Greetings once again! This article will take a little break from the comp rules and focus on something else I do as a judge: assign infractions and penalties when they come up. Contrary to what some players think, we actually don’t enjoy giving game losses as a penalty, so the best thing for all of us is for you guys to be informed of what to do (and not to do!) so that you don’t make one of us give you one! The Infraction and Penalty Guideline is freely available at the WPN document center, and it details the different infractions that will earn you a game loss. We are going to go through each one and come up with some good practices to avoid ever being on the wrong end of one of these infractions. For those of you following along at home, we are going to be going all through the IPG for this; there isn’t a specific section on game-loss penalties, but I will be highlighting the names of each infraction so you can look up more about them if you wish.

Game Play Error: Drawing Extra Cards

This error happens at every tournament, especially if a player is being sloppy and running through the motions without paying attention. It’s sometimes easy to accidentally draw a card when you aren’t supposed to; however, as soon as that card touches your hand (meaning your hand of cards, not the thing at the end of your arm), there’s probably a game loss coming your way. There are some exceptions in the current IPG to the game-loss penalty for Drawing Extra Cards (DEC). One of them is if a different game-play error occurred right before the card entered the hand.

A good example of this that came up at a GP was this:

1. Player A casts Thoughtseize targeting Player B.
2. Player B reveals his hand.
3. Player A chooses a card.
4. Player B puts the chosen card on the bottom of his library and draws a card, essentially resolving it as a Vendilion Clique.

A game-play error happened right before the card entered the hand, because the player put the card on the bottom of his library instead of into the graveyard, so that player would not receive the game loss.

The other caveat is, for now, that the head judge can downgrade DEC if the card was known to both players before being placed into the hand and can be returned to the zone it came from with minimal disruption. You will still incur the DEC infraction, but the Head Judge should downgrade the penalty to a warning. One important thing to note about downgrades is that they are entirely at the discretion of the head judge. Even if you really feel that your situation fits one of these caveats, the head judge’s ruling is final. Continuing to argue with the head judge is another way to get a game loss, which we’ll go into a bit later.

In conclusion, the best practice is to check the game state before you ever draw a card to make sure you are drawing a card at the appropriate time. This will save you a lot of grief; it’s always a bad feeling when you draw a card and your opponent’s hand shoots up and he yells for a judge.

Game Play Error: Failure to Reveal

This error is actually pretty infrequent now that Dark Confidant isn’t in Standard or Extended anymore. He was the main way players received this infraction. Basically, what this infraction applies to is if you fail to reveal a card that needed to be revealed to prove a game action you took was legal. As you can see from that definition, if you forgot to reveal for Dark Confidant, your opponent has no way of knowing how much life you were supposed to lose, so the penalty for this infraction is severe. In Standard, this would apply in the same way to Dark Tutelage.

Another way to get this infraction is to abuse the Morph mechanic. Whenever a face-down permanent leaves the battlefield, it needs to be revealed to all players. This includes when the game ends. Otherwise, your opponent has no idea if that was really a spell with Morph or if you were just turning Islands face down and calling them 2/2’s. This doesn’t come up much, but it bears mentioning.

There is once again a caveat here where the head judge should downgrade this penalty to a warning. In this case, it’s if the card is in a place to be uniquely identified, such as on the top or the bottom of the library. If that is the case, the judge should reveal that card to both players and issue a warning instead of a penalty.

The best practice here is to make sure that you take your time when resolving abilities that require a card to be revealed and make sure you do so before it can’t be uniquely identified by your opponent or a judge anymore. Also, flip your morphs when the game is over!

Tournament Error: Tardiness

Ok, this one will be short. Don’t arrive to your match late, hand in your deck list on time, and make sure you are playing the right person. If you lose a card and the judge allows you to get up to try to find a replacement, remember that tardiness will still apply if you take longer than the judge has told you that you could have. Please be expeditious.

There is yet again a caveat to Tardiness—where it isn’t even given!—and that is if the head judge starts the round early. This hardly ever happens at a Competitive REL (Rules Enforcement Level) event, but bear in mind that if it did happen, tardiness wouldn’t begin to apply until the round should have started if the head judge hadn’t started the round early.

If you do get caught up somehow and are more than ten minutes late, you will be automatically dropped from the tournament, so please find the scorekeeper and inform him or her that you wish to be put back into the tournament if you wish to continue to play.

Tournament Error: Outside Assistance

This infraction happens a lot more than is caught, but I hope this article gives you pause next time you are about to commit this infraction. The penalty for Outside Assistance is actually a match loss, but I included it here because I know it happens all the time, and players usually don’t know the risks they are taking. If you comment on a game state in any way that could be construed as giving play advice, that’s Outside Assistance, and we take a very firm stance on it. Also, if you are playing a match and you ask your friend a question while your friend is a spectator, that can be construed as play advice—that’s Outside Assistance.

Outside Assistance can also be committed by looking at sideboard notes during the game instead of between games. Remember, you are only allowed to reference notes that weren’t made during the game in between games.

The number-one way I see it happen is when you sit down for your match, see that your opponent is someone your friend played earlier that day, and ask your friend what your opponent is playing. That is a fine question to ask before you sit for the match, but once you are seated, you can no longer ask any of those types of questions.

Best practice here is just to keep your mouth shut while observing games. I know you see misplays or good plays, and it can be really agonizing to watch a player, especially one who is a friend of yours, overlook something turn after turn. However, it’s generally a bad idea for you to let your friend know what you see.

Keep in mind that there is one exception to the keeping-your-mouth-shut rule: If you are a spectator and you see that a player is committing a game play error, or is cheating, you are allowed to ask the players to stop playing while you get a judge (this is at Regular or Competitive RELs only—not Professional!). You’re encouraged to alert a judge if you witness rules or policy violations occurring.

Tournament Error: Deck/Decklist Problem

This is the number-one reason by far that players get a game-loss penalty in a tournament. I have never judged a tournament with greater than fifty players that didn’t have at least one Deck/Decklist Problem. This infraction is almost always because a player registered fewer than sixty cards in his pool or registered something other than zero or fifteen in his sideboard.

Yes, we do count them. All of them. We also verify format legality. So, please, when the head judge asks you to take your deck list out and count it, do it! The other way this infraction occurs is when your deck doesn’t match your deck list. This is why we do deck-checks, and yes, we actually check it. Every single card. Usually, we give this infraction from a deck check because a player forgot to desideboard before Game 1.

Best practices here are (1) to double- and triple-check your deck list and (2) to make sure it is a legal number of cards and also matches what you have sleeved up. Before Game 1 starting in Round 2, look through your deck and sideboard to make sure everything is where it needs to be before you present your deck to your opponent.

Unsporting Conduct – Major

This is the severe form of Unsporting Conduct (USC). Some ways to get this are to not do what a judge just directly told you to do, or to argue continually with the head judge after he has made his final ruling. It is also given when you use racial or other derogatory slurs. It also can apply when you lose control and throw a fit, throwing your cards or knocking a chair or garbage can over in anger.

Best practices here are just to be calm, have some self-control, and do what the judges tell you. We don’t tell you to do things just for the hell of it; there’s always a reason, and it’s always a reason that is going to positively impact the tournament. Please be mindful of and courteous to your opponents, even if they top-deck like a master and win. And once the head judge gives a ruling, there is no way for you to win that argument, so just drop it and go talk more after your match.

Well, those are the ways to get a game loss and, I hope, some good practices to make sure these things don’t happen to you! There are still other infractions that we’ll get into as the weeks go by—we’ll talk about disqualifications and how to avoid them next week! As always, thanks for reading and be careful out there at Competitive REL events!