Hidden information and the cheating line
Jax
(specifically of Gindy), I have a judging question I'd like to answer,
and I'll set the stage with the play:
Player 1 controls a Terra Stomper (1) equipped with Adventuring Gear
(2) and at least 2 untapped lands. Player 2 is at 10 life, has a
random 3/3 untapped (Let's say Zendikar Farguide (3) for sake of
argument), and is otherwise tapped out.
Player 1 plays a Forest, making the Stomper a 10/10, and attacks for
lethal. Player 2 blocks with the 3/3. Player 1 then casts Harrow (4)
(which, if resolved and played correctly, would make the Stomper a
14/14 trampler and lethal again). Before searching, he asks Player 2,
"Do I have to go through the motions?" Player 2 says no and concedes.
After the match, however, Player 2 somehow finds out that, at the time
Player 1 cast Harrow, he had only one basic land remaining in his
library. Which means that if he had gone through the motions, he would
have only had a 12/12 Stomper, and Player 2 would've been at 1 life
rather than dead.
The question is, would Player 1 get some sort of infraction for asking
Player 2 to concede? If so, what would it be and why, and if not, why
not?
(1)Terra Stomper -- 3GGG
Creature -- Beast
Terra Stomper can't be countered.
Trample
8/8
(2)Adventuring Gear -- 1
Artifact -- Equipment
Landfall -- Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control,
equipped creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
Equip 1
(3)Zendikar Farguide -- 4G
Creature -- Elemental
Forestwalk
3/3
(4)Harrow -- 2G
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Harrow, sacrifice a land.
Search your library for up to two basic land cards and put them onto
the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
bloodlineS
hand with no dragons and say "Next game?"
Zoe Stephenson
Jax <IlGr...@hotmail.com> sent:
> In mining the cheating line in the wake of the Worlds DQ's
> (specifically of Gindy), I have a judging question I'd like to answer,
> and I'll set the stage with the play:
OK. For reference when people look this up in the archives, the issue
with Charles Gindy's qualification was that he let the game proceed
when an effect involving damage between a group of creatures had not
been correctly resolved, to his advantage. This falls under
"Cheating - Fraud" defined as:
"A person intentionally and knowingly violates or misrepresents
rules, procedures, personal information, or any other relevant
tournament information. Note that Fraud, like most cheating, is
determined by an investigation and will often appear on the surface
as a Game Play Error or Tournament Error."
The specific example closest to the Gindy incident is:
"E. A player observes his opponent or teammate make an illegal play
but does not call a judge because it is to his advantage."
The choice of calling a play Fraud lies with the investigating judge.
He or she needs to determine whether the player was aware of the
error in representation.
So, on to this other scenario, which I'll try to navigate round but I'm
not entirely sure there's a clear answer for:
> Player 1 controls a Terra Stomper (1) equipped with Adventuring Gear
> (2) and at least 2 untapped lands. Player 2 is at 10 life, has a
> random 3/3 untapped (Let's say Zendikar Farguide (3) for sake of
> argument), and is otherwise tapped out.
Terra Stomper {3}{G}{G}{G} Creature - Beast 8/8
/ Terra Stomer can't be countered.
/ Trample
Adventuring Gear {1} Artifact - Equipment
/ Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control,
equipped creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
/ Equip {1}
> Player 1 plays a Forest, making the Stomper a 10/10, and attacks for
> lethal. Player 2 blocks with the 3/3. Player 1 then casts Harrow (4)
> (which, if resolved and played correctly, would make the Stomper a
> 14/14 trampler and lethal again).
Harrow {2}{G} Instant
/ As an additional cost to cast Harrow, sacrifice a land.
/ Search your library for up to two basic land cards and put them onto
the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
> Before searching, he asks Player 2,
> "Do I have to go through the motions?" Player 2 says no and concedes.
> After the match, however, Player 2 somehow finds out that, at the time
> Player 1 cast Harrow, he had only one basic land remaining in his
> library. Which means that if he had gone through the motions, he would
> have only had a 12/12 Stomper, and Player 2 would've been at 1 life
> rather than dead.
> The question is, would Player 1 get some sort of infraction for asking
> Player 2 to concede? If so, what would it be and why, and if not, why
> not?
There are two situations that this could be.
If player 1 intended to get two lands, then this is an honest shortcut
and while both players were premature, their agreement to consider the
game a win for Player 1 wasn't based on anything underhand.
If player 1 did not intend to get two basic lands, or knew that there
was no way to get two basic lands, then that player has tried to bluff
his way to victory through a misrepresentation. I have to admit, this
is pretty close to the line. There are all sorts of ways to gain
advantage in Magic by bluffing. So we need to understand the guidelines
on acceptable advantage. The tournament rules say:
"The philosophy of the DCI is that a player should have an advantage
due to better understanding of the rules of a game, greater awareness
of the interactions in the current game state, and superior tactical
planning. Players are under no obligation to assist their opponents
in playing the game."
This is certainly not a case of tactical planning. I don't think it's
an advantageous interaction, as the relevant part of the game state is
not free or derived information. It could be better understanding of
the rules - player 2 might not realise that the effect is optional or
that it only fetches basic lands, and so not think of the outcome where
two lands don't get put into play. In the end, it really comes down to
whether player 1 really was trying it on, or if it was an honest error,
and it's difficult to know that without seeing the whole interaction
between the players and knowing what sort of players you usually get.
As for the penalty, if it's not intentional then it's fine, no
infraction. If it's definitely found to be intentional (somehow - I've
no idea what one might do to determine this) it's technically Cheating
- Fraud; although this seems pretty harsh, there's a zero-tolerance
policy at work here that can sometimes be more draconian than it needs
to be.
Hope that's helpful stuff.
--
-- Zoe Stephenson, NetRep rec.games.trading-cards.magic.rules
Group FAQ: http://www.daeghnao.com/magic/faq/ --
--
bloodlineS
"Zoe Stephenson" <use...@daeghnao.com> wrote in message
news:hfot8k$65o$1...@netty.york.ac.uk...
> Apologies for the protracted delays, I've been ill since my recent trip.
>
> Jax <IlGr...@hotmail.com> sent:
>> In mining the cheating line in the wake of the Worlds DQ's
>> (specifically of Gindy), I have a judging question I'd like to answer,
>> and I'll set the stage with the play:
>
> OK. For reference when people look this up in the archives, the issue
> with Charles Gindy's qualification was that he let the game proceed
> when an effect involving damage between a group of creatures had not
> been correctly resolved, to his advantage. This falls under
> "Cheating - Fraud" defined as:
>
Wrong. The damage was correctly resolved but Gindy believed it had not. Thus
he was guilty of Fraud through his intent even though he hadn't done
anything wrong in regards to the gamestate. If anything this makes the case
even more interesting.
b
Zoe Stephenson
I'm not sure I'm quite with you here. According to:
"Gindy activated his Master of the Wild Hunt, targeting one of his
opponent's creatures, in order to kill it. His Wolves were tapped, and
his opponent's creature was killed by the 5 damage from Master of the
Wild Hunt's ability, but the opponent did not assign damage back to
either Wolf."
and
"At the end of the match, Gindy asked why his opponent had not assigned
damage to kill one of Gindy's Wolf tokens when Master of the Wild
Hunt's ability resolved. This made it clear that Gindy knew that one of
his Wolf tokens should have been assigned damage, but had chosen not to
say anything at the appropriate time."
I take this to mean that the opponent was supposed to make an assignment
of damage among Gindy's Wolves, didn't do so, Gindy spotted it at the
time but let the game continue on anyway. In this case, there was both
an incorrect gamestate and an intent to take advantage of it. Unless
I'm mistaken in my understanding of the article?
bloodlineS
Yup, that's incorrect. More information has come out since if you're a
regular column reader. Gindy attacked with a 2/2 Wolf, leaving a 3/3 back.
Then tapped to kill a blocker. Gindy was unaware his opponent assign damage
to kill the 2/2 wolf.
-b
Zoe Stephenson
> "Zoe Stephenson" <use...@daeghnao.com> wrote in message
> news:hftnar$jsc$1...@netty.york.ac.uk...
> >
> > http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/worlds09/disqualifications
> >
> > "Gindy activated his Master of the Wild Hunt, targeting one of his
> > opponent's creatures, in order to kill it. His Wolves were tapped, and
> > his opponent's creature was killed by the 5 damage from Master of the
> > Wild Hunt's ability, but the opponent did not assign damage back to
> > either Wolf."
> >
> <snip>
> Yup, that's incorrect. More information has come out since if you're a
> regular column reader.
I'm not a regular column reader. However, I don't expect this to affect
the presence, or otherwise, of more information being in existence :)
> Gindy attacked with a 2/2 Wolf, leaving a 3/3 back.
> Then tapped to kill a blocker. Gindy was unaware his opponent assign damage
> to kill the 2/2 wolf.
Ah, reading around a few articles in a number of places, I think I've
pieced it all together now - but I admit that I might be out of date
still. Either way, I don't think my conclusion is much different.
At the time the Master of the Wild Hunt's ability was activated, Gindy
had only one untapped Wolf, the 3/3 that had come into play that turn
and had the extra +1/+1 counter on it. All of Gindy's other Wolf tokens
had been tapped to attack, and there was a single 2/2 creature on the
other side.
Let's refresh our memory on Master of the Wild Hunt:
/ {T}: Tap all untapped Wolf creatures you control. Each Wolf tapped
this way deals damage equal to its power to target creature. That
creature deals damage equal to its power divided as its controller
chooses among any number of those Wolves.
The correct way to resolve Master of the Wild Hunt's ability in this
scenario:
- the untapped Wolf is tapped, and deals 3 damage to the opponent's 2/2.
- the 2/2 deals 2 damage to the Wolf that was tapped.
- the opponent's creature dies, the Wolf lives.
This is presumably what the opponent thought had happened, and didn't
specify a particular Wolf to receive the damage from the 2/2 because
there was only one such Wolf.
The way Gindy is reported to have said he played the ability, as far
as I can make out from what else I've seen:
- the untapped Wold is tapped.
- each of Gindy's Wolves deals its power in damage to the 2/2.
- the 2/2 deals 2 damage divided among any of Gindy's Wolves.
- the opponent needs to make it clear how the damage is divided.
- one of Gindy's 2/2 Wolf tokens could have been killed.
By admitting that he thought the opponent had not correctly followed
all the steps of the ability, and because he had deliberately kept
quiet to take advantage of the perceived situation, he effectively had
the intent to violate the rules and this was considered grounds for
disqualification.
Where the discussion arises from is that while the intent was to cheat,
the game-state was never actually illegal in the game. From this point
of view, some people might argue that no cheating took place. It seems
that the judge at the time came down on the side of zero tolerance for
cheating, in line with the philosophy of the penalty guide.
bloodlineS
<snip>
> By admitting that he thought the opponent had not correctly followed
> all the steps of the ability, and because he had deliberately kept
> quiet to take advantage of the perceived situation, he effectively had
> the intent to violate the rules and this was considered grounds for
> disqualification.
>
> Where the discussion arises from is that while the intent was to cheat,
> the game-state was never actually illegal in the game. From this point
> of view, some people might argue that no cheating took place. It seems
> that the judge at the time came down on the side of zero tolerance for
> cheating, in line with the philosophy of the penalty guide.
>
<snip>
Which is what I said in about 3 lines earlier.
b