Repairing Game state (Specific Example)

[Apollyon]

That's about the extent of how judges handle it. Perfect information really makes things a lot easier to arbitrate, I'll admit that.

Doesn't the judge have the duty to conduct a thorough and full investigation?  To me, that includes asking the spectators.

Now, what weight do you give the answers you get?  That is something that is up the judgement of the judge.  You may come to the conclusion that the spectators are all over the place with their stories and you can't rely on the info.

You could realize that 3/5 of the spectators are teammates of one of the players...and could be giving biased information.

One of the spectators could be a good friend of yours that you know you can rely on. Does that mean the judge just blindly goes w/ what his friend says? No. But maybe it carries a bit more weight than the statement of a players teammate.  Maybe not.

No matter what, the judge needs to weigh all the information he gets to the extent he feels appropriate and then make his decision.  The floor rules do state that spectators can be interviewed. But the rules do not state what kind of credence should be given to those answers.

If you have all of the evidence you need, why ask the spectators?

[Khahan]

That's about the extent of how judges handle it. Perfect information really makes things a lot easier to arbitrate, I'll admit that.

Doesn't the judge have the duty to conduct a thorough and full investigation?  To me, that includes asking the spectators.

Now, what weight do you give the answers you get?  That is something that is up the judgement of the judge.  You may come to the conclusion that the spectators are all over the place with their stories and you can't rely on the info.

You could realize that 3/5 of the spectators are teammates of one of the players...and could be giving biased information.

One of the spectators could be a good friend of yours that you know you can rely on. Does that mean the judge just blindly goes w/ what his friend says? No. But maybe it carries a bit more weight than the statement of a players teammate.  Maybe not.

No matter what, the judge needs to weigh all the information he gets to the extent he feels appropriate and then make his decision.  The floor rules do state that spectators can be interviewed. But the rules do not state what kind of credence should be given to those answers.

If you have all of the evidence you need, why ask the spectators?

If you have all the evidence, then you have completed your investigation.  Doesn't matter what method you used. Asking the spectators is just one viable option that judges have at their disposal. I was answering the general question that was raised about, 'should judges ask spectators.'

[Apollyon]

Ahh. I'm sorry, I got the impression that you were saying "Always ask the spectators in any investigation" and posted accordingly. I could very easily envision a situation where you don't need to ask the spectators. Something like:

Player A: "Judge, I just played a Wrath of God for 3W!"
Judge: "Player B, did he?"
Player B: "Yeah"

After ensuring that no cheats were going on, that investigation is done.

[Toad]

You could realize that 3/5 of the spectators are teammates of one of the players...and could be giving biased information.

Players usually know that lying to a tournament official is not a smart thing to do. There is nothing wrong with asking spectators about what happened as long as you do not use what they say mindlessly.

[Anusien]

You could realize that 3/5 of the spectators are teammates of one of the players...and could be giving biased information.

Players usually know that lying to a tournament official is not a smart thing to do

Unless there's a foil Disenchant at stake!

[pink]

I was also at this event.  I have been seeing and hearing the story of what exactly happened told several different ways,  and each time there have been a couple of things that have been left out.  I also think that the question that this thread's original poster was trying to get answered, was sidetracked by people posting about the legality of asking spectators for information.

Here is what happened at the event:
Player A plays a goblin welder on his turn.
Player B starts his turn by playing a vampiric tutor during his upkeep
Player A plays shadow of doubt
Player B plays pyroblast targeting shadow of doubt
Player A plays misdirection targeting pyroblast
Player B plays mana drain targeting the misdirection
Player A plays force of will targeting mana drain
Player B plays force of will targeting the first force of will
Player A activates goblin welder,  exchanging mox sapphire, for mox ruby from graveyard
Player A plays red elemental blast targeting the second force of will
 The stack resolves,  Player A draws from shadow of doubt,  Player B shuffles his library
Player B enters his draw step and draws a card for the turn
Player B plays Yawgmoth's Will
-- At this point Player B realizes that the goblin welder still had summoning sickness,  and that without it the red elemental blast that won the counter war could not have been cast.  The players call the judge to the table and explain what happened.

The judge listened to the players story as to what happened.  The judge did not say that anyone was right,  the judge said that both players were responsible for keeping the correct game state,  and since both players passed priority with a broken game state that it was both players error.

This next piece of information is the part that has been left out everytime that i have seen or heard this story since it happened. 
At the beginning of the event,  before anyone started playing the first round,  the judge asked for everyone's attention,  and announced that if there was an issue with a broken game state by both players,  that the game would go on "as is",  and the players would be issued a warning.  If a player received a second warning for broken game state in the event,  it would be a match loss for that player.

The judge then after listening to the players ruled that it would be game on as is,  and warnings to both players for having broken the game state.  Just as it was announced at the start of the event.

Some of the people there said that that was the correct ruling and others disagreed.  A similar ruling was made in a protour event regarding a firemane angel that was mortified,  and did not get placed in the graveyard.  both players agreed that the mortify resloved,  and that the angel belonged in the graveyard,  and the judge said that the game state was broken and that the game was played on as is.

I personally have asked one of the head judges at pastimes about broken game state and he told me that the broken game state rules were changed around the release of dissension.  The dci said that if both players pass priority with a broken game state,  that both players made an error in the game.  The dci had problems with fixing game states because it would be a different result from one event to the next.  the same exact game could be played incorrectly at 2 different events,  and 2 different judges could "fix" the gamestate differently at each event.  They wanted a consistent ruling for all situations,  so it became "no change to game state". 

It is BOTH players responsibility to make sure that the game state is correct.

The judge at this particular event did not ask spectators what card was drawn,  and what was in Player B's hand,  because it would not have affected the ruling that he made on the situation.  It especially would not have mattered since the exact way that the situation was going to be handled if it came up was announced publicly to everyone playing in the event before they started playing round 1.

The 2 questions that people involved in the event want answered are:
1> Is this the correct way to handle a broken game state by both players?
2> Even if it was not,  should the judge still rule that way,  since it was announced at the beginning of the event that exactly how the situation would be handled?

[Komatteru]

2 Life must also be lost from Vampiric Tutor.  Just because you don't search doesn't mean you don't lose the life.

[Anusien]

This next piece of information is the part that has been left out everytime that i have seen or heard this story since it happened. 
At the beginning of the event,  before anyone started playing the first round,  the judge asked for everyone's attention,  and announced that if there was an issue with a broken game state by both players,  that the game would go on "as is",  and the players would be issued a warning.  If a player received a second warning for broken game state in the event,  it would be a match loss for that player.

The judge then after listening to the players ruled that it would be game on as is,  and warnings to both players for having broken the game state.  Just as it was announced at the start of the event.

Some of the people there said that that was the correct ruling and others disagreed.  A similar ruling was made in a protour event regarding a firemane angel that was mortified,  and did not get placed in the graveyard.  both players agreed that the mortify resloved,  and that the angel belonged in the graveyard,  and the judge said that the game state was broken and that the game was played on as is.

I personally have asked one of the head judges at pastimes about broken game state and he told me that the broken game state rules were changed around the release of dissension.  The dci said that if both players pass priority with a broken game state,  that both players made an error in the game.  The dci had problems with fixing game states because it would be a different result from one event to the next.  the same exact game could be played incorrectly at 2 different events,  and 2 different judges could "fix" the gamestate differently at each event.  They wanted a consistent ruling for all situations,  so it became "no change to game state". 

It was my understanding that this was a draft policy and not Official, but it's certainly not wrong, and many judges believe that by the time these things are noticed, too much has happened in terms of information and decision points to back up.

[Khahan]

Pink,
That was a great post and did clarify much. Especially the part about the broken game state.  But that also raises another question:  Can you define a 'broken' game state.

To me, a broken game state is a game state that is beyond repair. Either its too convoluted (which this, despite being long, is actually not convoluted...its just a series of items on the stack) or the game state has changed due to other actions too much since the error was made.

In this case, I don't see where we have a 'broken' game state if the drawn card can be identified.   It would seem from an outsiders perspective, to be relatively simple to find out if you can even get this information.

If its only ever applied to broken game states....great. Then its doing its job (the dci ruling that is). But the first time a judge applies this to a fixable game state we have a problem.

Now, I wasn't there. If the judge says it was a broken game state, we have to take his word. But playing armchair quarterback, its easy enough to see where a few simple questions or even a quick 1-2 min investigation could have clarified if the game state was indeed broken or not.  If it was, then the judge clearly made the correct ruling.

[President Skroob]

I have zero experience in judging calls in tournaments or even being judged, as all the tournaments I have participated in have been random Ohio tournaments, but this decision to continue "as-is" with broken gamestates strikes me as quite odd.

Certainly both players should be watching out for game mechanics to continue in a legal fashion, but is there not a higher burden for the player to be watching more closely to the permanents that he or she controls? With this ruling, there is really little drawback for player A at all. If the player were acting maliciously (perish the thought!), the result would either be that player B catches it and play would continue normally, which didn't happen, or it wouldn't be caught and player A suddenly is in a much better position than before, a position which will be enforced by the game's judges because the game can't be recalled back to before the Welder was used.

If the game state is determined to be broken, can we really say that player A isn't more responsible for ensuring his own cards are being played legally? I personally would see something more akin to a game loss out of this if the state is deemed to be broken.

In a completely different example, from my own experience at the last tournament I went to, I was playing Ichorid against Pitch Long. I had a Chalice of the Void for 0 out, which was preventing him from playing out the Moxen he needed to win the game. When he used a tutor to grab a card, I knew that it would be Chain of Vapor, and I made an illegal move of playing a second Chalice of the Void for 0, so that if one of them were bounced the other would still prevent Moxen. I wasn't thinking at the time, and it was much to my surprised when it was pointed out in response to my tournament report. It was a completely illegal and completely stupid play. He did not catch it, and we ended up with two Chalices for 0 on the board. If this had been caught later in the match, would an official judge, following this ruling, deem that this gamestate should proceed as-is, even though those two Chalices could not possibly coexist?

I believe, in my example, that if it had been caught I should have been given a game loss. The Chalice bonk was my fault, and it was on the wings of that error that I won the game.

To hold both players responsible opens up a win-win situation for malicious players who want to be a Cheatyface. If it is caught on the spot, it is taken back with no issue. If it is not caught, their cheat cannot be repaired and it continues as-is with a warning. If it's the difference between winning or losing something big, might not some people (once again, perish the thought!) think about accepting the warning?

[Klep]

This is a real classic example of where the new policy is to be used.  You have a legal game state that was arrived at illegally.  Repairing is not something you want to be eager to do even with perfect information (like the infamous videotaped match at Nagoya), because backing up leaves players with more information than they would otherwise have had.  Thus, if the game state is legal, apply state-based effects, give a warning to the guy with the welder for Procedural Error Major, a caution to his opponent for Procedural Error Minor (assuming REL3), and move on.

As a side note: if you are a spectator and lie to a judge in order to help a friend if the judge asks you questions in something like this, you can be DQed for lying to the judge. You don't have to be playing in the match for your actions to merit a DQ.

As a side side note, it is not unheard of for a spectator to be entered into an event for the express purpose of DQ-ing him, so not being in the event won't necessarily get you out of harm's way.

[Nazdakka]

To hold both players responsible opens up a win-win situation for malicious players who want to be a Cheatyface. If it is caught on the spot, it is taken back with no issue. If it is not caught, their cheat cannot be repaired and it continues as-is with a warning. If it's the difference between winning or losing something big, might not some people (once again, perish the thought!) think about accepting the warning?

This is exactly what worries me about the new policy. It seems way to easy for a cheater to 'forget' something which they don't want to happen and then if they are caught, say "oh whoops, what an awful accident" and get away with just a warning.

[Anusien]

To hold both players responsible opens up a win-win situation for malicious players who want to be a Cheatyface. If it is caught on the spot, it is taken back with no issue. If it is not caught, their cheat cannot be repaired and it continues as-is with a warning. If it's the difference between winning or losing something big, might not some people (once again, perish the thought!) think about accepting the warning?

This is exactly what worries me about the new policy. It seems way to easy for a cheater to 'forget' something which they don't want to happen and then if they are caught, say "oh whoops, what an awful accident" and get away with just a warning.

Well, Warnings are recorded and tracked in a database, so if the player makes a habit of this, there will be an investigation by the DCI.  But two things stop this: #1) The judge investigates, and all of this hinges on the judge believing there was no malice/intent, and a simple mistake was made.  If the player cheats and "forgets" on purpose, and the judge realizes it, that's a DQ without prize and investigation by the DCI.  #2: If the other player catches them, the proper game state asserts itself.