Menery just clarified when Hagon was joking about iPhone and smartphones in regards to videos. Given that they have an independent party filming and it is such a high level of play allows them to do so.
You can't use that at lower level REL's like FNM or whatever. Or at least don't expect to. That was direct from Menery's booth commentary. So probably not (or at least it won't be acceptable for changing rulings).
I'm sure this is going to come up on on the Judge's mailing list, but it's not really just a significant change in policy, it's a significant change in philosophy. The reason we don't fix things isn't because we can't fix things, the reason judges don't fix things is because judges are not in a good position (nor should be) to judge unintended consequences, plus there is player responsibility to keep these things right.
I also don't know if I agree with Sheldon that this was trivial to fix because the plays might have been significantly different if Kibler thought he needed to flip his huntmaster one more time to buy time. I really wish we had video of the rest of the match.
Then again, after the whole Angel thing, I can't say that he didn't deserve the outcome
Kibler attacked finkle with his team, which included 2 wolves and a transformed huntmaster. Finkle used a 2/2 spirit token to block. Kibler picked up the wolf, intending to put it back down right away because his Huntmaster was going to transform next turn, but Finkle took a long time EOT to debate a play, so Kibler put it back on the table. During Finkle's upkeep the Huntmaster finally transformed, and Kibler put another Wolf token into play.
So at this point we have 1 more wolf in play than there should be.
Many turns later, Finkle looks at the board and asks Kibler and the Judge something to the effect of "Shouldn't that wolf be dead"? Debate ensues, with Finkle asking the Judge to look at the tape, because they do have tape.
They cut over to the PVDDR match. Much later, they ended up ruling, after reviewing the video, that there should indeed be no wolf token, and it was removed from play. Sheldon came on camera and gave a lengthy explanation for this ruling, and did emphasis how large of a deviation it is from the usual ruling. I assume you'll eventually get youtube of that video, I really don't want to paraphrase him more than I already have.
The scorekeeper put out an official statement on the matter -
Quote from Nick Fang, Pro Tour Scorekeeper »
An explanation for all of you wondering about the Wolf issue, courtesy of Judge Emeritus Sheldon Menery - Standard policy is that if play has continued after an error that affects board state, then we do not attempt to adjust the game state. In this case, Head Judge Toby Elliott issued a specific (and significant) deviation because of the fact that we had official video coverage available and could definitely ensure that no other adverse side effects would arise. They both would like to reemphasize to player and judge alike that this is a significant deviation from standard policy and is not precedent setting for normal tournaments, and that your personal phone videos don't count as official video coverage.
Many turns later, Finkle looks at the board and asks Kibler and the Judge something to the effect of "Shouldn't that wolf be dead"? Debate ensues, with Finkle asking the Judge to look at the tape, because they do have tape.
I don't know about many. I'm thinking no more than a turn and a half at best. For the record Kibler also asked for the feed to be reviewed.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
This whole issue has me shaken a little. One the one hand, the issue was corrected which is what we all want as players when we can fix things. I've been known to have corrected errors that didn't impact the game that were noticed turns later in casual play, but that happens rarer than a cold day in FL (it's finally cold here btw).
The correct fix wasn't used at a REL Professional event. That bothers me.
This whole issue bothers me in such a weird way that I don't want to discuss it and I feel as if it shouldn't be discussed (which is ALSO the wrong thing to do... man, nothing is going right). I don't know.
They made a mistake followed by a mistake fixing the mistake in order to achieve a correction to the mistake. I'm just glade they announced that this isn't a precedent for this in the future.
The correct fix wasn't used at a REL Professional event. That bothers me.
It seems counter-intuitive, but deviation happens much more at Professional events than at Competitive ones. The reason is because they have the highest level judges with the strongest understanding of policy and of the philosophy that guides it. They have a better understanding of *why* the policy is written the way it is, and thus are more than qualified to weigh the detriment of deviation to the benefit of undoing the damage to the game state.
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It seems counter-intuitive, but deviation happens much more at Professional events than at Competitive ones. The reason is because they have the highest level judges with the strongest understanding of policy and of the philosophy that guides it. They have a better understanding of *why* the policy is written the way it is, and thus are more than qualified to weigh the detriment of deviation to the benefit of undoing the damage to the game state.
This comes with event experience and learning from other judges.
LOTS of experience, and LOTS of talking.
Four years after starting judging, I first heard the term "tournament integrity", when a large-event HJ talked about a DQ. It's probably the most important thing to understand when understanding the philosophy of judging. (that, and being around long enough to watch documents evolve, and be around to hear the discussions as to why those documents have been doing so)
This doesn't really bother me. This wasn't, from what I can tell, a missed trigger, so there's no hard time limit on how long can go by until it's fixed -- rather, the limit is the complication of fixing it. And though partial fixes are strongly, strongly discouraged, I think Toby's in a position to make the call as to when and whether a deviation from that is acceptable. I'm certainly not, but then I'm not an L5 who steers policy and gets to HJ the Pro Tour.
And in general, there's almost always one random call from each PT that ends up in a big discussion like this; for Worlds in November it was a judge reminding Conley that a Seachrome Coast should enter untapped, without visibly writing out a penalty on the match result slip, and that one didn't break the judge program either
This doesn't really bother me. This wasn't, from what I can tell, a missed trigger, so there's no hard time limit on how long can go by until it's fixed -- rather, the limit is the complication of fixing it. And though partial fixes are strongly, strongly discouraged, I think Toby's in a position to make the call as to when and whether a deviation from that is acceptable. I'm certainly not, but then I'm not an L5 who steers policy and gets to HJ the Pro Tour.
And in general, there's almost always one random call from each PT that ends up in a big discussion like this; for Worlds in November it was a judge reminding Conley that a Seachrome Coast should enter untapped, without visibly writing out a penalty on the match result slip, and that one didn't break the judge program either
The "significant" qualifier has applied to the wrong noun, anyway. The deviation was not all that significant, the circumstances were. Normally I wouldn't back up that far, but the playing of Dungeon Geists was the only external action that had taken place and, after extensive review of the detailed recordings and interviews with both players to determine whether the presence of the incorrect token had had any impact on the strategic thinking of both players, I was able to determine that it would be safe to rewind the game - the net effect being Finkel gaining back 2 life and the Wolf being removed from play. Everything else ended up unchanged.
We've made it very clear that this was a deviation due to the exceptional circumstances of a multiple-camera-recorded top 8 match, and not something that can be applied in other situations.
I think though that even though they said this is a 1 time deviation, it doesn't mean that people won't be doing the iphone camera thing over thier friend at fnm and then calling the judge to get stuff fixed if it doesn't fly how they like.
It puts a lot of pressure on newbie judges who wouldn't have to deal with those issues as a judge at a PTQ but would at thier local store.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
The "significant" qualifier has applied to the wrong noun, anyway. The deviation was not all that significant, the circumstances were. Normally I wouldn't back up that far, but the playing of Dungeon Geists was the only external action that had taken place and, after extensive review of the detailed recordings and interviews with both players to determine whether the presence of the incorrect token had had any impact on the strategic thinking of both players, I was able to determine that it would be safe to rewind the game - the net effect being Finkel gaining back 2 life and the Wolf being removed from play. Everything else ended up unchanged.
We've made it very clear that this was a deviation due to the exceptional circumstances of a multiple-camera-recorded top 8 match, and not something that can be applied in other situations.
The problem is that effectively you're saying "do as I say, not as I do." This is something which is very easy to misunderstand, even if you have a very good reason for it, as you do in this case. Far more people will know about what happened than will hear your reasoning for it.
I don't think this kind of situation is that exceptional anymore, given the increasing amount of live coverage. (And does the top-8-ness really matter? Would you have ruled differently if this had been a feature match during the swiss rounds with the same cameras?) I hope that in the future the IPG will cover this. If you're going to enforce the rules differently based on the coverage cameras, you should have a new "REL: Featured" or something.
I think though that even though they said this is a 1 time deviation, it doesn't mean that people won't be doing the iphone camera thing over thier friend at fnm and then calling the judge to get stuff fixed if it doesn't fly how they like.
It puts a lot of pressure on newbie judges who wouldn't have to deal with those issues as a judge at a PTQ but would at thier local store.
Precisely. Players watch PT coverage to learn how pros play and attempt to get better by imitating them. The same applies to judging. This is why deviating on camera is risky.
It puts exactly zero pressure on any judge to fix any kind of issue at any level ever. As was stated, no precedence was set, anyone who who expects otherwise is clearly lacking in cognition. Additionally, fnm's don't matter, pro tours do.
The problem is that effectively you're saying "do as I say, not as I do."
Sure. If you have a set of third-party cameras, fifteen minutes to spare, a judge with a dozen years of experience interviewing players and a situation where the play is caught quickly enough that the rewind is only *slightly* more serious than something that wouldn't be considered a normal deviation, you should consider doing it too.
I made somewhere around 40-50 rulings over the course of the weekend that were not deviations, including several where I did not rewind situations with superficial similarities. The problem is that the infrastructure that enables the unusual situation also is what is making it public.
This is something which is very easy to misunderstand, even if you have a very good reason for it, as you do in this case. Far more people will know about what happened than will hear your reasoning for it.
In fact, I considered these very implication as part of the process, before making the ruling. I'm not happy to have to be in that situation, but the consequences of not making the ruling I did would also have been substantial - there was no winning in this situation.
I don't think this kind of situation is that exceptional anymore, given the increasing amount of live coverage. (And does the top-8-ness really matter? Would you have ruled differently if this had been a feature match during the swiss rounds with the same cameras?)
Odds of this happening in the Swiss are infinitesmal. I'm not ten feet away to be able to take action as soon as the twitterverse notices, which was key in this situation. I'm likely unwilling to delay a match for 15 minutes while everything gets consulted. The circumstances required to create the perfect storm that made this ruling work are hard to duplicate in anything less than a PT top 8.
I hope that in the future the IPG will cover this. If you're going to enforce the rules differently based on the coverage cameras, you should have a new "REL: Featured" or something.
Highly unlikely, at least not without a pretty thorough revamp of everything.
The whole point of "significant and exceptional" is that you find yourself in a place not really anticipated by policy and that, by definition, is not likely to happen again. Writing policy to cover this sort of thing is a fool's errand.
It puts a lot of pressure on newbie judges who wouldn't have to deal with those issues as a judge at a PTQ but would at thier local store.
Since local store events are mostly run under a completely different set of policies and guidelines, if they're trying to fit this into their framework, there are already a ton of issues.
Highly unlikely, at least not without a pretty thorough revamp of everything.
The whole point of "significant and exceptional" is that you find yourself in a place not really anticipated by policy and that, by definition, is not likely to happen again. Writing policy to cover this sort of thing is a fool's errand.
I'd say it's reasonably likely that something like this will happen again, given that it has apparently happened before the current incident.
Plus, even though (as you point out) this happens very rarely, when it does happen it's at a rather critical time — the top8 of a major event, with many people watching and lots of money on the line. There's potential for controversy.
I think the high stakes when it does happen counterbalances the low frequency, making it worthwhile to add a paragraph to the IPG stating (1) in what situations judges should use instant replay and (2) what kind of deviations should be made on the basis of instant replay.
I'd say it's reasonably likely that something like this will happen again, given that it has apparently happened before the current incident.
Plus, even though (as you point out) this happens very rarely, when it does happen it's at a rather critical time — the top8 of a major event, with many people watching and lots of money on the line. There's potential for controversy.
I think the high stakes when it does happen counterbalances the low frequency, making it worthwhile to add a paragraph to the IPG stating (1) in what situations judges should use instant replay and (2) what kind of deviations should be made on the basis of instant replay.
That's kind of why they did it. Everything was on the line and to let it go would be essentially allowing cheating. I think it speaks leaps that Kibler pointed it out too. Also, they had a level 5, a level E and several 4's and 3's reviewing the footage and deliberating a good "fix" if one was applicable.
They didn't deviate because the integrity would be maintained, they did it to maintain a higher level of integrity in a higher level of the tournament, in a higher level tournament.
And that's what makes me strive to grow as a judge. I don't just want to be a part of these intense and critical decisions, I yearn it! I want to experience it and learn more than just the rules as a judge.
That's kind of why they did it. Everything was on the line and to let it go would be essentially allowing cheating. I think it speaks leaps that Kibler pointed it out too. Also, they had a level 5, a level E and several 4's and 3's reviewing the footage and deliberating a good "fix" if one was applicable.
They didn't deviate because the integrity would be maintained, they did it to maintain a higher level of integrity in a higher level of the tournament, in a higher level tournament.
And that's what makes me strive to grow as a judge. I don't just want to be a part of these intense and critical decisions, I yearn it! I want to experience it and learn more than just the rules as a judge.
To let it go would not be essentially allowing cheating.
The IPG is based on this as a fundamental: A fault/error is generally considered to be done without intent (because it is so easy to do mistakes). (For what it is worth I can say that I disagree with this basic philosophy in the IPG.)
While I certainly dont see Kibler as much of a cheater from my very limited exp with Kibler, I also dont see it as "speaking leaps" when he confirms something that already is on tape.
Maintain Integrity, higher, higher, higher;
As I see it there should go one line, between Regular REL and the rest. Not suddenly have different practices at the very top of the pyramid.
WotC fondled with this idea while working with last IPG, triggers mandatory/not mandatory and all that stuff just before Christmas.
Your last paragraph speaks VOLUMES, but I cant blame you =):
As a Judge you should ALREADY have built up at least SOME knowledge about the games philosophy, practises, etc.
Saying that your entrance to LvL1 judge is only based on reading a rules book hardly cant be true I agree, but sadly I still think there is too much truth in this statement in general. In my opinion the reason for this lies within a too poorly written rules book, and not in "unsuitable personalities" in those who are picked to be judges.
Kind of makes you wonder if they would have made Kibler choose something with his Angel of Dispair a few years back eh?
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
In my opinion the reason for this lies within a too poorly written rules book, and not in "unsuitable personalities" in those who are picked to be judges.
What exactly about the rules do you have a problem with?
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Personally, I have no reason to believe that papa acted inappropriately. Just as judges in our court system have rules they must follow, higher-level judges have the leeway to recognize that a specific novel situation is not what was contemplated when the rules were made, and can deviate from the letter of the law as long as they feel that the spirit of the law is served.
Seeing as how this ruling was made by the MTG equivalent of a supreme court justice, I'm fine with him having the leeway to identify when deviating from the rules is prudent.
Seeing as how this ruling was made by the MTG equivalent of a supreme court justice, I'm fine with him having the leeway to identify when deviating from the rules is prudent.
You can't use that at lower level REL's like FNM or whatever. Or at least don't expect to. That was direct from Menery's booth commentary. So probably not (or at least it won't be acceptable for changing rulings).
I also don't know if I agree with Sheldon that this was trivial to fix because the plays might have been significantly different if Kibler thought he needed to flip his huntmaster one more time to buy time. I really wish we had video of the rest of the match.
Then again, after the whole Angel thing, I can't say that he didn't deserve the outcome
Kibler attacked finkle with his team, which included 2 wolves and a transformed huntmaster. Finkle used a 2/2 spirit token to block. Kibler picked up the wolf, intending to put it back down right away because his Huntmaster was going to transform next turn, but Finkle took a long time EOT to debate a play, so Kibler put it back on the table. During Finkle's upkeep the Huntmaster finally transformed, and Kibler put another Wolf token into play.
So at this point we have 1 more wolf in play than there should be.
Many turns later, Finkle looks at the board and asks Kibler and the Judge something to the effect of "Shouldn't that wolf be dead"? Debate ensues, with Finkle asking the Judge to look at the tape, because they do have tape.
They cut over to the PVDDR match. Much later, they ended up ruling, after reviewing the video, that there should indeed be no wolf token, and it was removed from play. Sheldon came on camera and gave a lengthy explanation for this ruling, and did emphasis how large of a deviation it is from the usual ruling. I assume you'll eventually get youtube of that video, I really don't want to paraphrase him more than I already have.
So no, don't bother.
I don't know about many. I'm thinking no more than a turn and a half at best. For the record Kibler also asked for the feed to be reviewed.
The correct fix wasn't used at a REL Professional event. That bothers me.
This whole issue bothers me in such a weird way that I don't want to discuss it and I feel as if it shouldn't be discussed (which is ALSO the wrong thing to do... man, nothing is going right). I don't know.
They made a mistake followed by a mistake fixing the mistake in order to achieve a correction to the mistake. I'm just glade they announced that this isn't a precedent for this in the future.
It seems counter-intuitive, but deviation happens much more at Professional events than at Competitive ones. The reason is because they have the highest level judges with the strongest understanding of policy and of the philosophy that guides it. They have a better understanding of *why* the policy is written the way it is, and thus are more than qualified to weigh the detriment of deviation to the benefit of undoing the damage to the game state.
GUB: All Clones, All the Time EDH
GU: Amulet Combo MODERN
Well... I hope some day I can be on that level.
Till them, it all leaves me very sad-faced.
This comes with event experience and learning from other judges.
LOTS of experience, and LOTS of talking.
Four years after starting judging, I first heard the term "tournament integrity", when a large-event HJ talked about a DQ. It's probably the most important thing to understand when understanding the philosophy of judging. (that, and being around long enough to watch documents evolve, and be around to hear the discussions as to why those documents have been doing so)
静
And in general, there's almost always one random call from each PT that ends up in a big discussion like this; for Worlds in November it was a judge reminding Conley that a Seachrome Coast should enter untapped, without visibly writing out a penalty on the match result slip, and that one didn't break the judge program either
----
Lightning Bolts don't kill creatures. State-based actions kill creatures.
The "significant" qualifier has applied to the wrong noun, anyway. The deviation was not all that significant, the circumstances were. Normally I wouldn't back up that far, but the playing of Dungeon Geists was the only external action that had taken place and, after extensive review of the detailed recordings and interviews with both players to determine whether the presence of the incorrect token had had any impact on the strategic thinking of both players, I was able to determine that it would be safe to rewind the game - the net effect being Finkel gaining back 2 life and the Wolf being removed from play. Everything else ended up unchanged.
We've made it very clear that this was a deviation due to the exceptional circumstances of a multiple-camera-recorded top 8 match, and not something that can be applied in other situations.
It puts a lot of pressure on newbie judges who wouldn't have to deal with those issues as a judge at a PTQ but would at thier local store.
The problem is that effectively you're saying "do as I say, not as I do." This is something which is very easy to misunderstand, even if you have a very good reason for it, as you do in this case. Far more people will know about what happened than will hear your reasoning for it.
I don't think this kind of situation is that exceptional anymore, given the increasing amount of live coverage. (And does the top-8-ness really matter? Would you have ruled differently if this had been a feature match during the swiss rounds with the same cameras?) I hope that in the future the IPG will cover this. If you're going to enforce the rules differently based on the coverage cameras, you should have a new "REL: Featured" or something.
Precisely. Players watch PT coverage to learn how pros play and attempt to get better by imitating them. The same applies to judging. This is why deviating on camera is risky.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
Rules Advisor: 9/5/11
Old, sparsely updated because of above: Trade with me!
Weirdly, standard has been BAD since JTMS was banned, it hasn't been fun, nor healthy since.
Sure. If you have a set of third-party cameras, fifteen minutes to spare, a judge with a dozen years of experience interviewing players and a situation where the play is caught quickly enough that the rewind is only *slightly* more serious than something that wouldn't be considered a normal deviation, you should consider doing it too.
I made somewhere around 40-50 rulings over the course of the weekend that were not deviations, including several where I did not rewind situations with superficial similarities. The problem is that the infrastructure that enables the unusual situation also is what is making it public.
In fact, I considered these very implication as part of the process, before making the ruling. I'm not happy to have to be in that situation, but the consequences of not making the ruling I did would also have been substantial - there was no winning in this situation.
Odds of this happening in the Swiss are infinitesmal. I'm not ten feet away to be able to take action as soon as the twitterverse notices, which was key in this situation. I'm likely unwilling to delay a match for 15 minutes while everything gets consulted. The circumstances required to create the perfect storm that made this ruling work are hard to duplicate in anything less than a PT top 8.
Highly unlikely, at least not without a pretty thorough revamp of everything.
The whole point of "significant and exceptional" is that you find yourself in a place not really anticipated by policy and that, by definition, is not likely to happen again. Writing policy to cover this sort of thing is a fool's errand.
Since local store events are mostly run under a completely different set of policies and guidelines, if they're trying to fit this into their framework, there are already a ton of issues.
I'd say it's reasonably likely that something like this will happen again, given that it has apparently happened before the current incident.
Plus, even though (as you point out) this happens very rarely, when it does happen it's at a rather critical time — the top8 of a major event, with many people watching and lots of money on the line. There's potential for controversy.
I think the high stakes when it does happen counterbalances the low frequency, making it worthwhile to add a paragraph to the IPG stating (1) in what situations judges should use instant replay and (2) what kind of deviations should be made on the basis of instant replay.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
That's kind of why they did it. Everything was on the line and to let it go would be essentially allowing cheating. I think it speaks leaps that Kibler pointed it out too. Also, they had a level 5, a level E and several 4's and 3's reviewing the footage and deliberating a good "fix" if one was applicable.
They didn't deviate because the integrity would be maintained, they did it to maintain a higher level of integrity in a higher level of the tournament, in a higher level tournament.
And that's what makes me strive to grow as a judge. I don't just want to be a part of these intense and critical decisions, I yearn it! I want to experience it and learn more than just the rules as a judge.
To let it go would not be essentially allowing cheating.
The IPG is based on this as a fundamental: A fault/error is generally considered to be done without intent (because it is so easy to do mistakes). (For what it is worth I can say that I disagree with this basic philosophy in the IPG.)
While I certainly dont see Kibler as much of a cheater from my very limited exp with Kibler, I also dont see it as "speaking leaps" when he confirms something that already is on tape.
Maintain Integrity, higher, higher, higher;
As I see it there should go one line, between Regular REL and the rest. Not suddenly have different practices at the very top of the pyramid.
WotC fondled with this idea while working with last IPG, triggers mandatory/not mandatory and all that stuff just before Christmas.
Your last paragraph speaks VOLUMES, but I cant blame you =):
As a Judge you should ALREADY have built up at least SOME knowledge about the games philosophy, practises, etc.
Saying that your entrance to LvL1 judge is only based on reading a rules book hardly cant be true I agree, but sadly I still think there is too much truth in this statement in general. In my opinion the reason for this lies within a too poorly written rules book, and not in "unsuitable personalities" in those who are picked to be judges.
Noah Weil on scouting, an attorney from Seattle with 20 Pro Tour appearances.
What exactly about the rules do you have a problem with?
Seeing as how this ruling was made by the MTG equivalent of a supreme court justice, I'm fine with him having the leeway to identify when deviating from the rules is prudent.
I'm sorry if this gets me a mod warning, but nothing derails a thread worse than getting in a debate with Scandic...
This.
And that.