Reflecting Reality
Over the course of the last year, the DCI Penalty Guide has been almost a living document, changing frequently and substantially to create formal policies to cover formerly unhandled interactions, to clarify the DCI's position on consistency vs. judgment, and to remove ambiguity in how to classify various penalties. The scope of these changes has been so large that the document is essentially a complete rewrite of the document as it existed a year ago.

Some of the most drastic looking changes, however, came in March and required nothing more than a few word changes and an added sentence or two. Pop quiz:

What percentage of infractions at Regular REL are now different than they were three months ago?

The answer is surprisingly high—over 30%. This merely represents the completion of a philosophical shift in the way the DCI approaches the vast majority of tournaments, a change that has been happening slowly over the course of the last year. For anyone that hasn't been tracking these changes over the last months as they've occurred, the change can be shocking. A natural reaction is to ask: has the DCI has suddenly gone soft on players, soft on cheaters, or just plain soft?

No … or at least, not explicitly. Instead, what's happened is that the DCI has caught up to what players and judges at local stores not only want and expect, but what they actually do, and done so in a way that blends those needs with a preservation of tournament integrity.

Education

You're walking the floor at your local Prerelease when time is called. You walk up to a table just in time to hear two young players, both at their first tournament, deciding to flip a coin to see who wins, because they don't want to draw. They obviously have no idea that this is illegal, nor any idea why there might be a problem with this. What's the right thing to do?

With their appeal to first-time tournament players, players of all ages, and casual players who just want a look at new cards, Prerelease weekends are a breeding ground for this type of issue—one that feels innocuous to anyone who hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about tournament integrity. The fact that random results are a violation of tournament integrity is not at all obvious, but makes them severe enough that the penalty needs to be high to prevent any exploitation.

This makes sense, until we consider the scenario above. Is there any real chance that these players are trying to exploit the system? Is there any possibility that they're being defiant against something they have any inkling might be wrong? Probably not. And while ignorance of the rules of a system doesn't constitute an excuse to break those rules, and while it is important for players to be taught why this isn't acceptable, isn't a disqualification unnecessary overkill on both of these points? Certainly not at a competitive event with high stakes (where players are obligated to know the rules), but at your local store, or at the only tournament that many players ever go to?

The reality is, the vast majority of judges and players feel this way instinctually, and not only do they have a reasonable point, but many inexperienced judges were acting this way at their local stores anyway, finding some other way to handle the situation (perhaps nothing more than a, "don't do that.") and not knowing how they'd explain a disqualification in the first place. And those that did understand and follow the guidelines often did so with some remorse—it's hard not to feel that way, disqualifying an excited eight-year old kid at their first tournament who has no idea what's happening and why.

The DCI has finally caught up to what the local judges already knew—given this scenario, a disqualification is overkill. It's still a real offense, and when committed by players who know better, it needs to be treated severely (the official penalty is still a disqualification, subject to a downgrade at the head judge's discretion when the player didn't know any better). But a Match Loss will accomplish the deterrence and education necessary for these players just as well as a disqualification, without ruining their day and possibly driving them away from tournament play entirely—a good blend of tournament integrity preservation while acknowledging the reality of most tournament play.

You're watching a match at Friday Night Magic and two of your regulars, good buddies, are playing each other rather casually. One player forgets a triggered ability that causes them to gain two life at the beginning of their turn, and neither player catches it until mid-turn, when they realize that this trigger was missed. What's the right thing to do?

Assuming that this is pure sloppiness and that there's no foul play afoot on the part of either player (and one thing that hasn't changed is that intentional cheating is not acceptable and judges still need to investigate suitably to make sure that there's no intentional cheating occurring), this used to result in a pair of warnings, one for each player (Game Play Error — Missed Trigger for the player controlling the ability, Game Play Error — Failure to Maintain Game State for the other).

A warning is a penalty serious enough to be entered into DCI Reporter and reported to the DCI for long-term tracking purposes. That means that this situation requires the judge to write down the incident and the scorekeeper to effectively enter it twice (once for each player). For serious tournaments, this makes sense—it's possible to exploit missed triggers to your advantage, and sloppy play in the long-term is something the DCI needs to know about in order to determine whether or not a player is meeting their responsibility to follow the rules of the game.

At Friday Night Magic, though, is this sane? Realistically, are judges really doing anything more than verbally telling their players to be more careful and fixing the situation? Is there enough benefit to tracking this incident to make it worth the extra paperwork and worth pushing judges into doing it?

Ultimately, there's a broader reality at play here. Regular REL tournaments are not only unlike Competitive and Professional events, they're very unlike those tournaments. Most of them are small tournaments, with regular groups of players, playing casually (except for Prereleases, which are larger, but possibly even more casual). And while the Penalty Guide has said for a while that Regular REL events focus on fun, social aspects, and education more than on enforcement, it's not until now that the penalties have reflected this fact.

Unchanged
You're judging the weekly Standard tournament at your local game store and the players at a match call you over. One of the players just forgot that they already drew for the turn and drew an extra card. The opponent is pretty sure it's the card on the right side of their hand and asks if it's okay to just have him put it back now and shuffle. What's the right thing to do?

This situation doesn't feel like it should be that different from the triggered ability above. The players are playing at Regular REL, they're playing casually and having fun, and something correctable happened. Playing at home, the offending player would just put the card back and things would move on. Based on the logic behind the missed trigger, telling them to be careful, not to do it again, and then moving on ought to work.

If you look at the new Penalty Guidelines, though, you'll see that this is still a warning, and still requires tracking in DCI Reporter. Why the difference, if Regular REL is now about focusing on education instead of on enforcement?

As we've talked about before, one of the reasons for penalties is to counteract the potential exploitability of an infraction. This is still true, even in smaller tournaments being played at Regular REL. There's an important difference between being encouraging fun, casual, educational play and facilitating cheating, and while the penalties assessed for these tournaments might have felt like overkill to many, that doesn't mean anybody wants them to become places where the malicious take free advantage of the honest. Leniency does not mean anarchy.

The issue here is, not revealing a card has high potential for possible exploitation. If somebody malicious comes along and is looking for ways to gain unfair advantage, "accidentally" drawing an extra card is a pretty easy and fruitful way to do it if they aren't caught. So there needs to be a balance between not going overboard, but still maintaining enough records to catch people trying to cheat the system over time.

This is another motivation behind the changing of the penalties at Regular REL and one of the reasons it's important to follow the guidelines rather than deviating at whim. A lot of thought has gone into making sure that the guidelines are the right blend between allowing for the kinds of tournaments that happen locally and that people want to play in, while still maintaining the necessary tournament integrity to make sure that the playing field is fair and fun for everyone across the DCI.

Wrapping Up
So with these changes to pull Regular REL down to a level that reflects how local tournaments really work, are the Penalty Guidelines finally done? Probably not. There will always be more nuance to capture, unintended side effects to catch, and changes to reflect the evolving philosophy of the DCI. But these changes should go a long way toward making it easier for local judges to do what needs to happen to ensure consistency across the DCI (that is, follow the Penalty Guide) without having to do things that feel unrealistic and turn their players away. And while tournament integrity is still maintained, tournaments also serve the local player bases better, which is better for everyone.

Next month: Bad rulings, failed tests, and more: everything you ever wanted to know about failing, and other lessons from the floor of Pro Tour—Hollywood.

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Nicholas J. Fang
DCI Certified Level 3 Judge—Redmond, WA
mtgjudge@live.com
Agbaar and Ag|Work on EFnet's #mtgjudge