I judged my second REL at a local prerelease. Since we're a small store we only had about 25 people show up and we did it in-store instead of at another location, so I was feeling confident. I answered questions, nobody got upset and everything was going well until round 4. I get called over to a 4-0 table and the players are a store regular and a guy who, to my knowledge, has never been in the store before. I was called by the regular. He says that the new guy is using Snow-Covered Islands and Snow-Covered Mountains, which he is, and the new guy tries to explain to me that they're legal. I say that they aren't and I explain to him that we have land at the front of the store and I would be happy to offer him and his opponent a game extension while he sleeved up his new land and shuffled it in. He says "Well, can't it just be considered a proxy?" and I explain that proxies aren't allowed in sanctioned events, even prereleases. Eventually I get him to agree and he re-sleeves his deck. I figure that's that and go to answer another call.
Next: The 5-0 round. New guy made it this far, props to him, and I was watching out of the corner of my eye because there were no other calls. I see him play Awakened Amalgam, land for turn: Snow-Covered Mountain. I go up to the table and stop the game. This guy told me he was running 16 lands and swapped them all out for land station basics. I ask him why he's still playing a Snow-Covered land and he says "Oh, I thought just one would be okay". I was quite explicit before about it being considered a card from outside the game and that it was illegal. I notice the dice he uses to represent his Awakened Amalgam's power: it has 4 pips. His land base consists of one Highland Lake, three Mountains and two Islands as well as one Snow-Covered Mountain. At this point, I believe him to be cheating and look through his deck and sideboard to see what he has. Three Awakened Amalgams, which I suppose is the reason why he decided to cheat, and 4 Ixalan rares, none foil. Obviously, this is more than enough for a DQ and that's exactly what I did. He ranted and screamed and told us he's never coming back and that we're all terrible people, you get the idea.
Did I do the right thing? Should I have handled this differently? I know I'm supposed to explain why things are wrong, but I feel like I didn't get a chance to do so. I feel like there was a way I could have handled this better, like looking through his deck when he went to the land station instead of going to another call. I'm feeling pretty bad about this one, like I failed at my first "big" REL.
I mean, you were technically correct in your judgement, but it was a Pre-Release. Wouldn't it have been better in Round 5 to correct him again and leave the Amalgam as a 3/3?
Don't feel bad about it. It was a Pre-Release. There's nothing in it. It's an extremely small event. You didn't "cost" anybody anything.
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Standard:
:symr::symr::symb:RB Aggro Modern:
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg:5-Color Humans Legacy:
:symw::symb::symg::symr:Punishing Maverick Commander:
:symw::symb:Kambal, Consul of Allocation
:symg:Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
So, he had 7 rares, none foil (so none were the Pre-Release promo) out of 6 packs? 3 were Awakened Amalgam (which is suspect, but not totally impossible) and insisted on running illegal lands (even after being told they were illegal) and then the only card that happened to care about these lands was the one he had 3 copies of?
There are a lot of things going on here that, on their own, would not warrant more than a passing glance and maybe a quick discussion. The sum of these though seems to suggest pretty blatant cheating as there should be no way for them to end up with an extra rare, 3 of a specific copy, and then happening to bring certain basics that make those 3 cards better? I know it is a Pre-Release, but I think you ended up making the right call in the end.
EDIT: I also just realized this was a Necro so my response is probably not helpful to the OP at this point in time.
To put it simple, he was cheating. The fact that you already instructed the player to replace their Snow-Covered lands should have been enough, but the fact that the player clearly know Awakened Amalgam worked with their Snow-Covered lands and that they somehow had seven rares in their deck and sideboard, four of a card that specifically benefited from their behaviour would have confirmed my suspicions.
Although cheating is not specifically mentioned in the Judging at the Regular Rules Enforcement Level document and players do make mistakes I do find it unacceptable if a player clearly displays a pattern of cheating. You are there to make sure all the players feel that every other player is playing a fair game.
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I am a man of simple tastes. I like to cast green tutors and turn my men, women and non applicable sideways.
Remember, I don't know *****. ...Oh chungus I forgot that the PG-13 rules are enforced.
To put it simple, he was cheating. The fact that you already instructed the player to replace their Snow-Covered lands should have been enough, but the fact that the player clearly know Awakened Amalgam worked with their Snow-Covered lands and that they somehow had seven rares in their deck and sideboard, four of a card that specifically benefited from their behaviour would have confirmed my suspicions.
Although cheating is not specifically mentioned in the Judging at the Regular Rules Enforcement Level document and players do make mistakes I do find it unacceptable if a player clearly displays a pattern of cheating. You are there to make sure all the players feel that every other player is playing a fair game.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I am a man of simple tastes. I like to cast green tutors and turn my men, women and non applicable sideways.
Remember, I don't know *****. ...Oh chungus I forgot that the PG-13 rules are enforced.
Next: The 5-0 round. New guy made it this far, props to him, and I was watching out of the corner of my eye because there were no other calls. I see him play Awakened Amalgam, land for turn: Snow-Covered Mountain. I go up to the table and stop the game. This guy told me he was running 16 lands and swapped them all out for land station basics. I ask him why he's still playing a Snow-Covered land and he says "Oh, I thought just one would be okay". I was quite explicit before about it being considered a card from outside the game and that it was illegal. I notice the dice he uses to represent his Awakened Amalgam's power: it has 4 pips. His land base consists of one Highland Lake, three Mountains and two Islands as well as one Snow-Covered Mountain. At this point, I believe him to be cheating and look through his deck and sideboard to see what he has. Three Awakened Amalgams, which I suppose is the reason why he decided to cheat, and 4 Ixalan rares, none foil. Obviously, this is more than enough for a DQ and that's exactly what I did. He ranted and screamed and told us he's never coming back and that we're all terrible people, you get the idea.
Did I do the right thing? Should I have handled this differently? I know I'm supposed to explain why things are wrong, but I feel like I didn't get a chance to do so. I feel like there was a way I could have handled this better, like looking through his deck when he went to the land station instead of going to another call. I'm feeling pretty bad about this one, like I failed at my first "big" REL.
Don't feel bad about it. It was a Pre-Release. There's nothing in it. It's an extremely small event. You didn't "cost" anybody anything.
:symr::symr::symb:RB Aggro
Modern:
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg:5-Color Humans
Legacy:
:symw::symb::symg::symr:Punishing Maverick
Commander:
:symw::symb:Kambal, Consul of Allocation
:symg:Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
There are a lot of things going on here that, on their own, would not warrant more than a passing glance and maybe a quick discussion. The sum of these though seems to suggest pretty blatant cheating as there should be no way for them to end up with an extra rare, 3 of a specific copy, and then happening to bring certain basics that make those 3 cards better? I know it is a Pre-Release, but I think you ended up making the right call in the end.
EDIT: I also just realized this was a Necro so my response is probably not helpful to the OP at this point in time.
Although cheating is not specifically mentioned in the Judging at the Regular Rules Enforcement Level document and players do make mistakes I do find it unacceptable if a player clearly displays a pattern of cheating. You are there to make sure all the players feel that every other player is playing a fair game.
Remember, I don't know *****. ...Oh chungus I forgot that the PG-13 rules are enforced.
Although cheating is not specifically mentioned in the Judging at the Regular Rules Enforcement Level document and players do make mistakes I do find it unacceptable if a player clearly displays a pattern of cheating. You are there to make sure all the players feel that every other player is playing a fair game.
Remember, I don't know *****. ...Oh chungus I forgot that the PG-13 rules are enforced.
Remember, I don't know *****. ...Oh chungus I forgot that the PG-13 rules are enforced.