to “I didn't use the word ‘resolves’.” Does it matter if Adam meant it or not?

So that this post isn't just questions, my opinion is that well defined legal agreements between players should be honored (Like Scott said, players fairly unanimously feel that is intuitive and fair), but the policy currently doesn't put judges in the position of enforcing that. No infraction, no “don't do that again” because I don't like to tell players not to do legal things, no matter how “scummy,” and no TO ban. That said, I think when a judge is powerless to discourage this behavior, we lose players. That's bad for the game and for WotC. Plus, I strongly believe that playing in the types of events you also judge is hugely valuable to one's ability to judge intuitively, fairly, and consistently and if we have judges who don't play competitively because of this behavior, we encourage a lack of appropriate judge perspective and create an adversarial relationship between comp REL judges and competitive players, which some players already perceive.

Originally posted by Sam Sherman:

there are documents that lay out specifically what is illegal, and everything else is legal

No, not at all true. I felt it's necessary to correct that misconception, as it's fundamental to understanding and applying the rules correctly.

The Comp Rules are “permissive”; they tell us what is allowed in the game. If they don't say that you can do something, quite simply, you can't. (Or, it's a GRV if you do.)

The MTR is similar, yet less focused on that permissive perspective; it tends more towards laying out expectations and requirements that players must follow when playing in sanctioned events.

The IPG, on the other hand, tells us which of the various illegal actions constitute an infraction (and defines penalties and remedies).

* * *

On that “personal opinion” track, I feel that, when Adam says “I'll concede if…”, then he's talking about right now, and claiming that he's predicting a future game state is an attempt to test my patience. I'm old & grumpy, and have very little patience for such shenanigans. Not only do I want Adam to stop that behavior, and not repeat it - I want him to remember very clearly how undesirable that is. And I can't think of a better way to handle that, than to hold him to his statement. If he then wants to lie about what he said or meant, then we can shift gears into a different conversation…

But, as I said, that's my personal opinion - don't mistake that for ‘O’fficial or Policy.

d:^D

I, too, am in this camp. Players in events where I am head judge should be wary of such tricks.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

On that “personal opinion” track, I feel that, when Adam says “I'll concede if…”, then he's talking about right now, and claiming that he's predicting a future game state is an attempt to test my patience. I'm old & grumpy, and have very little patience for such shenanigans. Not only do I want Adam to stop that behavior, and not repeat it - I want him to remember very clearly how undesirable that is. And I can't think of a better way to handle that, than to hold him to his statement. If he then wants to lie about what he said or meant, then we can shift gears into a different conversation…

But, as I said, that's my personal opinion - don't mistake that for ‘O’fficial or Policy.

d:^D