Ask the Judge, 02/24/2006: Feature Friday

... As There Will Be A Test

An interesting little snippet popped up in yesterday's Ask The Judge:

Q: If I am competing on an international level, is it considered "outside notes" to bring a list of phrases in a foreign language—for example, Japanese—to the table to help communication?

The rules on outside notes are simple, but they are an issue on which players regularly have questions, so let's take a tour of the rules.

The rules, which I have paraphrased for ease of memory and reference, are this: don't.

I think the rule is appropriate, and I'm willing to defend it against a wide range of "but, what if..." scenarios, but I will admit that many of these scenarios are not, on their face, absurd. So let's start by considering the philosophical underpinnings of the rule.

Tournament Magic is a competitive endeavor. Whether you're playing for thirty large, a plane ticket to Prague, or a foil Wild Mongrel, when you show up to a DCI-sanctioned tournament, you are pitting your skills against the player on the other side of the table. It's player A vs. player B, in a test of who is packing the better cards, who understands the format better, and—yes—who can find the right cards in hand at key moments. The test is one of preparation, endurance, and cognative ability.

Nobody expects—or wants—a test of the skill or preparation of the guy standing behind you who finished early and can see your hand.

That's not entirely true. Sometimes the guy standing behind you wants that.

But it's not okay, and everybody knows it.

Outside notes are the same way. In fact, they're almost identical, save that it's a lot easier to penalize the player, since there's no loudmouth standing nearby to be the goat.

Sideboarding notes are probably the single most common form of outside notes. I hesitate to predict exactly how useful it would be to have Flores or Nassif peering over your shoulder and making suggestions while you 'board, but it's certainly not insignificant. It should be clear to anyone why bringing sideboarding notes is a DQable offence.

Because of the seriousness of receiving outside assistance in the form of notes, and the ease with which one could encode those notes, we take a fairly hard line on all outside notes. This means that notes that seem harmless to you may be interpreted completely differently by the head judge. A common request in Legacy or Vintage events is from players who wish to bring and present the Oracle text for the (often heavily errata'd) cards in their deck. This is, no doubt, a noble gesture, but it's problematic in a number of ways. First, we have no way of knowing, without taking a fair amount of time and effort, that the "Oracle text" you have actually is the Oracle text. Second, it encourages players to act in the role of the judging staff, providing answers for rules questions.

Situations like the one in the question at the top of this article are similar. It's tough to sign off on a document asserted to contain no inappropriate material, particularly when it's written in a language that a judge doesn't speak! It's best for the event (and the whole body of DCI events) that we enforce this policy consistently and firmly, by saying: you may not refer to outside notes.

Another body of similar situations is card markings. Of course, card markings that are evident from the back of the card, or by touch, are not acceptable, but the rules do allow for artistic modifications of cards, subject to the discretion of the head judge. While I can certainly understand why you want to play with the Grizzly Bears that Richard Garfield turned into Mark Rosewaters, you have to be careful. If you are using card markings as a source of in-game information, you are guilty of using outside notes. That may seem obvious, but players in the past have tried to argue that the artistic modification clause permits them to artfully ink such things as "+2 Tog, +3 Wake" on the front of the card. It's not necessary to be that blatant; avoid marking your sideboard cards in other ways (yes, I know that the World Championship decks ignore this rule. But they're not tournament legal, either), such as with a sharpie dot. Do feel free to keep a copy of your deck list with you, but don't refer to it during a match. The best policy with artistic modifications, though, is to leave them in your 150 decks.

If you do come up with something that strikes you as being outside the normal note policy, you must (must must MUST) vet it with the head judge before the beginning of the tournament. Come prepared with a plan B; it's likely that your head judge will disagree with your assessment.

The outside notes policy is strict but fair. It's unambiguous and reasonable, and there's essentially no excuse for getting caught running up against it. And yet... it pops up again and again. Don't let it happen to you.

Until next time, keep shuffling.

-Seamus