A Judge’s Guide to Avoiding Accidental Penalties

(Too many times have I heard stories of good and honest players earning themselves penalties and game losses due to a lack of knowledge on the penalty guidelines. Unfortunately, there has never truly been a great resource for players to familiarize themselves with the various DCI penalties and how best to avoid them. That is, until now. Greg Schwartz is a Level 2 DCI Judge who has many years of  experience under his belt. His tips here are an invaluable resource to any tournament player, and we greatly appreciate his efforts on this document. Simply put, all tournament Magic players should read this article, which addresses not only common knowledge in regard to penalties, but is also completely up to date on the many recent changes to the DCI judging guidelines. We encourage you to link your fellow players to this document. If we save even one player from an undeserved match loss, that’ll be enough – Vito Gesualdi, Editor-in-Chief; DraftMagic.com)

A Judge’s Guide to Avoiding Accidental Penalties
by Greg Schwartz, DCI Judge – Level 2

Foreword

This document is an attempt at making a comprehensive guide to good habits for Magic tournament players, so it will have a large amount of information. Reading it from start to finish may be daunting. Using it as a reference, and learning a few habits at a time would be best if you are fairly new to the tournament scene.

Most Magic players have only the barest understanding of the tournament rules, and this occasionally leads them to unfortunate situations when a judge is called. Many of these can be avoided by learning good habits and sticking to them. For this article, I’m assuming you are playing at a Pro Tour Qualifier, where it is much more likely to accidentally do something wrong and end up getting a Game Loss, or worse. I’m going to present the infractions, the penalties you can expect, and what you can do to make sure you don’t end up getting penalties that lower your chances of winning at your next event.   

Penalties and Infractions Overview

Talking to Judges

Having a judge come to the table whether they were called over or not tends to make newer players pretty nervous, and there really is little reason for this. They are at the tournament to help you, so just relax and let them. Try to be open and honest. When you explain the situation, do your best to be clear and specific. They will primarily be trying to work out exactly what happened before they attempt to answer any questions for you. If a judge asks you to rephrase your question, they are probably trying to find a way to help you that doesn’t coach you, because that isn’t fair to your opponent. Remember, if you disagree with their ruling, you may appeal the ruling, and the floor judge will get the head judge of the event for you, but make sure you let the floor judge finish before you try and appeal. Calling a judge ‘on your opponent’ or appealing a floor judge’s ruling are not rude, they are your prerogative as a player in the event, and are there for you to use. Once you get the head judge, remember that what they say goes. If you don’t fully understand a ruling, it is a good idea to find the judge and discuss it between rounds.

Habits That Help Avoid Penalties

Magic players are a generally a superstitious bunch, and they tend to develop routines about playing the game. How many times to shuffle, mixing up cards in their hand, and countless variations, each player doing something different. Sometimes a community will pick up a habit, and it will spread, but rarely is a habit discussed and dissected to determine what if any benefit it actually has. Here I’m going to present a common infraction, and then provide a good habit or two that will help avoid that infraction. The key to all of these methods is to get used to doing them the same way every time. If you always do it, even when playing casual games with your friends, the habit will stick and be second nature when you head to the event. The tournament is not a time to be trying out new things, you will have enough on your mind already.

Missed Trigger

Triggers can be tricky. If they include the “may” clause, it is up to you and you alone to remember to use the ability. While this trick doesn’t help with every trigger, there is a good way to remind yourself about upkeep triggers. Simply put a small object on top of your library if you have something you need to do before you draw. Could be a die, or a coin, but not a card. It can’t be something large enough to obscure the top of the library.

Improper Drawing at the Start of Game

It’s easy to accidentally get too many cards when you begin. Since the penalty essentially includes a forced mulligan, this is a penalty you want to avoid… Just like the trick to avoid Drawing Extra Cards found later in this document, simply lay out the right number of cards face down in front of you, check for stuck cards, and count them before you put them in your hand. If you find you have too many before you see their face, just put one back. No harm, no foul, no penalty.

Slow Play

This is one of the toughest things to enforce as a judge, and therefore trying to avoid it, or get it enforced if your opponent may be guilty of it can be tricky. Unlike most penalties, there is no hard and fast rule that spells out exactly when this infraction has occurred, it is up to the judge’s discretion. One of the things to keep in mind is that a judge will not be happy if you take a long time every turn even if the board is complicated. If the game situation only changed by one or two cards, it shouldn’t take that long to assimilate that information and make your decisions. The best thing you can do to avoid this penalty is to try and do as much of your thinking and planning on your opponents turn as possible. Think of what cards you might draw, and how each of those possibilities changes what you will do on your turn. Not only will this avoid unwanted judge scrutiny, it will make it harder for your opponent to guess what you have just drawn.

Draft Procedure Violation

Top 8 drafts are a very different type of game then the casual drafts most people play in. The picks are timed, you are not allowed to look at your picks except between each pack, and complete silence is expected. To avoid this infraction, start imagining you are playing by the harsher rules when you draft for fun. Count the cards in each booster, don’t take more than 45 seconds for any pick, don’t look at your picks except between packs. When you pass a pack, don’t line them up.. if there is a pack waiting for the person you are passing to, just wait till they pick it up to pass yours. Playing like this more regularly will make it much easier to adjust when it’s time to sit down for that top 8.

Player Communication Violation

The communication rules clearly spell out what you can, can’t, and must say when talking to your opponent. Every competitive player should read section 4 of the Magic: the Gathering Tournament Rules (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=dci/doccenter/home). The most important part of the communications rules is that there are some things that you must answer honestly and completely when your opponent asks. These things are called ‘free information’.

• Details of current game actions and past game actions that still affect the game state.
• The name of any object in a public zone.
• The physical status (tapped/flipped) and current zone of any object.
• Player life totals and the game score of the current match.

If your opponent asks about almost anything else, you may refuse to answer, or answer incompletely, but you may not lie. (The two big exceptions are the contents of your hand, or your library, where you may lie as much as you like.)

Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Minor

Since this is the lowest of the Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalties, it starts with a Warning. If a judge warns you to stop, don’t mess around, a second time will be a Game Loss. The easiest way to avoid this penalty is to know what behavior it covers. Basically, any behavior the judge believes is disruptive, but the guidelines have a few specific examples of behavior that is not acceptable, and these will surely earn a penalty.

• Excessively Vulgar or profane language.
• Inappropriately demanding that their opponent receive a penalty.
• Appealing to the head judge of the event before the floor judge was finished making their ruling.
• Taunting your opponent for making a bad play.
• Leaving excessive trash in the play area after leaving the table.

More Serious Infractions

Marked Cards

Playing with marked cards, or marked sleeves is incredibly easy to do, and used to be the easiest way to accidentally earn a game loss. Fortunately, the rules have been updated, and game losses for this infraction are much less common. Most cards are marked, and even brand new sleeves will probably have some markings on them after a few rounds of play. Fortunately, a few scratches alone isn’t enough. They need to be pretty easily visible while playing the game to earn this. This infraction has an optional upgrade to Game Loss if noticing these markings would “clearly compromise the integrity of the game”. There are quite a few useful habits you can develop to avoid this upgrade.

• Check your cards/sleeves before every match. Make it part of your pregame routine. This is pretty easy to do while you are counting your deck and sideboard.
• Buy new sleeves for every major event. Yes, it makes the event a touch more expensive, but if you are playing to win, you can afford the few extra dollars a lot more than you can afford a potential Game Loss.
• When you are using new sleeves, shuffle the sleeves before putting them on your cards. Sleeves can occasionally come marked from the factory, like 10 in a row get a scratch across the top from the sorting machine, and it can be easy to miss that. If you should happen to have your deck in order, or even have just scooped from a game and have a 9 land clump, getting all of those markings on the same cards is a sure fire way earn a Game Loss.
• Don’t play foil cards. I know, it’s sad to not play those pretty shiny cards, but they can cause a major problem because they curl up. Once a foil curls, it’s trivial to spot where it is in the library, or do other deck manipulation tricks with it. Trade them. If you absolutely must use foils, check them for curling after every match, particularly if the venue is hot and humid. If you have some foils you must use that have curled, putting them in the middle of a thick book for a few days really helps flatten them by removing the moisture that causes the curling.
• Keep your cards facing the same way, and sleeve them in the same direction. Having the back of a card upside down, or the open side of a sleeve on the wrong side of the library is considered a marked card.
• Remember to swap cards, and sleeves when sideboarding. Keeping your sideboard in brand new sleeves will make an obvious pattern due to lack of wear.

Drawing Extra Cards

Drawing Extra Cards is a big deal. It is a fairly simple thing to do by accident if you take a card directly from your library and put it in your hand. Losing the game just because two cards stuck together is one of the worst feelings in competitive Magic. The trick here is to draw one card at a time by taking it off your library and placing it face down on the table next to the library, then checking that it is one card and sliding it up so that you can see it, but *without* adding it to the other cards in your hand just yet. Once you are sure it is only one card, then add it to your hand. This give you two chances to catch yourself if there is a problem.. if you see two cards while they are face down, simply put the bottom one back on the library. You haven’t drawn it, and you haven’t seen it, so there is no infraction. If you don’t notice two cards until you turn them to face you, you can still avoid a game loss as long as they are separate from your other cards. Call a judge, and tell them what happened. You will get Looking at Extra Cards instead of Drawing Extra Cards, and the judge will shuffle the offending card back into the library.

Illegal Decklist

Every event has a few, and it’s a shame because it’s the easiest one to avoid. Just come prepared. Type up your list before the event, triple check it, and print it out (including your name and DCI number). Not only does it save you the rushed scribbling before round 1 begins, the judges will be able to easily read the list, and you won’t run into problems from poor handwriting. Don’t use abbreviations. For limited events using a decklist, reserve the last five minutes of deck construction time to completely go over your checklist, one card at a time.

Deck/Decklist Mismatch

The two most common ways to get this penalty are forgetting to remove your sideboard cards, or to accidentally present a library missing one or more cards. As part of your pregame every game you should check that your sideboard has the correct cards, and exactly 15 cards, and you should count your library. Twenty seconds every game to make sure you never get this game loss penalty is a small price to pay. The third most common way to get this penalty is to mis-register a card on your decklist. To avoid this, simply use the same habits that you use to avoid Illegal Decklist.

Failure to Reveal

This penalty is rare, and it might even involve rules the average player has never heard of. Sometimes you have to reveal a card to prove that you did something legal, and failing to do so means you could have done something illegal. The easiest way to fall afoul of this infraction is if you are playing cards that search your library, or cards with the Morph ability. When the game ends, you are required to reveal any face down morphed creatures, to prove they did indeed have the morph ability. At the end of the game, when you scoop, flip any morphs face up and don’t pick them up until your opponent acknowledges that you have shown them.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Major

Three categories of behavior involve this infraction. Failing to follow a direct instruction from a tournament official, hate speech, and undirected aggressive or violent behavior. Avoiding this kind of thing is easy… until you get rattled. A bad day, an opponent getting on your nerves, and a long tournament can wear normally calm and rational people down until they speak or act without thinking. Just work to stay calm, and call a judge before allowing any kind of behavior unpleasant behavior from anyone gets you to lose your cool. Enforcement for language issues can depend on the community. Your friends might regularly use the word ‘gay’ without meaning to be offensive, but it just might be across the line for some communities. Try to behave like you would out to dinner with Grandma.

Severe Infractions
These infractions are the most severe you can get at a sanctioned event. They involve behavior that must be discouraged as strongly as possible, and only one penalty for this type of infraction exists… disqualification.

Outside Assistance

It is very common in Magic communities to help one another. Making deck choices in limited, discussing sideboard strategies, arguing about draft picks, these are part of the fun of the game. Just remember that this must stop once a sanctioned match or event is in progress. Once a player is in their seat, you should not talk to them, and you should avoid at all costs discussing something that would have an effect on their game. The penalty for this infraction is a match loss, and can easily sour a winning record, ruining your chances, and your day. This includes games in progress, people drafting, and deck building at limited events.

Improperly Determining a Winner

The most common way to get this infraction is to flip a coin, roll a die, or use some other random method to see who wins. Don’t do this. If your opponent should even offer to do this, refuse to answer and immediately call a judge. (This will probably go poorly for the person that offered) The DCI wants Magic to determine the results, and anything else undermines tournament integrity. Instead, you might want to arrange some kind of prize split with your opponent. See the later section on prize splits.

Bribery and Wagering

People get fouled up with this infraction a few different ways. One is by saying the wrong thing when trying to arrange a prize split. See the later section on prize splits. The other is by betting on Magic games. Magic communities are often closely linked to poker communities, and are irrepressible gamblers. Wizards does not tolerate gambling of any kind. Don’t bet on matches, or final standings, or anything while attending a sanctioned event. Don’t even joke about it, it’s like joking about bombs in an airport.

Aggressive Behavior

Acting in an threatening way towards a person or their property. Threatening to hit someone, tearing up a card, flipping over a table, throwing something at another player. Aggressive Behavior is what happens when Unsportsmanlike Conduct goes wild. Like Unsportsmanlike Major, the best way to avoid this penalty is to avoid getting so emotional that you act without thinking. Try and stay calm. Take a breather outside. Get away from whoever, or whatever is antagonizing you. By all means, call a judge before things get this far out of control, we can be good mediators, and will certainly try and keep any situation from escalating to this point.  Magic can be exciting, and tense, and there can be a lot on the line, but at the end of the day, it’s good to remember that it’s just a game.

Theft of Tournament Materials

Any time there is a lot of people in one place with valuables, there will be thieves. Backpack stealing rings have been busted at several Grand Prix events, and they have been known to be active at many other large events. Most players have had some of their belongings get stolen at events, but you can help keep that from happening, and safeguard your own stuff as well. If you accidentally get a card that doesn’t belong to you in your deck, or bag, call a judge. If you see belongings unattended, bring them to a judge or staff member immediately. Judges will do their best to get things back in the hands of their rightful owner. Keep your belongings together, and keep them in contact with your person. Wrap a backpack strap around your leg when your bag is under the table. Bring out only one binder at a time, and keep your bag in your hands while someone is looking through your binder.

It is rare, but possible to get this penalty accidentally. When you are registering a new pool at a sanctioned sealed deck event, remember that the cards do not belong to you yet. You can’t just drop from the event and take them, and some people that open valuable foil mythic rares get tempted to do this.

Stalling

Stalling is when someone is intentionally abusing the round clock to influence the outcome of an event. Unlike some other competitive games, running out the clock is not considered a valid strategy in tournament Magic. If you think your opponent is intentionally playing slowly, call a judge over and ask them to watch the game. If you want to be less obvious about it, call over a judge, act like you have a question about some cards in your hand, and step away from the table to tell them about your concerns about your opponent stalling. Under most circumstances, the judge staff will find a way to monitor the match and help deal with this situation.

As mentioned before, stalling is very difficult for judges to deal with, and therefore it is something that can occasionally get an honest player in trouble. To avoid being called for stalling, be sure to manage your time appropriately, particularly when you are low on time in the match. If the game state hasn’t significantly changed, it should take very little time to play out your turn. If a judge has asked you to speed up, or told you to make a play, then you have already had your first caution, and you should closely watch the pace of your play from then on.

Fraud

Fraud is a very broad category of cheating. The penalty guidelines defines fraud as: A person intentionally and knowingly violates or misrepresents rules, procedures, personal information, or any other relevant tournament information. This includes falsifying your name or DCI number, changing match slips, lying to a tournament official, lying to your opponent in violation of the communications guidelines, or even failing to call a judge when their opponent commits an infraction in order to gain advantage. The key to the infraction being fraud instead of any of the lesser penalties is intent. For it to be fraud, it means the player intentionally performed the action to gain advantage.

Avoiding fraud penalties is generally not too difficult. Be honest. If you are in a situation where you don’t know the rules, call a judge and ask questions instead of making assumptions. Know the communication guidelines mentioned earlier to make sure you know when you can, and when you can’t lie to your opponent. Also check the section ‘Information About Disqualifications and Investigations’ later in this document.

Hidden Information Violation

Illegally seeking or revealing information to gain advantage. Examples include intentionally looking at cards in an opponents hand, or deck. Intentionally revealing cards in a booster draft. This infraction also hinges on intent. Accidentally doing any of those things is not going to get you a disqualification. The easiest way to get this when you didn’t really try and cheat is wandering eyes during a booster draft. Keep your head down, keep your eyes on the cards in your hand, and your picks pile if you are waiting for a pack.

Manipulation of Game Materials

Intentionally marking cards, intentionally drawing extra cards, stacking your deck, or adding cards to a sealed deck, this is the penalty for the more traditional kinds of cheating in a card game. Really the only way to get this infraction when you didn’t earn it is to mishandle the investigation. Follow the advice in the following section, and you should never have to worry about this infraction. This one is for the hardcore cheaters only.

Information about Disqualifications and Investigations

How can you get disqualified if you aren’t guilty?

Judges are human, and can make mistakes. Most of us never want to hand out a disqualification that wasn’t earned, so we need to be pretty sure that something bad really happened before we are willing to eject someone from our event. That being said, it’s good to understand how much evidence a judge needs to disqualify you. None at all. The only criteria that a judge is required to have, is to believe that the infraction actually happened. This means that bearing, attitude, and how a player reacts during an investigation is extremely important, as all of these things will influence a judge towards one decision or another.

You can’t always tell when a judge is investigating, the beginning of an investigation is hardly different from the regular questions we might ask to clarify the situation, but once things have become serious, there  is one dead giveaway… the judge will separate the players, and witness if any, and interview them separately. If this happens to you, it is time to get nervous, and it is okay to get nervous. Even more than before, it is absolutely in your best interest to be complete, honest, and open. If you are not sure of something, say so. Trying to approximate what happened can lead you into a trap, where your story doesn’t agree with your opponent’s and any witnesses versions, and trying to correct it afterwards is bound to make any judge suspicious. Say what your are sure of, and when you are unsure make certain the judge understands that you don’t recall perfectly.

What do I do if I manage to get disqualified (despite all the fine advice in this document)?

Stay calm. Be polite. Act mature. You will get a chance to tell your side of the story in your statement, which will get submitted to the DCI along with the disqualification, and the statement from the head judge. If you did something wrong, admit it, and be contrite. A one-time error in judgment that you are honestly sorry about will earn a smaller time on the banned list then someone that gets caught cheating, curses at the judge, and storms out of the event without filling out a statement. If you feel you didn’t do something wrong, tell your side of the story, and where you think the judge has made a mistake.

Bonus Section! How to Handle Prize Splits