A Disqualification is the worst possible way for a player’s tournament to end. Check that. Getting dragged out of the tournament site in handcuffs by the police is worse, which I have seen happen, so a DQ is at the very least second worst.
We’ve had some run-ins with DQs in the past, and I’ve had to take some stands on the issue that have been unpopular and personally unsatisfactory. I am a very open person. While I’m not naturally talkative, if you get me going, ask me questions, I tend not to stop. And I have certainly have a lot of passion for this game and for judging issues, so I have a very “open door” policy when it comes to talking about things. I try to respond to all the e-mails and PMs I get, and I make an attempt to clear some time for people who want to talk with me at tournaments. But when the higher ups tell you to can it, you have to can it, and DQs are definitely such a discussion topic.
The imperative thing is to keep names out of the discussion. As we’ve found in the past, names bring a lot of baggage with them and the discussion tends to get derailed from the rules and procedures to a question of personal bias. I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t cases of personal bias out there, but bringing them up in public tends to just create massive arguments as people line up on both sides. Taking the names and the bias out of it, we can focus on talking about the dos and don’ts, the actual meat rulings. Thus, these accounts feature no real names. Other identifying features like the tournament this took place at have also been carefully removed.
It is possible that you may be able to figure out who these people are, particularly if you witnessed some of the proceedings or heard about them from a friend. If this is the case, I ask you not to name names in the forums. I’ve provided you with some rather original pseudonyms to use. Without further ado:
DQ #1
Towards the end of deck construction of a Limited event, Bruce spots a friendly face on his way to the land station and chats him up. Bruce’s manabase is pretty tricky and he asks his buddy, Mick, for some advice. Mick looks things over and suggests that Bruce carry a few extra Mountains in his sideboard just in case.
Overhearing this fishy conversation, Alfred reports this to the Judges who initiate an investigation. During the first round of questions (done separately), the dynamic duo admits to speaking to each other, but only about the general strengths of their decks and their records. Their stories are similar and yet different enough that the investigation continues.
The second round of questions gets more specific, and when asked about whether lands were discussed, Mick admits that he advised Bruce on the subject of Mountains. Bruce sticks with his initial story on the second go around and is Disqualified from the tournament.
So let’s discuss a few things. First off, what did Bruce do wrong? He lied to a Judge, which falls under Cheating – Fraud. You often hear this infraction referred to as “lying to a Judge.” One of the examples of Fraud outlines it as, “A player lies to a tournament official to gain or keep an advantage.” Now we need to back up and ask ourselves if Bruce actually lied to a Judge. Technically speaking, what he did do was to omit the truth from his answers, but at no point did he lie to a direct question. When asked, “What did you two talk about?” he gave a partial answer regarding records, deck strength, etc, and chose to leave out the bit about manabases and Mountains.
I would say that it is never a good idea to omit information. This isn’t like the cookie jar when you were six years old; you can’t just feign ignorance and hope for the best. If Judges are asking you questions about something, chances are that they know a lot more than you want them to know and your future fate may very well be dependent on how forthcoming you are during the investigation. It’s likely that the omission during the initial round of questioning was not Fraud, but once the second round of questioning started, it should have been pretty clear to both Bruce and Mick that the gig was up. Mick saw the writing on the wall and chose the correct course of action.
So what about Mick? By fessing up, he avoided the DQ for Fraud, but was he guilty of something else like Outside Assistance? The definition that would seem to fit is, “Gives advice to players who have sat for their match,” with the additional caveat that “These criteria also apply to any deck construction portions of a Limited tournament.”
From what I was told, although Mick did give advice to Bruce, who still had not turned in his decklist, the advice given was with regards to sideboarding, telling him that he would need to adjust his manabase for game 2. While it was not wise for Mick to tell him this before Bruce had turned in his decklist, it was largely post-construction advice. It’s the kind of thing that players ask each other all the time after turning their lists in. Based on such advice, players will often sideboard into completely different decks. As long as Mick not offer advice on altering the decklist, he should be fine.
Did Bruce commit Outside Assistance by asking for advice? This is a little less clear than Mick’s case. A few more questions would likely need to be asked in order to determine this, and the investigation for Fraud likely overshadowed such questioning. If Bruce’s line of questions was along the same lines of “how should I sideboard” then it would be ill-timed but not OA. If, however, Bruce had asked for more general “what should I change” type advice with regards to his maindeck, we would be looking at OA.
The moral of this story is twofold. First, don’t talk during deck construction. This is a silent time, and you should treat someone constructing their deck the same way you would deal with a player playing a match. If you don’t talk, you can’t fall into a situation that might be OA. Second, don’t lie to a Judge. In fact, don’t omit information. The harder a Judge has to work to get information out of you, the worse you’re making it for yourself. If you’ve committed an infraction, you need to admit it because suffering the consequences of that infraction is better than the alternative, which is many cases will be a swift exit from the tournament.
DQ #2
In a Shards of Alara Sealed event, Clark has his opponent, Lex, on the ropes at six life with a lethal Soul’s Fire in hand. Seeing the writing on the wall, Lex asks Clark if he has the lethal Soul’s Fire or Resounding Thunder. Clark thinks about it, apparently hesitant to reveal the existence of the card in game 1, but finally relents, points the Soul’s Fire at his sufficiently large creature and says, “Soul’s Fire you.” Lex acknowledges the Soul’s Fire and puts his cards into a pile.
All is well until Clark collects his cards and begins shuffling up for the next game. Lex, who has left his board untouched, says something to the effect of “So you conceded to me, right?” Clark, puzzled, points out the lethal Soul’s Fire that was just played. A Judge is summoned and questions are asked of both players and several witnesses who were watching the match. The end result, Lex is DQed for Fraud.
This instance of Fraud is slightly different from the previous one. Lex told the truth to the investigating Judges, but the problem is that he lied to his Clark by misrepresenting his actions. By all accounts, Lex made some kind of verbal assent to the Soul’s Fire play, some kind of “Okay” or “Yep.” That plus the act of piling up his lands up was a clear indication of the game being over. That Lex left his piled up cards in play and let Clark shuffle up first is completely immaterial here. At the point where Soul’s Fire resolved, the match was already over regardless of who actually scoops their cards up first.
Who did scoop first? Let’s say for argument’s sake that Lex never made any acknowledgement of Soul’s Fire resolving. What if he instituted the “I scoop, you scoop” with the game state unclear and defeat still on the stack. Clark was the first to put his lands, creatures, graveyard, hand, and library together and start shuffling. That much is evident because that’s the trap that Lex set up, to get Clark to irrevocably damage his game state, while leaving his in a state where he could just unpile his lands and claim that he hadn’t scooped.
Except he did. If it looks like a scoop and quacks like a scoop, it’s a scoop. By putting his cards in a pile, Lex was scooping. There really shouldn’t be any question about this. Sure, Lex could claim that he was just “putting his cards into a pile” and not scooping, but that’s some clear manipulative BS. A simple follow up like “Why did you do that?” or “Do you typically just pile up all of cards in play for no reason?” would suffice to break that line of logic.
There’s also the matter of the potential shortcut. When Lex asked Clark if he had Soul’s Fire or Resounding Thunder, it sounds like he was proposing a shortcut, essentially “show me one of those cards and you win.” This is a fairly common shortcut. You typically see if more often in older formats like Vintage, where it’s “Show me Tendrils.”
But is this an acceptable shortcut? And how far can we take it? If someone says, “Show me Tendrils and I will scoop,” that seems like a pretty definitive request for a shortcut. I would have some questions for someone who said this and then didn’t scoop. However, what if the statement was just “Show me Tendrils”…? Is that the same request for a shortcut? The player has made no promises as to his actions upon being shown Tendrils. It is strongly implied in the statement, as that is what typically happens. But can we hold players to things that are implied but unsaid? I would be curious as to what you the players think about this, since it is typically the consensus of the player base that determines what shortcuts are acceptable or not. If a player says, “Show me Tendrils,” and doesn’t scoop, instead using the knowledge of his opponent having Tendrils to plan out his plays, is that a clever play or an instance of Fraud?
Finally, I did hear from one witness that Lex may have said something like “People have tried this against me, so I might as well give it a shot.” This shows the definitive intent to defraud Clark, but is also a rather disturbing indicator of some shady behavior being practiced out there. If indeed other people had tried this against him, he should have called a Judge then and there. That would have had the appropriate penalties being handled out and he wouldn’t have gotten it into his head that this is somehow acceptable and something he should try.
Briefly on LA
It seems like last week was Grand Prix: LA week here at StarCityGames.com. I couldn’t get in fully on the action because my deadline was partway through Day 2. And what I did get out turned out rather poorly, as the Countryside Crusher player who was owed an apology did not get it. I took some time last week to make sure he got it, although it ended up being a somewhat less impactful e-apology. It was a disappointing ending to what should have been a good tale of Judge accountability.
The elevator situation was fine. There were some long waits, but I never encountered some of the messes that other people did. There’s no point in blaming the TO for this. It’s not like he is going to ask the hotel “how good are your elevators?” or show up to field test them before renting the venue. Just chalk it up to the hotel sucking and possibly not getting future business from that TO and/or other people who went through the elevator atrocities that weekend.
Somewhat energized by my article, I gave out five Slow Play Warnings over the two days. I forgot to check with the Scorekeeper, but I strongly suspect that I led the field in this penalty. Three of them were in Feature Matches (with one being in the Top 8), and two of them were in extra turns. On one of the calls, I was a hair away from giving a game loss, and it is entirely possible that I made a mistake by not doing so.
My personal goal was to be “lazy.” For the most part, I accomplished this. I only walked about half the distance I cover at a typical GP, and I delegated a lot more tasks than usual. There were still plenty of times that I hustled my butt halfway across the hall to answer a call, but overall I had a far less hectic energy about me.
Kyoto Bound
I got the word a few weeks ago that I would be judging at Pro Tour: Kyoto. It’s another fantastic opportunity for me. Now that I’m hooked into a much wider judging network, particularly on Facebook, I got to see just how many people out there applied for sponsorship and did not get it. My friends all kept telling me that I was a shoo-in for Kyoto, but I definitely never took it for granted, and I am humbled by the sheer number of people that were passed over. It’s a rare opportunity, not only because I will again be thrown into the mix in a foreign land (although admittedly less foreign for me), but I also plan on going a week early to visit some relatives. The wonders that this game gives to me never cease to amaze me, and it is a reminder to always give back.
Until next time, this is Riki Hayashi telling you to call a Judge.
Rikipedia at Gmail dot dq
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