(cross-posted from The Source)I'm a judge, for those of you unfamiliar. I regularly work at Pro Tours, Nationals, Grand Prix, etc in addition to local tournaments.
The judge handled the situation excellently.
I activate both Factories and swing for the final 6, he thinks before cycling Decree of Justice, DRAWING HIS CARD, then tapping mana and saying he was going to make soldiers.
WHAT? So you want to see an extra cards and then just make soldiers until you think you have it figured out? No way, JUDGE!
...
Then he claims that since this was downgraded to REL 2, it was his obligation to determine the intent of the play. He asks the guy if remembers what card he drew, he says "No ... wait, I THINK it was this one". Judge says "I'm not allowed to reveal what he drew, but I believe it was his intent to make the soldier tokens". He doesn't even make him put the damn card back before creating 12 tokens, Quadruple blocking each Factory and putting 2 guys in front of the soldiers. What a lame ass call.
... For example, during the tournament an opponent of mine brainstormed during my main phase, and forgot to put 2 cards back. I cast a spell, then went to end of turn step and noticed that he had too many cards in hand. My understanding is that this is potentially game loss worthy, especially if I had waited til his draw step. But I'm sorry, a Mox Jet isn't worth my being a bastard. I'd like to give my opponent the benefit of the doubt, point his mistake, and continue on with the match, especially since in this particular instance, his mistake had not caused him to have any unfair advantage.
Neither of these attitudes is good.
You call a judge when something goes wrong because the judge is the only person that can decide the best solution to the situation and issue appropriate penalties if necessary.
You do not get to decide how much advantage something has given someone, and you do not get to decide penalties for your opponents.
I never said that my opponent attained an unfair advantage, as I do not know what he drew, I DO however know what deck he was playing and how many relevant cards could be drawn off "misunderstanding" the way cycling works. The fact he could not, with confidence, tell the judge what card he drew (I stopped him immediately) is pretty shady IMO.
I do not have a problem with the judging determining his intent, but he should at least be made to put the card back so as to gain a proper understanding of how his abilities resolve. He was not even CLOSE, and didn't even bother to announce an "x" when cycling. If a call is going to go against me, at least make the other player resolve everything in order and properly, otherwise the presence of a judge is useless. That was what pissed me off more than anything. I mean, the emphasis
is on education, right? [/sarcasm] I mean, this IS the segue to a Grand Prix, at which such a call would not be so moderate.
From what I've heard, there were more than enough shady calls that day. Some were corrected (i.e. Pithing Needle naming Genesis was allowed to stop recursion), some were not (I'll not go into those since I don't remember them offhand).
For the record, he wasn't saying that he allowed his opponent to forget the extra 2 cards to call him on it later. He was basically saying that he is too nice of a guy to call a judge when Brainstorm = Ancestral Recall. Hell, if that's the case, I'm going to start playing Islands @ competitive events, card advantage vs. Derek FTW!
I ALWAYS feel like dirt when a judge informs me my opponent has a deck registration error, and therefore a game loss, or my opponent forgets to shuffle in a Goblin Lackey after getting Swordsed in game 1, or they manage 2 lands to my 17,4356, and one creature to my 20,000 relevant removal spells, but it's part of the game. If you want to talk about honesty here, I remember a Pro Tour where one of the players in the finals looked at his opening 7 in game 2 and saw an Echoing Truth, he turned towards the Table Judge and said "I get a game loss, this is supposed to be in my sideboard".
I know when I misuse a card, I don't attempt to take it back and use it to my advantage. That's not my style. That shouldn't be ANY players style. I believe it was Menendian who was at 2 life, with fatal damage on the board, who drained his opponents spell, untapped, and swung ... at which point his opponent informed him he died from mana burn off the Drain. If I remember, Steve had multiple sinks for the mana, but got caught up in the excitement, misplayed savagely, and shook his opponents hand.
I'm not the complete rules jerk I seem to come across as. If this were some regular Saturday match @ Thor's/Horizon/anywhere, I would have explained it to him and let him play it back properly, since the worst that happens there is I stall him out as I did here and go about my business, and probably still t8 and win a few packs. However, this is a much more competetive setting, with a much larger prize structure. If you want to play competitively, you should have a working knowledge of the rules. I mean that's how it works right? Learn the game, THEN turn pro. I'm not going to claim to know every rule ever, but when I expect to play a deck at a tournament of this size, you can guarantee I know how the CARDS IN MY DECK WORK (except Humility, but only GOD knows how Humility REALLY works).
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