I played in a Sealed PTQ yesterday, and in the last round a situation came up that I was unsure about. I lost game one of the round, and when I went to sideboard for game two, I saw a copy of Disdainful Stroke, which I had registered in my maindeck, was in my sideboard. I looked through my deck and realized that there was a Plains that shouldn't have been in my deck (I had been switching from Sultai to Abzan between games, and because I was boarding so many cards in and out, I missed one). Because I had lost the game, I didn't call a judge, because I was pretty sure that if I were to call a judge it would have no effect, since it would have meant I would be given a game loss for the game that I had lost anyway. I kept playing and went on to lose the match.
After the match, I talked to a couple of judges about it, and they said that I was right that the game loss would have applied to the first game, but that I should have called a judge anyway. Do you have to call a judge in this situation, or is it okay to continue playing?
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Top 8 PTQ San Diego 2009
9th place Maryland 2009's
First of all, you are expected to call a judge if you notice an error in a game in which you or a teammate is playing - if you could plausibly gain advantage and lie or otherwise fail to bring it up, you are in a Bad Place and may be making a trip to Dairy Queen (read: DQ - disqualification). So, if you notice a failure to desideboard in the middle of a game, you are responsible for calling a judge.
However, once you have finished the game and then notice an error, we're in the spot where there's an error being committed and no way to verify that an error has been made - it's entirely possible that you've started sideboarding, or otherwise moved cards around. Further, deck/decklist errors only exist during a game - that is, after you have presented your deck and before the game ends - that's why judges have to wait for you to present your deck before swooping in for a deck check at a Comp+ REL tournament - until you have presented to your opponent for shuffling, your deck isn't locked into place, so to speak, so you're still free to change the deck around and/or notice any failures to desideboard.
So, were I the head judge in this situation, I wouldn't give you a game loss penalty, though I would ask some questions to find out when you noticed the error - if I come to the conclusion that you knew about it earlier, didn't point it out, and were aware that this was a rules violation, it's off to Dairy Queen with you. What I would do, assuming I was convinced that you had made a mistake and that it wasn't intentional, would be to instruct the match to continue playing, thank you for your honesty, and issue no penalty (since I can't rely on your testimony alone as the grounds for issuing a penalty, there's no violation going on currently that affects the game, and I don't want to provide a disincentive for players to point out their mistakes), albeit there would be a stern verbal reprimand and instruction to be more careful.
You've probably also earned yourself a targeted deck check for the following round to make sure there are no inconsistencies, but I wouldn't tell you that at the time. If I find a decklist error, you're going to have to be very convincing to avoid Bad Things.
And no, for the record, self-penalizing your rules violations by conceding the game doesn't get you out of an official penalty, either. Though I think the DCI's documents are too quick to hash out Warnings for trivial rules violations (and players too quick to demonize mistakes as evidence of Cheating - but that's a topic for Magic General, so I'll stop here.)
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Went to a new shop from a friend's recommendation, DQ'ed for willful violation of CR 100.6b.
Yes you should call a judge in that scenario. Typcially penalties are not given retroactivly in a tournament. So even though you were not playing a legal deck for game 1, after the game is over we don't typically go back and penalize for infractions that happened during that game (the exceptions are unsporting conduct infractions and failing to reveal a card that requires to be revealed after the game is over). However if you don't call a judge and you know you did something wrong and you were able to gain an advantage from it, then you risk getting DQ'd for cheating.
Please pardon my ignorance, but considering this was a sealed deck event, doesn't that mean there was in fact no violation per se since the mainboard isn't technically "locked in" from one game or round to the next? Besides, how could the OP be expected to call a judge during his game one of that round if he sincerely made the mistake and only noticed that he had an extra plains and one less disdainful stroke in his deck once that game was already over and lost? If anything, having an off-color land and one less spell in his deck presumably put him at a disadvantage, so isn't it fair to say that oversight was punishment enough and perhaps even a contributing factor to him having lost that game? With that logical reasoning taken into account, wouldn't calling a judge after the fact and them issuing some sort of penalty be arbitrary, trivial, and unnecessarily time-consuming for all parties? I just fail to see any purpose in issuing a penalty retroactively for something seemingly insignificant.
Regardless, I was under the impression that in limited formats like draft and sealed deck, players could substitute any number of cards they want and change their decks' colors entirely between games and rounds so long as the decks presented to their opponents before each game are 40+ cards, and the players are only using cards from their pools. Admittedly I'm not a very competitive player and don't play sealed deck events beyond prereleases (which typically don't require card pool registrations), but I fail to understand the necessity of differentiating which cards are technically part of the 'mainboard' and which are in the 'sideboard' before each round (something I assumed was only required for constructed formats). Aren't players only required to register their entire card pools for limited events? If I'm mistaken then so be it, but can someone please at least explain why players would even be required to specify which cards are part of the 'maindeck' and which are 'sideboard' in their pool registrations simply because this was a ptq? Is it only meant to deter players from scouting out their potential next round opponents between rounds if they finish their match early and modifying their deck accordingly once pairings are up based on who they're going to play next and what they saw while spectating that player's previous round(s), or is there some other reason?
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
Please pardon my ignorance, but considering this was a sealed deck event, doesn't that mean there was in fact no violation per se since the mainboard isn't technically "locked in" from one game or round to the next?
Regardless, I was under the impression that in limited formats like draft and sealed deck, players could substitute any number of cards they want and change their decks' colors entirely between games and rounds so long as the decks presented to their opponents before each game are 40+ cards, and the players are only using cards from their pools.
This is true at REL Regular (Prereleases, FNM, etc.) but not at REL Competitive (PTQ's and GP's). At Competitive, you register a decklist which includes both your 84-card pool and your 40-card maindeck. For Game 1 of each round, you are required to play that 40-card maindeck. At REL Regular, there is generally no decklist, so you are not required to play your original 40 for Game 1.
Regardless, I was under the impression that in limited formats like draft and sealed deck, players could substitute any number of cards they want and change their decks' colors entirely between games and rounds so long as the decks presented to their opponents before each game are 40+ cards, and the players are only using cards from their pools.
This is true for Regular Rules Enforcement Level, which is in effect for things like a PTQ and FNM. However, at Competitive REL, such as at PTQ's, where you have to register a decklist, you are required to present the same deck for game 1 every round. I think the main reason is that you are supposed to do deckbuilding on your own at Competitive REL. You can ask a friend to look at your pool afterwards and maybe sideboard into a better deck in games 2 and 3, but you are held to what you build for at least the first game.
I'm not a judge, so I'm not a voice of authority here, but yes, there was a rules violation because the main deck is "locked in." PTQs are played at a competitive level of rules enforcement, as opposed to prereleases which tend to be instructive rather than competitive, and the rules are enforced differently as a result. In a sealed PTQ, you need to register your entire card pool, but registration includes specifying which cards make up your main deck and which cards make up your sideboard, which means that your main deck is "locked in" for game 1 of every round. This is done presumably for the same reasons that it's done in constructed events: to eliminate the possibility that you can alter your main deck to gain a competitive advantage game 1 against a known opponent. The lazy explanation for why the rules are different from a PTQ vs. a prerelease is "because that's what the rules are" but the real reason probably has to do with the fact that at a PTQ there is much more on the line than store credit or a few booster packs.
I'm not sure why you're asking about penalties being issued since both judges responded that they wouldn't have issued a penalty in this situation. However, in general, when you attend a competitive rules enforcement event like a PTQ, Grand Prix, or SCG Open, you are essentially being held to the standards of professional Magic players. That means that a "mistake" at a prerelease might be a "rules violation" at a PTQ. Additionally, because you are playing at a competitive event and therefore being treated roughly as a professional, you are expected to adhere to a professional code of conduct which says that if you discover you did something wrong, you call a judge on yourself (I believe this is part of the rules, but do not remember 100%). Sometimes this results in actual penalties, sometimes it's just a warning. Whether or not you personally benefited from the mistake, and whether or not the game would have had the same result anyway, is for the judge to consider, but should not factor into whether or not you call a judge in the first place.
And you're not wasting a judge's time by calling them over for something that you think they won't do anything about anyway. That is why they are there. It's actually a waste of their time NOT to ask them rules questions like these.
EDIT: realized the person I was responding to was not OP.
Additionally, because you are playing at a competitive event and therefore being treated roughly as a professional,
I think this is also part of the reason a prerelease might not require "de-sideboarding" between matches. Another factor may be that players at a PTQ are presumed to already be familiar with all the legal cards, as opposed to a prerelease where some of the cards might have been seen for the first time that day.
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Why bother with mere rulings when so many answers can be found in the Rules?
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After the match, I talked to a couple of judges about it, and they said that I was right that the game loss would have applied to the first game, but that I should have called a judge anyway. Do you have to call a judge in this situation, or is it okay to continue playing?
9th place Maryland 2009's
However, once you have finished the game and then notice an error, we're in the spot where there's an error being committed and no way to verify that an error has been made - it's entirely possible that you've started sideboarding, or otherwise moved cards around. Further, deck/decklist errors only exist during a game - that is, after you have presented your deck and before the game ends - that's why judges have to wait for you to present your deck before swooping in for a deck check at a Comp+ REL tournament - until you have presented to your opponent for shuffling, your deck isn't locked into place, so to speak, so you're still free to change the deck around and/or notice any failures to desideboard.
So, were I the head judge in this situation, I wouldn't give you a game loss penalty, though I would ask some questions to find out when you noticed the error - if I come to the conclusion that you knew about it earlier, didn't point it out, and were aware that this was a rules violation, it's off to Dairy Queen with you. What I would do, assuming I was convinced that you had made a mistake and that it wasn't intentional, would be to instruct the match to continue playing, thank you for your honesty, and issue no penalty (since I can't rely on your testimony alone as the grounds for issuing a penalty, there's no violation going on currently that affects the game, and I don't want to provide a disincentive for players to point out their mistakes), albeit there would be a stern verbal reprimand and instruction to be more careful.
You've probably also earned yourself a targeted deck check for the following round to make sure there are no inconsistencies, but I wouldn't tell you that at the time. If I find a decklist error, you're going to have to be very convincing to avoid Bad Things.
And no, for the record, self-penalizing your rules violations by conceding the game doesn't get you out of an official penalty, either. Though I think the DCI's documents are too quick to hash out Warnings for trivial rules violations (and players too quick to demonize mistakes as evidence of Cheating - but that's a topic for Magic General, so I'll stop here.)
Went to a new shop from a friend's recommendation, DQ'ed for willful violation of CR 100.6b.
Have played duals? I have PucaPoints for them!
(Credit to DarkNightCavalier)
$tandard: Too poor.
Modern:
- GW Birthing Pod(?)
Legacy:
- UWR Delver
Regardless, I was under the impression that in limited formats like draft and sealed deck, players could substitute any number of cards they want and change their decks' colors entirely between games and rounds so long as the decks presented to their opponents before each game are 40+ cards, and the players are only using cards from their pools. Admittedly I'm not a very competitive player and don't play sealed deck events beyond prereleases (which typically don't require card pool registrations), but I fail to understand the necessity of differentiating which cards are technically part of the 'mainboard' and which are in the 'sideboard' before each round (something I assumed was only required for constructed formats). Aren't players only required to register their entire card pools for limited events? If I'm mistaken then so be it, but can someone please at least explain why players would even be required to specify which cards are part of the 'maindeck' and which are 'sideboard' in their pool registrations simply because this was a ptq? Is it only meant to deter players from scouting out their potential next round opponents between rounds if they finish their match early and modifying their deck accordingly once pairings are up based on who they're going to play next and what they saw while spectating that player's previous round(s), or is there some other reason?
This is true at REL Regular (Prereleases, FNM, etc.) but not at REL Competitive (PTQ's and GP's). At Competitive, you register a decklist which includes both your 84-card pool and your 40-card maindeck. For Game 1 of each round, you are required to play that 40-card maindeck. At REL Regular, there is generally no decklist, so you are not required to play your original 40 for Game 1.
This is true for Regular Rules Enforcement Level, which is in effect for things like a PTQ and FNM. However, at Competitive REL, such as at PTQ's, where you have to register a decklist, you are required to present the same deck for game 1 every round. I think the main reason is that you are supposed to do deckbuilding on your own at Competitive REL. You can ask a friend to look at your pool afterwards and maybe sideboard into a better deck in games 2 and 3, but you are held to what you build for at least the first game.
I'm not sure why you're asking about penalties being issued since both judges responded that they wouldn't have issued a penalty in this situation. However, in general, when you attend a competitive rules enforcement event like a PTQ, Grand Prix, or SCG Open, you are essentially being held to the standards of professional Magic players. That means that a "mistake" at a prerelease might be a "rules violation" at a PTQ. Additionally, because you are playing at a competitive event and therefore being treated roughly as a professional, you are expected to adhere to a professional code of conduct which says that if you discover you did something wrong, you call a judge on yourself (I believe this is part of the rules, but do not remember 100%). Sometimes this results in actual penalties, sometimes it's just a warning. Whether or not you personally benefited from the mistake, and whether or not the game would have had the same result anyway, is for the judge to consider, but should not factor into whether or not you call a judge in the first place.
And you're not wasting a judge's time by calling them over for something that you think they won't do anything about anyway. That is why they are there. It's actually a waste of their time NOT to ask them rules questions like these.
EDIT: realized the person I was responding to was not OP.