Penalty – Disqualification

Definition

A person breaks a rule defined by the tournament documents, lies to a tournament official, or notices an offense committed in their match and does not call attention to it.

Additionally, the offense must meet the following criteria for it to be considered Cheating:

• The player must be attempting to gain advantage from their action.
• The player must be aware that they are doing something illegal.

If all criteria are not met, the offense is not Cheating and is handled by a different infraction. Cheating will often appear on the surface as another infraction and must be investigated by a judge to make a determination of intent and awareness.

Cheating also includes any intentional use or attempted use of any bugs or exploits in game or tournament software.

Examples

1. A player improperly alters the results in the tournament client without their opponent’s knowledge.
2. A player lies to a tournament official about what happened in a game to make their case stronger.
3. A player intentionally exploits a bug in MTG Arena in order to gain an advantage.
4. A player intentionally modifies their deck between rounds to be different from their submitted configuration in order to gain an advantage.