Hello,

During a GPT in standard format the following situation came up (in fact I wasn’t exactly what happened but the story behind will be revealed at a later point):

You get called to the table (by Anne and Norman at the same time) and face the following situation:

Anne is attacking Norman with 4 white 2/2’s.
Norman wants to block with 1 Pack Rat and 3 Pack Rat Tokens.
Brave the Elements is the top card in Anne’s Graveyard.
Doom Blade is the top card of Norman’s Graveyard.
Anne is at 20, Norman at 8.

According to Norman, Anne casted Brave the Elements choosing white, then attacked. He activated one Pack Rat to make another Token, discarding Doom Blade and wanted to block. At that moment Anne claims that he cannot since her creatures have protection from Black.
According to Anne exactly the same happened except that she explains that she had chosen black and not white with her Brave the Elements.
A quick investigation reveals that no witness was there at that time. Both players have no warnings in this tournament.
Both players will stick to their version of the story and seem to be convinced by it.

What’s the play?

Most situations like this turn into a judgement call. If you really can't
determine anything to lean you one way or the other substantially during
your investigation you may just have to make a ruling. The players seemed
to have reached a fundamental disconnect in their understanding of
reality…not a good place to be.

I would be inclined to ask Norman away from the table what he believes was
said by his opponent and ask Anne (also away from the table) what they
said. Based on their answers I'm likely going to go with whomever seems
more coherent in their recollection (might not be an easy distinction, or a
perfect one either). It is also worth noting whether Anne mentioned “white
creatures” during her statement as it is possible Norman misheard her
statement. In the event that as you said they are both perfectly convinced
of their own stories you just make a ruling. I likely side with Anne here
if the stories are even. She has made her intentions clear and there is
nothing to indicate that she is actively making the play that Norman says
she is making.

As always the exact details of the investigation will show you what the
“right” play is. But there isn't always a “right play”.

I think I would also ask Norman “why would your opponent choose ‘white’ in this situation?”. His answer might convince me that he knows she said ‘black’ but he's lying about it now to gain an advantage.

More likely, it's as Patrick suggested - Anne said something like “all my white guys are pro:black”, and he only hear the “white” part. At least, let's hope that's all that's going on here.

And, also as Patrick mentioned - you use your judgment and go with what you believe really happened.

d:^D

My first approach was:
There is no way I can prove that one of the players is lying or cheating, therefore I cannot follow that route.
It is clear that Anne’s intention was to say Black. However either she misspoke or Norman misunderstood. This is the only scenario in which none of them is lying to the judge and the only one I can try to solve.
I would love to invoke a Tournament Error – Communication Policy Violation and rewind the situation to the point where Anne has to choose the color for her Brave the Elements.
I would also give a warning to both players. If Anne misspoke, I feel that Norman failed to make her confirm her choice.
If Norman misunderstood, it is due to Anne not speaking clearly enough.
However:
Definition:
A player violates the Player Communication policy detailed in section 4.1 of the Magic Tournament Rules. This infraction only applies to violations of that policy and not to general communication confusion.
This makes me feel that I am on the wrong track.
I am convinced that rewinding is the only way this can be solved. GRV and TE – Communication Policy Violation allow a back up.

Next thing: what really happend.

Edited Steve Hatto (July 28, 2014 06:12:51 PM)

Ok now to what really happened:

The players did not call a judge.
Norman approaches the judge of the GPT after the match and tells the following:
Anne is attacking Norman with 4 white 2/2’s.
Norman wants to block with 1 Pack Rat and 3 Pack Rat Tokens.
Brave the Elements is the top card in Anne’s Graveyard.
Doom Blade is the top card of Norman’s Graveyard.
Anne is at 20, Norman at 8.
Anne casted Brave the Elements choosing white, then attacked. He activated one Pack Rat to make another Token, discarding Doom Blade and wanted to block. At that moment Anne claims that he cannot since her creatures have protection from Black.
Since they are at the last table and in the last round of the tournament, Norman decides to take it and dose not bother to call a judge.

However he is interested in what would have happened.

The judge explains that in the situation that you find in the first post he would go for a back up.
I get asked by the judge for a second opinion and I come to the same conclusion, except that I would like to add the warning.

The answer I usually give when a player approaches me like this is to say
“based on what you said I would have proceeded this way, but it really
would be up to what I found out when talking to both of you”. There is no
GRV here (unless you believe that anne just didn't choose a color), and no
CPV since no derived or free information has been misrepresented so we
can't just give them a warning because we think it fits. Reverse
engineering something like that causes inconsistencies down the road.

As for the backup the only reason we would back up is if there is something
that was done incorrectly during the resolution of brave the elements, ie -
Anne forgets to make a choice for the color.
Just remember to apply the policy we have consistently and if something
doesn't fit into the slot you think it should, then don't try to force it
in…

Again, I find myself typing “what Patrick said.” :)

I am curious to know how you know what actually happened. Near as I can tell, this is Norman's version - which puts you back into the first scenario unless you get some confirmation from Anne.

-Eric Shukan
—– Original Message —–
From: Steve Hatto
To: eshukan@verizon.net
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: Black or White ? (Competitive REL)


Ok now to what really happened:

The players did not call a judge.
Norman approaches the judge of the GPT after the match and tells the following:
Anne is attacking Norman with 4 white 2/2’s.
Norman wants to block with 1 Pack Rat and 3 Pack Rat Tokens.
Brave the Elements is the top card in Anne’s Graveyard.
Doom Blade is the top card of Norman’s Graveyard.
Anne is at 20, Norman at 8.
Anne casted Brave the Elements choosing white, then attacked. He activated one Pack Rat to make another Token, discarding Doom Blade and wanted to block. At that moment Anne claims that he cannot since her creatures have protection from Black.
Since they are at the last table and in the last round of the tournament, Norman decides to take it and dose not bother to call a judge.

However he is interested in what would have happened.

The judge explains that in the situation that you find in the first post he would go for a back up.
I get asked by the judge for a second opinion and I come to the same conclusion, except that I would like to add the warning.


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Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

I think I would also ask Norman “why would your opponent choose ‘white’ in this situation?”. His answer might convince me that he knows she said ‘black’ but he's lying about it now to gain an advantage.

More likely, it's as Patrick suggested - Anne said something like “all my white guys are pro:black”, and he only hear the “white” part. At least, let's hope that's all that's going on here.

And, also as Patrick mentioned - you use your judgment and go with what you believe really happened.

d:^D

From my own personal experience, I've twice had opponents name their own creature's color with Brave the Elements, and God's Willing. Both times, they looked a little sheepish and immediately realized their mistake when I said something like “Okay. Anything else before Hero's Downfall resolves?” I also have seen plenty of instances (in non-M:tG contexts) where a roomful of witnesses claim that a person misspoke, but the speaker himself was still convinced that he hadn't. It seems that the listener is more often correct about these exchanges than the speaker.

My own judgment then leads me to believe that Anne misspoke, and Norman just thought “this is my lucky day” and expected Anne to go “You can't block like that. All my guys are pro wh… Oh, shoot.”

Assuming I'm convinced Norman is not running the most brazen con ever, following my judgment over what I believed happened would end up with Anne's creatures being pro-white.

However, if I'm wrong about that, the injustice here is tremendous. There's enormous potential for Norman to angle-shoot if he can, in fact, get past my lie detection abilities.

Is it every really okay to rule “Anne, I believe you think you said Black, but based on Norman's statement, I think you unknowingly misspoke. We're going to treat it as if you chose White.”? I'm just not sure I have the stomach for it, even if I'd estimate it at 80% that a hypothetical audio recording would back me up.

Without being able to gauge the players myself, I think it's, in a vacuum, more likely that Anne looked at her white creatures and her white card in hand and says “Pro white”, than Norman lying about her saying “pro-black”. And if things line up that way, then I think she misspoke, but should be held to it.

If when I talk to her, she says she said “I give my white creatures pro-black”, it starts sounding more likely that her opponent didn't hear the statement entirely, then I think we hold him to that.

Spidey senses on alert the whole time for lying, of course. But unless an illegal game action was taken (or there was a CPV, which there almost never is), we don't go back.

And given how much a feel-bad is going to happen here, I think it's important to be clear that it's not possible to know for sure what happened, but given what you talked about, I'm ruling that “X” happened, and we proceed from there. Lack of confidence at this point can pretty much derail all the work you've done so far.

Originally posted by Eric Shukan:

I am curious to know how you know what actually happened. Near as I can tell, this is Norman's version - which puts you back into the first scenario unless you get some confirmation from Anne.

Steve Hatto
The players did not call a judge.
Norman approaches the judge of the GPT after the match and tells the following: (…)

Obviously it is Norman's version. :-)

We will never know what actually happened since no judge was called.
I accept that everyone is convinced that every situation will allow them to make a judgment based on what you feel is right in absence of evidence.
I do agree that the rules do not allow a backup.
Btw after re-discussing the situation based on what has been said (explaining that our backup idea was wrong), Norman is convinced that not calling a judge in this situation is the correct choice, arguing that he would rather lose the game then getting punished when innocent respectively to witness how a ruling is taken against him by judge error.

Edited Steve Hatto (July 29, 2014 09:17:08 AM)

Originally posted by Steve Hatto:

Norman is convinced that not calling a judge in this situation is the correct choice

Guess thats the best moment to explain why it is important to call a judge if a situation like this occurs. The potential of getting a penalty shouln't determine if a player calls a judge or not, if something odd happens in a match players shouldn't be afraid to bring it to our attention. And there is still the option for Norman to appeal the ruling if he thinks the rulling isnt correct.

I know it sounds very easy if you haven't been there yourself, and getting appealed after a judgement call will likely create that feeling “was i really on the right track here?”, but you should do your best to investigate in this situation and give your ruling with confidence in your judgement.