This update contains the usual assortment of minor fixes and clarifications and no major policy revisions. There are two lines – one added, one deleted – that are worth highlighting:
* If two players receive Deck/Decklist penalties at the same time, they are still Game Losses (for tracking purposes), but those Game Losses don’t count towards the game score.
The most common scenario is when one player accidentally sweeps one of their opponent’s cards into their deck thanks to an Oblivion Ring or Pacifism, at which point on discovery the match ends. Not only is that bad from a gameplay perspective, it also provides a bit of a vector for a hard-to-discover cheat. If you win game 1, simply scoop up your opponent’s card and if nobody catches it in time, you’ll win the match.
It can also happen if a table gets deckchecked and both players have problems with their decklist. Making the players play a one-game (unsideboarded) match is no more or less punitive than a 3-game match, and, on the whole, we’d rather a full match be played there.
* The second change is, interestingly, simply the removal of one of the examples under cheating. Previously, 3-pile shuffling a deck you believed to be unrandomized was listed as an example of cheating, but it isn’t any more.
Vigilante justice is a bit of a contentious subject, and, on the whole, we don’t like players trying to take the law into their own hands. That’s why judges exist and why we require people to call attention to infractions in game, even if they fix it in a mutually agreeable way themselves without involving a judge.
However, this particular example is problematic for two reasons. First of all, a stacked deck is not something you can ever be sure about. Yeah, maybe your opponent didn’t shuffle as well as you might like at the table, but that doesn’t mean you know that there’s a problem. The deck might have started random. You can call a judge (and we’re always happy to help in these situations), but that sets a tone for the match, and if everything is fine, might seem a little frivolous. Secondly, the actions you’re taking are totally legal, unlike most vigilante action. If the deck is randomized, a three-pile shuffle is a totally acceptable way to randomize the deck. So, if you always three-pile your opponent’s deck, you end up in a weird situation where you might or might not be cheating based on what you thought of the opponent’s shuffling. That’s pretty weird, and the example was there to discourage this action while kind of handwaving over whether or not the infraction actually supported it.
After much debate, we came to the general conclusion that a defensive three-pile isn’t cheating, even if you suspect your opponent of shenanigans. We’d obviously prefer that you call a judge, but that’s up to you.
I don’t under the simultaneous game loss thing, resulting in a match where one only needs to win one game.
MTR 2.1 says:
A Magic match consists of a series of games that are played until one side has won a set number of games, usually two.
This means, we don’t really play “best of three” matches, we instead play “first to two” matches.
Am I totally off here?
You still play best of 3 (or first to two, however you want to think of it). The GLs handed out here just don’t count towards it.
RE: * If two players receive Deck/Decklist penalties at the same time, they are still Game Losses (for tracking purposes), but those Game Losses don’t count towards the game score.
Won’t this affect ending rounds in a timely manner? Assuming double error during a deck which check goes the full 7 minutes (which is common in the case of DDL), then another 1-2 minutes with each player to correct the D/DL, plus an additional 3 minutes for shuffling comes to about +15 minutes. Now the players need to complete a full 3 games in 35 minutes to avoid using their extra time.
An exception in the IPG could be made in cases where one player accidentally places an opponent’s card in his/her deck, leading to double DDL, allowing for downgrade to warning, shuffling the missing card back into the correct library with minimal disruption. Addiontally, this type of mistake rarely happens in Comp REL games, since players almost ubiquitously use sleeves which typically allows differentiation of cards from each deck.
I understand the “feel bad” philosophy behind this decision, but I feel strongly that it should come second to making sure that the tournament experience is better for the rest of the players in the room by making sure the rounds end timely.
Given the frequency with which this occurs, I don’t expect it to be a major problem.