As a judge in the tournament, you, the judge, represents the official Game Rule , not yourself. Although at the point where you couldn't control any policy since is not running any REL, it make is became a better place to teach player in order to help players to gets ready for a higher requirement tournament. Just like Regular REL is what help players to get into Comp REL.

Therefore, in those kind of tournament, even we could not do anything about it, we still represent the official Tournament Policy and the Magic Game Rule since that is what are we for. Punish player is a way to shows justice, yes, I agree, because that's what keep the tournament “clean” for have players keep in mind of what should they do in a higher required tournament and have some preparedness of what will happen after they do certain thing.

So, is not as necessary as punish them in Casual events as in Comp REL, so our duty is to ensure players are “educated”

–John B

Edited john bai (May 5, 2016 01:01:30 PM)

Originally posted by Nicola DiPasquale:

Sanctioned events by definition must follow all tournament rules and policies

That's clearly going too far, though. Casual sanctioned is advertised as an option for playing games with friends; obviously tournament rules aren't followed there (it's unlikely there will be enough people, cards that aren't format-legal might be used, &c.). Sometimes tournaments are casual sanctioned specifically to avoid tournament rules, too, such as no-ban-list Modern or Un-cards allowed tournaments. I'd agree in this case that a DQ is appropriate (given the rationale for the no-betting rule, at least), though. There's a set of rules that apply to casual sanctioned, but it's somewhere in between everything and nothing.

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate the feedback. The TO is pretty open to conversation. I think John Carter's “Influence of Others” techniques might just do the trick if a DQ is not an option.

I've had a conversation with my LGS about this subject. He doesn't like the idea of DQing people, though I'm 85% sure he would allow me to do so if the situation warranted. His large problem stems from DQs where ignorance of policy is not a defense, since his argument is that it would discourage new players from returning if they didn't know something was wrong and policy required me to DQ.

The workaround I've found (and thus far its worked) is to identify new players and introduce myself, explaining some things they should know about tournament play before the chance arises for them to do something wrong.

I did have a close call once, a good while ago. I was watching a game in progress at FNM and the match went to time, so I explained end of round procedure. A spectator made a comment about rolling a die, so I immediately said not to do that, pulled him aside and explained about IDaW and why it's a Very Bad Thing (TM).

As a brief reminder, we have a new document that may help with this conversation!

Things I've seen at other stores, or annectdotally are to put signs in prominent places - Things that are bad and will result in a DQ - followed by a list of things.

It's also useful to use in pre-event announcements.

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

It's also useful to use in pre-event announcements.

I've found this to be less than useful, to be honest–most coin flip/dice rolls happen in the last round of a tournament, at which point most of your opening announcement will have already been forgotten.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

I've found this to be less than useful, to be honest–most coin flip/dice rolls happen in the last round of a tournament, at which point most of your opening announcement will have already been forgotten.

Curious how one comes to this conclusion.

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

It's also useful to use in pre-event announcements.

Yes, it is. I've had to DQ as early as round one - sigh - because players just don't know this. (It *should* be common sense, but…)

For GPs, I try to remember to announce in round 1, round 3 (after those who won a Trial show up), and in one or both of the last two rounds of day one. This seems to be working, I've had fewer of these DQs recently.

d:^D