I have had a player bring up an interesting Situation to me that happened to him at a GP Vienna Sideevent - Super Sunday Sealed Series, to be explicit.
Disclaimer:
I only have his version of the story, so by no means do I want to say that any or all actions taken in this situations have been wrong or right, as I clearly do not have all the information that the judges present had, but there were a few interesting points in it that I'd like to discuss.

Here is the situation as the player explained it to me (on a german Forum), I am trying to stay as true to the german version as possible - therefor ‘me’ refers to the player, not to me ;):

My opponent has Kraken of the Straits in play, I control an Ornitharch enchanted with Observant Alseid, making him a 5/5. My opponent also has exactly 5 Islands in play. Kraken is lethal, but I do have lethal damage on the backswing.
He attacks with Kraken, clearly unaware that my Ornitharch can block his Kraken. I loudly snap-block the Kraken with the Ornitharch. My opponents face shows utter devastation and he says 'Uuuh, …actually…I wanted to play Retraction Helix on…this guy and bounce the Ornitharch'

At this point the Floorjudge sitting next to us intervenes (to me): ‘No no, you can’t do that. You should have given your opponent time to do something before Blockers'
Me: ‘Nope, he just didn’t notice that I could block the Kraken, he would never have played Helix in declare attackers!'

FJ: ‘Doesn’t matter, you must pass priority before you can declare blockers.'
Me: ‘Ok, I am VERY sure that your ruling is completely wrong, but whatever.’

My opponent was very fair at this point and described the siuation exactly the same as me.

Hence I start entering the result into the Result Slip (Opponent wins 2-1 as his attack kills me then).

After I did this, FJ: ‘If you are unhappy with my ruling, you can appeal it to the Headjudge.’
Me: ‘Sure, let’s do that.'

He gets the HJ, we retell the story again.

HJ: ‘If you blocked, you blocked. There is no time-window. If your Opponent attacks and does not explicitly keep priority, he implicitly passes it. RL magic is not played the was the FJ described.’
Me: ‘Told you!’
HJ: ‘Is this your result slip? Have you entered your result already?’
Me: ‘Uh, yes, I just entered it before the FJ told me I could appeal his ruling.’
HJ:' Well, if the result slip is already filled out, you cannot appeal anymore…'
Me: ‘….seriously?’
HJ: ‘Yes, seriously.’

After the next Round, I walked up to the HJ to talk to him in a more relaxed setting, and he told me ‘If I had to actually have made a ruling in that situation, I probably would’ve upheld the FJs ruling',
to which I answered ‘Uuuuh, WHAT? But you said what he said was wrong, didn’t you?'
HJ: ‘The way you and your opponent both told the story, maybe, but when it comes to describing the situation, we value the FJs description higher than the players’



For the last section of the story, I kinda do not believe those words, or the meaning the player understood from them, were close to what the HJ (wanted/did) say, as that statement seems to be quite ridiculous (why would I uphold a ruling that I think is wrong from what BOTH players tell me, just because my FJ seemingly understood the situation differently from what it was - since the players agree on what and how it happened, I have no reason to disbelieve them, right?), but maybe someone tells me wrong on this one…;). Shawn Doherty was Headjudge of said SSSS if memory serves me right, maybe he remembers the situation :).

Now, there is one issue here that is a problem if it happened as described - offering the appeal after the players both accepted the ruling, considered the match over and filled out the result slip.
But theres a few other interesting things in the scenario as described:

First, is the Floorjudges ruling correct, or is the Headjudges ‘ruling’ correct?
MTR 4.2 states:

Whenever a player adds an object to the stack, he or she is assumed to be passing priority unless he or
she explicitly announces that he or she intends to retain it. If he or she adds a group of objects to the
stack without explicitly retaining priority an
d a player wishes to take an action at a point in the
middle, the actions should be reversed up to that point.

Declaring Attacks is not adding an object to the stack, so technically, the shortcut of passing priority unless explicitly retained should not apply - making the Floor Judges ruling correct. It also happens somewhat often in this limited-format that doing something with your priority in declare attackers is the correct play - e.g. activating Agent of Horizons activated ability after you declared him attacking as not to run into Sudden Storm.
But then again, declaring attacks is fairly similar to actually adding something to the stack, and also, if someone played a Vendillion Clique after his opponent drew a card for the turn (also a turn-based action) without waiting for his opponents confirmation of passing priority, and said opponent then claimed ‘well, I didn’t explicitly pass priority after I drew my card in the draw step, and wanted to play my Extirpate on the Clique in his Graveyard when I had priority', I would be pretty awkward to say he can do that.

Second, should the Floorjudge have intervened in the first place? Yes, communication between the players wasnt perfect, but in my oppinion, there hasn't been an infraction commited, hence the FJ does not need to step in. Also, if he decides to step in, is right-out telling the players ‘you can cast Retraction Helix if you want to’ correct?
Knowing the Tournament-shortcut and that it actually does NOT apply for things that do no use the stack (like attacking) seems to be quite advanced rules knowledge to me, shouldn't the player show awareness that he can do something in declare attackers even if he does not explicitly retains priority before he tells him so?

Based purely on this description, it sounds to me like NAP didn't give AP enough time to react here. Sure, the shortcut exists, but that doesn't make attacking / blocking into a race in order to activate abilities before blockers are declared. However, this is a major case of you'd have to be there and hear it from both player's positions to be certain.

It also seems very out of place for the judge to directly intervene here, but I'd rather not speculate about the specific scenario. The specific language, timing, etc. are pretty significant. It's possible the situation was actually starting to escalate, and the judge just stepped in somewhat preemptively to avoid the conflict. Hard to tell from one player's story.

That shortcut is for adding objects to the stack so it should not apply.

However, I think that the philosophy behind that shortcurt is to make the
game “faster” since we don't have to say to our opponents that we give them
priority after every action in order to advance in the turn.
In most of cases, when we declare attackers we give priority to our
opponents in order to cast spells and/or activate abilities or declare
blockers. If we actually want to do something we just declare attackers and
announce it. So that shortcut seems to be something we are doing during
games although it's not written in a way it could apply to declare
attackers or blockers.
Do you think I am retaining priority if I just declare attacker and say
nothing else? If I do that, do you think I'm retaining priority thinking
about possible game plays or maybe I'm just waiting you to declare
blockers? Will you wait for minutes until we continue playing?

This is not a race, that's true, and we were not there to understand the
timing (we have the loser player version which is probably not enough). If
I believe that the AP has declared attackers without saying nothing else
and the NAP after some reasonable time declares the blocker I see no reason
to undo that and give priority to AP so that he can cast Retraction Helix.
Since that judge was watching the match maybe the player's point of view is
not enough and that's why he decided to allow AP to cast Retraction Helix
before declare blockers.




2014-03-27 2:12 GMT+01:00 Aric Parkinson <

This is one of the cases of “I wasn't there, so I can't decide”. If the judge was watching the game, probably was so snap-block-gotcha that he decided to give opportunity to AP to do something in declare attackers step.

In that cases (has happened to me several occasions on Regular REL) a rule of thumb is useful: if you declare attackers (or any other action) and just stay calm and silent during a second, more or less, without any attempt to do something more, you are passing priority. That will fit most scenarios and players, without slowing unreasonably pace of the game.

Oh, you are right, David. I guess I misread the box - I had thought there was some sort of shortcut for this scenario, but in reviewing the MTR I think I was confusing it with the “Go to combat?” shortcut. My apologies.

This is quite the post. So many things to discuss.

On the declare attacks, I would probably rule with the floor judge. Unless the active player explicitly gave up priority, there is no shortcut that says go right to blocks. This could be many things, however. Did he gesture to you? Did he say “blocks?” There are many things that would make me rule in favor of the NAP. Lacking these, I'd go with the active player. To avoid this kind of situation, the NAP could say something like, “blocks?” or “go to blocks?” Yes, this will slow the tournament down a bit, but the alternative is we go the other way and Magic becomes a game of quick reactions and manual dexterity.

On the match slip, I disagree with the head judge, though I can see where he is coming from. Say a player started looking at the next few draws, or scooped up all permanents. Then the game state is gone and appeal is too late. I don't see a match slip as the end of time for a match until it's in the match slip box at the scorekeeper's table. Even then, I've seen some results corrected in the round, or the next round (after an admonishment to the player who signed a wrong slip). However, if the game state is unchanged and no information was revealed, then I could see the match not being set in stone.

On the two opinions of the HJ, I don't know, I wasn't there. But I don't know if I would be inclined to overturn or appeal a floor judge's ruling just because of something he or she said. I listen to all parties: the judge, the players, and maybe even some witnesses if that come sup. But only if there are contradicting stories will the judge's account of what they saw or heard supersede someone else's. However, like I said, I wasn't there, I didn't hear the conversation that the HJ and FJ would've had after the appeal, and I didn't hear the accounts of most of the parties present.

On the intervention, if I see two players disagreeing or about to disagree, I will intervene. In this case, it doesn't sound like the judge gave play advice, but I must re-emphasize I was not there, so I can't know. The active player described a legal line of play that he wanted to do before you blocked.

Those are my thoughts, and I am open to discuss any and all of them.

It sounds like a fairly complicated “you had to be there” kind of story… But in general terms, this is my two cents.

NAP needs to give AP a reasonable chance to use priority after declaring attackers. But because AP retaining priority after declaring attackers is relatively rare, AP needs to be quick about it. If AP hesitates for just a moment after declaring, it's reasonable for NAP to interpret that as AP passing priority.

As for the appeal, what I suspect the HJ meant is that it's too late for an appeal to affect the match result. It should be possible to appeal after the match slip's been signed, but if the HJ decides to overturn, the match result would stay. Although I'm not 100% sure I'm reading the rules correctly here.

Regarding the snap block: You had to be there. I believe that simlar to snap-blocking, there is snap-attacking, where players show with their body language that they are finished doing things (e.g. demonstratively tapping a creature and then leaning back versus keeping your hands hovering near your creatures while still thinking). This can create a situation where the amount of time passed since the declaration becomes less relevant in determining whether the player passed priority. Of course I would like for the other player to verifiy that declare attackers is done, but sadly that didn't happen. From the scenario that has unfolded itself in my head based on the story posted, I do believe that the Kraken player forgot his opponent could block and is trying to use the (for him rather fortunate) fact that his opponent snap-blocked to rules lawyer his way out of it. I do think snap-anything is usually a bad idea and in general players can expect to be punished for it (we rewind the game and their opponent gets to do what they wanted to do, but now with extra information). In the end I think I would side with the Kraken player because punishing the snap block feels more ‘standard policy’ defensible to me. This is a pretty vague reason and it also makes me sad because I believe the Kraken player was the first and worst to mess up. However, trying to explain ‘I believe that you made a misplay based on your body language’ is harder than ‘I believe you did not give your opponent enough time’. Whichever way I'd rule would leave some kind of bad taste in my mouth.

Regarding the appeal after result slip: In an ideal world, the appeal is offered and the headjudge gets involved while the ruling is being given. After they uphold/overturn, the game continues where it left off. That didn't happen, instead the game continued after the floor judge's ruling and finished shortly after. Players have probably scooped up their cards. If the headjudge gets involved now and overturns, it seems a lot like we can just alter the result to the other player's favor, but technically, we can't be sure if he would have won if the game had continued after a ruling in his favor. It seem likely but now that all the cards are scooped up we can't verify that there wasn't some combat trick etc. that would have changed the course of the game. So we can't give the win to the opponent.
If for some reason the kraken player feels convinced by the head judge that the ruling should have been in his opponent's favor, AND that this means he would have lost the match and wants to retroactively concede that game, I would allow him to do so. Otherwise, remind the floor judge to offer appeals to unhappy players, apologise to players for what happened, continue the tournament.

Man, armchair judging is a lot easier than this must have been when it happened in real life…

I actually was there for a change! I wasn't the FJ in the story, but I was one of the FJ's in that event, and saw the thing happening. Some extra facts before I'll give my opinion:

The snap-block was a SNAP-block. As in: the creature was already being shoved in front of the Kraken before the attacking player had even let go of it. If the attacking player would have liked to do something, there would have been no chance at all, there wasn't even time to say: “before blocks…”.

The defending player filled in the result slip while the FJ was still explaining the ruling.

The attacking player later aknowledged that he didn't know the Kraken could be blocked until the blocking creature was actually shoved in front of it.

This was a 251 person side event, during EOR. This was one of 2 matches still playing.

So, with that out of the way: considering the ruling itself, I would rule in favour of the Kraken-player. Even if he didn't intend to do anything before blocking, he never had the chance anyway. By snap-blocking, the defending player shot himself in the foot. If he had just waited a bit longer, I would be very inclined to rule in his favour. The appeal was a complete mess, and I'll discuss that with the parties involved first.

Edited Jona Bemindt (March 31, 2014 07:11:23 AM)

Originally posted by Anniek Van der Peijl:

Man, armchair judging is a lot easier than this must have been when it happened in real life…

lol, yeah it is :)

I think based on what information is here, I would have ruled in favour of the active player, since it doesn't sound like enough time was given to do anything.

Other things in this thread I want to comment on.

I'm pretty sure that a match slip being filled out is, by definition, the end of the match according to MTR 2.4.

Regarding the Clique being Extirpated in the Draw step. Normally I have given my opponent some indication that I want to do something in their draw step, and if they acknowledge that and wait for me to cast my Clique I would say they have passed priority and it's too late. It's important to do this because otherwise they'll just move on to their main phase and try to do something. If for some reason I just tried to jam a clique without asking for priority, I would say I deserved to get my Clique extirpated for trying to cast a spell when I didn't have priority.

Edited Matthew Turnbull (April 1, 2014 02:54:35 PM)

I guess that would only work if you tell them you want priority in every drawstep of the game, cause Clique is the only card in Modern that I know of that is explicitly cast in opponent's drawstep…

When is a block a block?

We have this local player that often seems to forget he's holding removal until someone declares a block on his creature. Then all of a sudden it's “Wait, WAIT! Before you block, I kill that guy!” I'm not sure he does it on purpose, but I'm not sure he doesn't do it on purpose either. Either way, it's quite advantageous and totally feels like an exploit. If that's legal, then isn't it the “correct” way to play?

What are NAP's options in blocking without helping AP play the game? Stuff like “Can I block now?” is likely to alert AP to potentially undesirable outcomes. So what else is there? Glare at the opponent for three seconds? Count to ten under his breath? When is a block a block?

Personally, I'd say that as soon as AP “stops indicating” that he's still thinking about his attack declaration and/or wishes to retain priority, NAP gets to block.

Jochem, it would probably have been good to start a new thread, as this is really a new topic.

I'd suggest the NAP just say “those are your attackers?”, or even just “that's it?”, and when AP confirms that, go ahead with declaring blockers. If it's clear that NAP didn't rush to block, and AP had plenty of opportunity to say “I'm keeping priority and killing that guy so he can't block”, then Judges should not hesitate to disallow the “wait, wait!” Response to blocking.

d:^D