What if I'm playing a very slow control deck, and my opponent suggests we draw the match to plot a terrorist attack on American soil? We were both out of top 8 at that point.
A careful reading of the comprehensive rules [100.6b] states that you are allowed to find a location to start that attack (using the Magic Store & Event Locator)
Pokémon TCG allows for intentional draws, but has some rules about a person asking for it multiple times. From how I understand it, you're allowed to ask for a draw once, and if your opponent refuses you're not allowed to ask again.
Excellent video on a touchy subject. I've been present at one of these recent infractions (not in close proximity but could hear a yell from across the hall) so I know this stuff ignites a lot of passion and can be confusing for many up-and-coming pro tour hopefuls/grinders, myself included. I haven't been in one of these situations myself, and have honestly felt afraid that as I do better and better in my tournament results, some infraction like this would end my journey. Very much appreciate this video. Clear, concise, straight to the point, no Twitter fluff. Thank you Judge Dave!
In YGO there are a lot of rules specifically for this situation; the notable one is players are allowed to forfeit and drop games to let their friends advance to top cut but only if they don't play out the game. If the players say "yeah, I'll give you the match win, but let's play it out for fun", then that's against the rules - if you play out the game, you can't misreport the game result for any reason. This catches a lot of players off-guard, obviously!
@@miserepoignee9594 so if a judge hears a person scooping without a game they are expose to ask if the player is dropping. you can not play a game and fake the records as well and if found out you can get a potential ban
@@danielsash2079 But since you are explicitly allowed to concede to let your friend advance, then what @miserepoignee9594 proposed can't lead to a ban. Because then just casual games between rounds would be illegal too, if they happened to overlap with a match that was played. Maybe they would have to leave the table at which they're sitting, to distinguish the entire situation and make clear that the game they're about to play has nothing to do with the tournament they're competing in? But if friendly games between rounds are banned at Yu-Gi-Oh, just because they were just paired and a good outcome for both was easily determined, then those tournaments must be hell😅
Hi! I have seen a few people mention Flesh and Blood’s concession rulings in the chat but I want to try to clear some things up and see if I can answer how at least I as a level 1 judge would rule. FaB(Flesh and Blood) is played as a BO1 with sidebording before the first match. Games can go long and depending on strategy can go to time. At anytime before time in the round is called a player may concede for normal gameplay reasons. Once time in the round is called if any player takes an action and continues to go to turns neither player may concede and if a winner is not determined it is a draw. (A short aside here. As much as fab players want to tell you a draw is not a loss) Recently due to both this end of turn procedure and the situations listed in this video the concession rules have become quite more strict. If either player talks about prizing then neither player may concede at that point. This also extends to pressuring an opponent to concede due to the board state. This now is considered improperly determining a winner. And at competitive level enforcement can lead to DQs. If you have any specific questions I can attempt to answer them to the best of my ability. Love your content btw. Eventhough I chose to be a judge for a different game your content over the years is what pushed me to take the test!
@@MultiGameFreaker Of course. I'm just a level one judge so I can't guarantee what more veteran Judges would rule. At 1:00 That situation of having a draw for game three would never happen in FaB due to it being a best of one. Instead the end of game procedure would go as I wrote above. At 1:45 It's also the same as Magic. A player may concede before the match has started if they have enough points to move on into the elimination rounds. (This situation is explicitly outlined in the Tournament Rules) At 2:52 The situation is also the same we would consider it bribery and it would be a DQ for both players. At 3:42 This situation is a lot more complicated and would require investigation and understanding. Based on just what is explained (A player reporting a loss then handing them 50 dollars) would leave me to lean more towards bribery than not. To be clear this situation is messy and by no means is easy to rule which he goes into detail. At 6:04 This example where one person rolls a die to determine a winner would be ruled under "Improperly Determining a Winner" and would be a match loss as a penalty. This can be upgraded to a DQ if it is determined that the players knew it was an infraction. At 7:57 This is where FaB and Magic differ the most. In FaB you are not allowed to draw during elimination rounds (top 8). A winner must be determined even when there is only two players left (this is specific to fab due to the way they have a soft rotating system called living legend) The prize split itself is allowed as long as it doesn't interfere with the results of the match. TL;DR you can split but you have to play it out. This also applies to the situation at 9:00 At 9:11 through the rest of the video my assumptions would be about the same as it is in Magic. The only exception again being that games must be played out till the end and as long as the players do not improperly determine a winner or end up in bribery or cheating they are perfectly fine to figure out splits outside the tournament. If you have any more questions feel free to ask!
What are the consequences if a player concedes (but no other violations) when he's not allowed to? Do they go beyond disqualification from the tournament? I'd say dropping from an event is impossible to deny e.g. if you had to leave urgently or in case of an emergency.
@@Mosethyoth for FaB if a player concedes when they would not be allowed to without a legitimate reason they are removed from the tournament as a whole with no other penalties. I do not believe this is considered a DQ as a DQ is a punishment that needs to be reported by both the judge and the player to LSS (The company that makes FaB). Furthermore situations like emergencies are explicitly stated as a reason to concede outside of normal times, and if you do it would just be reported as a loss if no other violations would be made. Again I'm just a lowly level one and cant express was a head judge at a large event would rule.
I've seen a few situations, where the ID would mean that both of us proceed to the next stage, and the few times I've taken it, it was against someone who I liked and respected. Otherwise, I have no problem playing it out and hoping for the win to get better seeding. There was however one time, my opponent said "I offer, that you concede" and I accepted. The reason was, that because of our tiebreakers, even a win for me, wasn't going to be enough for me to get into the top 8. But a win from him, would see him in 8th place. He was also someone who I liked and respected, and so I agreed on the condition, that we play out a match for fun.
Now what happens if your opponent asks, "I'd like to improperly determine the winner of this match, can you call over a judge and give me a match loss?" can you call them on it without getting a match loss yourself?
There's been times I wish I had a judge like you. I remember playing at a convention and having a player beg me to split in a sealed event; it was late, people wanted to get to bed. But my deck was cracked, and moreover, I wanted to play. He was pleading with me at one point, talked over me and strongarmed me into taking a draw, then split the prize tickets in his favor and walked off. Every part of this happened in full view of judges who I retrospectively assume were each too uncomfortable to intervene. I was too uncomfortable to intervene. I left the weekend with plenty of prize support, but I made a promise to myself to simply say "play or concede" in the future. Glad these policies exist.
The obvious parallels in structure to and divergences in management from Poker Tournaments needs to be reviewed by WOTC. And sadly, to avoid people seeing it as the skill-based gambling game that it is, they will never make those same comparisons..
In the story where Nick concedes to Amy (or to a total stranger) so they can get to top 8, it is presented as a courtesy. However, in doing so they are preventing someone else from getting to top 8. Is it really a courtesy when considered from the viewpoint of the tournament overall? To be clear, I don't think you can or should prevent Nick from conceding for any reason he wants. But courtesy is neither the reason nor a necessary justification.
Indeed. Basically getting matched down in a cordial atmosphere like this is really equivalent to getting a bye in your last Swiss round through sheer luck while others have to play in. Which is not the worst thing ever but should be acknowledged.
Hm. I was far closer to getting DQ'd out of my first RC than I realized. I was playing one of the LCQs the day before because I wanted a promo Nykthos. I won my match against someone on mono-black, and they mentioned they were not yet qualified for rhe RC, and asked if I would concede the match to them out of kindness. I thought for a while, called a judge to see if this was allowed, and then did so. Then, WHILE THE JUDGE IS STANDINF THERE I wrote out my phone number and told my opponent to hit me up if they won any prizes and were feeling generous later. From an outside perspective, this is VERY VERY close to "hey, I'll scoop to you if you give me any prizes you win."
Actually i would say that if you conceeded the match before saying that i would argue there is a relevant difference, because when you decided to conceede noone offered you anything to do that.
An example of all remaining players splitting a non cash prize is actually 1 of my favourite MtG stories that isn't from my play group. The guy was playing Tendrils Storm in Legacy n forgot to put his Tendrils in his sideboard. He didn't even notice for the longest time n then bluffed his way thru all the remaining matches cuz his opponents kept scooping when he would cast a card to grab Tendrils out of the sideboard cuz they never expected him to not have his only win condition. So he bluffed his way to the top 4 n the prize may have had money but I do know that a part of it was a playset of a card n so all 4 finalists decided to take 1 copy of the card each n split any money there may have been.
It's too easy for cheaters to avoid getting caught (by conspiring before joining the event) and too easy to unjustly punish innocent people (who are transparent because they didn't know better).
11:32 - Please, ask the judge for advice - but ask them AWAY FROM YOUR OPPONENT! If you call a judge, then in front of your opponent say "Judge, if my opponent concedes I'd be happy to give them $50. Can I tell them that?" - it's largely the same as if you'd said it to your opponent directly, except now you've also got a judge right there that heard the whole thing. Your opponent knows what'll happen if they concede, and the match integrity is impacted, putting the judge in the rather gross spot of having to issue an infraction because you called a judge.
Honestly i much prefer how flesh and blood handles it. And it only gets away with this because it's a best of one game that you pre-sideboard. So terrible matchups get shored up. In that game all draws are losses. You can choose your ID whenever, (we only have 10 minutes in the clock and we cannot kill right in this time would you like to ID?) does happen, but very rarely because it's just two players conceding
What's the point of that? Like, in that 10 minutes on the clock situation, it's nicer to concede to your opponent and give them the win, and it's more advantageous to you to continue playing in the hopes that _they_ concede to you and give you the win. There's no advantage to drawing, it might has well not exist.
I came from the Tennis world when I re-engaged with mtg and the intentional draw stuff is weird to me. When it first was offered to me, I was like "what do you think this is, Searching for Bobby Fischer...?" except we hadn't even begun the match. Like at GPs it becomes the norm in side events and it kinda kills the some of the fun. Like, if you go 3-0, most times you knew you'd be splitting in round four and wouldn't have a match, and like the amount of prize support on the line was stressful, so if you refused the draw, the stress and disappointment from your opponent would be palpable. If the intentional draws didn't exist, people wouldn't have the FOMO issues over 4th round matches at side events and people might learn to enjoy a stressful match, like one might expect when they go to high level rules enforcement events with larger than normal prize support. You know, "you want coffee?...coffee is for closers."
It almost makes me think they should change the side events so that the entry and the prize support are halved, maybe with one less round. I think that would solve a lot of the problems you mentioned.
Another way to compare intentional draws is looking at the NFL, what if that was legal in the regular season? There have to be instances where in the Final Week, two teams meet up where a loss for each team would hurt their playoff prospects, but a draw might guarantee one team is the Wildcard and 1 team secures Home Field Advantage. However, I'm pretty sure the NFL doesn't allow intentional draws even though Draws are possible in the NFL. Same for Soccer, right?
9:40 - I have an additional question on this point: imagine that all rounds before the cut to top 8 have concluded. A player that lands on 16th place asks all players from place 8th to 15th to drop so he/she can enter the top 8. That player only asks but doesn't offer anything in return to those players. Is this possible? If it isn't possible what's the penalty?
Intent matters. An investigation into why you are doing that and why anyone would willing give up there position. Also I am pretty sure if standings have been determined, them dropping doesn't shoe horn you into playing in their place. It just means they forfeit with their standing and would get any prizing associated with it and just made it a faster tournament as you can cut straight to top 4 after 7th - 1st play out top 8.
This was relevant to me in the Bloomburrow prerelease, I was 3-0 and my opponent was 2 wins 1 draw on the last round and told me that we could draw since if I did I wouldn't lose the first place and he'll make it to the top 4, if I win I'll have the first place regardless but he'll miss top 4 and if I lose he'll win first place and I would be on the top 4, one of the organizers jokingly said we're disqualified and I'm not/was not familiar with this things so I was sweating bullets and refused the offer, I went on to win last round but I was so scared even if the prize were just booster packs and the environment was casual. I didn't care on getting first place with 4 wins or 3 wins one draw and I would had maybe give the top 4 to my opponent if I knew more about this.
That last part kinda sucks though, like you are forced into a bad situation where if you dont possess the correct knowledge then you face dire consequences. that asks every player to be intimately familiar with corner cases of tournament rules and to immediately call for a judge and not ask any more questions about the offer, otherwise it is considered entertaining it?
I'm going to preface this by saying I am not a judge. Unfortunately, competitive REL works under the assumption that players either know the rules or know when to ask about them. This differs widely from standard REL, where players are more likely to make mistakes. Any player wanting to grind tournaments should probably devote some time to learning what rules areas are contentious so they know to consult a judge.
@@HafusAndLegacy your other reply is correct that competitive events so require a more serious knowledge of the rules (and tournament rules). Also, saying no thanks, or simply ignoring them completely would make it clear you're not in kahoots. If you engage in discussion of what the agreement will be then that's where you are in deep doodoo
@Judging FtW What should I do if I am in the last Swiss round, win and in and my opponent offers his prize in exchange for me conceding? If I call a judge immediately what is going to happen? Is he getting DQ? What happens to me?
Judge, in that last scenario where a player is only interested in the money and other only on the invite, I've heard that in this situation you can suggest to play the match and the winner can choose which of the prizes they want. Is that allowed?
I don't think that works because the invite explicitly goes to the winner. So if the winner wanted the money, the result would be a situation where the other person couldn't get the invite. If this wasn't the case, like a game day play mat, no such issue.
I'm always appreciative of they maturity, expertise and mentorship you display in your videos Judge Dave. I have a story, maybe a bit too dissimilar to your request of analogies from other TCGs to be relevant; but, here it is: 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nd4 Nd5 3.Nb3 Nb6 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Ne4 Ne5 6.Ng5 Ng4 7.Nf3 Nf6 8.Ng1 Ng8 9.Nc5 Nc4 10.Na4 Na5 11.Nc3 Nc6 12.Nb1 Nb8 13.Nf3 0 - 0 I hope you enjoyed that anecdote! Have a nice day.
@@RibusPQR That's meant to represent the score. Typically that order of moves would result in a score of 1/2 - 1/2, in this case the players including Russia's #1 player were both given loses, which is uncharacteristic for a normal game of chess. Combined the two players lost over ten thousand dollars due to that half-point lost from their standings. The moral of the story was: if you get caught dancing about by judges, it's a clear-cut case of FAFO. I hope that explains better. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain further; have a nice day.
@@JudgingFtW I was relating a story that was about two other individuals, I didn't think the word "anecdote" implied it involved me personally. Silly. Sorry for the confusion.
Scenario where Amy wants the invite and Nick wants the cash: if Amy just verbalizes that she wants the invite and Nick just verbalizes that he doesn't, then Nick scoops, it seems like judges could do nothing to stop Amy from giving Nick the cash outside of the tournament venue. But Nick would have to scoop without any confirmation of compensation
I remember agreeing to split the booster packs as a finalist with another player and then we played for the first pick of the promo for FNM. I won the first pick. The only time I ever won a draft. lol
So I've only had one experience of something that could end up like this, and I don't know how murky the ethics of it was but everyone agreed on the fairness. What happened was an LGS commander "tournament" for the Dr. Who set. I advanced to the final pod of four players, for a prize of your choice of one of four secret lair cards 25-30$ each. First place gets first pick, second place second pick and so on. The game ground out to me and one other player left. I had him guaranteed to lose and he didn't want to keep going in the game. He wanted a specific prize card from the 4 and it wasn't the one I'd picked out in mind (Blasphemous Act). He offered to hand me the game if I let him have that card of choice (Spellseeker) and I said sure. Since the other two players had already been eliminated in turn to set 3rd and 4th place, I felt it was fine. If that was a real sanctioned tournament would that be all good?
@@brofstan argument could also be made that it is basically the top 2 players agreeing to split the prizes evenly in a normal tournament. Since it is the guaranteed #1 and #2 players. I see arguments for both and I wonder what a judge would rule on this!
There's not a good answer to this because it sounds like you're describing a 4-player commander pod, and technically there is no 2nd-4th. (What happens if a player plays a "wins the game" effect?) At this point, I'd say whatever the tournament organizer decides is appropriate. For comparison, if you were playing 1v1 for first and second, you'd just be agreeing to a prize split of who gets 1st prize/2nd prize. As another guideline, NEVER say "I'll concede *if*..." Just say you want to split prizes in a certain way.
@@ThePauliwrath So the prizing support was a set of four Secret Lair cards all around 20$ in value. The LGS set it so the final group would all get a prize but gave first choice to first place and so on. The exact statement to me was "You've got me by the balls here, I really want that Spellseeker. I'll scoop you the game now just don't choose Spellseeker." The option was there to play it out but realistically I was presenting lethal damage my next turn regardless of what he did.
@@ZSAITOSEI I would categorize this as not okay if I had to make that decision. You and your opponent are allowed to discuss how you want to split prizes, but it shouldn’t affect match outcome. “I really want the Spellseeker” is fine, but “I’ll scoop for the Spellseeker” is crossing the line in my book. Hopefully everyone got what they wanted at least.
I’m not sure if this is completely on topic. This happened to me at a commander tournament at my LGS which did cost an entrance fee, had prizes and overseen by an official judge but a level 1. I did asked online some that turned out to be judges anonymously and they said what happened isn’t allowed. Two friends before hand had a prize split agreement. But both with only go after the other two players as well as lie using politics to make it look like they weren’t. As well as they uses jesters to give the other an idea what they had in their hands. Their goal was to get like in the match I was in knock out the other opponents and one the concedes. By doing so it manipulated the sitting. In the match against them I was in the one that conceded had the better board state and more life. No way for the other to beat him but he still conceded. Reason I know most of this I noticed it happening in the later matches and what I overheard later. Plus the weird hand signals. I haven’t seen either at the LGS for about two years. Maybe they got a store ban. IDK. What those two players break the rules?
Thank you for the concede at anytime comment. Someone was pointing out how a concede was a clear violation and wanting to launch a full scale investigation because of it. When all I had to do was point out that a simple line in the rules book shows that it is allowed.
i love hearing about magic's rules i've played a whole lot of pokemon, and it's very similar in that players have the right to concede at any time, or to mutually agree to a draw however, in pokemon, matches end without a conclusion extremely often. in fact, almost all matches that reach a game 3 without either player conceding early in one of the first two games ends inconclusive. usually, pokemon players come up with what we call a "gentleman's agreement," where before the start of game 3, both players mutually agree that the player who is ahead in the game will win if time +3 turns ends without a conclusion to the match.
its really interesting to hear that there are so many draws in pokemon. I know how to play the game but dont follow it competatively. is it just because round times are so short?
@@mrmanpie8088 its because it's so common for a pokemon game to take 20-30 minutes. the rounds are 50 minutes long. there's even an advanced "strategy" in pokemon that players like Tord Reklev use where if you play a deck with tons of game actions (like gardevoir ex), you play out a really long game one if you expect to win it (eating like 40 minutes off the clock). then, the match will probably end 1-0, without the second game ever concluding. alternatively, if you believe you're going to lose game one, you scoop early and try to rush yourself a bit to finish the next two games. it's often a point of controversy in the pokemon community, with many players calling for a change to the tournament structure
Hello. I have an interesting (in my opinion) rules question: Let's say, I have a Mishra's Warform copying Wishclaw Talisman created by the Mishra Eminent One. Mishra (Eminent One) says, that I should sacrifice that copy at the end of turn. Then I give the Warform to an opponent with Wishclaw Talisman Ability. Is Mishra's Warform I gave to the opponent sacrificed at the end of turn, or I am unable to perform the action, because I do not control the permanent I am supposed to sacrifice?
The situation I run afoul of most often is 7 players trying to pressure the 1 guy who wants to play out the top 8 instead of just splitting prizes. "It's late, I want to go home" vs "I came here to play Magic, and I want to play"
During a limited RCQ I played in, to vote for splitting packs, they gave top 8 each a forest and a mountain. Each player put 1 card face down on the table, forest if they wanted to split, mountain if they didn't. The judge came around and collected the cards, then shuffled them. This way, no one would know who voted for what and you wouldn't have that situation of 7 players mad at the 1.
Thank you for this video. I was offered a split in the 1 and 2 spots of a small 12 person tournament at my LGS and I wasn’t sure how to handle it properly. If I every have a bigger event where I want to offer a split but am not sure how, like the top 8 of an RCQ, would the best thing to do be call a judge, ask to step away from the table, tell them I want to offer a split but I’m not sure how and ask if they will help facilitate it for me?
It sure sounds like placing a bet on a tournament but its not placing a bet on the tournament with the person you're staking. It's not gambling or wagering if your interests are aligned. I know magic tournaments aren't courts of law but maybe we should actually look at how courts of law like the Nevada supreme court have handled this and realize that magic judges aren't qualified to make this sort of judgment and go with what happened in the real world.
@@Shaudius There is the wrinkle that Magic tournaments also have to abide by local/national laws relevant to the venue where they are playing, in addition to whatever rules WotC wants to impose on tournament organizers, who themselves may add additional regulations. The Nevada supreme court ruling matters a lot more for an event in Vegas than one in Germany, as an example.
@@Noirevert they do but the fact that a court of law has ruled that equity stakes are not "gambling" cuts strongly against the narrative propagated by this judge and the people I've replied to that this is a clear cut case of gambling and its ridiculous that anyone could possibly think its not just black and white.
I have a question,this happened to me 2 time at prereleases,i was into 3rd place going into the last round,if i won and one of the two people in first lost i could get second if they draw i would still be 3rd,they agree to draw and split the prizes,i won,is this allowed? in both cases one of the person above me was the same and they were known in that place as someone who always makes that kind of deals.
You cannot turn in a Tied match result in YGO until time in the round, period. I've seen it lead to DQs multiple times at Regional level events. I find it very, very strange but it's been the rule for a very long time.
Are there any differences to the id/concessions in commander/cedh tournaments in the regular rules ?? What are your thoughts on the changes to the mtr/ipg that topdeck has made for commander/cedh tournaments?
Good video on a difficult topic. Let me see if I've understood the rule correctly (based on a real-life match): I'm playing an opponent in the final round of a pre-release. Based on our records and the pre-announced prize payouts, me winning would give us both 3 prize packs (6 packs total); my opponent winning would give her 7 prize packs, and me 1 (8 packs total). So... it sounds like there is no legal way to come to an agreement whereby we work out a 4-4 pack split (which would require her winning the match)? I mean, we could probably discuss (in abstract terms) the payout scheme and even agree to split the packs regardless of match result, but the moment I concede (or play badly in an effort to deliberately lose), then we've entered the realm of an agreement in exchange for a specific match result? Follow up: is a (legal) prize split enforceable? I mean, lets say we agree to split prizes and I lose legitimately; if she walks up to collect her 7 packs then starts to walk away, can I call the tournament judge? Or is just between us two?
Yugioh judge here. In that game, intentional draws, for any reason, are considered collusion, which results in an "Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Cheating" penalty, resulting most often in disqualification without prizes, and referral to the penalty committee for possible suspension from ALL Organized Play events.
I just ran afoul of something like this, and now I am looking for help as I don't want to make a mistake. Today at a Store Championship (not competitive rel), our game went to time and on turn 5 when it was going to be a draw, I offered my opponent a concession if he showed me his hand and it looked like he had me. I did not ask for the same from him, and I did not ask to look at anything else that we wouldn't be able to look at, such as cards in library, but I did verbally offer a concession if he showed me his hand and it "looked like he would win." I was told this was improperly determining a winner. Is that correct? I really don't want to be on the wrong side of this, and when I look up the rules I don't see what I did as against the rules. I'm happy to be wrong, and this has made me more careful when I try to be generous. I just really don't want to get on the wrong side of these kinds of rules so I'd rather know exactly what they are.
Suppose my opponent can make top 8, I can not. My opponent proposes a prize split, and I accept. It is now in my own best interest to concede, because my expected winnings will go up. Am I allowed to concede? Is my opponent allowed to point out that my expected winnings will go up if I concede?
A friend of mine was in another tcg shop (not when we go regularly) and he was in the top 8. They were 1 - 1, going for the last moatch of that round, when the opponent realized that he had 59 cards in his deck. My friend call the judge, he explained the situation, and then they started to check under the playmat, under the table, places near, but the missing card was nowhere near. The judge knew the opponent, not my friend, so he asks him (opp.) some questions, while my friend who was angry for the situation (opponent playing with an ilegal deck of 59 cards) went outside, because the owner of the store told him to go outside to chill and have a smoke. After the smoke, he goes back and the judge says that he put a basic land to "fill" the space and that they have to continue the match, my friend says that "he has no penalty"? Refering to the opp. And the judge says he has a warning, and my friend (anrgy again) says "no game loss?", and the judge says that he could DQ him for saying such a thing. My friend, really angry said: "I concede and will never return to this store, where judge calls the shot for the people he knows and isn't imparcial". I just wanted to know what's up with this situation, according to you?
The penalty for a decklist problem is a match loss, but a deck problem is only a warning and this seems like the latter. There are certain situations where it can be upgraded though. That being said, the above is only true for Competitive REL. At Casual REL if the judge doesn't believe you did it on purpose they just fix the issue by adding a basic. If you don't like a ruling you can appeal it to the head judge, or sometimes store owner, but after that you pretty much just need to accept it.
I'd like your thoughts on an actual scenario that happened. Going into the last round of an event. There are 3 players that could still take 1st prize. Players 1 and 2 sit at the table and do NOT play their actual match. They watch to see how player 3's match turns out. Once they see that player 3 has won, player 1 then concedes to player 2 so that he will finish 1st ahead of player 3. In the end player 1 is given half of player 2's packs which means that player 1(who finished in 4th place) got more prize packs than the players in 2nd and 3rd combined! Player 1 and 2 argue that they first agreed to split any prizes, then player 1 conceded after waiting to see how the other match went. I feel this is a case where like you said, they are just trying to phrase it a certain way, but what they are doing is obvious. In addition to the questionable split, what is your take on them not playing and waiting to report till the opposite match is finished? Now, I know you said call a judge, but here's the biggest issue...player 1, who was the player that benefited from half of 1st place's packs., was the judge for the event as well!
Im surprised the example of "someone pays for another person's draft, and that someone asks for 'just what they draft or even just prizing of packs,'" couldn't that be wage betting? I have noticed it more and more with people who do not want paper cards and just want to play. Sort of like a cube, but thats a can of worms there.
Only if it’s deterministic to the outcome of the game. You can have mechanics that roll dice or flip coins that lead to an in game effect. What you can’t have is a card that flips a coin or rolls a die that determines the winner of the game outright.
The game itself has variance in it, but the entirety of the game isn't a game of chance. If you flip a coin and decide the winner solely on that, that's a game of chance - but if a game has gone in such a way that it will be decided on a coin-flip (like if your opponent is going to win the game - if they survive a mana crypt flip), those circumstances are because you and your opponent have put yourself in that position through the rest of the game.
If you can set up a game state of heads I win, tails you win, that's fine. If you stop playing magic and just flip a coin, outside of MTG mechanics, that's IDW
In the scenario where drawing is bad for everyone, could the players agree at the start of the match to use a chess clock timed to the length of the round and to concede if their time runs out?
Hypothetically yes, but someone would have to have a chess clock for that to work. As an aside, chess clocks have been considered for Magic tournaments several times, but TO's have uniformly rejected the idea principally on the basis of (1) practical considerations related to furnishing large numbers of chess clocks (2) Magic's priority system making chess clocks less practical to use and (3) Magic players not being used to them, potentially leading to more occasions of players being more unsatisfied than the status quo.
I have zero respect for someone that didn't earn their spot, especially when this is more likely to be a friend helping out another friend. Sadly, it's all but impossible to stop people from intentionally tanking a game to give the win to someone, so ID's are going to continue to be part of the game. If Magic is supposed to be a game of skill, then you should be forced to play it out.
Regardless of what the rules, I'm curious how you would prefer these kinds of things be handled. Would you prefer this be allowed? Or maybe you'd prefer a 'no intention draws' rule?
No intentional draws would be borderline impossible to enforce unless we did away with the round clock. I agree the situation we have right now isn't ideal, but I don't think that's the best way to change it.
Why? IMO, the main reason specific prize splitting setups are against the rules is so that Wizards isn't facilitating illegal gambling. So I feel like it's pretty harmless if those rules aren't enforced particularly strictly, since they largely exist as a legal defense (again, in my opinion)
How about just Playing Magic to see who wins? I’m sure the person who didn’t make top 8 because Nick was “nice” and conceded the match to Amy so she made it through instead would have liked him to at least TRIED to beat her. I find these rules loopholes annoying and would be just as unhappy if I missed top 8 because Nick was “nice” which is legal or if Amy offered him $50 which is not.
Many years ago, I was in the finals of a world championship qualifier against a known pro player. That player offered a split that I would get all the prizes and they would get the invite. I asked the judge if that was ok and the judge said yes. Was this actually allowed? It sounds like it wasn’t based on the video
At [7:55] it mentions that if there are two players left in the tournament they can decide to split the prizes and decide the winner. Many of the remaining situations are only relevant when there are more than 2 players in the tournament, which is why most of the examples take place in the last round before top cut.
My friend and I card chair all the time so when we get paired up against each other we go with whoever has the best deck is there any other one concedes. I have conceded before the rain started
Rules question: The Master Multiplied from the Doctor Who set says triggered abilities I control can't cause me to sacrifice or exile creature tokens I control. I know creating a creature token through myriad or similar abilities doesn't LTB. What about if I play something that creates a token with the specific rules text, "Sacrifice (or exile) this token at the beginning of the next end step" or something similar? Is that still a (delayed?) triggered ability that The Master Multiplied negates? My gut says yes, but I have recently started having doubts that I'm using the card correctly. Thank you in advance!
Misread something in your question, thought you were asking about myriad as well. I don't think there's a difference between myriad which I believe the exile is a delayed trigger at the end of combat and a delayed trigger causing you to sacrifice/exile at the next end step. They're both written the same way, it's just a difference of when they occur.
One issue I could see with this setup is that the situation described in 6:08 where the players try to roll a die to see who wins when they go to time would be a lot more common. If I'm giving something up to scoop someone into the top8, that's one thing, but if it's a freeroll (so to speak), there's no reason why someone shouldn't scoop.
@@JudgingFtW in conversations I have had with professional FaB players, there are weird rules involving scooping as well, but those rules might only be involved with being on stream
In Netrunner we have two main tournament types. Because Netrunner is asymmetric with players bringing both Corp and Runner decks. Double sided swiss (DSS) and Single Sided Swiss (SSS). DSS has you play both corp and runner against the same opponent and SSS balances corp and runner via an algorithm. DSS has historically been more common, but has the downside of causing people to play a lot less Netrunner because of Intentional Draws (IDs) and Two for Ones (241s), both of which are legal as a matter of policy because policing this among friends and testing groups would be very difficult and unfair to players without testing groups. IDs are pretty universal in card games but 241s are idiosyncratic to netrunner because of the asymmetry. Offering a 241 is usually done on on the margins where a 1-1 split would result in neither player making the top 8 cut. But many high level players will often (in an 8 round DSS tournament where there should ostensibly be 16 games of netrunner played before the cut) play only 4 games. 241ing the first 4 rounds for 8 wins, and IDing for another 4. This so often enough to make top 8 while not playing much at all. As such, many players prefer SSS because it means you play more Netrunner, but it makes tournaments run longer due to more shuffling around the room and also means you don't get to hang out with your opponent as much and get to know them. It also causes games to go to time more frequently, an annoyance in a game where you often need to take a couple minutes to make an important decision by doing math or identifying the an out.
In the last five years the highest-rated chess tournaments have banned intentional draws (i.e. draw offers/agreements). Although people were skeptical of the change at first, citing corner cases that would create an unpleasant experience, these corner cases rarely come up in practice, and the results have been overwhelmingly positive. The penalty for agreeing to a draw ranges from a warning to a DQ at the discretion of the judge. Warnings are for when the game is clearly going to be drawn anyway and the players just neglected to get a judge to sign off on it, like the control players in your first example.
Not sure if it was covered but I'd like an explanation on Ygra, Eater of All + Staff all Invocation. My Judgment is saying that if you destroy all creatures and return Ygra back to the battlefield, Ygra won't get the counters.
What would happen is that all creatures (including Ygra) die, so an Ygra trigger goes on the stack for each creature. This trigger wants to put two +1/+1 counters on the original Ygra. Then Ygra is returned. This Ygra is not the original Ygra, so all the triggers resolve, doing nothing because the original Ygra they want to affect isn't there. (Or possibly they fizzle, I am not entirely sure which)
"That sounds a lot like gambling". If you actually believed it *was* gambling, you wouldn't have to hedge like this, you would just say "That is gambling". "I'm going to play a card game with a significant random element for a monetary prize" also "sounds like gambling", but we know that it isn't, because we're capable of understanding nuance. As it happens, there is literal court precedent defining this *exact* scenario as not gambling.
I used that phrasing because it does not matter what my belief is on the topic, nor does it matter what the Supreme Court (or any other competent court) has to say. The Head Judge's opinion is the only one that matters when it comes to determining whether a player has committed an infraction. This is a nuanced topic with several potential variations, and so I felt uncomfortable making a blanket statement to the effect of "all arrangements meeting X criteria are officially considered gambling", but I did want to make it clear that if a reasonable head judge could consider it gambling, it's not a good idea.
@@JudgingFtW And you don't see any problem with a Head Judge having the authority to remove a player from a $50,000 tournament based on whatever definition of gambling they pull out of their backside?
If this is talking about prizes they would receive rather than Amy offering Nick a pack from her prizes if he scoops, then it's legal. She isn't bribing him and he's free to concede at any point.
Yes, well that is okay because all the cards are worth the same amount. The bulk rares and tournament staples are exactly the same. In fact, rares and mythics are also worth the same, since a pack might have one or the other. Honestly, if I'm ever the dictator of the USA, irl lootboxes are going to be one of the first things on my list of stuff to change. Smaller card games can get a pass, but big tcg's with a history of massively anti-consumer behavior? To quote one of Hasbro's other properties, "Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200"
Legally speaking, because packs are draftable, and because WotC doesn’t acknowledge the secondary market, they’re a game piece and it’s not gambling. Realistically that’s complete nonsense and we all know it.
Also your last example doesnt actually make you look good, or judges in general for that matter. You said you might face consequences for not calling a judge immediately when faced with an illegal offer. Do you not understand why thats problematic? The judge can just decide that your silence was considering and boom punishment. You say its not a gotcha and then show exactly why its potentially a gotcha.
Brother…he’s just saying that calling a judge would be a gaurentee that nothing is misinterpreted in a highly sensitive situation. He is not saying that failing to do so automatically results in a penalty. If you just ignore the spectator and continue playing as if they aren’t there, you’re fine 100%! There’s no way in my mind Julien was “got”. According to Meg, the offer was not only considered but was accepted contrary to Julian’s account. Multiple judges were involved in the ruling, and they did their job according to what is written in the IPG. People just can’t fathom that the penalty was actually justified. It feels so much better to have this “martyr” to get behind and attack judges who only want to uphold the integrity of the game. Get real.
@@TheGoldenHorncall I have no reason to believe Meg's account where it differs from Julian's given all the other questionable things in her account. Also given the initial statement from Pastimes I have even less reason to trust her account based on the way it initially painted Julian's account. Multiple judges who couldn't even identify someone they say broke the rules at an event where everyone is required to wear a badge with their name on it. Multiple judges who allowed the finals to not be played and somehow still thought it wasn't split or that they couldn't figure out if it was. Pastimes initial statement and Megs report make Pastimes look like the most incompetent magic organizer of all time.
This ability to allow a player to conceed is unfair for a solo player vs a group... one of the grouo plays counter spell deck another fast combo, and the third graveyard reborn. Now to win the tournament your deck has to graveyard hate, be uncounterable, and deal with fast combo seems unlikely to say the least. Wonder why people are leaving this game
Games should be won off of skill, not luck. Yet WotC continues to print luck-based cards, some of which either outright win the game, or put you in a game-winning position.
Very thought out and well presented! Unfortunately, lots of hate has been spewed against the judge community lately, and I hope this is clearly communicated enough to sway some people to understand what has happened. In particular, it's been driving me crazy that people are equating "selling equity" with prize splitting. Once has always been allowed, and one is literally betting and wagering. And saying "I'll think about it" to a wager/collusion is very different than saying no or ignoring it.
All the hate the judging community gets is 100% deserved. Selling equity is not 100% betting/wagering. There's even a Nevada Supreme Court which specifically says its not. The ultimate problem is that judges think that they're at all qualified to handle a real world issue like what constitutes gambling because they know the rules of magic well.
@@Shaudius It's not a real-world issue that must be shoehorned into Magic. It's laid out in the rules of the tournament which you choose to participate in. There are about a million ways that a player inside a tourney accepting money from outside parties is problematic. It literally disincentivizes competing because they can just take their free money and walk. This is why it's different then prize splitting. But again, if you join a tournament that says "you may NOT do this thing," then you do that thing, you will get in trouble! That's not judge overreach. That's what the tournament rules are there for. No supreme Court ruling is relevant here because Wizards and the TO have it in black and white. If you think the judge program deserves hate, maybe you need to meet more of them. It's almost an entirely volunteer force, without which tournaments would be a shitshow. It grants no power or prestige or money. The only incentive to even be a judge is enjoyment of the game and community.
@@ThePauliwrath show me where in the MTR staking is disallowed in black and white. Even the person in this video hedges and said it sounds like gambling not it is gambling. It is not laid out in the rules of the tournament, it's an interpretation of what a term means. Again, the judge here, without evidence or citation, says it sounds like gambling. That doesn't not make it so. Also, in what world would staking disincentive competition. If someone offers you $2000 for 20% of your winning when first prize is 50k there is absolutely no world in which you're gonna be like whelp I got $2000 guess I'll just quit now instead of playing 2 matches that if I win I'll get 40k. Use your brain. Says there's a million ways, shows one that isn't even an example of disincentiving competition. This is why I can't take the other sides arguments seriously here. They don't make any sense. This is judge overreach because they are claiming that something is a thing that isn't a thing, not using their brains and even thinking about how this interacts with the rules and just declaring it bad wrong. Furthermore, this very issue was litigated because staking is a contract. If the person just took the money and ran they could be sued for breach of contract. They are actually incentivized to remain in the tournament and do their best even more than if they weren't staked. Based on the account of the TO, tournaments are already a shit show. I had nothing good to say about my interactions with pastimes at gen con, it was not a good run event in general. Absentee judges, ineffienct organization, just not a good experience. Judges at gen con are not volunteers they are paid contractors, the same is true of the event organizer, they are paid by both gen con and also likely wotc to run events. This is not some sort of a altruistic endeavor its a business and its run like shit based on the TOs own admission. All I'm asking is that judges and TO to display even an ounce of competency which they failed to do here. If they can't do that then they shouldn't be judging or running events. Hiding behind. Well they're mostly volunteers as an appeal to something or as a way to say well they couldn't possibly be doing it for some sort of power trip or bad motive fails because I have already said the TOs here are not volunteers, the judges here are not volunteers. Furthermore, plenty of people go on power trips even when it does not financially benefit them to do so. You act like someone who has never had a bad interaction with a judge at an event. That just tells me you have either been extremely lucky or haven't played enough events.
@@Shaudius MTR 5.3 is short and generic to say no wagering or ante of any kind. If I give you $500 up front, if you lose I get 0 and if you win I get $2000, that is literally wagering even if I call it an "equity sale." If I won a qualifying event on Thursday, I could spend the weekend selling as much of my stake as possible, even over 100%. Hell, I could even secretly agree with a friend in the top 8 secretly at our hotel that I'll be throw the match to him for 30% of his winnings. If I can put on a good hustle, I could make more than the winner. And the people who bought my equity would have to 1- realize they'd been fooled and 2 - only be able to get their money back by suing me. This is an extreme example, but there's no accountability to anyone, which makes it easy to compromise integrity, which is why from the very beginning of magic's competitive existence, there's been a hard line that only playing cards should influence the game. I'm definitely not here to say that Pastimes runs things great or that all judges are perfect, but I think most of the feel-bads around the SLS is because everyone was explicitly told "do NOT do this" and several people tried to anyway. The fallout from this is not going to be a change in judges (I'd argue they're not the problem, but even if they were, there's no alternative since WOTC doesn't care.) nor will it be a change in allowing collusion/wagering. It'll just be the choice to no longer hold unique events like SLS. The TO did not say the tournament was a shitshow because of the event, it was because people couldn't stop trying to sneakily make deals when they were told repeatedly it was not allowed. I've been lucky enough to play in competitive events for well over a decade and I've known many, many judges. I know they're paid to be at big events, but the training to become a judge is completely unpaid, and getting the experience required to be chosen as a large event judge is also usually unpaid. WOTC does not pay judges, only the event contractor, and they usually pay rather poorly. There are way faster and easier ways to enjoy a power trip. I've also seen first-hand how legitimate rules can create distrust of the judges if you're not willing to understand. I saw a neighbor miss a super important trigger, and they were not allowed to put it on the stack. Then later their opponent had a complicated upkeep and forgot to draw for turn, and the judge allowed the draw. I've seen someone get a match loss from a mid-round deck check for having extra cards in their deck box by their sideboard. They said it was just parts leftover when building the deck, but according to the rules (and the player meeting reminder), that's not allowed. Their game loss made them 0-2 and they dropped. Either of those simple encounters could make a player resent all judges if they're not willing to learn. I'm sorry if you had a bad experience with judges, and I wish everyone could play in the communities I have and meet the judges I have. I think it's telling that the only major incident at gencon was the SLS with unique prizing. I think it was totally preventable - not by the judges ignoring the rules, but by players following them.
@@ThePauliwrath "If I give you $500 up front, if you lose I get 0 and if you win I get $2000, that is literally wagering even if I call it an "equity sale."" Its not. Unless you think that buying part ownership of a company is "wagering" Buying equity is a business arrangement, you aren't betting against someone hoping for them to fail and you succeed, you are investing in them hoping they succeed so you both profit. Again, people way smarter than a random magic judge have already dealt with this issue decades ago, this isn't new. "If I won a qualifying event on Thursday, I could spend the weekend selling as much of my stake as possible, even over 100%" Yes, you could sell more than 100% but if you did you'd be committing fraud. There's lots of parades of horribles you can line up that don't make any sense and don't happen in the real world without people getting in trouble where equity stakes are common both in the business world and in other competitive events. Heck, I've been told they are common at the highest levels of magic, they just aren't usually openly discussed like this. "Hell, I could even secretly agree with a friend in the top 8 secretly at our hotel that I'll be throw the match to him for 30% of his winnings." So this example of why equity stakes are wagering is an example of bribery and not an equity stake at all? You are exchanging prospective money (30% of your winnings) for fixing the results of a match. That is not what an equity stake is even a little bit. With an equity stake you both want you to win, you are not trying to influence the results of a match, you are trying to get a piece of a winning player.
What if I'm playing a very slow control deck, and my opponent suggests we draw the match to plot a terrorist attack on American soil? We were both out of top 8 at that point.
A careful reading of the comprehensive rules [100.6b] states that you are allowed to find a location to start that attack (using the Magic Store & Event Locator)
I feel like this is a joke that I'm not in on.
@@christopherlundgren1700Pretty sure its about how 9/11 was an inside job
Go read that rule.
You’re both Mossad agents?
Eeeeyy, we got the gambling/IDW Patreon video after all!
I'm always looking out for the Patrons!
Seriously, though, part of why I made this is because it looked like that topic wasn't going to win the vote.
Pokémon TCG allows for intentional draws, but has some rules about a person asking for it multiple times. From how I understand it, you're allowed to ask for a draw once, and if your opponent refuses you're not allowed to ask again.
That seems in line with the "you can ask but you cannot pressure" principle. Actually nice they give a clear definition of it.
Excellent video on a touchy subject. I've been present at one of these recent infractions (not in close proximity but could hear a yell from across the hall) so I know this stuff ignites a lot of passion and can be confusing for many up-and-coming pro tour hopefuls/grinders, myself included.
I haven't been in one of these situations myself, and have honestly felt afraid that as I do better and better in my tournament results, some infraction like this would end my journey.
Very much appreciate this video. Clear, concise, straight to the point, no Twitter fluff. Thank you Judge Dave!
That aggressive behavior call was crazy!
In YGO there are a lot of rules specifically for this situation; the notable one is players are allowed to forfeit and drop games to let their friends advance to top cut but only if they don't play out the game. If the players say "yeah, I'll give you the match win, but let's play it out for fun", then that's against the rules - if you play out the game, you can't misreport the game result for any reason. This catches a lot of players off-guard, obviously!
What stops people from agreeing to a scoop, filling out the result, and then just playing a game for fun after that?
@@miserepoignee9594 that's a gray area but a lot of stores will absolutely let you do that l
@@miserepoignee9594 so if a judge hears a person scooping without a game they are expose to ask if the player is dropping. you can not play a game and fake the records as well and if found out you can get a potential ban
@@danielsash2079
But since you are explicitly allowed to concede to let your friend advance, then what @miserepoignee9594 proposed can't lead to a ban.
Because then just casual games between rounds would be illegal too, if they happened to overlap with a match that was played.
Maybe they would have to leave the table at which they're sitting, to distinguish the entire situation and make clear that the game they're about to play has nothing to do with the tournament they're competing in? But if friendly games between rounds are banned at Yu-Gi-Oh, just because they were just paired and a good outcome for both was easily determined, then those tournaments must be hell😅
@@Repaurcas I believe the issue is purely playing a game before reporting the results.
Hi! I have seen a few people mention Flesh and Blood’s concession rulings in the chat but I want to try to clear some things up and see if I can answer how at least I as a level 1 judge would rule.
FaB(Flesh and Blood) is played as a BO1 with sidebording before the first match. Games can go long and depending on strategy can go to time. At anytime before time in the round is called a player may concede for normal gameplay reasons. Once time in the round is called if any player takes an action and continues to go to turns neither player may concede and if a winner is not determined it is a draw. (A short aside here. As much as fab players want to tell you a draw is not a loss)
Recently due to both this end of turn procedure and the situations listed in this video the concession rules have become quite more strict. If either player talks about prizing then neither player may concede at that point. This also extends to pressuring an opponent to concede due to the board state. This now is considered improperly determining a winner. And at competitive level enforcement can lead to DQs. If you have any specific questions I can attempt to answer them to the best of my ability. Love your content btw. Eventhough I chose to be a judge for a different game your content over the years is what pushed me to take the test!
Out of curiosity, if a player tries to concede in these positions, what is the infraction and resulting penalty?
@@MultiGameFreaker Of course. I'm just a level one judge so I can't guarantee what more veteran Judges would rule.
At 1:00 That situation of having a draw for game three would never happen in FaB due to it being a best of one. Instead the end of game procedure would go as I wrote above.
At 1:45 It's also the same as Magic. A player may concede before the match has started if they have enough points to move on into the elimination rounds. (This situation is explicitly outlined in the Tournament Rules)
At 2:52 The situation is also the same we would consider it bribery and it would be a DQ for both players.
At 3:42 This situation is a lot more complicated and would require investigation and understanding. Based on just what is explained (A player reporting a loss then handing them 50 dollars) would leave me to lean more towards bribery than not. To be clear this situation is messy and by no means is easy to rule which he goes into detail.
At 6:04 This example where one person rolls a die to determine a winner would be ruled under "Improperly Determining a Winner" and would be a match loss as a penalty. This can be upgraded to a DQ if it is determined that the players knew it was an infraction.
At 7:57 This is where FaB and Magic differ the most. In FaB you are not allowed to draw during elimination rounds (top 8). A winner must be determined even when there is only two players left (this is specific to fab due to the way they have a soft rotating system called living legend) The prize split itself is allowed as long as it doesn't interfere with the results of the match. TL;DR you can split but you have to play it out. This also applies to the situation at 9:00
At 9:11 through the rest of the video my assumptions would be about the same as it is in Magic. The only exception again being that games must be played out till the end and as long as the players do not improperly determine a winner or end up in bribery or cheating they are perfectly fine to figure out splits outside the tournament.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask!
What are the consequences if a player concedes (but no other violations) when he's not allowed to? Do they go beyond disqualification from the tournament?
I'd say dropping from an event is impossible to deny e.g. if you had to leave urgently or in case of an emergency.
@@Mosethyoth for FaB if a player concedes when they would not be allowed to without a legitimate reason they are removed from the tournament as a whole with no other penalties. I do not believe this is considered a DQ as a DQ is a punishment that needs to be reported by both the judge and the player to LSS (The company that makes FaB). Furthermore situations like emergencies are explicitly stated as a reason to concede outside of normal times, and if you do it would just be reported as a loss if no other violations would be made. Again I'm just a lowly level one and cant express was a head judge at a large event would rule.
@@Gammer5544 So a concession in that situation would be considered the same as a tournament drop?
I've seen a few situations, where the ID would mean that both of us proceed to the next stage, and the few times I've taken it, it was against someone who I liked and respected. Otherwise, I have no problem playing it out and hoping for the win to get better seeding.
There was however one time, my opponent said "I offer, that you concede" and I accepted. The reason was, that because of our tiebreakers, even a win for me, wasn't going to be enough for me to get into the top 8. But a win from him, would see him in 8th place. He was also someone who I liked and respected, and so I agreed on the condition, that we play out a match for fun.
Now what happens if your opponent asks, "I'd like to improperly determine the winner of this match, can you call over a judge and give me a match loss?" can you call them on it without getting a match loss yourself?
Loved the glengarry glen ross reference on the tournament prizes
You know what this is? This is an Alpha juggernaut, this card costs more than your car. I went 7-0 in draft last year what’d you place?
I saw this comment and now I'm waiting for this Glengarry reference...
There's been times I wish I had a judge like you. I remember playing at a convention and having a player beg me to split in a sealed event; it was late, people wanted to get to bed. But my deck was cracked, and moreover, I wanted to play. He was pleading with me at one point, talked over me and strongarmed me into taking a draw, then split the prize tickets in his favor and walked off. Every part of this happened in full view of judges who I retrospectively assume were each too uncomfortable to intervene. I was too uncomfortable to intervene. I left the weekend with plenty of prize support, but I made a promise to myself to simply say "play or concede" in the future. Glad these policies exist.
The obvious parallels in structure to and divergences in management from Poker Tournaments needs to be reviewed by WOTC. And sadly, to avoid people seeing it as the skill-based gambling game that it is, they will never make those same comparisons..
In the story where Nick concedes to Amy (or to a total stranger) so they can get to top 8, it is presented as a courtesy. However, in doing so they are preventing someone else from getting to top 8. Is it really a courtesy when considered from the viewpoint of the tournament overall? To be clear, I don't think you can or should prevent Nick from conceding for any reason he wants. But courtesy is neither the reason nor a necessary justification.
Indeed. Basically getting matched down in a cordial atmosphere like this is really equivalent to getting a bye in your last Swiss round through sheer luck while others have to play in. Which is not the worst thing ever but should be acknowledged.
Hm. I was far closer to getting DQ'd out of my first RC than I realized.
I was playing one of the LCQs the day before because I wanted a promo Nykthos. I won my match against someone on mono-black, and they mentioned they were not yet qualified for rhe RC, and asked if I would concede the match to them out of kindness. I thought for a while, called a judge to see if this was allowed, and then did so.
Then, WHILE THE JUDGE IS STANDINF THERE I wrote out my phone number and told my opponent to hit me up if they won any prizes and were feeling generous later.
From an outside perspective, this is VERY VERY close to "hey, I'll scoop to you if you give me any prizes you win."
Actually i would say that if you conceeded the match before saying that i would argue there is a relevant difference, because when you decided to conceede noone offered you anything to do that.
nothing in this fact pattern is illegal
An example of all remaining players splitting a non cash prize is actually 1 of my favourite MtG stories that isn't from my play group. The guy was playing Tendrils Storm in Legacy n forgot to put his Tendrils in his sideboard. He didn't even notice for the longest time n then bluffed his way thru all the remaining matches cuz his opponents kept scooping when he would cast a card to grab Tendrils out of the sideboard cuz they never expected him to not have his only win condition. So he bluffed his way to the top 4 n the prize may have had money but I do know that a part of it was a playset of a card n so all 4 finalists decided to take 1 copy of the card each n split any money there may have been.
"the guy" is Luis Scott-Vargas
@@RealGairos it's better to remember him as This Guy
i love that movie reference with the car and steak kninves.
The Glengarry Glen Ross quote was *_chef's kiss_*
A Always
B Be
C Countering
It's too easy for cheaters to avoid getting caught (by conspiring before joining the event) and too easy to unjustly punish innocent people (who are transparent because they didn't know better).
11:32 - Please, ask the judge for advice - but ask them AWAY FROM YOUR OPPONENT! If you call a judge, then in front of your opponent say "Judge, if my opponent concedes I'd be happy to give them $50. Can I tell them that?" - it's largely the same as if you'd said it to your opponent directly, except now you've also got a judge right there that heard the whole thing. Your opponent knows what'll happen if they concede, and the match integrity is impacted, putting the judge in the rather gross spot of having to issue an infraction because you called a judge.
Honestly i much prefer how flesh and blood handles it. And it only gets away with this because it's a best of one game that you pre-sideboard. So terrible matchups get shored up.
In that game all draws are losses. You can choose your ID whenever, (we only have 10 minutes in the clock and we cannot kill right in this time would you like to ID?) does happen, but very rarely because it's just two players conceding
What's the point of that? Like, in that 10 minutes on the clock situation, it's nicer to concede to your opponent and give them the win, and it's more advantageous to you to continue playing in the hopes that _they_ concede to you and give you the win. There's no advantage to drawing, it might has well not exist.
I came from the Tennis world when I re-engaged with mtg and the intentional draw stuff is weird to me. When it first was offered to me, I was like "what do you think this is, Searching for Bobby Fischer...?" except we hadn't even begun the match. Like at GPs it becomes the norm in side events and it kinda kills the some of the fun. Like, if you go 3-0, most times you knew you'd be splitting in round four and wouldn't have a match, and like the amount of prize support on the line was stressful, so if you refused the draw, the stress and disappointment from your opponent would be palpable. If the intentional draws didn't exist, people wouldn't have the FOMO issues over 4th round matches at side events and people might learn to enjoy a stressful match, like one might expect when they go to high level rules enforcement events with larger than normal prize support.
You know, "you want coffee?...coffee is for closers."
It almost makes me think they should change the side events so that the entry and the prize support are halved, maybe with one less round. I think that would solve a lot of the problems you mentioned.
Another way to compare intentional draws is looking at the NFL, what if that was legal in the regular season? There have to be instances where in the Final Week, two teams meet up where a loss for each team would hurt their playoff prospects, but a draw might guarantee one team is the Wildcard and 1 team secures Home Field Advantage. However, I'm pretty sure the NFL doesn't allow intentional draws even though Draws are possible in the NFL. Same for Soccer, right?
@@matthewbryant2972 Right, tournaments exist for spectators too.
9:40 - I have an additional question on this point: imagine that all rounds before the cut to top 8 have concluded. A player that lands on 16th place asks all players from place 8th to 15th to drop so he/she can enter the top 8. That player only asks but doesn't offer anything in return to those players. Is this possible? If it isn't possible what's the penalty?
Intent matters. An investigation into why you are doing that and why anyone would willing give up there position. Also I am pretty sure if standings have been determined, them dropping doesn't shoe horn you into playing in their place. It just means they forfeit with their standing and would get any prizing associated with it and just made it a faster tournament as you can cut straight to top 4 after 7th - 1st play out top 8.
This was relevant to me in the Bloomburrow prerelease, I was 3-0 and my opponent was 2 wins 1 draw on the last round and told me that we could draw since if I did I wouldn't lose the first place and he'll make it to the top 4, if I win I'll have the first place regardless but he'll miss top 4 and if I lose he'll win first place and I would be on the top 4, one of the organizers jokingly said we're disqualified and I'm not/was not familiar with this things so I was sweating bullets and refused the offer, I went on to win last round but I was so scared even if the prize were just booster packs and the environment was casual. I didn't care on getting first place with 4 wins or 3 wins one draw and I would had maybe give the top 4 to my opponent if I knew more about this.
Thumbnail is on point 🤣
That last part kinda sucks though, like you are forced into a bad situation where if you dont possess the correct knowledge then you face dire consequences. that asks every player to be intimately familiar with corner cases of tournament rules and to immediately call for a judge and not ask any more questions about the offer, otherwise it is considered entertaining it?
I'm going to preface this by saying I am not a judge.
Unfortunately, competitive REL works under the assumption that players either know the rules or know when to ask about them. This differs widely from standard REL, where players are more likely to make mistakes. Any player wanting to grind tournaments should probably devote some time to learning what rules areas are contentious so they know to consult a judge.
@@HafusAndLegacy your other reply is correct that competitive events so require a more serious knowledge of the rules (and tournament rules).
Also, saying no thanks, or simply ignoring them completely would make it clear you're not in kahoots. If you engage in discussion of what the agreement will be then that's where you are in deep doodoo
@Judging FtW What should I do if I am in the last Swiss round, win and in and my opponent offers his prize in exchange for me conceding? If I call a judge immediately what is going to happen? Is he getting DQ? What happens to me?
if you call a judge immediately you should be fine
Judge, in that last scenario where a player is only interested in the money and other only on the invite, I've heard that in this situation you can suggest to play the match and the winner can choose which of the prizes they want. Is that allowed?
I don't think that works because the invite explicitly goes to the winner. So if the winner wanted the money, the result would be a situation where the other person couldn't get the invite. If this wasn't the case, like a game day play mat, no such issue.
I'm always appreciative of they maturity, expertise and mentorship you display in your videos Judge Dave.
I have a story, maybe a bit too dissimilar to your request of analogies from other TCGs to be relevant; but, here it is:
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.Nd4 Nd5 3.Nb3 Nb6 4.Nc3 Nc6 5.Ne4 Ne5 6.Ng5 Ng4 7.Nf3 Nf6 8.Ng1 Ng8 9.Nc5 Nc4 10.Na4 Na5 11.Nc3 Nc6 12.Nb1 Nb8 13.Nf3 0 - 0
I hope you enjoyed that anecdote! Have a nice day.
If they only moved their knights, how can castling be the last move of the game?
@@RibusPQR
That's meant to represent the score. Typically that order of moves would result in a score of 1/2 - 1/2, in this case the players including Russia's #1 player were both given loses, which is uncharacteristic for a normal game of chess.
Combined the two players lost over ten thousand dollars due to that half-point lost from their standings.
The moral of the story was: if you get caught dancing about by judges, it's a clear-cut case of FAFO.
I hope that explains better.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain further; have a nice day.
Holy crap, I didn't realize Nepomniachtchi was a fan of the channel!
@@JudgingFtW I was relating a story that was about two other individuals, I didn't think the word "anecdote" implied it involved me personally.
Silly.
Sorry for the confusion.
Scenario where Amy wants the invite and Nick wants the cash: if Amy just verbalizes that she wants the invite and Nick just verbalizes that he doesn't, then Nick scoops, it seems like judges could do nothing to stop Amy from giving Nick the cash outside of the tournament venue. But Nick would have to scoop without any confirmation of compensation
When the prize is a rare, valuable magic card, I always offer to rip it in half.
always excellent videos, I learn a lot. thanks!
Thank you! What a great explanation!❤
I remember agreeing to split the booster packs as a finalist with another player and then we played for the first pick of the promo for FNM. I won the first pick. The only time I ever won a draft. lol
So I've only had one experience of something that could end up like this, and I don't know how murky the ethics of it was but everyone agreed on the fairness.
What happened was an LGS commander "tournament" for the Dr. Who set. I advanced to the final pod of four players, for a prize of your choice of one of four secret lair cards 25-30$ each. First place gets first pick, second place second pick and so on. The game ground out to me and one other player left. I had him guaranteed to lose and he didn't want to keep going in the game. He wanted a specific prize card from the 4 and it wasn't the one I'd picked out in mind (Blasphemous Act). He offered to hand me the game if I let him have that card of choice (Spellseeker) and I said sure. Since the other two players had already been eliminated in turn to set 3rd and 4th place, I felt it was fine. If that was a real sanctioned tournament would that be all good?
Feels like no. An offer is being made in return for a game result.
@@brofstan argument could also be made that it is basically the top 2 players agreeing to split the prizes evenly in a normal tournament. Since it is the guaranteed #1 and #2 players. I see arguments for both and I wonder what a judge would rule on this!
There's not a good answer to this because it sounds like you're describing a 4-player commander pod, and technically there is no 2nd-4th. (What happens if a player plays a "wins the game" effect?)
At this point, I'd say whatever the tournament organizer decides is appropriate.
For comparison, if you were playing 1v1 for first and second, you'd just be agreeing to a prize split of who gets 1st prize/2nd prize.
As another guideline, NEVER say "I'll concede *if*..."
Just say you want to split prizes in a certain way.
@@ThePauliwrath So the prizing support was a set of four Secret Lair cards all around 20$ in value. The LGS set it so the final group would all get a prize but gave first choice to first place and so on.
The exact statement to me was "You've got me by the balls here, I really want that Spellseeker. I'll scoop you the game now just don't choose Spellseeker." The option was there to play it out but realistically I was presenting lethal damage my next turn regardless of what he did.
@@ZSAITOSEI I would categorize this as not okay if I had to make that decision. You and your opponent are allowed to discuss how you want to split prizes, but it shouldn’t affect match outcome. “I really want the Spellseeker” is fine, but “I’ll scoop for the Spellseeker” is crossing the line in my book. Hopefully everyone got what they wanted at least.
I’m not sure if this is completely on topic. This happened to me at a commander tournament at my LGS which did cost an entrance fee, had prizes and overseen by an official judge but a level 1.
I did asked online some that turned out to be judges anonymously and they said what happened isn’t allowed.
Two friends before hand had a prize split agreement. But both with only go after the other two players as well as lie using politics to make it look like they weren’t. As well as they uses jesters to give the other an idea what they had in their hands.
Their goal was to get like in the match I was in knock out the other opponents and one the concedes. By doing so it manipulated the sitting.
In the match against them I was in the one that conceded had the better board state and more life. No way for the other to beat him but he still conceded.
Reason I know most of this I noticed it happening in the later matches and what I overheard later. Plus the weird hand signals.
I haven’t seen either at the LGS for about two years. Maybe they got a store ban. IDK.
What those two players break the rules?
Thank you for the concede at anytime comment. Someone was pointing out how a concede was a clear violation and wanting to launch a full scale investigation because of it. When all I had to do was point out that a simple line in the rules book shows that it is allowed.
i love hearing about magic's rules
i've played a whole lot of pokemon, and it's very similar in that players have the right to concede at any time, or to mutually agree to a draw
however, in pokemon, matches end without a conclusion extremely often. in fact, almost all matches that reach a game 3 without either player conceding early in one of the first two games ends inconclusive. usually, pokemon players come up with what we call a "gentleman's agreement," where before the start of game 3, both players mutually agree that the player who is ahead in the game will win if time +3 turns ends without a conclusion to the match.
its really interesting to hear that there are so many draws in pokemon. I know how to play the game but dont follow it competatively. is it just because round times are so short?
@@mrmanpie8088 its because it's so common for a pokemon game to take 20-30 minutes. the rounds are 50 minutes long.
there's even an advanced "strategy" in pokemon that players like Tord Reklev use where if you play a deck with tons of game actions (like gardevoir ex), you play out a really long game one if you expect to win it (eating like 40 minutes off the clock). then, the match will probably end 1-0, without the second game ever concluding. alternatively, if you believe you're going to lose game one, you scoop early and try to rush yourself a bit to finish the next two games.
it's often a point of controversy in the pokemon community, with many players calling for a change to the tournament structure
Hello. I have an interesting (in my opinion) rules question:
Let's say, I have a Mishra's Warform copying Wishclaw Talisman created by the Mishra Eminent One. Mishra (Eminent One) says, that I should sacrifice that copy at the end of turn. Then I give the Warform to an opponent with Wishclaw Talisman Ability. Is Mishra's Warform I gave to the opponent sacrificed at the end of turn, or I am unable to perform the action, because I do not control the permanent I am supposed to sacrifice?
I believe that it would, but if you Donate a token made from Minion Reflector then that would be sacrificed since they control the trigger.
The situation I run afoul of most often is 7 players trying to pressure the 1 guy who wants to play out the top 8 instead of just splitting prizes. "It's late, I want to go home" vs "I came here to play Magic, and I want to play"
During a limited RCQ I played in, to vote for splitting packs, they gave top 8 each a forest and a mountain.
Each player put 1 card face down on the table, forest if they wanted to split, mountain if they didn't.
The judge came around and collected the cards, then shuffled them.
This way, no one would know who voted for what and you wouldn't have that situation of 7 players mad at the 1.
Thank you for this video. I was offered a split in the 1 and 2 spots of a small 12 person tournament at my LGS and I wasn’t sure how to handle it properly. If I every have a bigger event where I want to offer a split but am not sure how, like the top 8 of an RCQ, would the best thing to do be call a judge, ask to step away from the table, tell them I want to offer a split but I’m not sure how and ask if they will help facilitate it for me?
It sure sounds like placing a bet on a tournament but its not placing a bet on the tournament with the person you're staking. It's not gambling or wagering if your interests are aligned.
I know magic tournaments aren't courts of law but maybe we should actually look at how courts of law like the Nevada supreme court have handled this and realize that magic judges aren't qualified to make this sort of judgment and go with what happened in the real world.
@@Shaudius There is the wrinkle that Magic tournaments also have to abide by local/national laws relevant to the venue where they are playing, in addition to whatever rules WotC wants to impose on tournament organizers, who themselves may add additional regulations. The Nevada supreme court ruling matters a lot more for an event in Vegas than one in Germany, as an example.
@@Noirevert they do but the fact that a court of law has ruled that equity stakes are not "gambling" cuts strongly against the narrative propagated by this judge and the people I've replied to that this is a clear cut case of gambling and its ridiculous that anyone could possibly think its not just black and white.
I have a question,this happened to me 2 time at prereleases,i was into 3rd place going into the last round,if i won and one of the two people in first lost i could get second if they draw i would still be 3rd,they agree to draw and split the prizes,i won,is this allowed?
in both cases one of the person above me was the same and they were known in that place as someone who always makes that kind of deals.
You cannot turn in a Tied match result in YGO until time in the round, period. I've seen it lead to DQs multiple times at Regional level events. I find it very, very strange but it's been the rule for a very long time.
I was just gonna pose this question to you, but YT provided ❤ thanks a lot for anticipating our curiosity
I started playing Digimon recently and intentional draws are not allowed there, which was quite a shock coming from magic.
Are there any differences to the id/concessions in commander/cedh tournaments in the regular rules ??
What are your thoughts on the changes to the mtr/ipg that topdeck has made for commander/cedh tournaments?
if only mtg could be legally be gambling then all this would be simpler
taxes not so much
You would have to then restrict it to an 18+ only game since gambling and children don't legally mix.
Good video on a difficult topic. Let me see if I've understood the rule correctly (based on a real-life match): I'm playing an opponent in the final round of a pre-release. Based on our records and the pre-announced prize payouts, me winning would give us both 3 prize packs (6 packs total); my opponent winning would give her 7 prize packs, and me 1 (8 packs total). So... it sounds like there is no legal way to come to an agreement whereby we work out a 4-4 pack split (which would require her winning the match)? I mean, we could probably discuss (in abstract terms) the payout scheme and even agree to split the packs regardless of match result, but the moment I concede (or play badly in an effort to deliberately lose), then we've entered the realm of an agreement in exchange for a specific match result? Follow up: is a (legal) prize split enforceable? I mean, lets say we agree to split prizes and I lose legitimately; if she walks up to collect her 7 packs then starts to walk away, can I call the tournament judge? Or is just between us two?
Yugioh judge here. In that game, intentional draws, for any reason, are considered collusion, which results in an "Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Cheating" penalty, resulting most often in disqualification without prizes, and referral to the penalty committee for possible suspension from ALL Organized Play events.
Fuuuuug
I just ran afoul of something like this, and now I am looking for help as I don't want to make a mistake.
Today at a Store Championship (not competitive rel), our game went to time and on turn 5 when it was going to be a draw, I offered my opponent a concession if he showed me his hand and it looked like he had me. I did not ask for the same from him, and I did not ask to look at anything else that we wouldn't be able to look at, such as cards in library, but I did verbally offer a concession if he showed me his hand and it "looked like he would win." I was told this was improperly determining a winner.
Is that correct? I really don't want to be on the wrong side of this, and when I look up the rules I don't see what I did as against the rules. I'm happy to be wrong, and this has made me more careful when I try to be generous. I just really don't want to get on the wrong side of these kinds of rules so I'd rather know exactly what they are.
Suppose my opponent can make top 8, I can not. My opponent proposes a prize split, and I accept. It is now in my own best interest to concede, because my expected winnings will go up. Am I allowed to concede? Is my opponent allowed to point out that my expected winnings will go up if I concede?
A friend of mine was in another tcg shop (not when we go regularly) and he was in the top 8. They were 1 - 1, going for the last moatch of that round, when the opponent realized that he had 59 cards in his deck. My friend call the judge, he explained the situation, and then they started to check under the playmat, under the table, places near, but the missing card was nowhere near. The judge knew the opponent, not my friend, so he asks him (opp.) some questions, while my friend who was angry for the situation (opponent playing with an ilegal deck of 59 cards) went outside, because the owner of the store told him to go outside to chill and have a smoke. After the smoke, he goes back and the judge says that he put a basic land to "fill" the space and that they have to continue the match, my friend says that "he has no penalty"? Refering to the opp. And the judge says he has a warning, and my friend (anrgy again) says "no game loss?", and the judge says that he could DQ him for saying such a thing. My friend, really angry said: "I concede and will never return to this store, where judge calls the shot for the people he knows and isn't imparcial". I just wanted to know what's up with this situation, according to you?
The penalty for a decklist problem is a match loss, but a deck problem is only a warning and this seems like the latter. There are certain situations where it can be upgraded though.
That being said, the above is only true for Competitive REL. At Casual REL if the judge doesn't believe you did it on purpose they just fix the issue by adding a basic.
If you don't like a ruling you can appeal it to the head judge, or sometimes store owner, but after that you pretty much just need to accept it.
I'd like your thoughts on an actual scenario that happened.
Going into the last round of an event. There are 3 players that could still take 1st prize. Players 1 and 2 sit at the table and do NOT play their actual match. They watch to see how player 3's match turns out. Once they see that player 3 has won, player 1 then concedes to player 2 so that he will finish 1st ahead of player 3. In the end player 1 is given half of player 2's packs which means that player 1(who finished in 4th place) got more prize packs than the players in 2nd and 3rd combined!
Player 1 and 2 argue that they first agreed to split any prizes, then player 1 conceded after waiting to see how the other match went. I feel this is a case where like you said, they are just trying to phrase it a certain way, but what they are doing is obvious. In addition to the questionable split, what is your take on them not playing and waiting to report till the opposite match is finished?
Now, I know you said call a judge, but here's the biggest issue...player 1, who was the player that benefited from half of 1st place's packs., was the judge for the event as well!
Im surprised the example of "someone pays for another person's draft, and that someone asks for 'just what they draft or even just prizing of packs,'" couldn't that be wage betting? I have noticed it more and more with people who do not want paper cards and just want to play.
Sort of like a cube, but thats a can of worms there.
Isn't "flip a coin" in magic games a chance mechanic though?
Only if it’s deterministic to the outcome of the game. You can have mechanics that roll dice or flip coins that lead to an in game effect. What you can’t have is a card that flips a coin or rolls a die that determines the winner of the game outright.
The game itself has variance in it, but the entirety of the game isn't a game of chance. If you flip a coin and decide the winner solely on that, that's a game of chance - but if a game has gone in such a way that it will be decided on a coin-flip (like if your opponent is going to win the game - if they survive a mana crypt flip), those circumstances are because you and your opponent have put yourself in that position through the rest of the game.
@@curtin1107 what if our decks were just Mana Crypt and 56 islands?
If you can set up a game state of heads I win, tails you win, that's fine. If you stop playing magic and just flip a coin, outside of MTG mechanics, that's IDW
@@ShinjiGetsGroundedthat is still a situation you and your opponent constructed and put yourself into
In the scenario where drawing is bad for everyone, could the players agree at the start of the match to use a chess clock timed to the length of the round and to concede if their time runs out?
Hypothetically yes, but someone would have to have a chess clock for that to work. As an aside, chess clocks have been considered for Magic tournaments several times, but TO's have uniformly rejected the idea principally on the basis of (1) practical considerations related to furnishing large numbers of chess clocks (2) Magic's priority system making chess clocks less practical to use and (3) Magic players not being used to them, potentially leading to more occasions of players being more unsatisfied than the status quo.
I have zero respect for someone that didn't earn their spot, especially when this is more likely to be a friend helping out another friend. Sadly, it's all but impossible to stop people from intentionally tanking a game to give the win to someone, so ID's are going to continue to be part of the game. If Magic is supposed to be a game of skill, then you should be forced to play it out.
Regardless of what the rules, I'm curious how you would prefer these kinds of things be handled. Would you prefer this be allowed? Or maybe you'd prefer a 'no intention draws' rule?
No intentional draws would be borderline impossible to enforce unless we did away with the round clock. I agree the situation we have right now isn't ideal, but I don't think that's the best way to change it.
Would LOVE some integrity from the Atlanta CEDH judges. Every tournament (including cookout) had illegal prize splits and concessions
Why? IMO, the main reason specific prize splitting setups are against the rules is so that Wizards isn't facilitating illegal gambling. So I feel like it's pretty harmless if those rules aren't enforced particularly strictly, since they largely exist as a legal defense (again, in my opinion)
How about just Playing Magic to see who wins? I’m sure the person who didn’t make top 8 because Nick was “nice” and conceded the match to Amy so she made it through instead would have liked him to at least TRIED to beat her. I find these rules loopholes annoying and would be just as unhappy if I missed top 8 because Nick was “nice” which is legal or if Amy offered him $50 which is not.
Many years ago, I was in the finals of a world championship qualifier against a known pro player. That player offered a split that I would get all the prizes and they would get the invite. I asked the judge if that was ok and the judge said yes. Was this actually allowed? It sounds like it wasn’t based on the video
At [7:55] it mentions that if there are two players left in the tournament they can decide to split the prizes and decide the winner. Many of the remaining situations are only relevant when there are more than 2 players in the tournament, which is why most of the examples take place in the last round before top cut.
COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS!
all this is slimey. i want to see winners win. not networking and nepotism.
My friend and I card chair all the time so when we get paired up against each other we go with whoever has the best deck is there any other one concedes.
I have conceded before the rain started
there are no intent draws in yugioh. I (As a judge for the game) have to watch for id's as its considered collusion
missed opportunity to show the card bribery :D
“When will they learn” 😂
Rules question:
The Master Multiplied from the Doctor Who set says triggered abilities I control can't cause me to sacrifice or exile creature tokens I control.
I know creating a creature token through myriad or similar abilities doesn't LTB. What about if I play something that creates a token with the specific rules text, "Sacrifice (or exile) this token at the beginning of the next end step" or something similar? Is that still a (delayed?) triggered ability that The Master Multiplied negates? My gut says yes, but I have recently started having doubts that I'm using the card correctly. Thank you in advance!
Misread something in your question, thought you were asking about myriad as well. I don't think there's a difference between myriad which I believe the exile is a delayed trigger at the end of combat and a delayed trigger causing you to sacrifice/exile at the next end step. They're both written the same way, it's just a difference of when they occur.
In FaB, any draw, intentional or not, is pointed and considered a loss
One issue I could see with this setup is that the situation described in 6:08 where the players try to roll a die to see who wins when they go to time would be a lot more common. If I'm giving something up to scoop someone into the top8, that's one thing, but if it's a freeroll (so to speak), there's no reason why someone shouldn't scoop.
@@JudgingFtW in conversations I have had with professional FaB players, there are weird rules involving scooping as well, but those rules might only be involved with being on stream
Very useful video thank you!
In Netrunner we have two main tournament types. Because Netrunner is asymmetric with players bringing both Corp and Runner decks. Double sided swiss (DSS) and Single Sided Swiss (SSS). DSS has you play both corp and runner against the same opponent and SSS balances corp and runner via an algorithm.
DSS has historically been more common, but has the downside of causing people to play a lot less Netrunner because of Intentional Draws (IDs) and Two for Ones (241s), both of which are legal as a matter of policy because policing this among friends and testing groups would be very difficult and unfair to players without testing groups.
IDs are pretty universal in card games but 241s are idiosyncratic to netrunner because of the asymmetry. Offering a 241 is usually done on on the margins where a 1-1 split would result in neither player making the top 8 cut. But many high level players will often (in an 8 round DSS tournament where there should ostensibly be 16 games of netrunner played before the cut) play only 4 games. 241ing the first 4 rounds for 8 wins, and IDing for another 4. This so often enough to make top 8 while not playing much at all.
As such, many players prefer SSS because it means you play more Netrunner, but it makes tournaments run longer due to more shuffling around the room and also means you don't get to hang out with your opponent as much and get to know them. It also causes games to go to time more frequently, an annoyance in a game where you often need to take a couple minutes to make an important decision by doing math or identifying the an out.
In the last five years the highest-rated chess tournaments have banned intentional draws (i.e. draw offers/agreements). Although people were skeptical of the change at first, citing corner cases that would create an unpleasant experience, these corner cases rarely come up in practice, and the results have been overwhelmingly positive. The penalty for agreeing to a draw ranges from a warning to a DQ at the discretion of the judge. Warnings are for when the game is clearly going to be drawn anyway and the players just neglected to get a judge to sign off on it, like the control players in your first example.
Not sure if it was covered but I'd like an explanation on Ygra, Eater of All + Staff all Invocation. My Judgment is saying that if you destroy all creatures and return Ygra back to the battlefield, Ygra won't get the counters.
Yes, the returned Ygra is a different game object from, but same card as, the Ygra that died, so doesn't get the counters
What would happen is that all creatures (including Ygra) die, so an Ygra trigger goes on the stack for each creature. This trigger wants to put two +1/+1 counters on the original Ygra. Then Ygra is returned. This Ygra is not the original Ygra, so all the triggers resolve, doing nothing because the original Ygra they want to affect isn't there. (Or possibly they fizzle, I am not entirely sure which)
"That sounds a lot like gambling". If you actually believed it *was* gambling, you wouldn't have to hedge like this, you would just say "That is gambling". "I'm going to play a card game with a significant random element for a monetary prize" also "sounds like gambling", but we know that it isn't, because we're capable of understanding nuance. As it happens, there is literal court precedent defining this *exact* scenario as not gambling.
I used that phrasing because it does not matter what my belief is on the topic, nor does it matter what the Supreme Court (or any other competent court) has to say. The Head Judge's opinion is the only one that matters when it comes to determining whether a player has committed an infraction. This is a nuanced topic with several potential variations, and so I felt uncomfortable making a blanket statement to the effect of "all arrangements meeting X criteria are officially considered gambling", but I did want to make it clear that if a reasonable head judge could consider it gambling, it's not a good idea.
@@JudgingFtW And you don't see any problem with a Head Judge having the authority to remove a player from a $50,000 tournament based on whatever definition of gambling they pull out of their backside?
What if Amy says "if I win, I get 4 packs and you get 1 pack, if you win we both get a pack. Would you like to concede to me?
If this is talking about prizes they would receive rather than Amy offering Nick a pack from her prizes if he scoops, then it's legal. She isn't bribing him and he's free to concede at any point.
ban on gambling? theres no ban on buying lottery tickets aka card packs
Yes, well that is okay because all the cards are worth the same amount. The bulk rares and tournament staples are exactly the same. In fact, rares and mythics are also worth the same, since a pack might have one or the other. Honestly, if I'm ever the dictator of the USA, irl lootboxes are going to be one of the first things on my list of stuff to change. Smaller card games can get a pass, but big tcg's with a history of massively anti-consumer behavior? To quote one of Hasbro's other properties, "Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200"
Legally speaking, because packs are draftable, and because WotC doesn’t acknowledge the secondary market, they’re a game piece and it’s not gambling.
Realistically that’s complete nonsense and we all know it.
❤👍🏼
for being there and knowing, the gen-con issue was all from hear-say with no proof. everyone was talking about the dark rit. as the top prize.
Also your last example doesnt actually make you look good, or judges in general for that matter. You said you might face consequences for not calling a judge immediately when faced with an illegal offer. Do you not understand why thats problematic? The judge can just decide that your silence was considering and boom punishment. You say its not a gotcha and then show exactly why its potentially a gotcha.
He calls it ridiculous while making a video because it actually happened.
@@SymmetricalDocking yes the complete and utter lack of self awareness is completely deflating any confidence I had in judging in general.
Brother…he’s just saying that calling a judge would be a gaurentee that nothing is misinterpreted in a highly sensitive situation. He is not saying that failing to do so automatically results in a penalty. If you just ignore the spectator and continue playing as if they aren’t there, you’re fine 100%!
There’s no way in my mind Julien was “got”. According to Meg, the offer was not only considered but was accepted contrary to Julian’s account. Multiple judges were involved in the ruling, and they did their job according to what is written in the IPG.
People just can’t fathom that the penalty was actually justified. It feels so much better to have this “martyr” to get behind and attack judges who only want to uphold the integrity of the game.
Get real.
@@TheGoldenHorncall he literally says you aren't 100% fine if you ignore and keep playing. Did we watch the same video?
@@TheGoldenHorncall I have no reason to believe Meg's account where it differs from Julian's given all the other questionable things in her account. Also given the initial statement from Pastimes I have even less reason to trust her account based on the way it initially painted Julian's account.
Multiple judges who couldn't even identify someone they say broke the rules at an event where everyone is required to wear a badge with their name on it. Multiple judges who allowed the finals to not be played and somehow still thought it wasn't split or that they couldn't figure out if it was. Pastimes initial statement and Megs report make Pastimes look like the most incompetent magic organizer of all time.
This ability to allow a player to conceed is unfair for a solo player vs a group... one of the grouo plays counter spell deck another fast combo, and the third graveyard reborn. Now to win the tournament your deck has to graveyard hate, be uncounterable, and deal with fast combo seems unlikely to say the least. Wonder why people are leaving this game
Games should be won off of skill, not luck. Yet WotC continues to print luck-based cards, some of which either outright win the game, or put you in a game-winning position.
Very thought out and well presented! Unfortunately, lots of hate has been spewed against the judge community lately, and I hope this is clearly communicated enough to sway some people to understand what has happened.
In particular, it's been driving me crazy that people are equating "selling equity" with prize splitting. Once has always been allowed, and one is literally betting and wagering. And saying "I'll think about it" to a wager/collusion is very different than saying no or ignoring it.
All the hate the judging community gets is 100% deserved. Selling equity is not 100% betting/wagering. There's even a Nevada Supreme Court which specifically says its not. The ultimate problem is that judges think that they're at all qualified to handle a real world issue like what constitutes gambling because they know the rules of magic well.
@@Shaudius It's not a real-world issue that must be shoehorned into Magic. It's laid out in the rules of the tournament which you choose to participate in.
There are about a million ways that a player inside a tourney accepting money from outside parties is problematic. It literally disincentivizes competing because they can just take their free money and walk. This is why it's different then prize splitting.
But again, if you join a tournament that says "you may NOT do this thing," then you do that thing, you will get in trouble! That's not judge overreach. That's what the tournament rules are there for. No supreme Court ruling is relevant here because Wizards and the TO have it in black and white.
If you think the judge program deserves hate, maybe you need to meet more of them. It's almost an entirely volunteer force, without which tournaments would be a shitshow. It grants no power or prestige or money. The only incentive to even be a judge is enjoyment of the game and community.
@@ThePauliwrath show me where in the MTR staking is disallowed in black and white. Even the person in this video hedges and said it sounds like gambling not it is gambling.
It is not laid out in the rules of the tournament, it's an interpretation of what a term means. Again, the judge here, without evidence or citation, says it sounds like gambling. That doesn't not make it so.
Also, in what world would staking disincentive competition. If someone offers you $2000 for 20% of your winning when first prize is 50k there is absolutely no world in which you're gonna be like whelp I got $2000 guess I'll just quit now instead of playing 2 matches that if I win I'll get 40k. Use your brain. Says there's a million ways, shows one that isn't even an example of disincentiving competition. This is why I can't take the other sides arguments seriously here. They don't make any sense.
This is judge overreach because they are claiming that something is a thing that isn't a thing, not using their brains and even thinking about how this interacts with the rules and just declaring it bad wrong.
Furthermore, this very issue was litigated because staking is a contract. If the person just took the money and ran they could be sued for breach of contract. They are actually incentivized to remain in the tournament and do their best even more than if they weren't staked.
Based on the account of the TO, tournaments are already a shit show. I had nothing good to say about my interactions with pastimes at gen con, it was not a good run event in general. Absentee judges, ineffienct organization, just not a good experience. Judges at gen con are not volunteers they are paid contractors, the same is true of the event organizer, they are paid by both gen con and also likely wotc to run events. This is not some sort of a altruistic endeavor its a business and its run like shit based on the TOs own admission. All I'm asking is that judges and TO to display even an ounce of competency which they failed to do here. If they can't do that then they shouldn't be judging or running events.
Hiding behind. Well they're mostly volunteers as an appeal to something or as a way to say well they couldn't possibly be doing it for some sort of power trip or bad motive fails because I have already said the TOs here are not volunteers, the judges here are not volunteers. Furthermore, plenty of people go on power trips even when it does not financially benefit them to do so. You act like someone who has never had a bad interaction with a judge at an event. That just tells me you have either been extremely lucky or haven't played enough events.
@@Shaudius MTR 5.3 is short and generic to say no wagering or ante of any kind. If I give you $500 up front, if you lose I get 0 and if you win I get $2000, that is literally wagering even if I call it an "equity sale."
If I won a qualifying event on Thursday, I could spend the weekend selling as much of my stake as possible, even over 100%. Hell, I could even secretly agree with a friend in the top 8 secretly at our hotel that I'll be throw the match to him for 30% of his winnings. If I can put on a good hustle, I could make more than the winner. And the people who bought my equity would have to 1- realize they'd been fooled and 2 - only be able to get their money back by suing me.
This is an extreme example, but there's no accountability to anyone, which makes it easy to compromise integrity, which is why from the very beginning of magic's competitive existence, there's been a hard line that only playing cards should influence the game.
I'm definitely not here to say that Pastimes runs things great or that all judges are perfect, but I think most of the feel-bads around the SLS is because everyone was explicitly told "do NOT do this" and several people tried to anyway. The fallout from this is not going to be a change in judges (I'd argue they're not the problem, but even if they were, there's no alternative since WOTC doesn't care.) nor will it be a change in allowing collusion/wagering. It'll just be the choice to no longer hold unique events like SLS. The TO did not say the tournament was a shitshow because of the event, it was because people couldn't stop trying to sneakily make deals when they were told repeatedly it was not allowed.
I've been lucky enough to play in competitive events for well over a decade and I've known many, many judges. I know they're paid to be at big events, but the training to become a judge is completely unpaid, and getting the experience required to be chosen as a large event judge is also usually unpaid. WOTC does not pay judges, only the event contractor, and they usually pay rather poorly. There are way faster and easier ways to enjoy a power trip.
I've also seen first-hand how legitimate rules can create distrust of the judges if you're not willing to understand.
I saw a neighbor miss a super important trigger, and they were not allowed to put it on the stack. Then later their opponent had a complicated upkeep and forgot to draw for turn, and the judge allowed the draw.
I've seen someone get a match loss from a mid-round deck check for having extra cards in their deck box by their sideboard. They said it was just parts leftover when building the deck, but according to the rules (and the player meeting reminder), that's not allowed. Their game loss made them 0-2 and they dropped.
Either of those simple encounters could make a player resent all judges if they're not willing to learn.
I'm sorry if you had a bad experience with judges, and I wish everyone could play in the communities I have and meet the judges I have. I think it's telling that the only major incident at gencon was the SLS with unique prizing. I think it was totally preventable - not by the judges ignoring the rules, but by players following them.
@@ThePauliwrath "If I give you $500 up front, if you lose I get 0 and if you win I get $2000, that is literally wagering even if I call it an "equity sale.""
Its not. Unless you think that buying part ownership of a company is "wagering" Buying equity is a business arrangement, you aren't betting against someone hoping for them to fail and you succeed, you are investing in them hoping they succeed so you both profit. Again, people way smarter than a random magic judge have already dealt with this issue decades ago, this isn't new.
"If I won a qualifying event on Thursday, I could spend the weekend selling as much of my stake as possible, even over 100%"
Yes, you could sell more than 100% but if you did you'd be committing fraud. There's lots of parades of horribles you can line up that don't make any sense and don't happen in the real world without people getting in trouble where equity stakes are common both in the business world and in other competitive events. Heck, I've been told they are common at the highest levels of magic, they just aren't usually openly discussed like this.
"Hell, I could even secretly agree with a friend in the top 8 secretly at our hotel that I'll be throw the match to him for 30% of his winnings."
So this example of why equity stakes are wagering is an example of bribery and not an equity stake at all? You are exchanging prospective money (30% of your winnings) for fixing the results of a match. That is not what an equity stake is even a little bit. With an equity stake you both want you to win, you are not trying to influence the results of a match, you are trying to get a piece of a winning player.
How could I have ever known illegal gambling isn't allowed 😞