2024-10-05 SCGCON DC JUDGING

Introduction

This is my first post on the blog about judging, so it's going to be a lengthy one. If you're not super into discussion of rules, policy, or my unrestrained navel-gazing feel free to scroll down to the Takeaways section.

Judging in General

There's a whole philosophy to judging. But at its core it's about providing a positive gaming experience to everyone involved.

There's a bunch of aspects that are all important, but if I had to organize judging in a sort of hierarchy of needs:

• (top level) Hiccups are handled, numerous events going on concurrently, well-organized with clear hierarchy and escalation paths -- big tournaments/convention tier.
  
• Errors are handled, cheaters are caught, competitive integrity is maintained.
• People have fun.
• The rules are being followed.
• (bottom level) An event happens at all.

Now, all of these are important. You can't achieve the higher levels without the foundations.

My History with Judging

I got into judging MTG around 2018, certifying as an L1 and part-timing a large local FNM (~40). Since then I've been on-and-off through moves, the pandemic, different judge organizing bodies, returning to solo judge the large local FNM for a year, etc. It's funny when other judges say I'm really good for an L1 - I've played hundreds of Magic events including dozens of RCQs, some GP level events, and judged several thousand event-people by this point. But without a requirement for stores to staff RCQ judges, I've yet to make the move for L2.

Saturday Assignment: Pioneer Regional Championship Floor Judge

Took quite a few calls. Got all the card rulings correct, took a few error calls that I could have done better with. I awarded several warnings when they were appropriate, but not always using the textbook reason which I could do better with.

Sunday Assignment: Modern 5k Deck Checks

Doing deck checks, I found that my player experience was not unique - many players are also playing mismatched playsets of cards. 2 foil, 2 non-foil, in different arts. Presumably this is due to difficulties in sourcing 4 matching non-foil copies, or they prefer the heterogeneity.

Did have to award a game loss due to a mismatch of basic land count. It was 2/2 basic Swamp/Island vs a listed 3/1 split. Why it had occurred: player was using the desaturated Double Feature lands which are not obviously colored to the land type. Would not recommend.

Calls

• Cards involved: Elesh Norn Mother of Machines, Overlord of the Hauntwoods
• Situation: Player controlled ENMoM, resolved OotH ETB to make one Everywhere token. They should have created two with two triggers.
• Ruling: This is not a missed trigger, since the player demonstrated awareness of the trigger. However, they did not handle the replacement effect correctly which should have created a trigger. Game Rule Violation (GRV) to the player, Failure to Maintain Game State to opponent (FtMGS).

• Cards involved: The Wandering Emperor, Ob Nixilis the Adversary, Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
• Situation: AP +1's The Wandering Emperor on a 1/1 token. AP attacks with a 4/5, 3/2, 2/2 first strike (the aforementioned token).
  NAP clones a Devil token created by Ob Nixilis, then blocks both X/2s.
  Move to damage, NAP says target both X/2s, killing them. AP moves them to graveyard i.e. did not resolve first strike.
• Ruling: Neither player seemed to be aware of the first strike. NAP could have been pulling an angle, but did not give signs of such. Feels like GRV then escalate for a rewind to declare blockers, but definitely would want more feedback here.
• Commentary: Need to figure out exactly when to jump in, and whether we can back up.
  

• Cards involved: Narset Parter of Veils, Jetmir's Garden (or other tricycle land)
• Situation: NAP controls a Japanese language Narset. AP main-phase cycles a triome. NAP says "okay." AP draws a card, then calls for a judge.
• Ruling: GRV for both. NAP has a card modifying the rules of the game and is obligated to point it out when an illegal action occurs. AP should not perform the illegal action. Annotated IPG section for HCE calls out Narset to not resolve it as HCE (aka "Thoughtseize fix"). Instead select random card from hand, put it on top.
• Commentary:  Please don't play foreign language cards unless you're going to be on top of that ball all day.
  

• Cards involved: Get Lost
• Situation: UW player calls judge 2 turn cycles after casting a Japanese Get Lost. UW did not have his RB opponent create two Map tokens.
• Ruling: I ruled it as GRV, though there may be an argument that this is a Communication Policy Violation (CPV). Unfortunately, as a GRV we are well past the point of a backup.
• Commentary: Hey, foreign language card again. I would offer the same advice regarding textless cards and unreadable Secret Lair/promo versions: don't
  

• Cards involved: Kumano Faces Kakkazan, Slickshot Show-Off
• Situation: RB player played a KFK on turn 1. On their turn 2, they do not tick up the saga counter but play land and cast Slickshot Show-Off and say put a +1/+1 counter on it.
• Ruling: As of Duskmourn, Sagas now fall under missed trigger policy. AP demonstrated awareness of the trigger as soon as it was appropriate.
• Commentary: I think this makes the most sense, but Sagas are weird. Game rules, the saga chapter is a turn-based action that is now treated as a missed trigger by the tournament rules.

• Cards involved: Primeval Titan, Lotus Field
• Situation: Amulet Titan played Primeval Titan (w/ Amulets out), grabbing two Lotus Fields. Untap via Amulet of Vigor, float mana, then sacrifice two lands - the Lotus Fields. Cast a second Primeval Titan, grabbing 3rd Lotus Field and Echoing Deeps, copying a sacrificed Lotus Field. Again, sacrifice both Lotus Fields (one being a copy). Spectator calls a judge, pointing out that they've sacrificed an incorrect number of lands.
• Ruling: Bump this up to team lead, investigate. We're able to establish the land and mana sequencing fine, so a back up is possible. The tricky part is what penalty to assign. It's unlikely to be cheating - no advantage has been gained yet, and part of this Titan variant involves returning lands from the graveyard & untapping them with Amulet ... wash rinse repeat - so sacrificing more lands is generally upside. I believe this was handled as GRV.

• Cards involved: Snapback, Ocelot Pride
• Situation: AP says go to end step. NAP says they would like to do something before Ocelot Pride's trigger goes on the stack.
  Both players agree that they're in second main phase. However, NAP is operating under the belief that AP has hard-passed priority through to the end step. Therefore, AP cannot recats Ocelot Pride
  
• Ruling: In order to proceed through steps and phases, all players must pass priority. There are shortcuts, such as "move to end step" which allows AP to default passing priority if NAP has no actions. However, if something goes on the stack and resolves, AP regains priority and we must pass priority again. We are still in second main, AP can recast Ocelot Pride.
  

Miscellaneous ruling questions

• Valgavoth: where do cards go – Cache Grab, Get Lost destroying Valgavoth, food tokens & Ygra
  Cache Grab: Milled cards are still milled even if they're being put into exile.
  Get Lost: Putting the spell in the graveyard is the last part of spell resolution, at which point Valgavoth is destroyed. Goes to the graveyard. This is different for damage-based removal, since they resolve before Valgavoth hits the yard from state-based actions.
  Food tokens & Ygra: Valgavoth calls out cards. Sacrificing food tokens will still trigger Ygra
• Skyclave Apparition: What happens if I remove it in response to the ETB?
  Answer: They are separate triggers and if you remove it, the LTB trigger goes on the stack.
  Commentary: I didn't mention that they're linked abilities which I thought would confuse, but also want to avoid giving advice i.e. you should let the ETB resolve first. But I wonder if I should have steered closer to the advice side, since each time I fielded this call the player killed the Skyclave Apparition and got no token.
• Get Lost vs Caretaker’s Talent: Does the Talent controller get to draw?
  Answer: No, you resolve it in order. Destroy the enchantment, then its controller creates two Map tokens. Caretaker's Talent is gone when the Map tokens are made.
• Bring to Light vs Damping Sphere
  Answer: Pay 1 mana for the BTL free-cast spell.
• Aven Interruptor plotting a card with flash
  Answer: Plot casting comes with a timing restriction and the spell can no longer be flashed or cast at instant speed.
• Bouncing an Urabrask's Forge with the trigger on the stack
  Answer: Uses last known information of counters on the Forge.
  
• Static Prison A) with no targets B) removed in response
  A) no target, no energy
  B) target was still legal, 2 energy gained
• Responding in the middle of Ral, Monsoon Mage's trigger to kill it before flipping
  Answer: You cannot respond in the middle of RMM's trigger. It's not reflexive, and you would have had to respond with the trigger on the stack.

Takeaways

• Learned a lot from working with and being around a lot of other judges. Shout-outs to everyone: Jared, Paul, Steven, Jason, Andy, Aaron, Graham, Gary, and the one-off interactions
  
• Got to work my first big comp REL event - I've done SCG Cons before but on sides.
• Staying hydrated and fed was a lot easier as a judge than as a player. Still super important!
  
• Learned that I'm not as sturdy on the IPG as I thought, but that makes sense since I've had very little opportunity to practice.
• I got the participation prizes since I was qualified for the tournament and gave it up to judge instead! Super awesome! Seasoned Promomancer, SCG DC competitor badge (incorrect!), and a judge challenge coin #099!
  
• Please don't use foreign language cards unless you have the card text memorized 200%. Lightning Bolt, okay. Your 覆いを割く者、ナーセット?, maybe leave her at home :-)