Hello awesome judges. I've been working on learning policy, and reading the IPG the following situation came to mind. I’m wondering how you all would handle this situation.

You are called by Nancy to a game. Adam had won the coin flip and chose to play first. Adam has taken one mulligan, while Nancy kept her opening hand. Right before the call, Adam had just played his land for turn and passed. Nancy tells you, “Adam Mulligan once, but he seems to have 6 cards in hand and one land in play, he must have drawn too many cards.” When you ask Nancy why she didn't call a judge earlier (before Adam played his land and passed) she says. “I make it a point not to look and count how many cards my opponent has until he plays, that way if he miss draws is a Game Loss instead of a Warning.”

What infractions have taken place? Is there any fix?

Originally posted by Robert Blanckaert:

Hello awesome judges. I've been working on learning policy, and reading the IPG the following situation came to mind. I’m wondering how you all would handle this situation.

You are called by Nancy to a game. Adam had won the coin flip and chose to play first. Adam has taken one mulligan, while Nancy kept her opening hand. Right before the call, Adam had just played his land for turn and passed. Nancy tells you, “Adam Mulligan once, but he seems to have 6 cards in hand and one land in play, he must have drawn too many cards.” When you ask Nancy why she didn't call a judge earlier (before Adam played his land and passed) she says. “I make it a point not to look and count how many cards my opponent has until he plays, that way if he miss draws is a Game Loss instead of a Warning.”

What infractions have taken place? Is there any fix?

The way I see it:

So I (Adam) will be receiving a Game Play Error - Drawing Extra Cards infraction with the penalty being a Game loss. We don't know the identity of the extra card, and the game has already started. Nancy would typically receive a Failure to Maintain Game State EXCEPT she states “I make it a point not to look and count how many cards my opponent has until he plays, that way if he miss draws is a Game Loss instead of a Warning.” That is pretty clear intent to gain an advantage by failing to maintain the game state. Since she has chosen to break the rules in the hopes of gaining an advantage this infraction is no longer Game Play Error - Failure to Maintain Game State but instead Unsporting Conduct - Cheating and she will be disqualified. My penalty will now be applied to my next match since we still want me to learn the severity of my mistake.

There is an argument that since she chose not to check until it was too late that she has not broken any rules. However, we still expect player to watch for Game Play Errors and call them out as soon as possible. By waiting until she can get a free win before checking, she is trying to gain an advantage we simply are not testing at an MTG tournament. After all, we here to play MTG not IPG.

Edited Adam Eidelsafy (July 15, 2014 09:43:32 PM)

Adam, what are the requirements for Unsporting Conduct - Cheating? Are we
sure Nancy has fulfilled all of them?

Nancy has demonstrated, by waiting until Adam has played his first land to call for a judge, with the intent of “fishing” for a game loss rather than a simple warning, that she has passed both tests for UC-Cheating. I would recommend to the Head Judge that Nancy be Disqualified. Due to the serious nature of the penalty, I would also issue Adam a Game Loss for GPE-DEC, to be applied in his next round.

I'm not sure we have confirmed the second criterion for USC-Cheating:

• The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.

Players usually don't know the IPG by heart.

Originally posted by Robert Blanckaert:

“I make it a point not to look and count how many cards my opponent has until he plays, that way if he miss draws is a Game Loss instead of a Warning.”

If I were the head judge investigating the above situation and a player told me that, I would likely be removing that player from the event for cheating.

The number of cards in a player's opening hand is part of the game state and BOTH players in a match are responsible for maintaining a legal game state in order to avoid errors.

If, in the above case, Nancy knew that intentionally not trying to maintain a legal game state was against the rules, I would remove her from the event since she also clearly stated that she was ignoring Adam's opening hand because she hoped it would result in a higher penalty.

If Nancy would claim that she didn't know she had to share the responsibility of verifying the number of cards in her oponent's hand, she would need a darn solid explanation to convince me why that is the case.

Originally posted by Eric Paré:

Robert Blanckaert
“I make it a point not to look and count how many cards my opponent has until he plays, that way if he miss draws is a Game Loss instead of a Warning.”

If I were the head judge investigating the above situation and a player told me that, I would likely be removing that player from the event for cheating.

The number of cards in a player's opening hand is part of the game state and BOTH players in a match are responsible for maintaining a legal game state in order to avoid errors.

If, in the above case, Nancy knew that intentionally not trying to maintain a legal game state was against the rules, I would remove her from the event since she also clearly stated that she was ignoring Adam's opening hand because she hoped it would result in a higher penalty.

If Nancy would claim that she didn't know she had to share the responsibility of verifying the number of cards in her oponent's hand, she would need a darn solid explanation to convince me why that is the case.

This x 1000.

Edited Sierra Black (July 15, 2014 10:16:24 PM)

Originally posted by Erik Kan:

I'm not sure we have confirmed the second criterion for USC-Cheating:

• The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.

Players usually don't know the IPG by heart.

That is a very true statement. However I'd like reiterate Nancy's statement

“I make it a point not to look and count how many cards my opponent has until he plays, that way if he miss draws is a Game Loss instead of a Warning.”

That statement makes me reasonably sure she was aware that she was overlooking an illegal play for her benefit. She may not know the IPG by heart but we do expect Nancy to be mindful of the game state and to get us involved as soon as there is an issue. By her admission, she is aware something could go wrong and opts not to check until it's most convenient for her.

Nancy almost certainly thinks her actions are legal – if she did
not, why would she be calling a judge?

For me it looks like Nancy does have (at least some) knowledge of the IPG and the small details that seperates ID@SoG from DEC. This might convince someone that her knowledge of the responsibility from both players to maintain a legal game status is good enough to qualify for a DQ.

On the other hand, i feel like the answers from the investigation (which will likely happen) will determine if all criteria for USC-Cheating are met. Paul makes an important point here: if Nancy isnt aware that she does something illegal, and instead thinks waiting for an harsher penalty is totally fine, we are more in the education zone then showing her what a DQ means. After all, we are/should looking for evidence that she is not guilty, instead of just trying to find a way to remove her from the tournament

Edited Auzmyn Oberweger (July 15, 2014 10:30:04 PM)

I think that this fails the “grandma test”. Waiting longer to have the opponent receive a harsher penalty is pretty universally bad. It would be difficult for someone to explain to me that they genuinely didn't know it was bad.

That doesn't mean I would automatically DQ this person. There is definitely an investigation that needs to happen in much more detail than explained in this scenario.

We've often revised pieces of the IPG to discourage the practice of “sitting on” an infraction, in hopes of getting a more severe penalty for your opponent.

Now, ask yourself: is it necessary for Nancy to constantly monitor the number of cards in Adam's hand? Where does policy say that she must verify the number of cards in Adam's opening hand?

In general, the idea of ignoring an infraction in hopes of gaining an advantage requires that the infraction be noticed, but not immediately reported. Nancy, however, is basically saying “I didn't even bother to look until it could be a GL instead of a Warning.”

Analogous scenario: Adam says “Brainstorm”, Nancy says “sure” and goes to cross that card off the list of cards she saw from a Duress, a few turns ago. Meanwhile, Adam picks up 1, 2, 3 … and then a 4th card. He sorts through his hand, and puts 2 cards back on top. Nancy then says “hey, how many cards in hand?” and they realize that Adam drew too many. (Assume it was a mistake by Adam, or this goes nowhere…)

Did Nancy fail, in any manner, by not checking as Adam drew each card? If your answer here is “no”, then how is this different than the original scenario?

d:^D

Can someone point me to the rule that says a player is responsible for counting the cards in an opponent's hand before the game begins?

There's no specific rule; the players just have to maintaing the game state.

I agree that in order to be cheating, there must have been an intentional
infraction trying to gain advantage, and also the knowledge that it's
illegal. To give the proper DQ, I'd need to be sure of both of them.

However, I'd be towards giving the DQ at first. The “hey, how can you think
I'd be calling you if I thought it was illegal” is a dangerous presumption
to use, and has a huge potential of abuse. So, I'd investigate, but I
honestly believe that such a deep knowledge of the rules is rare to have
without knowing that she was doing a Cheating. At worst, DQ; at best (for
her) I'd give a failure to maintain game state, but I'd make a note on the
WER encouragin the DCI to investigate an attitude I fin really suspicious.


2014-07-15 22:41 GMT+02:00 Josh Stansfield <

Lets break it down via the IPG:

“A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a tournament official, or notices an offense committed in his or her (or a teammate's) match and does not call attention to it.”

Definitely an offense committed (ID@SoG) and not calling attention to it.

Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:

• The player must be attempting to gain advantage from his or her action.
• The player must be aware that he or she is doing something illegal.

Nancy is definitely trying to gain an advantage.

Does Nancy know she is required to verify her opponent's hand? The closest rule would be MTR 2.3 (which references CR 103.4), but it mentions nothing about players verifying opponent's hand size.