Players should be aware that offering a conditional concession is like using a future sight pact. If you don't pay, you lose. Normally, a player isn't obligated to reveal the content of his or her hand after a game. The conceding player coerces his opponent to reveal a part of his hand at the price of a game win. If the game goes on then, the offering player not only gained back all the chances he had originally to win the game, but a wrongful advantag by increased knowledge.
On the other hand, playing devil's advocate: A player is offered a concession if she reveals a counterspell. She holds the Counterspell, but chooses to keep it hidden, presumably to prolong the game, and get time off the clock. You see it all over the shoulder. Is slow play taking place? Or would it be ok then, too, to let a player gain an advantage? If the rules get an update, maybe this ought to be clarified, too?

Christian,
keeping a hidden information hidden (?) is a totally fair play, especially since there's no in-game effect that forces the player to reveal the hidden information. (only your opponent asking about whether you have card X in your hand)

You can't claim that a player is committing a Slow Play, just because he/she refuse to show his/her hand to the opponent.

Though if there's another reason why you think the player is dragging the game to get advantage of the time.. Feel free to apply your judgment.

I am still concerned about the nuances that Aaron brought up in his post.
If we move to change this policy, care must be taken about the language
used. Otherwise, it seems to me that we are moving into areas where we
hold people to concessions due to ambiguous language and unclear
communication. While certainly it is important that players communicate
clearly, it seems clear that many if not most players will feel “gotten” by
the judge if they are held to a statement that was simply imprecise.

Aaron's last example stands out clearly. “I'll concede if you show me a
counterspell” is a pretty common example of this kind of offer, I'd expect,
yet counters like Spell Snare, Force Spike, Essence Scatter, and the like
can qualify under some circumstances and not qualify under others. Are we
going to get into identifying the game state context, or are we going to
hold a player to conceding to a Force Spike that doesn't counter his
game-winning spell? I would agree with Riki that most of the polled
players would not expect the concession there, but as a piece of judging
policy we would need a consistent guideline for enforcement. What's the
line that we'd like to draw here?

I frankly don't see a lot of benefit to enforcing this kind of statement or
changing policy to do so. What kind of behavior are we actually
preventing? If this kind of behavior is really disliked by the community,
then the community will likely police it themselves anyway since it's
relatively easy for them to do so through social pressure.

I think I see Christian's point here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but
Christian seems to be viewing the offer as a proposed loop to reach a
clearly defined game-state. As such, the NA would have to propose where
she would like to interrupt the loop in order for it to be stopped. I
think there's a number of reasons why that analogy doesn't work, but I'm
curious if I interpreted you correctly first.

Christian,
I can't find anything in the IPG about dragging out a game as being mentioned being illegal. The only way one can fall into slow play is from making slow game actions. It doesn't matter if Sudden shock is known to all to be in player A's hand, and player B is at 2 life. Nothing states you are obligated to try and win, only that you play at a reasonable pace.

The idea of offered conditional concessions as a proposed “contract” seems much more correct to me than hairing this as a possible “in-game shortcut”. Thats because the outcome of the loop would directly affect the match and end the game possibly. I consider it a match action, not a game action. You see, concessions are mentioned in the comprehensive rules not because Wizards graciously allowed players to leave the game at any time, but because there is no legal possibility to force them keep playing in the first place. It was just deemed a good idea to mention it in the rules, because the possibility of lock-down decks existed since the printing of Alpha.
As is the case, conditional concessions are a grey area, because of the mentioned ambiguities of exact or more or less fitting cards in the opponents hands. (However, not in the first example, there the criterium was met fully). I'd prefer this fog to be lifted, one way or the other.
Given the possibility that there are countries in which the law holds players to verbal contracts, I'd want to prevent players pondering legal ramifications. I'd rather have a section of the tournament rules clarify that condtiional concessions only become binding if the exact card asked for is in the opponents hand. I found generalisations like “Show me a counter/removal/sweeper and I'll concede” always to be a little problematic, but luckily I never encountered a situation in which the revealed card was not able to seal the deal. Meaning, I never encountered a player who wanted to trick the deal with a card that couldn't win it. Likewisely, I never want to encounter a player who gets what he asked for, and then plays on. That behaviour is so brash, it could put even spectators or the judge on tilt. I deem it wrong of us as judges if we let the community care about such “undesired” behaviour, because we are part of the community as well, regarded by some as representatives of it, even. It is our duty to have an opinion about the issue, and it better be well thought-of opinion, and preferably in hard rules text - tournament rules text, to be precise.
My last point I want to adress is my side step from my last comment: Players have indeed been penalized if they didn't play the game in an attempt to advance toward a win. From the comprehensive rule perspective, we can't make them reveal hidden information they want to keep hidden, but from a tournament rules perspective they act wrongfully nonetheless. It was my bad that I mentioned the wrong rule - it seems I thought of USC-stalling the game, not slow play. (An excursion from Example B: “A player is ahead in games and slows down the pace of play so that the opponent has little time to catch up” - here: A player knows of his bleak chances against sideboard cards he knows are there in game 2 and 3, and prolongs game one willfully in an attempt to preserve his victory in game 2 by outrunning the clock, causing a draw and thus taking the match). I just wanted to stir some thoughts with the example, I don't intent to let myself be called to a match to observe wether a player has a certain card in hand so that the opponent can concede “safely” to him in the near future.

Once we clear the issue for good, it might be necessary to change the rules even if we don't want to change the current legal situation: We then should just mention in the rules that offered concessions that include the condition of revealled, certain or specific, cards from the hand aren't binding in any case. That way, players have at least a chance to not fall into this trap if they were totally new to competitive play (and only read the rules beforhand). Having players understand “derived” rules knowledge seems too much to ask of them.
And that would be the least I could agree upon.

I have to admit, I've been scratching my head trying to figure out why this thread is still going on as it seems there have been a number of clear answers. At this point we're just digging for corner cases.

Just like many areas of Magic, this is not something that can (or should) be clearly codified. There are always going to be grey areas and grey areas are why Judges exist.

“Show me a Path and I'll scoop?” *shows Sorrow's Path* = Nice try buddy. Play on.
“Show me a Counterspell and I'll scoop?” *shows Cancel* “That's not Counterspell” = Nice try buddy. Concession stands.

Use your JUDGEment.

Originally posted by Christian Mueller:

My last point I want to adress is my side step from my last comment: Players have indeed been penalized if they didn't play the game in an attempt to advance toward a win. From the comprehensive rule perspective, we can't make them reveal hidden information they want to keep hidden, but from a tournament rules perspective they act wrongfully nonetheless. It was my bad that I mentioned the wrong rule - it seems I thought of USC-stalling the game, not slow play. (An excursion from Example B: “A player is ahead in games and slows down the pace of play so that the opponent has little time to catch up” - here: A player knows of his bleak chances against sideboard cards he knows are there in game 2 and 3, and prolongs game one willfully in an attempt to preserve his victory in game 2 by outrunning the clock, causing a draw and thus taking the match). I just wanted to stir some thoughts with the example, I don't intent to let myself be called to a match to observe wether a player has a certain card in hand so that the opponent can concede “safely” to him in the near future.

Not quite true. Your example of MTR here does not analogize. Slowing the pace of play to wind down the clock is not the same as not ending the game as quickly as possible. The “pace of play” is defined to mean the amount of clock time taken between game actions, not the amount of time it takes to play the game. There are many things you are allowed to do within the rules to intentionally wind down the clock; the MTR statement is in fact, relatively speaking, a corner case.

As an example, we are playing Theros Block Limited. Player A controls Leafcrown Dryad and is at 3 life. Player N has GU3 untapped and is at 2 life. Is Player A required to attempt to end the game as quickly as possible by attacking into Player N's 5 open mana, or is he allowed to play around Fleetfeather Cockatrice by not attacking with Leafcrown Dryad, allowing him to block the end-step Cockatrice? Clearly we do not require Player A to end the game as quickly as possible here, and I think this analogy fits the situation much better than the analogy to UC - Stalling.

Slow play example:
- You are dead on the board, you draw nothing relevant, you think for 5 minutes, pass the turn and then request time to think before going to opponent's combat step.
- You keep on looping those three o-rings. You're not getting any other triggers or nothing.

Not ending the game should never be considered slow play. Would you force players to cast spells just because they can? You've built a control deck with only 1 win-condition; should you scoop when 1-0 ahead when your win-condition dies and you have 3 minutes left on the clock and a hand full of answers, against your opponent's empty board and hand?

It seems to me that there are two elements to this question. The first is whether a conditional concession is enforceable; the second is how to address ambiguities in whether a concession happened.

An example of the first case:
N: Show me a Path to Exile and I'll concede.
A: *reveals Path of Exile*
N: I'm not conceding, but thanks for showing me the card.

Here, there's no dispute of fact. The only question is whether the conditional concession is enforceable.

An example of the second case:
N: Show me Path and I'll concede.
A: *reveals Sorrow's Path*
N: I'm not conceding because that's not the card I meant.

Here there's what we lawyers call a “genuine question of fact.” The underlying logical structure still holds, but it's not clear that the condition is met due to ambiguous language being used. “Splinter Twin and a land” falls under this category as well.

—

To me, the real question is whether the concession in the first situation is enforceable. Finding it not to be is, to me, pretty unthinkable. There are several different approaches that make this enforceable. Treating it as a shortcut, or a kind of contract, or a declared action (like naming a card with Pithing Needle when putting it on the stack) all work. To me, the most intuitive way to think about it is as a concession that's effective immediately, but conditioned on the second player showing the card. That means you're never forcing the player to concede – they've already conceded, when they uttered their conditional concession.

If that is enforceable, then we don't get an easy out in other situations by saying judges don't force players to concede. If that structure is valid and enforceable, we have to determine whether the conditions have been met, which means we may often have to determine the player's intent. That's not really a position we want to be in, but it's more acceptable to me than saying the first, clear-cut situation isn't an actual concession.