What exactly qualifies as stalling

[kirdape3]

He probably took the alloted amount of time for mulligans, but since that's (I THINK) one minute per, you can grind out a clock very rapidly that way.  The DCI floor rules are actually vague as to how much time you have to mulligan - it's not vague as to how much time you have to search your deck though during a midgame action (30sec + judges discretion).

Keep in mind though, that not only were we not there looking at the scene, but that the game was not recorded so we can't go back and go 'okay that was definitely stalling'.  If you're playing fast enough to not get slow-play warnings, you're not liable to ever get a Stalling disqualification.

[Jacob Orlove]

Stalling: Intentionally playing slowly
Slow Play: Unintentionally playing slowly

False. You can stall without playing slowly. Slow play is playing too slowly, taking more time than is appropriate for game actions, while stalling is running out the clock. You can waste time (stall) while playing at a completely acceptable speed.

You can do any number of game actions that are normally legitimiate but because your intent is to use the game clock to your advantage, you're stalling.

Keep in mind that slow play is NOT a legitimate game action.

[Nazdakka]

As I heard it, he took almost exactly 1 minute for each mulligan, carefully checking the clock to make sure he didn't go over. To a judge, that shouldn't leave too much doubt as to why he's taking the mulligans.

[LordHomerCat]

Why can't you interpret that as him NOT wanting to take too much time?  It seems like a perfectly plausible explanation, that he didn't want to take more time than allowed since he knew that he was already taking plenty of time mulliganing and didn't want to break the rules regarding shuffling time.  Assuming he is doing it to take as much time as possible is no more valid than assuming he is trying not to take more time than he is allowed (but still wants to shuffle sufficiently).

[ELD]

Just a small point.  It's impossible to remove all your win conditions, as Magic has a built in ones.  Since your opponent can theoretically run out of cards before you do, you almost always have that option for winning a game. 

I feel the biggest issue with Judges and Judging is they are typically not high caliber players.  This means their understanding of playing the game on a higher level is often skewed by opinions about how the game "should" be played.  Be it the gathering information in the form of scouting, concessions and ID to Top 8 to strategies for winning a match 1-0-1, Judges often dislike things they themselves would not do. 

I think the time limit is one of the biggest flaws in tournament Magic.  It's artificial and only there to keep things running smoothly. In a "natural state" Magic would not be played with a time limit.  The end would be a person winning a match.  Take for example basketball.  If you decide to play to 21 things are clear.  You'll have two guys trying to get to 21 before their opponent.  Then you add on top of that you only have 10 minutes to play.  Now the game becomes one guy who's ahead trying to eat up the clock as much as possible while still taking a shot.  Once you add an rule to a game, it becomes part of the game.  Players will do what they can to use it to their advantage.  I think the time rules in Magic right now are a mess.  From the whole issue of stalling to the time it takes to select Gifts cards, the time rules are insufficient. 

Side note, If I'm not mistaken, I believe they do not use a clock at the Invitationals?  I wonder if they call stalling and slowplay in un-timed rounds. 

[Godder]

ELD makes some excellent points, and the point about not being able to remove all win conditions is the best one, in my opinion.

[Anusien]

I feel the biggest issue with Judges and Judging is they are typically not high caliber players.  This means their understanding of playing the game on a higher level is often skewed by opinions about how the game "should" be played.  Be it the gathering information in the form of scouting, concessions and ID to Top 8 to strategies for winning a match 1-0-1, Judges often dislike things they themselves would not do.

That's both a huge insult to the judging community and a huge assumption.  You have to remember that people like David Kleppinger is a judge (and he's a fairly strong player from waht I've seen), and Ted Knutson was a level one judge before his judgeship expired (I don't know if he was judging in many events because he was called to do coverage; I know he's not been playing much).  I get involved in a lot of discusisons about judge philosophy, so I know first-hand that judges don't have an idealized view of the game.  They're okay with scouting, concessions and ID to T8, as long as you do such things legally.  This means that paying someone to concede a game is not okay.  Prize splits are okay, but giving someone money to concede is not.  Would you be okay if the Super Bowl ended because one team offered the other team 51% of the prize money to throw the game?
Not every strong player is okay with the tactics you cite.  Some players don't even like to ID to make it to Top 8 or day 2; the day 2 thing especially because there's a belief that it puts you in a worse position to make a run to Top 8.  So it's rather unfair and insulting to generalize all judges according to the tactics you claim they're okay with or you say they consider legitimate.

Side note, If I'm not mistaken, I believe they do not use a clock at the Invitationals?  I wonder if they call stalling and slowplay in un-timed rounds.

Stalling does not exist in untimed matches (like untimed T8 or finals) but players are still under an obligation to play at an appropriate pace (Slow Play penalties can still be handed out).  The Invitational is completely online, which means that there is a chess clock in effect, and I don't know if those matches are timed or not.

[Apollyon]

Someone wasn't there for PT: Tinker. 3 hour matches aren't fun. As well, the "minimum 40 minutes, reccomended 50 minutes" rule for round length allows the players not involved in a match to go "Ok, I can expect to have 50 minutes, so if I ID, I can run to the local food place and I'll have 30 minutes to get food and eat it.", as well as "I finished in half an hour, I should have ~20 minutes to do something."

Otherwise, the IDing players could end up in a half-hour round and be late getting back. Or in the second case, you could be looking at PT: Tinker, where every match could theoretically go well over 2 hours. The "50 minute" rule is a necessary evil to both add consistency and ensure that no one gets boned by factors outside of their control.

Also, as to the judges being bad players, a level 2 judge placed in the top 16 of Worlds. Just because judges don't win every PT doesn't mean that they are bad players.

As for scouting, some tournaments allow the t8 to look at their opponent's decklists. I believe a PT or two has done that, as well as multiple PTQs. I see no mention about scouting being a punishable offense.

Concessions are only illegal if there's some kind of money or favors involved. For example, you can say "I concede." and your opponent can go "Well, thanks. Here's something to show my appreciation.", but you can't go "Scoop to me and I'll split the prize that I get from t8."

I haven't heard any judges complain about IDing to t8.

Judges often dislike things they themselves would not do.

Congrats. You just proved that judges may, in fact, be human.

Why can't you interpret that as him NOT wanting to take too much time?  It seems like a perfectly plausible explanation, that he didn't want to take more time than allowed since he knew that he was already taking plenty of time mulliganing and didn't want to break the rules regarding shuffling time.  Assuming he is doing it to take as much time as possible is no more valid than assuming he is trying not to take more time than he is allowed (but still wants to shuffle sufficiently).

Another interpretation is that if he was concerned about not wanting to take too much time, he could have thoroughly shuffled in a fast manner and presented his deck well before minute.

[wuaffiliate]

115.   Mulligan Rule
Before each game begins, a player may, for any reason, reshuffle and redraw his or her hand, drawing one less card. This may be repeated as often as the player wishes, until he or she has no cards left in his or her hand.

There is no indication that intent must be given for any mulligans, as long as he was performing a mulligan, within the time frame given by a judge he is in the right. Also i cannot find any information that give a time limit on how long a player has to mulligan, can anyone help me out with this.

Why can't you interpret that as him NOT wanting to take too much time?  It seems like a perfectly plausible explanation, that he didn't want to take more time than allowed since he knew that he was already taking plenty of time mulliganing and didn't want to break the rules regarding shuffling time.  Assuming he is doing it to take as much time as possible is no more valid than assuming he is trying not to take more time than he is allowed (but still wants to shuffle sufficiently).

Another interpretation is that if he was concerned about not wanting to take too much time, he could have thoroughly shuffled in a fast manner and presented his deck well before minute.

The fact still remains that if he is allowed the minute time limit, he can take advantage of it. Reasoning really should not be a factor here.

Some rules are unjust, but it seems here the rules are fine but the enforcers are unjust.

The player used the rules to his advantage, he didn't go out of his way to break rules. If he had chosen to mulligan game one in the exact same manner, would be be DQ'd for stalling?

[Anusien]

The fact still remains that if he is allowed the minute time limit, he can take advantage of it. Reasoning really should not be a factor here.

Some rules are unjust, but it seems here the rules are fine but the enforcers are unjust.

The player used the rules to his advantage, he didn't go out of his way to break rules. If he had chosen to mulligan game one in the exact same manner, would be be DQ'd for stalling?

Please see the definition I posted on the previous page for stalling.  He did break the rules.  Stalling is cheating, and defined as playing in order to take advantage of the clock.  You're given a reasonable amount of time to mulligan and search your library and such with the intent that you actually take that time to do it.  If you shuffle extra or take mulligans in order to run down the clock you're cheating.  That is what the Penalty Guidelines and tournament rules say.

[andrewpate]

Nobody is questioning your definition as being the correct definition.  What people are questioning is whether that makes any sense at all.  It seems like there is a "common law" way of determining Stalling which could not be determined simply by reading the rules but which is agreed upon by the judging community and therefore reasonably consistent and predicable.  I once played a Sealed deck that clogged up the ground with Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi and friends, and could really only win with Mortipede and an alpha strike.  I went 3-0, going 1-0-1 in every match, because after I won the first game at around the 35 or 40 minute mark, I would just play dudes in game 2 and let the clock run out.  At Worlds, Bracht mulliganed to run the clock down.  Both are "playing in order to take advantage of the clock."  What I did was legal.  What Bracht did was not.  This has no basis in the precise language of the rules; it's just how it is.  Is that how we want stalling to work?  The position of people disagreeing with you, Anusien, is that it is not.

[Anusien]

Definition
A player intentionally plays slowly in order to take advantage of the time limit.

If you were playing at an appropriate pace, you weren't stalling.  Your actions could conceivably have resulted in a game win for you, but Max Bracht's actions didn't advance the game state.  If I debate and debate and debate about which Disenchant to play, or top and retop, I'm also stalling.  If you're playing creatures and advancing the game state, you're fine.
The critical difference is that the game is moving forward; you're just aiming at a different strategic goal.  If you take multiple minutes and the game still hasn't started something is going on.
Yes, the difference is pedantic, but it's necessary to ever be able to play a game 2.  I can easily take 10 minutes in a Vintage game just shuffling, mulliganing, fetching, brainstorming, planning, etc.  Now if I do that in game 1 once I start to be in a winning position and then take that much time in game 2 as well, we now have 20-25 minutes to play a match of Magic.  Does that seem right?

[roberts91rom]

In my opinion "stalling" qualifies as not changing the game state with intent to result in a draw. Players are given 3 minutes per turn because it is intended that they will think for a duration, cast a spell and use that time to think between spells being cast. If I am sitting across from an opponent that does not change the game state noticably within 25 seconds I will give a friendly reminder about stalling. At 40 seconds I am willing to get a judge involved.

Things that change game state noticably:

1. Using a non-mana activated ability that directly changes the state of the game in comparison of when it was announced, and when it resolves.
2. Casting a spell that can legally be cast.
3. Deciding on how to stack triggered abilities. Order should be decided all at once.
4. Playing a land that can legally be played.

This general rule of thumb prevents abuse of the 3 minute per turn rule. The judge only needs to get involved once before the other player picks up the pace usually. Should they not speed up the judge is allowed to use discretion in the situation, and obviously what they say goes.

As for the mulliganing problem, the solution is simple. No deck in the format requires more than 5 minutes in total when it comes to mulliganing. 30 second shuffling, 1 minute to decide whether to mulligan or not. Once a deck goes below 4 cards they were either specifically looking for a card, and as such their other mulligans should have been quicker, or they are in a state of hopelessness. The DCI was a bit loose when it came to time restrictions, but that is because they hoped Vintage players would have the integrity to play the game, not the clock.

Your entry fee was what you paid to have fun, not to be jerked around by a time jockey. Call the judge over and over again if necessary until one of you two get a warning. It's sad that this is actually an issue, and it is very good that this thread was created because now maybe the rules will be tweaked to make "stalling" clearer.

Side note: If you get fed up with stallers, just play a version of Long.dec and beat them before stalling becomes an issue. :lol:

[Clariax]

In my opinion "stalling" qualifies as not changing the game state with intent to result in a draw. Players are given 3 minutes per turn because it is intended that they will think for a duration, cast a spell and use that time to think between spells being cast.

He probably took the alloted amount of time for mulligans, but since that's (I THINK) one minute per, you can grind out a clock very rapidly that way. The DCI floor rules are actually vague as to how much time you have to mulligan - it's not vague as to how much time you have to search your deck though during a midgame action (30sec + judges discretion).

Keep in mind though, that not only were we not there looking at the scene, but that the game was not recorded so we can't go back and go 'okay that was definitely stalling'. If you're playing fast enough to not get slow-play warnings, you're not liable to ever get a Stalling disqualification.

It would seem there's a common misconception here about various time limits for specific actions.  There is no rule stating that a player has 3 minutes to take their turn.  I've seen many turns take considerably longer than 3 minutes (longest being about 25 minutes) and since the nonactive player has the oppurtunity to do things when it's not their turn, it would be impossible to enforce any such turn time limit.  There is also no "one minute per mulligan" rule.

Also, while there's no set time limit for those actions, there's also no set time limit which defines stalling.  A player could stall without ever taking a long time to do anything.  If you take 6 actions a turn for 3 turns and simply "think" for an extra 10 seconds before each action, that's 3 extra minutes.  If the purpose of that extra "thinking" was to run out the clock, then it's stalling.

As for the Max Bracht DQ specifically, I did not see what happened, I'm pretty sure no one else here saw what happened.  All this discussion about whether the DQ was just or unjust is based on a description of what happened from someone else who likely didn't see it, didn't have all the information, and was quite likely limited in what of the information he did have that he could share.  The judges who made the DQ were likely watching more than just Max taking his mulligans, and actually saw what was happening, making a determination on what they saw.  While it's entirely possible that they were wrong in their ruling (though I'm not trying to suggest they actually were) I don't see anyone here having anything to back up an accusation that they were wrong.

Speaking of some of the known details in more general terms though...  When someone, while taking multiple mulligans, is very carefully watching the clock, making sure all their mulligans are close to, but not over 1 minute, it's far more likely they're doing so to take as much time off the clock as possible, as opposed to minimizing their time.  Intentionally making your actions take as long as you possibly can in order to take time off the clock is without a doubt stalling.

There are ways to "milk the clock" without stalling, of course.  You can have a 2/2 creature while your opponent is tapped out and has no cards in hand and simply choose not to attack with it.  Obviously an extreme example, but I'm sure everyone can translate that into more plausible circumstances.  Any time though that the way you go about your actions is to make them take longer, you are stalling.  For example, a player is noticed to riffle 3-5 times then present when mulliganing.  If that same player is mulliganing before game 2 while up a game with only a few minutes left on the clock and starts pile shuffling in addition to those 3-5 riffles, it's quite likely (though not definitely, of course) that they're adding in the pile shuffling to make things take longer, and therefore stalling.

[dicemanx]

That explanation is fine and all, but it still begs the question of how judges can *ever* determine intent short of the player actually admitting to stalling.

Say that you, as a level 2 judge, was obesrving someone mulliganing down to 1, taking precisely 1 minute on the clock by continuously asking you how much time is left. After 6 minutes has expired, the match goes to turns, and the player wins 1-0. What is your course of action? Is that sufficient for a DQ? Do you need more evidence? If so, what would it be? If you only have suspicions but wish to investigate further, what sort of investigation would you make? What questions would you ask, and what sort of responses would lead to the DQ?

[Toad]

You do not need to be sure that someone is Cheating before Disqualifying him. You do not need to have a clear evidence that he is actually trying to eat the clock before going for Stalling. If you think the player is abusing the clock on purpose and mulligans just in order to waste time, you can Disqualify him.

[Parcher]

I'm not certain if it will help, but I'll give an example where I could have feasably had Stalling called on myself, and a Judge decided against it due to my actually taking him aside.

It was the final round of an Invasion Sealed PTQ. I was in the Top 8 on a win or draw, my opponent had to win. Down 0-1, we had a land stall, with time running out. I drew the third Blue source to cast my Waterspout Elemental with Kicker. A judge has already been called by my opponent to watch for slowplay at the start of the game, though no accusations were made.

He had lethal on the table, but I had blockers, and many smaller flyers that could get through, although at least one would die to his blocker. I took a long time calculating how much damage I could do, then how much my opponent could do considering cards in hand, creatures he had in play, what he could draw (with my knowledge of the first game), and mana available to play them in the two turns he would get. Obviously, I wanted to cast it with Kicker to slow down any possible offence he could mount. And yes, I was aware of the time. He started to freak out.

I took the judge aside, and explained that I had to determine whether to attack at all, what to attack with, and whether I should even cast the Waterspout this turn. He looked over everything, confirmed that I had made my decision, and agreed that I had acted in an appropriate amount of time.

Now this is obviously no help to those looking for a concrete rule. But it does confirm that if you give the judge all information before they are forced to make a ruling, that in a situation where you deserve the benefit of the doubt, most of the time you will get it.

[Norm4eva]

I see a lot of attempts at hard and fast rules here.  The trouble is, arbitration's capacity to determine starts diminishing with that application.  Should warnings be handed out for every turn that hits 3:01?  When they aren't, how will you justify it?
There was an issue awhile back concerning some confinement.dec that didn't really have a win condition beyond being really good about not losing.  It's true that there's no rule about playing to win, or even building your deck to win.  Take the Moat example; you control Moat and I'm just playing guys.  I'm certainly under no obligation to tell you whether or not I'm packing flyers/Disenchant/stupid burn, and you're not obligated to reveal how many counters you've drawn or not drawn since I started dropping men.  We're 1 - 0; I can force a draw, which is basically forcing a win.  Kudos me.
Now compare and contrast to the mulligan situation, whether or not it actually occured as a means to draw time or no.  Magic has evidently realized the "mulligan phase" as a very real, necessary part of the game, and this is evident in cards like Serum Powder and the Leylines, which affect the state of the game before any player even has priority; I don't think SBE's are even looked at before a Leyline comes into play, much less when you can announce you're holding Powder.  Regardless, Magic cards affect this part of the game, and that's exactly what it is; part of the playing process.  It changes the way the game starts; it removes cards from the game, it puts permanents into play.  What distinguishes this part of the game from, say, the attack phase, now that players can make decisions that alter the gamestate based on the cards in their hand?  And if there is no reason, why doesn't playing to draw fall under the same scope of strategy and application during that time?
JDizzle hit on the idea that "3 minutes is often too long, but < 3 minutes is sometimes too long too."  This feels like a slick slope to begin discussing the merits of strategy on; adhere too closely to a hard and fast time limit per turn and you discourage entire decks from even showing up - High Tide players everywhere will sigh a terrible sigh and retreat to darkness (all 7 of us, feh).  However, loosen the reigns and suddenly people aren't playing Magic anymore, they're playing Milk or Beat the Clock.  Generally speaking, winning a match of Magic in a way that didn't directly result from the gameplay is regarded as unfun, but generally speaking nobody likes to get burned out at the end of their turn; sometimes it's just the right play.

EDIT: b/c I'm a dork.

[andrewpate]

I agree with you 100%.  This is why I advocate setting minimum penalty times (for example, you always get 1 minute to mulligan, and a judge cannot DQ you for stalling if you spend less than 1 minute to mulligan, no matter what), but making it clear that it is up to judges' discretion from there.  This allows it to remain subjective, which is essential since, as you say, a hard-and-fast rule is not really feasible, but also allows players to act within certain parameters within which they will be "bulletproof."  What I don't like about the current system is that a player can take less than the time allowed to do an action and still be penalized for wasting time.  This is unfair.  If the rules say x minutes to shuffle, you should be safe as long as you don't take more than x minutes to shuffle, period.

[Clariax]

What I don't like about the current system is that a player can take less than the time allowed to do an action and still be penalized for wasting time.  This is unfair.  If the rules say x minutes to shuffle, you should be safe as long as you don't take more than x minutes to shuffle, period.

Players cannot take "less than the time allowed," because there is no specific time allowed.  Everyone has some idea of what the rules say is appropriate for mulliganing, or shuffling, or taking a turn.  There are no such rules.  And what's more, to make such rules would be to make stalling (in some cases) legal.  Making a rule that your turn is allowed to take 3 minutes and you can't be penalized for taking less than 3 minutes ensures that you can stall for 3 minutes a turn until time expires.  Consider a match where a player wins game 1 with 30 minutes left on the clock, takes the full 3 minutes to sideboard and shuffle (this one is specifically in the rules), another 1 minute each for 2 mulligans.  Now there's 25 minutes left on the clock.  Taking 3 minutes per turn, that means the player can ensure time runs out on no later than his 9th turn.

I realize for a mostly vintage playing crowd 9 turns may seem like plenty for finishing a game.  In limited however, it's rare for a game to end in less than 9 turns, as such a person would need only to win game one in a reasonable 20 minutes to then be able to legally (by this proposed idea) stall out the rest of the match, ensuring a 1-0-1 victory.

[andrewpate]

I completely understand what you're saying.  But it is also the case that going down to 1 card is sometimes a correct play strategically, such as a Dread Return deck pitching anything without a Bazaar of Baghdad in it.  If a judge was not familiar with this deck, he might choose to DQ me and be difficult to convince otherwise.  In order for things to be consistent, I feel that a "safe zone" should exist:  an amount of time I can spend taking actions that would protect me.  Obviously, these limits would be very short, and a player would not normally be penalized for taking more than that much time.  Something like 30 seconds for a turn.  This is not because I think a lot of judges are handing out a bunch of unfair penalties or something.  It's simply because I think it is a goal worth working toward to create a set of written rules which can be read and followed by a new player and that player will never receive a penalty.  No other competitive game, be it chess or poker, leaves the possibility open for a player to take an action not prohibited by the rules (such as a mulligan) and be DQed for it.

Simply put:  the speed limit on the interstate near my house is 70 mph.  It's not, "71 mph is always too fast, but other speeds might also be too fast if we determine that your intent is not genuinely seeking to progress the location of your vehicle."  It's, "You might not get a ticket for doing 71, but you will never get a ticket for doing 69, ever."  I know that floor rules are not the same as laws, but I think that this is one way in which greater similarity would be preferable.

[Apollyon]

You are overreacting and just starting with the assumption that the judge is out to get you.

If you have a legitimate reason for taking an action, then you should be fine. If you are doing something just to run out the clock, then it's bad.

[Khahan]

You are overreacting and just starting with the assumption that the judge is out to get you.

If you have a legitimate reason for taking an action, then you should be fine. If you are doing something just to run out the clock, then it's bad.

Its important enough that it needed to be posted twice!

[Shock Wave]

You are overreacting and just starting with the assumption that the judge is out to get you.

If you have a legitimate reason for taking an action, then you should be fine. If you are doing something just to run out the clock, then it's bad.

He's not overreacting. He has a legitimate concern that several people are inquiring about. His point is also stated very clearly and with a good analogy. It just so happens that sometimes players get penalized because a judge makes a mistake in judgement. If the conclusion to this discussion is going to be:

"Well, judges are human!" .... fine, I can accept that. However, there's nothing wrong with trying to discuss a viable solution that lessens the number of situations where  there is a window for a judge to make a mistake as a result of poor judgement.

[dicemanx]

You are overreacting and just starting with the assumption that the judge is out to get you.

If you have a legitimate reason for taking an action, then you should be fine. If you are doing something just to run out the clock, then it's bad.

This, again, doesn't tell us anything. It ultimately doesn't matter what the intent of the player is - what matters is the judge's determination of what he thinks the player intended. Big difference.

You're saying that as long as a player knows in his mind that he didn't intend to cheat, the judge will somehow intuitively sense this and make the right call by not penalizing him.

Perhaps we're just not asking the right questions to our resident judges, so let me try one more time. Let's say you were faced with this scenario:

You are watching the following match. Player A is up 1-0, and there is 5 minutes left in the round the moment that both players finish SBing and present their decks. Player A is apparently unhappy with his hand, and decides to mulligan, taking about 1 minute to do so, and asks for time remaining. 4 minutes remain, and the player is dissatisfied with his hand after a moment's reflection, and mulligans again. He takes another minute to mulligan, asking how much time is remaining after he finishes shuffling. This repeats 3 more times, when time is finally called. The players enter turns, and the game is a draw, winning the match for player A.

Let's say that you decided to investigate further. This is round 3, and you notice that player A has won his two previous matches 1-0. You ask Player A some questions, and he says that he needed to mulligan to find a "specific SB card" but couldn't find it. He was asking for time left in the round to ensure he wasn't taking "too much time for each mulligan". You get no other info, and player A "failed" to incriminate himself by stating that his intent was to stall, leaving it up to you to guess what exactly his intention was.


Based on this scenario, what do you do?

[kirdape3]

What Diceman is actually asking for is a 'government of laws, not of men'.  He appears to want a concrete 'this is stalling, this is not stalling' rule to be completely unambiguous.  The problem is that if the rules themselves are concrete, they do not allow for any application of judging as well as giving players a real ability to use the rules to their advantage.  If someone knows that they get 45sec or whatever to do an action without a penalty no matter how much time is left in the round, you can be absolutely sure that their actions will take the allowed time if it's to their advantage. 

The current rules are completely ambiguous and place a large emphasis on the judging staff to make a ruling that conforms to DCI guidelines.  It's absolutely contrary to what you're asking for, but to me I'd rather trust in judges than in rules that just make it easier to abuse time limits anyways.

The whole idea behind the time limit is to make sure that a tournament can actually be completed.  The stalling rules are in place to keep people from using the time limit to their advantage.  The only way that both players can be reasonably assured of being able to have a chance of playing Magic in any given round (i.e., one player doesn't monopolize all the time) is to have penalties in place to discourage such actions.

[dicemanx]

The current rules are completely ambiguous and place a large emphasis on the judging staff to make a ruling that conforms to DCI guidelines.  It's absolutely contrary to what you're asking for, but to me I'd rather trust in judges than in rules that just make it easier to abuse time limits anyways.

Is it not conceivable that not having a clear amount of time for a mulligan makes it *easier* for people to cheat?

If I wanted to stall out the game via the mulligan I'd strongly prefer there to be no set time limits for a mulligan - that way instead of shuffling and presenting in, say, 1 minute, I might be able to stretch it out to 2 minutes. Maybe the judge might step in and ask me to speed it up a little after 2-3 mulligans, but then the damage is done.

Rich is correct - it is far better to seek out and eliminate the ambiguities to try and *remove* the need for judges to rely on judgement calls, instead of allowing the possibility that an innocent person could be tagged with an unwarranted penalty. Ideally, we'd like to limit the role of the judge in determining the outcome of a game, which is true of just about every game or sport.

You want a possible solution? How about something like this:

If there are 10 minutes or less in a round, mulliganing doesn't take time off the clock. The judge can keep track of the amount of time it takes for one party to mulligan, and then adds it on at the end of the 50 minute time limit. You can also restrict each mull to 1 minute to limit the amount of extra time that would need to be added.

[andrewpate]

As much as I love the idea, the system where mulligans don't take time would be really difficult to enforce.  You would have to call a judge to every table starting a game with 10 minutes left, and it requires players to keep track of the fact that only 10 minutes are left.  Obviously, you'd start announcing the 10 minute mark of every round, but sometimes players don't hear if the match is intense, etc.  What about an FNM that has only one judge but four matches going on at once?    I just don't think it would work.

[dicemanx]

The rule doesn't have to be mandatory - the opposing player can call a judge and invoke the rule as he sees fit, or he can let the mulligan eat up time on the clock if it's OK with him. It could be set that the player that actually mulligans isn't permitted to invoke this option, since the rule is only there to potentially safeguard the opposing player from stall tactics.

As far as this rule being unfeasible - I'd think that this is no different than, say, worrying that half the players in the room might call a judge over in the final 10 minutes to watch for slow play - it won't happen too often, but it will be there to prevent potential abuse.

[Clariax]

Perhaps we're just not asking the right questions to our resident judges, so let me try one more time. Let's say you were faced with this scenario:

You are watching the following match. Player A is up 1-0, and there is 5 minutes left in the round the moment that both players finish SBing and present their decks. Player A is apparently unhappy with his hand, and decides to mulligan, taking about 1 minute to do so, and asks for time remaining. 4 minutes remain, and the player is dissatisfied with his hand after a moment's reflection, and mulligans again. He takes another minute to mulligan, asking how much time is remaining after he finishes shuffling. This repeats 3 more times, when time is finally called. The players enter turns, and the game is a draw, winning the match for player A.

Let's say that you decided to investigate further. This is round 3, and you notice that player A has won his two previous matches 1-0. You ask Player A some questions, and he says that he needed to mulligan to find a "specific SB card" but couldn't find it. He was asking for time left in the round to ensure he wasn't taking "too much time for each mulligan". You get no other info, and player A "failed" to incriminate himself by stating that his intent was to stall, leaving it up to you to guess what exactly his intention was.


Based on this scenario, what do you do?

Unfortunately the only accurate answer I can really give to this is really not going to satisfy dicemanx, or anyone else looking at this the same as he is.

Simply put, EVERY situation where a judge investigates for cheating is unique.  The way the situation was presented, the entire investigation consists of a specific group of questions, with a specific set of answers (in text form, more on this later), and that's it, the end, "what do you do?".  As a judge, if I'm investigating for cheating, I can continue asking questions to get what information I want.  I can keep asking until I'm satisfied.  As such, in this specific situation, the answer to "what do you do?" is, "I'd ask more questions."

Also, when it comes to the investigation, there's more to it than just the "text version" of their responses.  How they say things can be as, or more, important as what they say.  You can't really type up a theoretical possible cheating situation and expect a definite decision from a judge on whether it's cheating or not.

The current rules are completely ambiguous and place a large emphasis on the judging staff to make a ruling that conforms to DCI guidelines. It's absolutely contrary to what you're asking for, but to me I'd rather trust in judges than in rules that just make it easier to abuse time limits anyways.

Is it not conceivable that not having a clear amount of time for a mulligan makes it *easier* for people to cheat?

If I wanted to stall out the game via the mulligan I'd strongly prefer there to be no set time limits for a mulligan - that way instead of shuffling and presenting in, say, 1 minute, I might be able to stretch it out to 2 minutes. Maybe the judge might step in and ask me to speed it up a little after 2-3 mulligans, but then the damage is done.

Rich is correct - it is far better to seek out and eliminate the ambiguities to try and *remove* the need for judges to rely on judgement calls, instead of allowing the possibility that an innocent person could be tagged with an unwarranted penalty. Ideally, we'd like to limit the role of the judge in determining the outcome of a game, which is true of just about every game or sport.

Setting specific allowable times for given actions most definitely does result in players making use of those time limits to run out the clock when possible.  Consider Football and Basketball.  In football there is a play clock, and in pretty much every game where it comes up, when a team is at the point where they can do so, they use every second on the play clock to run out the clock and win the game.  Basketball, with it's shot clock, is exactly the same; a team winning near the end of the game will intentionally use up as much of the shot clock as possible to prevent the other team from having time to win.

Of course both of those examples are not cheating.  They're completely allowed within the rules of those sports.  In magic, the rules-makers do not want such tactics to be available, and with good reason.

An example (from an real DQ years ago, some minor details changed for simplicity) which highlights this:

Game 3 of a match, Goblins (G) vs. Solitairy Confinement (S).  S has confinement out with squee in graveyard.  His actions consist of nothing but returning squee and discarding it to confinement.  G has absolutely no way remove or get around the confinement.  (I realize a judge may have no way to actually know this, but that's irrelevant here).  There's approximately 10 minutes left in the round and G has >25 cards left in his library.

10 minutes left, that's 20% of the total time, and with a 30 seconds per turn rule this match is already over.  G can make sure he has no more than 20 more turns, so can't possibly deck himself.

I realize some players might like the rules allowing this, or might consider it acceptable collateral damage for preventing players getting wrongly DQ'd.  People getting wrongly DQ'd for stalling, however, is EXTREMELY rare.  DQ's in general are quite rare, only a subset of those are even DQ's for stalling, and only a subset of those are wrongly given.  The examples of basketball and football show pretty clearly that players would take advantage of a "shot clock" whenver possible.  This is an awful lot of collateral damage to prevent a few DQ's.

Obviously this isn't going to change the minds of those who would like to be able to use such a rule, or those who feel any amount of splash damage is OK if it prevents even one unjust DQ, but the people who make the rules obviously think differently, and continuing to voice opinions here of how you feel things should be isn't going to accomplish anything