1. 1. Judging to Protect Players' Skill Advantage By: David Elden
2. 2. Just what are we protecting? The philosophy of the DCI is that a player should have an advantage due to better understanding of the rules of a game, greater awareness of the interactions in the current game state, and superior tactical planning [MTR 4.1]. As judges, we have a duty to protect this edge, while also keeping players with weaker rules knowledge from being taken advantage of.
3. 3. Block with Treetop Village
4. 4. MTR 4.3 Out-of-Order Sequencing Due to the complexity of accurately representing a game of Magic, 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. Example: A player declares a blocker, animates a Treetop Village, and then attempts to block with that Treetop Village.
5. 5. Bolt Jace
6. 6. MTR 4.3 Tournament Shortcuts A tournament shortcut is an action taken by players to skip parts of the technical play sequence without explicitly announcing them. A player who chooses a planeswalker as the target of a spell or ability that would deal damage is assumed to be targeting the planeswalkers controller and redirecting the damage on resolution. Players can (and often do) make use of tournament shortcuts without knowing the technical details that allow them.
7. 7. End of turn, I'll Giant Growth my bear.
8. 8. End of turn, I'll Giant Growth my bear. It's perfectly legal to cast Giant Growth in the end step. It's not illegal to make a suboptimal play; if it was, there wouldn't be a skill component in the game at all. Besides, it isn't always clear what the best strategic play is. If the player clearly intended to cast the spell in the end step, that's legal, and there's no going back even if the result isn't what they may have had in mind.
9. 9. If I counter the bolt, what happens with the Reverberate?
10. 10. If I counter the bolt, what happens with the Reverberate? Floor judges can answer questions about the rules and interactions between cards [MTR 1.8]. Players may not seek strategy advice or play advice [IPG 3.2]. Judges must avoid assisting players with derived information about the game state [MTR 4.1].
11. 11. If I counter the bolt, what happens with the Reverberate? If a player asks a question, either answer it or say you can't. Don't answer a related question or attempt to predict a follow up. Give an explanation of the relevant rules. E.g., A spell with no legal targets is countered when it tries to resolve. Ask the player to repeat the question. When all else fails, say you can't answer and ask for them to rephrase the question.
12. 12. If I Cancel the Shock, what happens with the Fork?
13. 13. A word on asking players to rephrase There's a good chance the player doesn't understand why you can't answer it. No player I know would ask a judge to commit Outside Assistance. You should give some indication of how to rephrase the question. I like to request that they refrain from using specific card names.
14. 14. She didn't know her guy lived?
15. 15. She didn't know her guy lived? Based on the conversation, it's pretty obvious that Amy did intentionally ignored a mistake to gain an advantage that's Cheating. We can DQ without proof of action as long as we're reasonably sure the tournament integrity has been disrupted.
16. 16. We're in the end step, right?
17. 17. We're in the end step, right? When you talk to her, Nicole admits she noticed right away that Amy forgot to return a creature. She intentionally ignored a misplay to gain an advantage. Ordinarily, that's Cheating, but the misplay was a Missed Trigger. For these errors, the opponent bears no responsibility to call attention to them. There's nothing in policy that says a player who doesn't call attention to a Missed Trigger is somehow locked in to that choice. Everything Nicole did was completely legitimate.
18. 18. Questions? Please be gentle... The latest version of this presentation can be found on my blog at blogs.magicjudges.org/ftw