Thanks to Daniel Kitachewsky (and congratulations on the L4 promotion!) for this week's Knowledge Pool scenario. As with all Silver scenarios, L2+ judges should wait until Friday to respond.

Here's the blog post: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1092

Aardvark is playing in a Standard Competitive REL tournament. He's playing a red-black aggro deck. On his decklist is written 4x Temple of Malady. A start of round deck check reveals he's playing 4x Temple of Malice. The decklist is otherwise legal.

What do you do? What are the relevant infractions, penalties, and fixes, if possible?

Edited Josh Stansfield (June 25, 2014 03:14:30 PM)

This seems quite easy. First, I'd check if there might be some green
splashes in his deck - either mainboard or sideboard. This shouldn't take
much time and effort. If there are, then I'd issue a Game Loss for TE -
D/DL Problem, because there is much potential for advantage. If there
aren't any, I'd downgrade to a Warning if I'm the Head Judge, otherwise I'd
ask for permission to do that.
If there are some cards that he plays, that could benefit from him playing
green I might consider asking his previous opponents if he played Temple of
Malady as it might be an indication of cheating.


2014-06-25 21:07 GMT+02:00 Jack Doyle <forum-10860-a93c@apps.magicjudges.org

We have a TE-Deck/ Decklist Problem here. The decklist Aardvark handed in doesn't fit with the deck he is playing. The penalty for this infraction is a Game Loss, and since we catch the error at the beginning of the round the penalty will be applied to the current match.

For the fix here: i'm not 100% sure but in that specific situation i would alter the decklist and change Temple of Malady to Temple of Malice. If he is playing a Red-Black deck this card is the one he wants to play, not Temple of Malady. We don't want to force Aardvark to change his deck, instead we change the decklist to reflect what he intends to play.

There is a downgrade option for TE-D/DP (and i remember being the hardliner at a similar scenario from a previous Knowledge Pool scenario before ;-) ), but this goes way beyond a ambiguous name or obvious clerical error for me.

I am not sure that we just ‘hand wave’ this if he has no green in his deck at all; as a LOT of players are using off color Temples to get in a Scry effect.

At first I was completely on board with what Adrian was saying. It was my first initial thought as well. But the more I thought about it, the more I remember that I've seen UW decks with the UB Temple and no black cards anywhere in the 75.

So, if there were no BR Temple in his deck at all (as the OP seems to suggest), I would definetely think long and hard before going with the ‘honest error’ approach.

Originally posted by Darren Horve:

So, if there were no BR Temple in his deck at all (as the OP seems to suggest), I would definetely think long and hard before going with the 'honest error' approach.

“A start of round deck check reveals he's playing 4x Temple of Malice.”

This is just an issue of Tournament Error- Deck/Decklist Problem. Aardvark will get a game loss for it(there is mention of an ability to downgrade it, but from what it says in the IPG it doesn't seem to fit this). I would talk with Aardvark about the issue, and make sure that it is supposed to be Temple of Malice, and not Temple of Mylady. After talking with him I would update the decklist accordingly.

I think the scenario clearly states, that it's the only problem
discoverered with the decklist, which means that he isn't playing both BR
Temple and BG Temple (at least that's my assumption). I agree, that if the
player goes with more than 4 temples, that's an entirely different story.
But with those assumptions, I'd still go for a downgrade. Both lands match
Temple of Mal-something template, so I guess they could be pretty easily
mistaken in a hurry and there is really no advantage in playing ONLY
off-color temples.


2014-06-25 22:22 GMT+02:00 DJ Andrucyk <

TE-D/DL for the wrong name.

The contents of the presented deck and sideboard do not match the decklist registered.

Since he's Black/Red aggro it's pretty clear he meant Malice. I don't see any possible advantage unless he also had something green floating around. Unfortunately, this isn't a truncated name; it is a totally different card.

Use of a truncated name that is not unique may be downgraded to a Warning at the Head Judge’s discretion if he or she believes that the intended card is obvious and the potential for abuse minimal.

That means this is still a Game Loss for Aardvark. The IPG philosophy here is pretty clear. I'd switch the names to Temple of Malice on the decklist.

IPG
Remove any cards from the deck that are illegal for the format or violate the maximum number allowed, fix any failures to de-sideboard, restore any missing cards if they (or identical replacements) can be located, then alter the decklist to reflect the remaining deck.

Annotated IPG: (VERY helpful)
To fix the error, we want to ensure that the player is playing what they intended to play – we do not force the deck to match the decklist; instead we alter the decklist to reflect the deck. The deck that a player has presented is more frequently what he or she intended to play.

(sorry, this post got a bit long)

Before reading other responses:

Aardvark's deck doesn't match his decklist, so this is a Deck/Decklist problem. This regularly carries a penalty of Game Loss, but we have the option of downgrading to a Warning if we judge it to be 1) an ambiguous name or other obvious clerical error that 2) a player can't take advantage of. In either case, the fix will be to make the decklist match the deck (changing Malady to Malice). If we assign a Game Loss, game 2 will be played without sideboarding. Add time to the match for the length of the deckcheck & fix.

I think this counts as an obvious clerical error - Temple of Malady and Temple of Malice are both very similar cards with very similar names.

The potential for advantage is a bit stickier here. B/G is definitely a thing in Standard. It's worth investigating whether there any green cards (or cards with green activation costs) in Aardvark's deck, sideboard, or deckbox.

I'm currently leaning towards not downgrading. The name isn't ambiguous (they spelled one full correct Magic card), it could be a clerical error (easily confused names), but the potential for abuse is real, I think.


after reading other responses:

There seems to be general agreement on D/DL, probably not downgraded, but a variety of reasons why it might be advantageous. Perhaps to play green, perhaps for an off-color scry.

I don't have a clear idea of what does and doesn't constitute a situation a player could take advantage of. This means that as it stands, it's a judgement call, and judges won't give consistent answers.

After some thought, I'd propose the following test for ‘could take advantage’
1) There's more than 1 possible deck configuration (this is a given, really).
2) at least 2 configurations would either match the decklist, or look like an ‘obvious clerical error’ from the decklist. (the idea is, if deckchecked, the player could hope for a warning instead of a game loss or DQ).
3) these 2 configurations would both be conceivably worth playing at some point in the tournament.

applying this test -
1) there's 2 configurations for this deck - RB with Malice (but not malady), or RB with Malady (but not malice)
2) RB with only Malady matches the given list, and RB with only Malice could be missed by a judge, or assumed to be an error.
3) RB with only Malice seems to be worth playing. If the player could ever make use of green, RB with Malady might be better in some situations. If not, RB with only Malady seems strictly worse, as all it does is remove 4 sources of red.

Philosophy behind the proposed test - Under the current and old D/DL rules, a player could always try and cheat and just change their deck between matches, and if we can't prove it's intentional, they'd get a Game Loss. The D/DL rules were updated to punish simple clerical mistakes less harshly, but this could theoretically allow an abuse - A player might try to create an ambiguous decklist, so they have the ability to change their deck composition, but always still appear to match their decklist, so they only risk a warning instead of a game loss.

I think for this to actually be a realistic scenario, the regular deck and altered deck would have to both be within ‘downgrade - obvious error’ range of the decklist (point 2), and there would have to be a reason to actually use both the altered deck and the regular deck (point 3).

So, after thinking through this, assuming Aardvark is playing straight RB with no green, and there's no other ambiguities in the decklist, then RB with only Malady would just be a silly choice, so Aardvark can't take advantage of the situation. Downgrade to warning, fix the decklist, and play on.

Edited Talin Salway (June 25, 2014 03:47:11 PM)

The infraction is a straightforward D/DLP, because the presented deck doesn't match the decklist.

The normal penalty would be a GL, but since I have both the deck and the decklist on hand, I double check that there are no other cards with green colour identity in his main deck or sideboard.

If there are green cards in his deck, it sort-of depends on what they are, but there is probably some advantage to be gained from an ambiguous decklist. The normal GL penalty stands. It is applied to the first game of the match, the players are instructed to move to the second game without sideboarding.

If there are no such cards, I rule ‘obvious clerical error’ because of the very similar names; since Journey into Nyx was released, all ten scry lands are in Standard, and there is no more advantage to be gained from playing off-colour scry lands unless you're also playing the on-colour scry lands. In this case, Aardvark is not getting any advantage from playing the BG scry lands instead of the BR ones. Penalty downgraded to a warning, as per the latest version of the IPG. I caution Aardvark to pay more attention to his decklists in the future.

In both cases, the fix is to adjust the decklist to match the deck. And as usual with a start-of-round deck check, the players get a time extension for the time taken plus 3 minutes.

IPG
Ambiguous or unclear names on a decklist may allow a player to manipulate the contents of his or her deck up until
the point at which they are discovered. Use of a truncated name that is not unique may be downgraded to a Warning
at the Head Judge’s discretion if he or she believes that the intended card is obvious and the potential for abuse
minimal. When determining if a name is ambiguous, judges may take into account the format being played.

IPG
If the player, upon drawing an opening hand, discovers a deck problem and calls a judge at that point, the Head
Judge may downgrade the penalty, fix the deck, and allow the player to redraw the hand with one fewer card. The
player may continue to take further mulligans if he or she desires

These two instances are the only thing I see in the IPG about downgrading this from a game loss to a warning. The first one is the closest to being applied to this situation, but it states “Use of a truncated name that is not unique may be downgraded…”, but doesn't say anything about it being the wrong name event if it's ambiguous. Because of this I still stand by it's a game loss, and we update the deck to what it should be(along with the whole time extension stuff).

Edit: The IPG version I took this info from was old, so this response isn't correct.

Edited DJ Andrucyk (June 25, 2014 05:00:51 PM)

Originally posted by DJ Andrucyk:

These two instances are the only thing I see in the IPG about downgrading this from a game loss to a warning. The first one is the closest to being applied to this situation, but it states “Use of a truncated name that is not unique may be downgraded…”, but doesn't say anything about it being the wrong name event if it's ambiguous. Because of this I still stand by it's a game loss, and we update the deck to what it should be(along with the whole time extension stuff).

You're looking at an older version of the IPG. The latest one says:

IPG
Ambiguous or unclear names on a decklist may allow a player to manipulate the contents of his or her deck up until the point at which they are discovered. The Head Judge may downgrade the penalty for an ambiguous name or obvious clerical error if they believe that the error could not be used to gain an advantage in the tournament.

Originally posted by Ernst Jan Plugge:

You're looking at an older version of the IPG. The latest one says:

Thanks for pointing that out, I over looked that the first time, and got an old version when I pulled it up on this computer to copy and paste text(not at home, so don't have all the websites bookmarked).

So in that case it can be downgraded, but it really is a judgement call on this, so you will need to talk with the player and see if this was an unintentional error and all.

It's a D/Dlp with possible downgrade from Game Loss to Warning (at HJ discretion). Depending on if it's determined to be a clerical error or not, either fix the decklist or replace the misreported cards with basic lands of the players' choice.

I'd personally downgrade this, depending on the rest of the decklist. I've made this exact error a couple of times now – not on decklists for tournaments, but definitely when speaking.

Originally posted by Ernst Jan Plugge:

You're looking at an older version of the IPG.

That's what I get for using the top google link to the IPG rather than my bookmarked one. It should be downgraded if there is no green cards since it is an “obvious clerical error”.