Deviation from the Penalty Guidelines

I apologize for missing last month. I hadn't realized, with the extra weeks and writers (excellent job, by the way), that it was my turn to write. Recently, I've attended Grand Prix St. Louis, US Nationals, and Gen Con. It's been quite a summer. GP St. Louis, like all GPs, was a Saturday and Sunday; I left for US Nationals the following Wednesday for four straight days of judging. I was tired by the end of it and it's good to be back, but it certainly was a blast. Hats off to the great staff at all three events for an amazing job.

What are the Penalty Guidelines? The Penalty Guidelines define the set of infractions players can commit, the penalties judges should issue players who commit these infractions, and the remedies judges should employ to correct for the infraction.

Why do the Penalty Guidelines exist? They exist to ensure consistency within and across events throughout the world, by ensuring that judges everywhere are doing the same things. This helps judges, so that they can be confident that their events are run in a manner expected by both players and the DCI, as well as for them to have confidence in their own rulings. This also helps players, so when you go to a sanctioned event, you know how the event is going to be run.

So, with all this awesome consistency going around, why should a judge ever deviate from the penalty guidelines? That, it seems, may be the $10 million question.

Deviation
Throughout this article, I want to strongly emphasize one thing. The Penalty Guidelines are a well-written document, and are correct almost all of the time. Deviation is [... should be, anyway -Seamus] rare. In fact, I can only think of one or two instances in my judging career where I've (consciously—we've all made mistakes) deviated from the Penalty Guidelines.

Anyway, while consistency is important, it is clearly not the only factor. We want the penalty and remedy to be appropriate to punish and correct for the infraction. I could come up with a set of guidelines that would be very consistent and easy to enforce.

Infraction: Doing anything illegal, wrong, mischievous, or unsporting; or anything that annoys the Head Judge and/or Tournament Organizer.

Penalty: Disqualification without prize at all RELs

Philosophy: Let's get these people out of here!

Does this sound like the kind of tournament you want to play in? It certainly doesn't seem that fun— or, for that matter, fair—to me.

Admittedly, a more complex PG can (and does) exist that calls for almost no deviation. But no deviation? That seems like a poor idea.

Why is deviation good at all? We've already noted that it leads to inconsistency, as judges may have different views on whether or not deviation is appropriate.

Deviation from the Penalty Guidelines is used when the deviation is consistent with the philosophies behind the Penalty Guidelines, but, due to significant or exceptional circumstances, the specific remedy the Penalty Guidelines call for will not result in the appropriate resolution sought by DCI philosophy.

There are several important parts here; I'd like to emphasize and explain each:

• "Consistent with the philosophies behind the Penalty Guidelines". This is where the "Philosophy" section in the Penalty Guidelines comes in handy. Does the situation you have in front of you match the description of the philosophy? If so, then you probably should not be deviating; you're just disagreeing with the Penalty Guidelines. Disagreement with philosophy is healthy and contributes to a growing judge program, but it's nonetheless important to rule matching DCI philosophies, even if you don't believe the guidelines are correct, in order to maintain consistency in ruling between your events and others'.
• "Significant and exceptional circumstances". This phrase is stolen directly from the mouth of DCI Judge Manager Andy Heckt. In general, circumstances are significant and exceptional if it's not reasonable to belive that the philosophies were created with these factors in mind. For example, a player's constructed main decklist has written "22 Swamp", followed by 38 black cards, and ends with "22 Swamp". A deck check shows there are only 22 Swamps in the decklist. The Penalty Guidelines say that you should change the deck to match the list, and have him add the 22 Swamps. Would I do this? No. It's pretty clear what he meant. He just accidentally wrote his land and the top and bottom of decklist.

Before I move on, a further point on "significant and exceptional circumstances". There are a lot of common things that I hear people claim are significant and exceptional, that aren't. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it includes common examples:

• Disagreeing with the Penalty Guidelines philosophy, penalty, and/or remedy
• The player did not intent to commit the infraction. (Except for Cheating and Unsporting Conduct, this is already assumed.)
• The ruling will affect whether the player wins the game or match, or possibly even knock them out of the tournament.
• The tournament is single elimination, so penalties are more severe
• The player had no idea that doing what the player did was actually against the rules.
• The player is young.
• The player is new to the game.
• It's only Friday Night Magic or a Prerelease, not the Pro Tour. (Remember: Penalties (caution, warning, game loss, match loss, and disqualification) can vary by Rules Enforcement Level (REL), and this is accounted for by the Penalty Guidelines. However, the remedy—what the judge does to correct the situation—is the same across all RELs.)
• It's not that big of a deal.
• The player claims that another judge (possibly a higher level judge than you) ruled it a different way at another tournament. (You don't know if that's true, and even if it is, that judge may have had a good reason to deviate, or the judge could have made a mistake. Stuff happens. Stick with the guidelines.)

"The specific remedy the Penalty Guidelines call for will not result in the appropriate resolution sought by DCI philosophy." To explain this clause, I'll look at my previous example with the Swamps listed twice on the decklist. The infraction here is Illegal Main Deck. From the Penalty Guidelines:

102. Deck Problem—Illegal Main Deck (Legal Decklist)

Philosophy
The decklist is the ultimate guide to a player's deck. If the decklist indicates a legal deck, but the actual contents of the deck do not match the decklist, the player should restore the deck to reflect the decklist.

While it's certainly legal for the player to play 44 Swamps, most judges would probably understand that two entries of 22 Swamp is probably really only indicating 22 are being played. On the other hand, if we look at the example of the player playing 4 Naturalize in his or her deck, but has 4 Oxidize written down, then the judge (or anyone else reading the decklist) has any reason to suspect that it's not.

So why are these cases different, relative to the philosophy? The 44 Swamp decklist is pretty clearly an error, and does not diminsh the decklist's function as "the ultimate guide to a player's deck". On the other hand, having written Oxidize while playing Naturalize means the decklist is not meeting its function, and warrants issuing the player a penalty. [If you did decide against giving the Swampy player an Illegal Main Deck penalty, you'd almost certainly want to issue a warning for a procedural error -S]

Again, for emphasis—if the philosophy section for the infraction being commited matches the situation, then you should almost certainly not deviate. If it doesn't match, only then might it be appropriate to deviate (though that is by no means certainly so).

How to rule when you decide to deviate
When deviating from the Penalty Guidelines, it's important to do the following once you give your ruling to the players:

• Explain to the players the normal way the situation is resolved as per the Penalty Guidelines
• Explain the specific significant and exceptional circumstances you believe warrant deviation
• Explain your ruling.

Why is this important? Because when a slightly different situation occurs to them at the tournament they attend next week in a different location, and they get a different ruling, they won't be surprised. Otherwise, the player will conclude that at least one of the two judges doesn't know what they're doing, and that's bad for everyone.

Remember that a large part of judging is customer service. We are here to provide all of the players (not just the ones at this tournament, but everywhere) the best tournament environment possible. This means we need to explain what we do and why. If you were watching a sporting event, and all of a sudden the referee or umpire made a call against your team without explaining it, you would be very upset, and you would have every reason to be. This means when judging yourself, it's important to explain why to your players. Note that they may have questions about why you deviated. Suggest to them that you can discuss it after the player's match, but for now you need them to continue play as to not further delay the event.

I hope you enjoyed my tour of deviation. Remember, it's not something you should do very often. I've outlined the times when to do it above, and what to do when you do feel like you have a deviation situation on your hands. One final comment: If you're on the Hall of Fame Selection committee, please, whatever you do, don't vote known cheaters in as representatives as the best of the best in our game. That's all for me; I'll be back with another article around Time Spiral. (Yes, it's that soon.)

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Lee Sharpe, lee DOT sharpe AT gmail DOT com
DCI Level 3 Judge