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Q: This is preventable and so isn't really a good example. If my opponent shuffles his deck on an angle so that when I look up, I see a bottom card, should I be immediately calling a judge?

A: What you should do is tell the player to be more careful when he shuffles his deck because you can easily spot the bottom card of his deck. This way you are giving him the option to change the way he shuffles - or doesn't, in which case they don't care about the advantage you could be gaining.

Q: How do you rectify the situation?

A: If I was called over to a table because the opponent was shuffling in such a way that he could view the cards, I would lecture the player who was shuffling about the possible advantages for the opponent and how she could be more careful about it from now on.

Q: It isn't my fault I saw the card; I wasn't the one who made the mistake, was I?

A: The original strategic advice and question about its legality was about knowingly looking at your opponent's deck when he is shuffling. When you are looking there, hoping to get a glance, you are trying to get an unfair advantage - if, however, you look up and see it accidentally it isn't your mistake.

Q: In your example above, I am responsible for tracking the game state too, and if I don't mark down the damage, I am misrepresenting it. But how can you ever remedy a situation like that? You can't really penalize me if I call you over, and you can't erase the knowledge I acquired. Any penalty to my opponent will just help me more.

A: I was just referring to where people are doing it on purpose. That's why if I have a hunch that you are doing it on purpose, I will give you a caution first and later on will give warnings for this. That way, the penalties will go on your DCI sheet - and if you accumulate too many of those penalties you will at some point receive a letter from the DCI that you should change your behaviour. If it happened accidentally and it is obvious that you are not trying to gain an advantage (or at least is obvious to the judge), you will not get penalized in this situation.

Remember, this is a very tough issue; other judges might not agree with my points of view presented here.

Q: Likewise, if my opponent places his sideboard off to the side, but face up accidentally, should I call a judge to say that I know his sideboard card?

A: Just tell your opponent that his sideboard is the wrong way up. Like I said before, there was no way you did anything intentionally here.

Q: I concede that intentionally watching your player shuffle to try to see this is a bit shady, but it also seems unenforceable and not particularly against the rules.

A: In my opinion, it is unsportsmanlike... And therefore against the rules. The example with the City of Brass was there to show how things which are unenforceable for the judges (if nobody saw what happened there, then a judge looking at the game later will never know that it happened) can still be illegal.

Q: If a judge can come over and ask me not to watch my opponent shuffle, then presumably it would be a good practice for me to never watch my opponent shuffle. This, of course, means that if my opponent is intentionally manipulating his or my deck, I won't catch it.

A: This is the main reason why you get to shuffle your opponent's deck (you should always do this) - because if he stacked it in some way, you can make sure it is really random. If he is shuffling your deck, the advantage you gain by knowing what is in your deck is zero. It is okay to watch how he is handling your deck.

Q: I agree that as a judge you should caution and talk to a player if they are intentionally or unintentionally revealing cards (whether the shuffling or sideboard example), but I disagree strongly with the assertion that you should caution or warn the opponent. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to watch an opponent shuffle, and you are making both an assumption about motivation and that the person has actually seen a card through this practice.

A: Like I said above, I will only penalize the player who is looking if I think he is doing it intentionally and to gain an advantage. Basically, it's the difference between glancing over now and then to see what your opponent is doing versus staring at the bottom of your opponent's deck.

Admittedly, this is a very thin line and very hard to judge. I am just trying to point out that if you are doing it intentionally with the purpose of gaining an advantage, you're are doing something which is illegal in my eyes.

I hope this makes sense to you,

-Gis

Q: You have mentioned in previous articles that you would penalize players for looking at the bottom card of the opponent's library. You even compared it to failing to note down damage from"pain lands." The latter is failure to maintain game state; on what grounds would you penalize the former?

A: I would only penalize it if I am sure he did it to gain an advantage I would categorise it as unsportsmanlike conduct. It could just as well be ruled under looking at extra cards - although that it is not what the penalty was intended for.

Q: Would you penalize a player for knowingly allowing an opponent to present a 59-card deck and then call a judge without even needing to count it? (Which is effectively giving your opponent a caution/warning when he would have been able to prevent this.)

A: No; I agree that there is a hint of Unsportsmanlike conduct here as well, but the penalties for incorrect decks are there to prevent people from abusing them. Maybe the opponent had a reason to present a 59 card deck. As a judge, you want to know these things - that way you can report the error and track if the player repeatedly does this.

Q: If a player makes a procedural error that is easily corrected, should I call a judge? (Such as forgetting to put two cards back from a Brainstorm and I notice before anything else happens.)

A: This is not a good example, because the advantage of not putting back the cards is huge. In this case, calling a judge is only the right thing to do.

A better example would be if a player forgot to draw a card from a Howling Mine; he really just forgot and there is no huge advantage for the player by forgetting to draw the card. Correcting this without calling over a judge would be fine for the first time, and even the second time... But after that, you should call a judge. It is perfectly acceptable to call a judge the first time it happens, though.

Q: It is assumed that a judge will penalize a player on sportsmanlike grounds for attempting to use the rules to unfair advantage. The prevents players setting"Rules Traps" for the opponent to fall into and then having a judge penalize them.

A perfectly moral and just approach.

The rules do, however, make it clear that any infringement of the rules intentional or otherwise must be addressed. This allows for the concept of increasing penalties to jeopardize a player's opportunity to cheat. (Do it once, maybe it's an accident; do it three times and you'll be heavily punished.)

With this in mind, do opponents not have an obligation to report even apparently minor procedural errors without allowing the opponent an opportunity to rectify them?

A: All procedural errors should be brought to the attention of a judge. It is up to the judge to make a ruling and solve the situation.

Q: Barring the obvious resource demands faced by judges (calling a judge for everything would require more judges), how would you advise players to behave?

A: First, they should have taken a shower in the morning; this is the most important behavioural aspect I would like to see.

Other than that, whenever a player sees something that should be brought up to the judges, they should call over a judge, explain the situation, and let the judge do their work.

Players also should clean their table when they are done and push in their chairs when they leave the table.

Q: This is an issue I face regularly: I know certain players cheat, and so do the judges - but I still have problems calling for judges all the time, mainly because it is considered offensive to pick people up on small infringements and often gains you a caution yourself. In this environment of sportsmanship over hard-and-fast-rules-enforcement, the cheats have yet to be adequately punished - their retort often being,"you noticed and could have prevented it," which damns those who don't notice to a distinct disadvantage.

A: I will never use that; if someone noticed something wrong, I will punish the player who made an error according to how I feel the penalty guidelines should be applied. You will only get a caution if you did not catch it immediately.

Remember once again that these are my responses are my own views and could differ from the DCI on these issues.

Q: In a DCI-sanctioned tournament, what are the rules if I am observing a game and I notice something illegal done (intentional or not?). For example, forgetting to sac a card at the beginning of upkeep with a Braids on the table or trying to cast a spell without the right number of lands tapped? Should I bring it up to the attention of the players, a judge, or what?

A: The best way to explain is by quoting the DCI Universal Tournament Rules:

-Gis