The panic and furor over the M10 rules changes have begun to die down. It appears that Magic will survive. That just means that Wizards will have to shoot it again. The next shot — Wizards is changing how tournaments will work. It will — obviously — kill organized play. I’ll provide all the gory details…
On Sunday, Level 5 Judge Toby Elliot sent all judges an email announcing changes to the Penalty Guidelines (PG), the Magic Floor Rules (MFR) and the Unified Tournament Rules (UTR). Toby identified seven major changes. The M10 rules changes pumped nine rounds into poor old Magic’s torso — this time it only takes seven hits, but it was already reeling. This has got to be fatal.
Let’s look at the list — with # 5 discussed last, to be consistent with the M10 approach.
1) Graveyard order
3.13 Graveyard Order. In formats involving only cards from Urza’s Saga┢ and later, players may change the order of their graveyard at any time. When looking at an opponent’s graveyard, a player may not change the order.
A few cards have cared about the graveyard order. Phyrexian Furnace removed the bottom card. Ashen Ghoul and Krovikan Horror cared about the cards above it. Volrath’s Shapeshifter copied the top card in the graveyard. Of course, all of those cards were old enough to have left Extended a couple of rotations ago. Those cards were made before the invention of paper, and those old clay tablets were fragile. Today, cards don’t care about graveyard order — and neither do players. If the cards don’t care, and the players don’t care, the judges don’t need to get bent out of shape about it, either.
This shot might not be fatal. It’s barely a flesh wound. Let’s move on.
2) The Rules Books Got Renamed
As I mentioned, the rulebooks are being revised and combined. The Penalty Guide, the Universal Tournament Rules and the Magic Floor Rules – have been blended and poured into two glasses: the Magic Tournament Rules and the Magic Infraction Procedure Guide.
The documents no longer have references to other games — no Dreamblade, no D&D Minis, etc. — so the rules no longer discuss things like deck/warband errors, or have special sections for die rolling errors. OGMWTF!!1! THAT’S JUST TOTATL LY, COMPLETELY FU… irrelevant. I mean, sorry Axis & Allies Minis players, but who cares any more?
As Toby puts it, the two documents are divided into information that players should generally be expected to know (the MTR) and information more geared towards judges (the MIPG). Communication rules are now part of the MTR. (I haven’t had a chance to study it, but that section looks pretty much unchanged.) Everything is renumbered. Just as with “cast,” “exile,” and “Battlefield,” the changes are mostly cosmetic – an organizational shift to make the documents easier to read. It’s all still here, but they’re cleaner, easier to read, and polished up from years of questions.
3) Drawing Extra Cards
3.6. Game Play Error — Drawing Extra Cards: Definition : This infraction is committed when a player is instructed to draw cards, but draws too many. If a player accidentally draws cards at a time they were not supposed to, or draws cards as part of another offense, the infraction is not Drawing Extra Cards.
Drawing Extra Cards has been a pain for a while. I remember a lot of debates and discussions, and the difference between Drawing Extra Cards and Game Play Error was anything but clear. For example, a player casts Cryptic Command to bounce a creature and draw a card. After resolution, the players realize that the target was illegal. The Cryptic Command was illegally cast — was that Drawing Extra Cards, or Game Play Error — Game Rule Violation? There is a correct answer, but I seriously doubt that all judges know the answer. Besides, the old rules require splitting hairs to answer that question, and they could be clearer. Now they are.
As Toby put it: “We spent a lot of time debating options on these and similar questions, and eventually produced a much narrower definition for Drawing Extra Cards: If you are told to draw cards, and draw too many, it’s Drawing Extra Cards. Otherwise it’s a GRV. This is partly to reflect the fact that it can be very hard for an opponent to notice how many cards you’ve drawn and we were able to do this because we’ve been reasonably happy with the success of the GRV backup approach to dealing with the extra drawn card and believe it can be applied more widely.”
This does not change the penalty for deliberately drawing extra cards. That is still cheating (technically Manipulation of Game Materials), and will still get you DQed. This change just makes the treatment of accidental game play errors consistent.
4) Out-of-Order Sequencing now also covers Professional REL
So what is out-of-order sequencing, anyway? Here’s the basic definition:
At Regular and Competitive REL, it is acceptable for players to engage in a block of actions that, while technically in an incorrect order, arrive at a legal and clearly understood game state once they are complete.
So what does this mean? Here’s an example. It’s a Elf Combo mirror match. Player A has two Essence Wardens in play. His opponent has three. Player A has 2 Nettle Sentinels and a Heritage Druid in play. He taps and untaps the three elves, drops Birchlore Ranger, taps it and drops an Elvish Visionary on the table. He says “I gain 4 life, you gain 6, and I draw a card. Okay?”
Assuming that I haven’t messed up somewhere, that is an accurate summary of what happens, but the triggers are all out of order. Technically, all of the Essence Warden and Nettle Sentinel triggers should resolve separately, and go on the stack in APNAP order, the triggers from the Ranger should resolve before the Visionary is played, etc. In practice, of course, this is not how players actually play, and what they typically do is considered a reasonable shortcut. At lower levels, that is. The current PG also includes this section:
Players at Professional REL events are expected to play in a technically precise fashion and may not take actions out of order. They will be held to any consequences that result.
We judges had a discussion about this at Pro Tour: Berlin. If you listened carefully, you could catch a misstated sequence in nearly every game of nearly every elf mirror match. Judges could have given a bunch of Game Play Error – Missed Trigger warnings every round. Over time, we could have upgraded those warnings to game losses, then match losses, even DQs for repeated violations. Instead, we only stepped in when triggers were obviously missed — for example, when a player used the Nettle Sentinel / Heritage Druid / Wirewood Symbiote / Llanowar Elves combo to generate 1,000 mana — but forgot that he had already cast Glimpse of Nature. On the flip side, some players ignored the life gain triggers when going off for the kill. That was technically illegal, but so what?
The new rule will eliminate the “Players at Professional REL events are expected…” language. We still expect high level play to have evidence high levels of skill, and the penalties will still reflect that high level, but we are not going to obsess about order. After all, some of the Elf Combo mirror matches had literally thousands of triggers, and many of them were resolved in batches (ancient history buffs might get that reference), instead of in the correct sequence. As long as both players understand what is going on, and nothing is missed, it’s good. Now the rules agree.
5) Will be covered later.
6) Lost or Marked Cards
The rule changes here are minor. Basically, the new version allows players that have lost cards, or had cards that were too badly marked to play, to replace them with basic lands. In the past, the only option for lost cards was to find a replacement — which could be tricky. If the lost card was a rare, and there was a dealer around, the player could simply pay up. It is tougher with uncommons and commons, though. Few dealers bring copies of cards like Goblin Outlander to an event, and even Boggart Ram-Gang or Flame Javelin can be problematic.
This not a huge change. It simply applies to marked cards the same policy that has applied to lost cards, namely that if a card becomes marked to the point that it cannot be played, and the player cannot get a replacement. The player can elect to replace the card with a basic land and continue playing. Under the old rule, if, for example, I found that your card was so badly marked that it was unplayable, even in sleeves, and you could not get a replacement, you basically had an illegal deck and were out of the tournament.
This sort of thing is rare. I have seen cards that were ripped up, and then taped back together, but with so much tape that they were detectable even with good sleeves. That player could not afford a replacement — under the new rules he could at least sub in a land. (In the actual event, an FNM, I loaned him a copy.) The other instance in which I could see this having an impact would be in a sealed PTQ, if a player at X-0-1 going into the final round lost his/her deck. Under the old rules, the player would have to replace the entire deck or drop. Under the new rules, the player could assemble a 40 land deck, and draw into the Top 8.
Like I said, this sort of thing will be rare.
A quick note — the penalty guidelines, or the new Magic Infraction Procedure Guide (it will take a while before I get used to that name) — does allow a head judge to use a proxy, but only for cards that were damaged in the course of play in that tournament. The ripped and taped card was not a candidate.
7) Spectator Rules
Another minor change — spectators who see a problem, at the casual and competitive rules enforcement levels, can now ask the players to pause while the spectator goes to fetch a judge. In the past, the spectator was supposed to fetch a judge first. The problem with that is, of course, that the game might progress while the spectator was getting a judge, making it impossible to back up and correct the problem.
Here’s the new language.
1.11 Spectators. Spectators are responsible for:
• Remaining silent and passive during matches and other official tournament sections, such as Limited deck construction.
• Informing a judge if they believe they have observed a rules or policy violation. At Regular or Competitive REL, spectators are permitted to ask the players to pause the match while they get the judge. At Professional REL, spectators must not interfere with the match directly.
Players may request that a spectator not observe their matches. Such requests must be made through a judge. Tournament officials may also instruct a spectator not observe a match or matches.
Again, not all that much that is new. I highlighted the relevant significant language change. You know, Magic is pretty tough. It may take more than that to kill it.
Let’s looks at — da da dat DA! – Number 5!
5) Players may look at outside notes between games.
Outside notes has had a long history in Magic. Years ago, scouting was illegal. Back then, the most common form of outside notes were notes on who was playing what, or who had seen what in earlier rounds. Since scouting was a DQ offense, use of outside notes was also a DQ offense. The other probable source for outside notes was advice from a friend on how to play. Getting that sort of advice was also illegal, so that didn’t fly, either.
Of course, back then, the Internet provided text-only email at a max of 14.4 kbps. That has changed. For that matter, so have the rules about scouting. First, Wizards realized that they could not really prevent players with a couple rounds of byes from wandering around the event — nor was it that important to do so. Wizards also decided that having friends was not supposed to be a disadvantage. The result — if your friends walk around the venue and take a poll of what players are playing, that’s fine. It is not even unreasonable to have friends list what particular players are playing — it was simply impossible to allow spectators and not have people remember decks, and pass that info on. The rules were changed to allow scouting, but to avoid having players consult notes during matches, or take other actions that would slow down the tournament.
Judges have long debated the outside assistance rules. Those rules have changed, because the types of outside assistance available has changed. For example, back when the Outside Assistance rule originated, there was no chance that a new player could have printed out an article from Wizards own website called “What to do at your First Prerelease.” With the debut of Wizards own website, and websites like the Dojo and StarCityGames, it was. I hated having to disqualify kids at their first event for bringing articles like that, but I did it. [Man, that seems weak — Craig.]
A few years back, Wizards changed the PG to allow downgrades of such offenses. This change takes it one step further. During a game, players cannot consult notes from outside the match. While sideboarding, however, players can look at notes. That’s the big change — players can look at outside notes between games, but not during a game.
Wow — that’s huge, right.
Maybe this won’t kill Magic.
If players can look at notes, including sideboarding advice, this raises two concerns. First, players may be getting advice on how to play the game. Second, it may slow down the tournament. Let’s take those in reverse order.
The slowing down the tournament should not be an issue. Players have three minutes to complete their sideboarding, shuffle their decks, and present them to their opponents. If they exceed that limit, that player should get a slow play penalty. It is not necessary to ban outside notes while sideboarding to prevent slowing down the tournament — slow play will solve that problem.
The second issue is whether a player could have gotten advice about how to rebuild their decks, and used that advice in a later round. Well, under the new rules, that is possible. A player could build a sealed deck, submit his/her decklist, then sit down with a friend and have the friend completely rebuild the deck. That might be a far better build — and the outside notes could be instructions on how to sideboard into that build.
That’s legal now.
However, why is that bad? We want less skilled players to be able to learn the game. First at prereleases, and later at any event which does not use decklists, we let players rebuild their sealed and draft decks between rounds. Hell, we even encourage better players to help their opponents do just that, after the round ends. Doing so may even help the better player, since rebuilding the deck may end up helping that players tiebreakers.
Wizards also takes the position that having friends is a good thing.
Now some players may worry that having these players get advice like that may give them an advantage. However, seriously, if you are a decent player, how much trouble will it be to beat a player that misbuilt his/her deck so badly that they need a friend’s notes on how to massively change it for game 2? Get real — if they need that much help, just outplay them.
This change also eliminates some old, thorny problems.
For example, suppose a player consults his decklist between games, for whatever reason. I tend to keep a copy of my decklist to ensure that I desideboard completely, and keep it tucked into my life total pad. If I drop it, and it opens, is that worth a match loss? That’s the old penalty for outside notes. Is that really worth that — the second most severe penalty on the books — simply because I read a copy of my decklist during the game? After all, at that point I can simply fan my sideboard to get the same info.
If you do prohibit consulting a decklist, or other forms or outside notes, then where do you draw the line? For example, can I order my sideboard before a match, and put the cards that I want to sideboard in backwards in the box? Can I put them on top? If outside notes and outside assistance — including a copy of my decklist, or just a note of good sideboard cards — is illegal, is stacking those cards on top of the sideboard legal? How about pre-sleeving them? Where do you draw the line?
In nearly every paper draft I have done in the last few years, I have the cards I am most likely to sideboard in (like Naturalize, Dispeller’s Capsule, Molten Frame, etc.) on top of my sideboard. It saves time — but by a strict reading of the old PG, it was also illegal.
Here’s another example — in one of the decks I created for the judge training seminar at PT: Honolulu, I took a Sharpie┢ and drew little hats on all the creatures in the pictures on my sideboard cards. Just hats — and just on the sideboard. Most judges noticed them. Some judges simply criticized my artwork. Others would have DQed the players for outside assistance. Who was right? Well, under the old rules, one answer was reasonable, and the other consistent with the PG.
For that matter, at a sealed Grand Prix last year, some players explained that they had misbuilt their deck, and wanted to sideboard into new builds. They asked the Head Judge whether they could draw little dots on their original deck cards, to make desideboarding easier. Now, these players could just ask a judge for a look at their decklists after every round, and assuming the judges were not too busy, they could get that info. This “artistic modification” really only obviated the need to bother the judges. The head judge said okay. Wrong? Right? I have my opinion, and the MIPG now allows this.
Seriously, though, how much advantage does a player get by marking their cards to facilitate sideboarding? Let’s assume the most extreme case, and that the player seriously screws up deck construction. When they sideboard for game 2, they are going to remove two colors, and add two others. They want to pull out 15 cards, and put in 15 others. All the cards coming out have red Xs on them, and all those coming in have green circles.
As a player and possible opponent, I cannot see why I am upset about this. First of all, I am paired against someone that massively misbuilt his or her deck. That should be a big advantage game 1. Game 2 I will face a different deck, but if I can interpret the notes, I can read my opponent’s sideboarding strategy, right off the cards. That’s another big advantage, if I am smart enough to spot it. The fact that the opponent is showing me sideboarding instruction certainly does not disadvantage me.
The big change was Wizards’ recognition that having friends is good, and that friends can give you advice between rounds. That change was made years ago. This change just cleans up some minor holdovers from the time when friends were never supposed to give advice, ever — an unenforceable and stupid rule if every there was one. A huge part of the fun of a Magic tournament, after all, is rehashing the bad beats and tough situations afterwards. Why would you want to ban that?
Actually, artistic modification has always been a sore point. On the one hand, we had rules that say cards cannot have any modifications other than the artist’s signature. On the other, we had 5color players playing for “scribble ante,” then playing those cards in tournaments. Technically, if I drew a text bubble on my Kird Ape, and had it saying “RAWRRR!!!”, I had an illegally modified / unplayable card, and if I could not find a replacement copy, I had an illegal main deck, and I was out of the event. True, almost no judge I have ever met would enforce that, but it was still in the rules. Now it isn’t. At worst, if you have profanity written all over your Kird Ape, and play it in a family store, you might end up replacing it with a Mountain. That’s a bit more reasonable.
Other Items of Interest:
I looked through the new rulebooks for other changes, and items of note. Here’s one cool find.
3.12 Tapped/Flipped Cards. If a card must be tapped or flipped, it must be turned approximately 90 degrees (tapped) or 180 degrees (flipped), whichever is appropriate.
Yes, judges will be issued with protractors, and will penalize for any tap that are more than 5 degrees off.
I’m a stitch, aren’t I?
This isn’t actually a change. Technically, you should tap 90 degrees. In practice, judges are only going to comment if it is unclear to you, your opponent or the judge which cards are tapped. Actually, the rules have always included a lot of this sort of stuff. It is there to ensure that tournaments run smoothly. About the only time I have ever used this sort of stuff is when a player is being an obnoxious twerp and arguing judges can’t tell him how to tap, or how to pile up his draft cards, or whatever. Sure, I could say “I’m the judge, and I say so.” That’s technically correct, but that sort of officiousness rarely ends the argument, more often it just makes you look pompous. Pointing to the rules works a lot better.
Here’s a part of the section on players (MtG Tournament Rules, sec. 1.10)
A player must bring the following items to a tournament in order to participate:
1) A physical, visible, and reliable method to maintain and record game information (tokens, score counters, pen and paper, and so on).
2) A valid DCI number registered in the participant’s name. New players may register for DCI membership when enrolling in the tournament.
3) Any materials specifically required for a particular tournament format, such as assembled decks and/or decklists for constructed tournaments.
Yes, players are required to know their DCI numbers, and are required to bring pens, pencils, dice, counters, etc. Players don’t always — but please at least bring your DCI number. Enter it into your cell phone. Something. Yes, we can “look it up.” That involves searching a database of close to 1 million numbers, often on old and battered computers. Do the scorekeepers a favor and know your DCI number. It saves so much time.
I will be at the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open in Minnesota this weekend. I sure hope players have their numbers there. Even if it takes just 30 seconds to figure out which Joe Smith you are (no offense meant to any Joe Smiths who may be reading), having to do that for fifty players means the scorekeeper just added 25 minutes to the start of the event. That’s a long time to keep everyone waiting. So please, bring your DCI number along. Program it into your phone, tattoo it on your hand — just have it.
Thanks.
Conclusions:
Okay, I have given both the new Magic Infractions Procedure Guide and the new MtG Tournament Rules a once over. Stuff got changed. A big part was the elimination of the things that made the Universal Tournament Rules and PG universal — the parts addressing cocked dice, altered miniatures and “warbands.” The new rules really are streamlined and cleaned up — and they are more consistent. In the past, some of the stuff in the UTR, MFR and PG was out of sync, because one of the documents had been updated, and the others had not. Some messy parts, like dealing with artistic modifications that could contain strategic information fix old problems in totally reasonable ways.
It’s better. It’s a bit different, but not really all that much. It’s not going to kill Magic, and it probably is not going to affect tournament players much at all (except for the better).
PRJ
See you at the $5k this weekend.