What about a judge that for instance never judges Legacy but ends up
judging a side event at a GP or something, and so has no knowledge of what
is good in a deck?
Consistency across events demands us to not consider decks, metagame, etc.
Doesn't it?

Jonathan Trevarthen
L2, Auckland, NZ.

Actually, if when you read the ambiguous name you think you know which card it is but then you search the oracle to see if there's any other card with a similar name, I think that's searching for a reason to give a Game Loss.

If you think you know what it is, and when you check the deck it's exactly that card, I'd most likely downgrade. Otherwise, that's the kind of situation where we risk players losing appreciation of judges. Coming up with a list of non-played cards with similar names is extremely frustrating to the players, and let's be honest, we aren't actually protecting the integrity of the event by assigning a GL here.

Players complain often that we don't pursue cheating enough but are very happy to pursue GL for silly mistakes that are clear cut in the policy, but that often we assign as mindless drones without using our reasoning ability. This is one of those cases in which I'd like to be able to prove them otherwise.

Enviado desde dispositivo móvil.

Does this address the fairness and reasonability of results within an event? You suggest that if I know a deck and can immediately think of a card it should be and it is that card in the deck, I should downgrade. But what if I cannot? What if the deck is not obvious to me and I have to check the Oracle to make sure I am being fair and find that there are other possibilities? Does the downgrade depend entirely on my ability to know a deck well vs not knowing a deck well? Does my staff count for this or just my own subjective ability to know as many decks in a format as I can? Does the poor player who plays a deck known in the community but not by my judge staff not get the downgrade because no one on staff is able to think they know what the card is? Please confirm the logical conclusion here that your premise is that if I can most likely guess what a card is based on a truncated name and turn out to be right, I should downgrade. But if I cannot, because the deck is either not quite as well-known or because I just happen to not know about it so that I have to check Oracle, I would not give the downgrade?

I'd count on the knowledge of both myself and the staff (or deck checks team) for this.

Honestly, I don't recall a single situation in which no one on staff had a single clue about the format.

And yes, if the player is playing an unknown card, I'd not downgrade. I don't think players would find this unfair. Yes, it isn't consistent, but I'm fine with losing consistency here to allow HJs to use their discretion to provide a better playing experience at their tournaments.

Enviado desde dispositivo móvil.

Specifically speaking, he can try using common sense. In the case of S. Imp, I figure even a complete foreigner to the format could figure out within seconds that ‘soot imp’ is not the card the player with the 8 other cards with the dredge-mechanic, bridge from below and narcomoeba in his deck meant.
Also, considering this is a competetive side-event of a ‘GP or something’, he will have a buddy/partner for deckchecking and counting lists. He could (and should, really) ask the same to his opinion, esp if he himself has no knowledge of the format whatsoever.

In addition, I would like to say that in my opinion, if you judge at a GP (or any other greater tournament, really) and have no knowledge whatsoever of the format of the tournament you are judging (and know you are judging from the shedules that will have been posted probably at least a week prior, unless you've been on timely reinforcements, but in that case you should tell your teamlead that you have no clue of the format he is sending you to and it might be reasonable to ask if there is someone more suited for the job), you, as a judge, failed to prepare for the event. Which really shouldn't happen, since this is very bad customer service (and will most likely lead to more severe problems than this).
This is not to be meant as ‘if you judge a legacy event, you NEED to know ALL THE DECKS and ALL THE CARDS beeing played’, but it means you should have some idea of the general metagame, mechanics that you might and/or will encounter, and interesting/complicated rules-interactions.

Having this in mind: If you, as a GP-Judge for a competetive legacy side-event with decklists, have no idea of the format, cards beeing played in it, and decks to be expected to show up, and neither does any other Judge on your staff - including your events headjudge - such that you cannot ask anyone for a (better) second opinion in a case like this….chances are your side-event will be an insane failiure from multiple points of view anyways. Not only will decklist counting take forever and a day (since you will need to doublecheck format legality for an approximated 10 cards per list, since you just dont know the card or the formats ban-list) and deckchecking be a pain, but chances are the judge-calls that come up will take, on average, a much longer time to be answered since you need to figure out more complicated interactions without prior knowledge, there will be more appeals (due to most likely more mistakes by the non-prepared floorjudges) and your round-turnovers will raise drastically if the floorjudges cannot identify a potentially problematic matchup (timewise) at or just before end-of-round procedures, to look for slowplay/apply pressure to prevent very long extraturns.



Long story short (TL;DR):
Yes, consistency across events demands us to not consider decks, metagame, etc. TOO MUCH when looking at this kind of mistake, BUT you should still be reasonable in your decisions and (imo) not relax on the consistency-argument too much and just hand out Game Losses when theres a S. Imp in the paragraph of the decklist with only G. Thug and G. Grave Troll (which are unique) in the same paragraph.
A gameloss would be covered if you go completely by-the-book, but is not covered by common sense (at least in my opinion), since you can reasonably expect that that just about every other judge that judges a competetive tournament in this format and has prepared at least some for the event will be able to identify this card, too.

Edited Philip Ockelmann (May 7, 2013 03:24:44 PM)

Again, I think that a player who plays Competitive REL events regularly is aware that decklist errors are game losses. This is not an issue where the player is getting hit with a subjective penalty that they weren't aware of. They know that being unclear can get them a game loss. If they are unclear and do not get a game loss, they've dodged a bullet. If you have to check Oracle because you're not familiar and find other cards that it could be, then the player gets exactly what they already know that they deserve, a GL.

So, basically, it is the players responsibility to make sure that if he uses abbreviations, the card is still uniquely identifiable, not only in context, but also such that gatherer only spits our exactly one result, but not a judges responsibility to use common sense when handing out penalties?

Other example then: Would you give a Game Loss to a player having ‘Ajani G’ on his Monowhite Decklist (clearly beeing Ajani Goldmane), because it could also be Ajani Vengeant?

Say I need to search for Ajani G, because I don't know any Ajanis. Gatherer-lookup will give me both (EDIT 2: Links are not working for some reason, might want to look it up at gatherer or magiccards.info, just search for ‘ajani g’), hence, by your definition (I had to check oracle, its not unique) the player deserves a GL.

I have to say I completely disagree with this statement.
Consistency, yes. Written Documents, yes. But we should still (be allowed to) use common sense. Since the latter is much more why we were made judges than the former.
If we were just to (mindlessly) follow the written word, and not the spirit behind it to a reasonable extent - the border of reasonable extent beeing the point where I answer the question ‘would other judges in other areas come to the same conclusion?’ with ‘No’, ‘probably not’ or ‘I am not sure’ - we wouldn't need certified judges.

EDIT: More severe example, since abbreveations are allowed: Is it possible to hand in a legal Decklist in Legacy that contains a ‘squire’ (the 1/2 Vanilla) using your definition?

Because if the judge doesn't know the card and throws ‘squire’ into the gatherer, he would find multiple cards that could be abbreviated by this.

If we choose to use this definition, I think it would be much better if we'd just say thatt all abbreviations, including Planeswalkers and Legends for that matter, are forbidden, period.
Would make the documents clearer and prevent a lot of discussion because of ‘unfair’ rulings.
And yes, if someone would try to give me a GL for a S. Imp on my Dredge-list, where I possibly also have it in a paragraph labeled ‘Dredgers’ together with Grave Troll and Thug, I would appeal that and start a discussion…and possibly feel inclined to write a review for the judge(s) involved in the ruling because i disagree with it.

Edited Philip Ockelmann (May 7, 2013 03:58:10 PM)

Originally posted by Mike Torrisi:

Again, I think that a player who plays Competitive REL events regularly is aware that decklist errors are game losses. This is not an issue where the player is getting hit with a subjective penalty that they weren't aware of. They know that being unclear can get them a game loss. If they are unclear and do not get a game loss, they've dodged a bullet. If you have to check Oracle because you're not familiar and find other cards that it could be, then the player gets exactly what they already know that they deserve, a GL.

That is not true for many legacy players. They come to have a good time, because they can use all the old cards, they have lying around. I would say more than half of the legacy players at a Grand Prix have no clue, what the IPG is. Imp in the context of a legacy dredge deck is good enough for me to assume, that it is Putrid Imp.

Apart from that, I think Philip is pretty much spot on with his argumentation.

Players that come to Competitive events should be treated fairly. This means that we need to apply policy to them with equal measure. Please do not downgrade a penalty for a casual and/or new player if you would not downgrade the penalty for a very experienced player. You can still educate while being fair.

Players are not allowed to use incomplete names on their decklists. However, we handle them differently for different cases.
1) If the card name is not complete and could not be interpreted as another card, then there is no infraction. This is not a downgrade. It doesn't meet the criteria of D/DL Problem. No penalty.
2) If the name is not complete and it is a storyline character unique to the format. This is also not a downgrade. It is specifically mentioned as acceptable in the D/DL Problem section. No penalty.
3) If the name is not complete and not unique. This qualifies as a D/DL Problem. This is also where the downgrade exception applies. Game Loss
3a) Exception: Not complete, not unique + intended card is obvious + minimal potential for abuse. Warning.
If you apply this, make sure that both criteria are met. I think some people get hung up on the “I think I know what he meant” and don't think enough about can the player take advantage of this mistake. Remember that
this is an optional downgrade.

In the first 2 situations, the player should still be educated that they need to write the full name and mention that there is potential to receive penalties for similar cases.
In the last two cases, there should still be education of the player, in addition to the Game Loss or Warning that is given.

We need to remember that education and punishment are not mutually exclusive. We need to remember that the player has done something wrong in all these cases. We do not need to “feel bad” when players do things wrong
and we enforce penalties. Some penalties are more severe than others, but they are there for a reason. Even if you don't believe that policy is correct, you should be willing to apply it properly if you decide to be a judge. Having discussions on if and/or how to change policy is a different story. Don't apply your own policy if you don't like the current one.

Edited Shawn Doherty (May 7, 2013 10:55:56 PM)

Why are we willing to work so hard to defend players who were needlessly lazy and made our lives harder?

If the card is an obvious slam dunk, downgrade. Otherwise, GL. The players know that they are supposed to write their entire deck list down, and they just didn't bother.

Part of giving the GL is making players remember to do better next time, so I never feel bad bringing down the hammer when the other 99% of players at least tried to write correct and complete card names. Teach a lesson they will remember and nip this nonsense in the bud.

Originally posted by Mike Torrisi:

it does lead to possible inconsistency in the application of the policy

I think the greatest inconsistency we see - at least, that we should see - is in the mistakes that players make. Because of that variance, we can't expect consistent application of this policy. I do hope for a consistent understanding of the policy, however.

Carlos Ho
If you think you know what it is, and when you check the deck it's exactly that card, I'd most likely downgrade

That's a fine explanation of what we mean by “obvious”, in that policy.
Potential for abuse is the other factor; one example might be “CoP:B”, which could easily be Blue or Black; the player could argue “no, ‘U’ is blue, ‘B’ is always black!” - but the potential for abuse is too great, here.

Philip Körte
it is the players responsibility to make sure that if he uses abbreviations, the card is still uniquely identifiable

No, it's much simpler than that: it is the player's responsibility to make sure all cards listed are uniquely identifiable. If they fall short in that, the infraction is D/DL Problem, and the penalty a GL - unless the Head Judge believes the card is obvious and there's no potential for abuse.

Florian Zarges
I would say more than half of the legacy players at a Grand Prix have no clue, what the IPG is

MTR 1.10
Players are responsible for … Being familiar with the rules contained within this document.

Being ignorant does not excuse a player of their responsibilities.

Shawn Doherty
Players that come to Competitive events should be treated fairly. This means that we need to apply policy to them with equal measure. Please do not downgrade a penalty for a casual and/or new player if you would {not} downgrade the penalty for a very experienced player. You can still educate while being fair.

<— This. Very, VERY much, THIS. (Thank you, Shawn.)

I should clarify one of my quotes/points a bit; Florian mentioned that some players aren't familiar with the IPG, and I pointed out that the MTR requires them to be familiar with the MTR. IPG != MTR, right? Right. However, their responsibilities re: submission of a deck list are not from the IPG, but from the MTR.

Players do not need to understand the IPG; Judges use the IPG when players fail to comply with the Comp Rules or the MTR.

A player who writes down an abbreviated card name is taking an avoidable risk. He has no recourse should the judge choose to issue a GL.

That being said, there is a level at which we are going beyond the intent of decklists (protection of the event) and into enforcement for enforcement's sake. Asking for detailed knowledge of a format is not reasonable, but should we really penalize a vintage player for “Clamp”? It's not unique, but… seriously?

I agree that it can be taken too far. Multiple Jaces have seen tournament play. As have multiple ‘Imp’s, and yes, Boros Cluestone could be the latest tournament tech, so matches for new cards are problematic. But making assumptions for “Hymn” in mono-black, or “A Wurm” in U-G Madness, or “Glen Elendra” in Legacy control does not seem like something that will imperil the event. None of the other options have ever sniffed competitive play after years of opportunity.

If you're completely new to the format (and we're talking ‘unaware of the iconic cards’ new, so it really only applies to Modern and older), then by all means ask another judge for help. If you're still uncomfortable, see paragraph 1 above. The downgrade is a service we provide in some situations, not a right the player is entitled to.