I had a board-state dispute at a draft a few weeks ago that turned into a really negative experience for everyone involved, and in the interest of never having a similar experience again I was hoping I could ask for a few judge opinions on what the correct resolution would have been and what else we could have done to prevent the issue from happening in the first place. Hopefully this is the right place for that since it doesn't involve any particular card rulings. Thanks in advance for any responses.
Here's the relevant elements of the scenario:
We're playing the final match of a Chaos draft (don't worry, that doesn't matter for the mechanics of the dispute), which means there are cards on the table I have never seen played before and packs on the line, but not at a tournament level event.
My opponent attacks me with a creature he has three enchantments on, this if the first time it has interacted with the board besides entering the battlefield and becoming enchanted.
The creature is from a set I have never played before, and on glance appears vanilla, however the enchantments have a LOT of text between them all.
I do my best to look at them all and tally up the effects and conclude the enchantments make it a 6/5 Totem Armor Vigilance First Strike creature
Because there are a lot of variables and cards I haven't seen played before, I ask my opponent for confirmation that it is a 6/5 Totem Armor Vigilance First Strike creature.
Opponent verbally agrees to me that's what it is.
I declare no blocks
We verbally agree how much life I've lost from all attacking creatures and my new life total, and each write it down.
Opponent says nothing else.
My turn comes and I see the board state he extended himself into is enough for me to Alpha strike when combined with the spells in my hand and go for attacks for it
When I go for the "Good game" opponent tells me he is still alive, I ask how
He tells me the creature with three enchantments has Lifelink and he gained 6 life last turn.
I look at the card again and Lifelink is indeed the only ability actually printed on the creature card itself, it had looked like flavortext because it had the full reminder text attached. He had written down the lifegain silently.
We can't realistically roll back boardstate because I've used several hidden cards and declared attacks to achieve the alpha strike which will no longer kill my opponent
Opponent is visibly angry at me because it's "Written on the **** card", yet he neither told me it had lifelink when I re-affirmed the state of the creature NOR declared the trigger when he gained the life at the end of combat
My opponent for all intents and purposes now entirely checks out of cooperating with me on resolving the dispute with the LGS employee and labels me as at fault (he had just finished a match with another local player who is disabled which makes playing against them very very draining)
LGS runner doesn't know what a good resolve is so we just play it out from there for the purposes of getting it over with and going home because now no one is having any fun.
So my questions basically are:
From a tournament judge standpoint, if this dispute had happened in a Grand Prix what would the resolution have been?
Was either one of us "At fault" from a judge/rules standpoint, and did it matter to the equation at all that he either knowingly or unknowingly lied to me about the board state leading into this dispute when I asked for clarification?
I don't think this was malicious, but if it had been, would I have had any recourse? Is there something I can do if an opponent in the future were to maliciously hide game-state information from me in this way until a later turn?
The entire experience was awful and I never want it to happen again, so any suggestions or responses are greatly appreciated.
First, lifelink isn't a triggered ability, so missed trigger rules don't apply.
Creatures' P/T and abilities are derived information (MTR4.1), and, "players may not represent derived or free information incorrectly", which means while don't have to answer questions, you can't give incorrect answers. Also, life total is a status information, which is "information that must be announced upon change".
If your opponent knew it is illegal and was consciously doing it to gain an advantage, it's Unsporting Conduct — Cheating(IPG4.8) and your opponent is DQed. Otherwise, it is Communication Policy Violation (IPG3.7) and they get a warning.
While CPV allows a backup, it would be bad, as you stated, so you will probably continue the game from this point. For life totals, IPG says nothing explicitly, but the only option is to use the "correct" life total.
Oh, and saying "****" might be considered Unsporting Conduct — Minor(IPG4.1), depending on the situation.
That does make me feel better to know that simply not saying anything when he gained life was supposed to be a no-no. I think that's the part that really got to me, that he also overlooked lifelink when I asked for confirmation on what the creature all was and then definitely remembered or realized in time to write down that gain but didn't communicate it to me.
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I had a board-state dispute at a draft a few weeks ago that turned into a really negative experience for everyone involved, and in the interest of never having a similar experience again I was hoping I could ask for a few judge opinions on what the correct resolution would have been and what else we could have done to prevent the issue from happening in the first place. Hopefully this is the right place for that since it doesn't involve any particular card rulings. Thanks in advance for any responses.
Here's the relevant elements of the scenario:
So my questions basically are:
From a tournament judge standpoint, if this dispute had happened in a Grand Prix what would the resolution have been?
Was either one of us "At fault" from a judge/rules standpoint, and did it matter to the equation at all that he either knowingly or unknowingly lied to me about the board state leading into this dispute when I asked for clarification?
I don't think this was malicious, but if it had been, would I have had any recourse? Is there something I can do if an opponent in the future were to maliciously hide game-state information from me in this way until a later turn?
The entire experience was awful and I never want it to happen again, so any suggestions or responses are greatly appreciated.
Creatures' P/T and abilities are derived information (MTR4.1), and, "players may not represent derived or free information incorrectly", which means while don't have to answer questions, you can't give incorrect answers. Also, life total is a status information, which is "information that must be announced upon change".
If your opponent knew it is illegal and was consciously doing it to gain an advantage, it's Unsporting Conduct — Cheating(IPG4.8) and your opponent is DQed. Otherwise, it is Communication Policy Violation (IPG3.7) and they get a warning.
While CPV allows a backup, it would be bad, as you stated, so you will probably continue the game from this point. For life totals, IPG says nothing explicitly, but the only option is to use the "correct" life total.
Oh, and saying "****" might be considered Unsporting Conduct — Minor(IPG4.1), depending on the situation.
That does make me feel better to know that simply not saying anything when he gained life was supposed to be a no-no. I think that's the part that really got to me, that he also overlooked lifelink when I asked for confirmation on what the creature all was and then definitely remembered or realized in time to write down that gain but didn't communicate it to me.