Several Rulings from Tourney...

[Lunar]

Hey guys, so I just ran a tournament this past weekend, but I lost my judge to the pre-release and the lure of becoming level 2, heh...So I got to take over judging duties, but im not actually a judge, heh...sooo...some questions just to see how I did and what a real judge might have done.

#1. Player A discards Darksteel Collosus and neither player catches the fact that he did not shuffle it back into his Library...several turns later (4 or 5 turns) player A plays yawgmoths will, in the process of playing it out player B sees DSC and calls me over...

what should I do in this situation? I ended up ruling that both players get a warning for not keeping in touch with the game state or whatever, heh..but let the guy play it out...I was unsure if the non-shuffle created a irreparable game state, the player might have simply topdecked DSC rather than will that turn it messes with the odds due to there being 1 less card in the library than there is supposed to be...

#2. Player A plays Meddling Mage and a counter war insues...the mage ends up resolving and player A disenchants player B's Oath of Druids...player A passes the turn. 4 turns later Player B top decks into another Oath of Druids and attempts to play it realizing that player A never actually named anything with Meddling Mage, Player B says that it was assumed that Oath was the target and I get called over.

Here again I was unsure of what to do, after speaking with both players and talking to some other knowledgable players we decided that Mage MUST name something, but since nothing was named that we would assume it was targeting Grizzley Bears, I issued warnings here to both players again for failure to pay attention to the game state...Player A objected saying that he meant to say Oath, but I have to argue that he could have claimed to name yawg will if that happened to pop up next, heh...he was really upset, so player B just let him go back and name Oath...player B rushing rivered the mage and played Oath right then anyways, heh and won out like he would have so nothing really changed the outcome, but I was curious as to what should have happened...

#3...Japanese Price of Progress was a pain in my ass all day long, and while I dont actually have a question about it, I just figured that it would be nice to share that I got called over all but 1 round to the same guy because nobody knew what price of progress did and couldnt read the card because it was in japanese, heh...

everything else went very smoothly...only some basic questions on the stack during upkeep, but the trusty apnap rules that I somehow memorized came in handy there...oh and acutally having to explain "cumulative" upkeep costs due to glacial chasm being played in the event, heh...

[Jacob Orlove]

These are tough situations, because there is no "right answer".

SCG has had some good articles on this kind of stuff in the past. This one was great at the time, but the whole philosophy has changed in some interesting ways since it was written: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9149.html

[Lunar]

Thanks Jacob...

any judge out there who could chime in on what they might do in these situations, id love to hear about it.

[virtual]

I'm not a judge, but I would think that shuffling the darksteel colossus into the library would be fine, as long as there haven't been any deck manipulation things that would let either player know the top cards of a library... (Brainstorm, tutor, etc)

[Anusien]

I am not a judge.

For the DSC - the probabilities are very faint here.  I feel like leaving DSC in the library creates a worse game state than shuffling it in wrongly.  The odds are very good that the player wouldn't have drawn it.  Assuming that the contents of the library are completely random (no tutor effects), I'd shuffle DSC in the moment it's noticed and give warnings.  If the contents were known, I'd take the random part and shuffle DSC in.

You're dead-on with Meddling Mage.  I think the way you played it is fine.  If you ruled that Meddling Mage was on Grizzly Bears (essentially didn't have a target), I would have given a caution to Player B for allowing him to take it back - calling a judge and then going against their ruling is big frowns.

[Lunar]

I sent this off to Chris Richter (ask the judge SCG) and he came back saying the DSC should remain in the yard at that point because there ARE some feasable situations where it could hit the yard and stick...either way it didnt effect the overall game state enough and my ruling was correct.

The second situation was odd really...Chris did state that Mage should name nothing and game play should go from there with both players receiving a warning for failure to notice the game state or whatever, heh...I didnt even think about giving the other guy another warning for going against my ruling...but at the time I was unsure of the ruling so I just let them go for it heh...

It was a great learning experience though, and nobody seemed to be too pissed off about it..heh

except the guys getting hammered by the japaneese price of progress 

[Gabethebabe]

You like "heh" don´t you? You said it 10 times in three posts

Rule of thumb: never repair a game state, unless it just happened and it is easy to repair (in which case you probably wouldn´t have been called)

[Lunar]

the elipsus (...) and heh are clearly my trademarks...

but that is a good easy rule of thumb to remember...heh ( )