Hi All,

This is a situation that happened at the NJ State Championships a little while ago that I thought was very interesting and would like to open it up for discussion to hear other people's thoughts on the matter. Here's the situation:

NAP controls a Tamiyo Emblem, “You have no maximum hand size” and “Whenever a card is put into your graveyard from anywhere, you may return it to your hand.” During the APs attack, the NAP casts Azorius Charm targeting an attacking creature to put it on top of its owner's library. After the Azorius Charm resolved, the NAP forgot his Tamiyo Emblem trigger and placed the Azorius Charm in his graveyard. Immediately the NAP noticed that the Azorius Charm was not in his hand as he wanted it to be, but chose not to say anything. A turn had passed and the AP decided to attack again. At this point, the NAP called for a judge to put his Tamiyo Emblem trigger on the stack to get back his Azorius Charm. During further questioning, the player had said to me, “I'll be honest with you. I noticed the Azorius Charm wasn't in my hand immediately and wanted to wait to call a judge to gain an advantage by having my opponent commit to attacking and then get the Azorius Charm back.” Based on these events and this statement, were any infractions committed and if so, what would be the penalty and fix?

-Mike Noss
L2 Philadelphia, PA

This seems like Cheating-Fraud to me. Intentionally missing an optional trigger to force an unwanted play from your opponent is the very definition of Fraud.

From the IPG: A player who intentionally forgets triggers he or she controls is guilty of Fraud, even if the trigger
is a lapsing ability. However, ignoring opponent’s missed triggers is not Fraud.
A player must be aware that he or she has committed an error in representation in order for the infraction to be
Fraud. For example, a player targeting a black creature with Terror has not committed Fraud if he or she forgot that
Terror can’t target black creatures, even though the action (casting Terror) was intentional and illegal. It is Fraud if a
judge believes he or she was aware and hoping that his or her opponent would miss it.

I would disqualify the player in question, as I believe, based on his statement, he has committed Fraud.

He admitted to missing his own trigger intentionally. It looks like a straight DQ to me. Then you might also explain to him he wasn't going to get his Charm back anyways…

“Immediately the NAP noticed that the Azorius Charm was not in his hand as
he wanted it to be, but chose not to say anything.”
!=
“missing his own trigger intentionally”

Specifically why this question is being asked.


2012/10/22 Sean Stackhouse <forum-1656@apps.magicjudges.org>

A couple of points:
1) If the player forgot about the trigger unintentionally (and put the card in the GY), did he commit an infraction, since the trigger was optional and not detrimental?
2) Did the player know about the trigger and choose to ignore it or did he forget about it then realize it after the card went to the GY (not clear from the statement)?

(Other note: the Definition of Fraud still mentions lapsing abilities, even though lapsing triggers have been removed. I believe that this is in error)

He did not intentionally miss his trigger, but it is a fine line. He tried to game the system, but as the controller of the trigger, he does not get the option to put it on the stack, his opponent does, per the new IPG. Also, this is a beneficial trigger that has been missed, so there is no penalty to be assessed here.

I would ask his opponent if he would like the trigger placed on the stack. His opponent, will more than likely say no and I will instruct them to keep on playing.

The thing that sways me in this is that even if he had noticed straight away and called a judge, he would not have been penalized, nor would he have gotten his charm back into his hand. I don't believe he intentionally cheated. He just misunderstood the IPG and tried to put the trigger on the stack at a more advantageous time for him.

Actually, scratch asking his opponent. It was more than a turn ago. I would just instruct them to keep playing.

For those advocating DQ for fraud, what rule did he break? He failed to utilize an optional trigger. He was not going to get the effect of that trigger after the time the trigger was supposed to occur.

I agree, his intention was to cheat. However, he did not commit a violation. He called a judge, and he had hoped/planned that he could get the trigger effect at that point. If the rules supported this (which they haven't for a very long time (ever?), due to the ‘may’ clause in the Tamiyo emblem), then we would absolutely have a DQ situation on our hands.

So we have a player who called a judge, hoping for an outcome that would be cheating. However, that outcome could not occur under the rules, so the cheating does not occur. Basically, he thought he was violating a rule, but did not actually do so. I don't think we can consider administer a DQ here, as much as we'd like to.

I would recommend a USC-Minor penalty, as his actions (attempting to cheat, resulting in an investigation) were disruptive to the tournament, and this also documents his behavior in the penalty database.

Originally posted by Shawn Doherty:

2) Did the player know about the trigger and choose to ignore it or did he forget about it then realize it after the card went to the GY (not clear from the statement)?

Thank you Shawn, allow me to clarify. The NAP forgot about it and immediately realized it. He did not intentionally put the Azorius Charm in the graveyard from the get go planning this elaborate scheme.

A couple more points:
1) Fraud can occur after an unintentional mistake (such as Missed Trigger), if the player notices it and doesn't immediately call a judge
2) There is a difference between not committing an infraction and receiving no penalty for committing an infraction. Any time you don't acknowledge one of your triggers, you are committing an infraction “Missed Trigger”. However, a player only receives a penalty if it was detrimental.

Originally posted by Gregory Reelitz:

He called a judge, and he had hoped/planned that he could get the trigger effect at that point. If the rules supported this (which they haven't for a very long time (ever?), due to the ‘may’ clause in the Tamiyo emblem)

Take another look at the IPG. When a player (unintentionally) misses a may trigger, we do in fact ask the opponent whether or not they want that trigger on the stack.

This seems like fraud to me, I'm not going to take into account whether or not his plan “would have worked.” He admitted to missing his own trigger and did not call a judge immediately and tried to game the system.

Of course he was never gonna get that Azorius Charm as the opponent simply would not have put it on the stack.

One of the examples of Cheating – Fraud is “A player lies to a tournament official to gain or keep an advantage.” The definition of Fraud also includes "misrepresenting rules, procedures, or any other relevant tournament information."

Mike, I'm curious what the judge call was like at the beginning. If he was intentionally trying to mislead a judge into handling this situation as a regular Missed Trigger call, that clearly pushes this into Fraud in my mind.

As I was the head judge of the event, I was not the initial responder. The floor judge who got me involved did so under the belief of there potentially being fraud, but made no statements about the judge himself being misled. I hope that clarifies things.

There is no longer any language that discussing handling missed ‘may’ triggers. This means that this is a missed trigger, and fits the example for fraud.

I think including handling ‘may’ triggers should be added back into the rules so that a player could skip the trigger without alerting their opponent to it.

Note: The fraud section still discusses ‘lapsing’ triggers, and needs revision.

It seems to me that this player forgot about the optional Tamiyo Emblem trigger when the Azorius Charm went to the graveyard as part of the spell's resolution. He had an optional trigger he did not acknowledge at that time and thus missed it. During his opponents next attack he called a judge to try to get the Charm back to his hand with his understanding of how the rules worked. The don't work that way, he wouldn't have gotten the Charm back at any point after he missed the trigger from the Emblem. It does not matter that he was trying to gain an advantage from having the trigger resolve at the point he called the judge because that is not what happened. The charm should remain in his graveyard and the opponent need not worry about that card coming back.

I like some of what Greg Reelitz is saying about trying to keep track of this player and putting what happened into a database etc. However, this player called the judge instead of trying to fix the error of his misplay on his own, and the judge hopefully ruled appropriately that he could not have the Charm back because he missed the trigger. If that happened the player was not involving a judge inappropriately in a situation but called a judge to the match for a legitimate reason. Even though we don't like that the player was trying to gain an advantage by not calling a judge as soon as he realized the mistake (a play mistake not a rules violation that needed a judges involvement it turns out) we cannot penalize players just for their admitted intent, only for their actions at which point intent can be looked at to determine what penalty is appropriate given the situation. If Adam tries to cheat by playing a second land for a turn in violation of the normal rules, but in fact was able to due to an Nick's Rites of Flourishing that Adam didn't notice Adam didn't cheat even if he thought he was and that is permissible. So what I am saying is although I don't like what the NAP in Mike's situation suggested he wanted to do, he in fact didn't commit a violation of the IPG that I can see and therefore I would not give him a penalty. I would pull him aside and try to instill the fear of the DCI in him about his attempt to delay informing a judge about something like this and the penalty for waiting to get a judge involved in problems in the future, but that doesn't have to be done as that match is being played. I would in that lecture to that player avoid anything that mentioned his honesty, we do not want to encourage players to be less than completely honest with judges when talking to them and that is important to be aware of when trying to prevent this player from gaming the rules in the future. Finally I would ask another judge to keep an eye on the NAP in future rounds if possible (pass slowly by his match a couple of times to look and listen in) to see if he makes any further plays of questionable integrity.