Ask the Judge, 01/13/2006: Feature Friday

Judging Mistakes and What I Learned From Them

I was trying to come up with a topic for this column, which is often the hardest part of writing for me. I asked for topics in IRC, but none of the suggestions matched what I wanted. Rules topics are easy for me, but not always interesting to write about, and not always interesting to the reader (I'm pretty sure the layers column put most of its readers to sleep). Besides, one of the interesting things about judging is that the higher you go in the judge program, the less of a percentage of the "importance pie" rules knowledge actually is. Anyway, somehow, the idea of an article on my personal mistakes as a judge and what I learned from them came to me, so I'm going to run with it. [I think it's a great topic for judges and players alike ?Seamus]

Mistake #1

This was, naturally, my very first tournament as a level 1 judge. I knew I was going to be taking my Level 1 test. I knew the rules inside and out (or, so I thought at the time... how much I've learned since then!), and I was ready to go. Shawn Doherty, the level 3 judge who was to be testing and mentoring me, told me to make a ruling if I felt comfortable with it when answering judge calls, and if not, to ask him.

So, I was ready to answer all these rules questions I was going to be asked. And then it happened. My first ever judge call!

Player A: My opponent mulliganed and drew 7 cards.
Me: Uh, is that right?
Player B: Yeah, I just messed up.

And then I totally blanked. What's the ruling here? While I was thinking...:

Player A: He just mulligans to 5 now, right?

This seemed fair, and the other player seemed fine with it, so I went with it, and moved on.

First, I didn't know what I was doing, so I should have followed instructions and found Shawn. I let my pride get in the way. I didn't want him to think I didn't know how to handle the situation. Of course, I know now—being a level 3 judge and mentoring other judges—that asking for help isn?t something I would ever hold against a candidate.

Second, I allowed players to make rulings. Players play games. Judges make rulings. I allowed one player to suggest a ruling, and the other player to accept it as well. I should be deciding what the penalty is. The fact that the suggestion happened to be the normal way to handle this situation is irrelevant.

Mistake #2

Two players were playing at a Pro Tour. One player pulled me aside away from the table, and asked me a rules question. The question involved a card his opponent had in play, and I wanted to be sure on the text, so I went over and read the opponent's card.

Obviously, the mistake here is that my actions led the opponent to deduce what question was being asked, and from there he was able to gather a card in the asking player's hand. Clearly, this was a bad call that could easily cause a severe disruption to the game. It was too late to do anything about it, however.

I should have either looked it up on Oracle, checked the card wording in a more discrete manner, or even have the opponent move away from the table so I could read the card without him realizing what I was doing.

(It's also worth noting that it would have helped if I had known the card wording offhand to begin with (possible something achievable by playing more constructed Magic, which I rarely do), but nobody would know the exact wording of every card, and it always helps to double-check, even if you think you know the wording.)

Mistake #3

At a PTQ, we randomly deck checked a player (who, it happens, drove up with me to the tournament, and later was a roommate of mine). He was playing a mono-Black deck with black sleeves. The deck box contained nineteen cards—the fifteen that were listed in his sideboard, and four Gaea's Skyfolk. All of the cards were also in black sleeves, just like the main deck.

I called the player over and asked him to explain the presence of the Skyfolk. He claimed that he had been using them as tokens for Zombie Infestation, a card in his deck. I had another judge verify with previous round opponents that this was true, and all confirmed that it was. There was no way to play the Gaea's Skyfolk, or put them into play with the cards that were in the deck, so clearly there was no real advantage gained.

Still, the cards were apparently presented as part of the sideboard. The player made no indication to the judge who collected the decks for the deck checks that there were also token objects in there. Magic cards are not supposed to be used as tokens, and even if the player wasn't aware of this, he should have known to either not sleeve them or use different color sleeves.

I thought over this, and decided to issue a game loss. This is basically because I weighed the direct actions of what the player did more heavily than the context of why he was doing it. Many judges—especially those like me who got into it—have a desire for rules to be black or white, and to always have exactly one correct answer for everything. This works for rules issues, but most judging and player-interaction situations, you need to actually *judge* the situation, not blindly follow a rulebook. This mistake—once I realized it was one—was a true epiphany for me as a judge.

And, yes, occasionally the player still jokingly gives me crap about it. At least, I think he's joking.

Mistake #4

This is my first case of dealing with the "fake scoop". For those unfamiliar with this rather unscrupulous tactic, it involves a player who has clearly lost the game doing something that looks like scooping up his cards. The purpose of this is to bait the opponent into believing this is a concession and to scooping up his own cards, and then claiming that the opponent has clearly conceded and he should be awarded the win. (Players and judges: be on the lookout for this at your events!)

In this case, after lethal damage to him had been placed on the stack, the player grabbed up all of his land cards and pulled them into a pile. At this point, the opponent scooped up all of his cards and shuffled them up. Then the original player called a judge over, explained that he had "picked up [his] lands to count them", and then the opponent shuffled up all of his cards. I then interviewed the player:

Me: "You agree your opponent was about to win the game?"
Player: "Yes."
Me: "So why do you think he conceded?"
Player: "I don't know about you, judge, but I don't complain or question it when my opponent concedes to me."
Me: "So why did you pick up your lands?"
Player: "I wanted to count them."
Me: "But you had nothing in play but land and this one creature with no ability, right? And nothing in hand?"
Player: "Right."
Me: "So why did you want to count your land?"
Player: "That's not relevant."

I talked this over with another senior judge at the event (who had witnessed my interview). I was mainly shadowing, and allowing this judge to gain experience under my supervision, though I was the official Head Judge of the event. We both agreed felt that the opponent should be given the win for the game in question. However, he felt a warning and a lecture was sufficient. I allowed him to go forward with this.

This was the mistake. I probably placed too much emphasis on letting the judge "learn from his mistakes". The player should have been disqualified for severe unsporting conduct. I allowed a player who tried to deceive his way into a free win to remain in the tournament, and with no real cost to him other than not getting away with his attempt, and didn't really bring the issue to the DCI's attention by not issuing a disqualification. The player also was rather rude toward me during the investigation. While it may not have been something he wanted me to consider, the answer to my last question clearly was relevant and he answered how he did simply because had no good answer for it. I did, however, at least discuss this ruling with the player after the event.

That's certainly not all my mistakes, but not all of them are interesting, and I wanted to save some for if I ever did such a column again. As usual, one of the best places to find out more about judging is on EFnet's #mtgjudge. It has from uncertified judges who are thinking about testing to people just interested in or people interested in chatting with judges all the way up to L5 judges. I highly recommend hanging out there if you're interested in learning more about judging, especially if you are in an area which lacks a lot of higher level judges for you to learn from or talk with. There are also non-judging channels there as well, including Star City Games channel #scg, and others. Thanks for reading.

--
Lee Sharpe
lee DOT sharpe AT gmail DOT com
DCI Level 3 Judge
LeeSharpe and Lee_Work on IRC