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Manuel Bevand started the latest wave of morality checks with his report about Grand Prix Birmingham. During the third game of a critical match in the Grand Prix, Manuel's opponent offered his deck to be shuffled and cut. As Manuel began to shuffle, his opponent suddenly realized he had 16 cards in his sideboard. Manuel's response was to do what most Pro Tour regulars would do, indeed, what the rules say to do. He called a judge. The ruling was swift. Presenting ">T he ruling was swift. Presenting an illegal deck to an opponent during a Level V event.Double warning. And a match loss. Manuel's opponent broke down in tears while arguing with the judge. Manuel, the winner, would advance to the next day. His opponent would not. After he left the table, Manuel's conscience began to bother him. He had won a victory within the rules. But it was a cheated victory. After all, how good does it feel to win before the game begins? More importantly, it was legal. But was it right? Manuel's experience is becoming a common one in higher-level events. He's a member of a small but growing group of players who believe that Magic is about playing to win - and not winning before you play. These players have begun to take the law into their own hands. In doing so, they set themselves up for a vicious battle - with judges, with other players, with their conscience. The rules say to call a judge for anything out of the ordinary. Let a judge sort it out. Let them decide the penalty. Let them extract the punishment. I think that this is mostly good. It's an option the meek and mild have for justice. Joe Quiet does not have to call his opponent a cheater. A judge will do tha judge will do that for him. The Kill-Them-All-Let-God-Sort-Them-Out System. But whenever a system removes its participants from humanity and squashes them into rulebooks, it's some sort of wicked human law that causes people to abuse their lack of responsibility. I can certainly remember at least once hearing, "I know it's stupid. But it's the rules. I didn't want to do it. But it's the rules," from some spineless bastard too cowardly to call his opponent a cheater directly but willing to soak up a free match win with a scarcely-concealed gloat. You've got to believe that idea makes me mad when it drives me to type run-on sentences. I don't think these players have a problem with the idea of calling a judge. It's not that they don't want mistakes to be punished. It's just that there's a scale between two extremes - no punishment and harsh punishment. And most of the infractions that are getting harsh punishment are really falling on the lower end of the scale. Faced with two ridiculous choices, players are choosing the closest option. No punishment. An example of this happened to Mike Turian of Team CMU when he was playing versus Rui Mariani of Portugal. Rui cast Time Spiral and began to shuffle. Mike noticed several cards sitting face-down on Rui's side of the table and inquired about them. When Rui realized they were cards from his hand that shhat should have been shuffled in, he quickly scooped them into his deck and continued to shuffle. Mike later commented, "Now I could have waited for him to present his deck and then asked (and probably got him game loss) but it would have been wrong. I avoided the problem. That is much better." In my opinion, Mike should have felt comfortable calling a judge, knowing that the judge would hopefully have given Rui a caution and asked him to shuffle again. Instead, Mike avoided calling a judge because of the possibility that the punishment would be ridiculous. To get sort of a feel for this issue among the higher level players, I asked several pros the following questions, adapted from Turian's experience.
1. You're playing in the final Swiss round of a Grand Prix. The winner of this match advances to the top 8. Your opponent casts Time Spiral and begins to shuffle his deck. You notice some cards lying face down on the table that you assume are the remains of his hand, which should also be shuffled into the deck. He has not yet presented his deck for a cut. What do you do?The responses, as all responses are destined to be, were varied along a wide scale. Most Pros seemed to place the cutoff point when their opponent offered an illegal deck for a cut and shuffle. I expected that. After all, that is the point in the game when it is obvious that your opponent has done everything she wishes to do to the deck. You take it, begin to shuffle it, count the cards in it, discover one missing. Hey presto, a match loss! Okay. What's wrong with that? Of course I have an issue with that, otherwise I wouldn't be writing, right? Well, one thing disturbed me when I was asking these interview questions. I discovered that the majority of people I questioned would deliberately not attempt to correct an opponent in the process of making a deck error. Lo, are those three Recurring Nightmares still languishing in the Out Of Game Pile after last duel's battle with a lucky Lobotomy? Most Pros wouldn't think twice about waiting until their turn to cut the illegal deck. Then they call a judge and wait for the game/match loss. And say to their opponent, "I'm sorry, I hate the rules, but the rules are the rules." Not only would most Pros wait until their time until their time to cut and shuffle an illegal deck, but some would suppress such information for the full time between games in order to get such a phantom win! And some players with even greater nerve control would bravely wait until their opponent sideboarded, shuffled, presented their deck for a cut, drew a hand of seven cards, mulliganed, shuffled, presented their deck for a cut, drew six cards, declared their hand okay, and played a land. Then they would call a judge over to get their free win. All the while posturing and role-playing that they did not just sit there like a complete asshole praying their opponent would not notice the cards in the Out Of Game Pile before the duel began. This infuriates me because, quite simply, most players in this situation have the ability to avert such a rules infraction before it affects the outcome of the match. You've noticed the Recurring Nightmares, you have your opponent's deck in your hands and you're shuffling. Suddenly, she notices the Nightmares, too. At this moment, I'd like to mention that if you're a moral player, you let your opponent shuffle the Nightmares in. Why? Because those Nightmares sitting there have not even begun to affect the outcome of the game. They were discovered before the game began. If your of your opponent Intuitions during Game 1 and says that he forgot to de-sideboard from last match, call a judge over. The game has been affected. The loss is deserved. If your opponent presents his deck for a cut before Game 1 and suddenly notices that he forgot to de-sideboard from last match, this is not the same thing. I'm personally a little miffed that the penalty guidelines aren't more creative. I can think of at least a few rules violations that do not need to be solved with game and match losses on the first offense. Why smack everyone with such a heavy hand? Aren't there any fairer solutions that 1) don't overpunish the first offense and 2) don't end the match before it is played? I talked late into one night with Frank Kusumoto on IRC, discussing things that could possibly improve the penalty guidelines. We were able, in the span of just a couple hours, to come up with a couple creative solutions to some common rules infractions. Say you're shuffling your opponent's deck and she has brand new black back sleeves. The cards squish out of your hands and a couple fall to the table face up. You see a Swamp. You see a Hatred. Okay, this is an unfair situation. Now before Game 1 you have detailed information about your opponent's deck. She has no information about yon about yours. Most judges would issue a game loss in this situation. Some would smack you around with a match loss. Because the information compromises the integrity of the game, that seems the only logical solution. However, the problem with the situation is not that you saw cards from your opponent's deck. You're going to see those anyway when she plays the Swamp and casts Dark Ritual, Black Knight, Carnophage. At that point, the Hatred is completely intuitive. The problem is that you're not on the same footing while determining mulligans, playing a land, etc. So what if, what if, instead of getting a game loss for seeing two cards from your opponent's deck, the judge issues another penalty. Your opponent may now look through your entire deck for five minutes. It might not be a perfect solution, but it does do one important thing. It allows the game to continue. She saw your whole deck. You only saw two cards. You're still at a disadvantage. But you get to play the damn game. There's still a chance you could win. The outcome has not been decided for you. And if you do it again during the tournament, then you start getting game losses and match losses. That can't poont>hat can't possibly be worse than the trend the penalty guidelines have started. In Pro Tours, the focus has been shifted from winning games honorably to winning games before either player has even drawn a hand of cards. Magic is about playing Magic. There's only three ways to win in Magic: damage, decking, and poison. I don't want "Penalty Guidelines" to become the fourth way. But that's what's happening. I'd like to think if I offered a 59 card deck for a cut and then noticed my mistake, a judge would be intuitive enough to realize the game hasn't been affected since no cards have been drawn. I'd take a warning or a double warning in style and be more careful. Barring such intuitions from a judge, I'd like to think that my opponent would at least recognize the ridiculousness of a game loss for such a minor offense, and allow me to reshuffle without involving a judge and the penalty guidelines. I think I'd be hopelessly mistaken in either case.
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Cathy Nicoloff (c_nicoloff@usa.net) | |