This situation happened at a PPTQ at which I was the TO but was in no way involved with judging. (I was only a RA at the time, I had hired an L2 to handle the event)

Andre is playing Charlie. Andre is brought to the attention of the judge for having marked cards. He is playing with 4x Flip Jace in sleeves with no checklists, and in the right light, they can be told apart from other cards. This is a straightforward marked cards penalty and is handled as such.

Then in the next round, Bethany is matched opposite Andre's opponent from the previous round, Charlie. Charlie starts the match by saying "If you're playing with Flip Jace, I hope you have good opaque sleeves. Andre just got a Game Loss for that.

Concerned, Bethany leaves the table, and speaks to the judge away from the table. Admits that in fact she is using 4x Flip Jace without checklists, and is now concerned that she will be penalized for marked cards. The judge looks at the cards and decides that yes, they are in fact marked. Bethany is allowed to change out the cards for checklists and is not otherwise penalized.

This concerned me at the time, because it is equally likely that both players were deliberately gaining an advantage by having only that one desirable card be easily identified, as it was that neither were and they just didn't realize. As well, if Charlie hadn't mentioned what happened to Andre, Bethany would have started the match, and if the cards were identified at that time, I think she would obviously have been penalized.

Was that the correct call? Does coming up and voluntarily admitting there may be a problem mitigate the fact that a problem was found? Is that too inconsistent a ruling and both players should have been given the same penalty regardless of the circumstances under which it was discovered?

I've only judged 1 Comp REL event since becoming an L1 and am generally stressed a lot about ensuring consistency in my judging, so I wanted some outside opinions on this.

First of all, Comp REL requires 10% of deck check, therefore, there SHOULD be decklist in PPTQ.

The point of Comp REL is that, the tournament require players to have a higher understanding of the MGR, tournament policy, and is a place for some of them to gets ready of Professional REL. For PPTQ espacially, this will end up at PT, a very high level which only L5 use to head judge it. At this point, our role as judge is not just make sure that their decks are powerful enough to win all the games, but as a professional player who also SHOULD understanding of Magic the Gathering, not any random cards game what they can do just in their home.

For new players, they SHOULD begian with Reagular REL because that's the places where “us” the judges, should help players of understanding the basic tournament policy, and tp make them are required to be at a higher level of Comp REL

–John B

Edited john bai (April 15, 2016 08:30:17 AM)

Er…none of that has anything to do with my situation.

I think you may be confusing ‘checklist’ for ‘deck list’ ?

Edited Daniel Ruffolo (April 15, 2016 08:33:18 AM)

Notably, checklists (checklist cards used in place of Double Faced Cards) are not deck lists.

Daniel, I understand your concern that players A and B are not punished equally. The fact is that B, in this situation, did not commit the IPG infraction Marked Cards. It is impossible to have Marked Cards while a game is not in progress, just as it is impossible to have a Deck Problem (not including Decklist Problems) at that time. B has not indicated she is ready to play with her deck by presenting it to her opponent, so there is no deck we can evaluate for legality.

But wait, you might say, its round 3! She has been playing with an illegal deck all this time! Well, perhaps. I don't have a time machine to go back and do a deck check in the past, so it would be inappropriate to issue a penalty now.

I think this policy is great. It is entirely possible that a player can notice an error with her deck up to the moment they present, and it is important to let them fix that with no ill effect. The only thing different here is that she had some help noticing the issue.

Edited Dan Collins (April 15, 2016 09:34:41 AM)

I think it was a good call. Bethany call a judge on herself and this is always a factor to downgrade penalty.

What makes you say that, Bartlomiej? The old language that “if a player notices an error and calls a judge before they could gain an advantage” (or something like that) is not in the IPG any longer.

It's not in the IPG any longer but it's still a good thing to notice in case of investigation (even if it's apparently off topic here)

Dan, just like Gilles said, while it is not a factor through IPG, calling Judge on your self is a thing that I would keep in mind taking care of particular situation.

That's fine, as long as we're clear that “keeping it in mind” is not the same as actually downgrading a penalty when policy doesn't allow us to. The player's good intentions are not adequate reason to deviate from policy.

Of course, this isn't a downgrade at all, no infraction was committed in the scenario presented in this thread. However, it's important to be clear so that we do not mis-apply your statement “call a judge on herself and this is always a factor to downgrade penalty”, which makes it sound like you believe we *would usually* issue a penalty here, but are *instead downgrading*.

I was the head judge for this event.. The first players cards I was able to see through their sleeves as they were well worn. The second players I was unable to see through the sleeves. This is why there was the variation in the ruling.. Basically the second player was coming to me as a “I don't believe that you can see these through but can you check please?”… I suggested to the player to use the check lists as more of a recommendation and they agreed that was probably a better option.

Edited Jeremy Blackwell (April 18, 2016 03:08:56 AM)

Originally posted by Jeremy Blackwell:

The second players I was unable to see through the sleeves. This is why there was the variation in the ruling.

For sure? I would expect there to be the variation no matter what, given that Bethany is checking with you before she has presented an illegal deck, and therefore should not be penalized.