The TLDR:
Effective immediately, failing to reveal your morph is now a Warning. A non-morph played as a morph, unless it’s caught by the player almost immediately, remains a Game Loss.
That’s it. Fuller explanation below.
The no-reveal problem took us by surprise. A lot of us were judging in the Onslaught era, and people not revealing their morphs hadn’t been a big problem. We fixed the game-loss-after-losing feel-bad, and expected things to be reasonably smooth.
Theories abound as to why there seems to be so much failing to reveal – there was no common bounce spell in Onslaught, the unmorph costs are higher in Khans, social media brings the issue to the forefront. None of them are all that satisfying, but it’s something of a combination of all of them. Another major factor is just the sheer number of games being played. We’re seeing a pretty consistent failure rate of of about 0.2%. For a 100-player PTQ (pretty good in the Onslaught days), that’s one game loss a tournament, which is nothing remarkable. For a 2,500-player GP, happening every weekend, that’s 30-something game losses, which is just a lot more notable.
From a pure EV standpoint, cheating with illegal morphs is terrible. The benefit of a 2/2 is usually small, odds of being discovered are high (any time the creature dies, or if the opponent stops you before it goes somewhere unrecoverable, the jig is up), and when it is discovered, it’s a suspicious situation that’ll often trigger an investigation. So, given that it was clear that the current situation was resulting in more game losses than we were comfortable with, making the change made sense. Simple, right?
Well, no. People kept telling us “just remove the morph rule”. Problem is, there isn’t a morph rule. What we have instead is a philosophical expression: game play errors that your opponent can’t catch should have their penalty upgraded. That seems like a pretty reasonable thing – people need to be more careful when only they can be responsible for keeping a legal game state – and the rule applies in other situations, notably keeping every conditional tutor from turning into a Demonic one. Even the most ardent proponents of making failure to reveal a morph a warning didn’t want to do the same thing for Merchant Scroll, though they’re structurally similar.
Now, we can technically write anything we want. And there were folks who argued that we could simply add “this rule doesn’t apply to morph”. to the current upgrade. We really don’t like to do this sort of thing, though. Part of what makes the IPG effective is that it strives to keep philosophical exceptions to a minimum, and usually only on ways that make intuitive sense. If we start adding all sorts of clauses to handle specific mechanics, we end up with a document that’s harder to remember and apply. Plus, going from morph being the example for a rule to morph being an exception to a rule without any philosophical change feels incredibly arbitrary.
What ultimately worked was turning it all around and asking why we wanted to make the change in the first place. Penalties are designed to incentivize correct behavior, and the real issue here was opponents consciously avoiding morph checks because the value of an opponent missing was so high. Stories of PTQ players seeking to distract their opponents at the end of the game were the real motivation to make a change. There is a clause in the rule that says to downgrade if the information was ever in a unique position after the error. That doesn’t quite get there (since the error destroys the information.) But, it gave us a window.
When you think about the player actions surrounding the times at which morphs don’t get revealed, who controls the flow of the game? At the end of the game, it’s the loser – they are the one who acknowledges the game ending first: “yep, you got me”. It’s also the same for bouncing a morph – the opponent is initiating the action (there’s a corner where you’re bouncing your own morph, but that’s unusual enough that it’s going to draw everyone’s attention). Since the opponent controls the flow of the game at the time, it seems reasonable to put some burden on them as well. Thus, we’re going to update the appropriate Game Rule Violation paragraph in the IPG to read:
An error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded. These errors involve hidden information, such as misplaying the morph ability or failing to reveal a card to prove that a choice made was a legal one. If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield at the end of the game), do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.
This goes into effect immediately, and will be published in the Fate Reforged IPG.
So, the article gave ZERO info as to the exact change and why.. Its a bunch of random blahblahblah about stuff that nobody is reading it for.. What does all this have to do with Morph and how is any of the rules changing and to what? SPECIFY. How can you lay a Morph card wrong and how do you “not reveal” it? Isnt that the point of a MOrph card, so its not known what is hiding until its Morphed? How is that any les fair than your opponent now knowing what cards are in your hand? WTF
The rule that changed was the tournament rule that gave a game loss for failing to show your face-down cards were actually cards with morph at the end of the game or when they went to graveyard/hand/library/exile.
Chris, we must have read different articles. The exact change was spelled out and much of the article focused on the why behind it. I hated GLing players for not revealing their morphs during the ONS era — it’s an honest mistake that’s very easy to make. Players scoop up their cards at the end of the game as a matter of habit. It’s easy to scoop your morphs up with everything else. Now we have a penalty for this that doesn’t feel onerous. I’m not sure what you’re saying about hiding the morph — you’ve always had to reveal them at the end of the game. Now the failure to do so isn’t penalized as severely, is all.
Seemed pretty clear to me.
If you play a non-morph as a morph at any time, and it’s revealed to be a non-morph, then you get a game loss. Otherwise, if you fail to reveal a morph that’s already out (when it gets bounced / when it goes to the top of your deck / at the end of the game), then it’s a warning.
Where’s the confusion?
It seems you were unaware but any time basically anything happens to a morph you’re required to reveal it to your opponent. This means if it is bounced, exiled, killed or if the game ends. Basically any zone change required you to reveal the face side of the morph card. If you did not and say you forgot and at the end of the game you had a morph face down and your opponent conceded and you go on to the second game and simply scoop up your cards without revealing what the morph was this was a violation that would result in a game loss. Same with any other time you should have revealed the morph such as it being bounced to your hand. This was the way the rules worked so that you could not cheat and just play a land or any other card face down and lie calling it a morph and as long as nothing happened that would cause you to reveal it your opponent would otherwise never know. With this change that will no longer be an immediate game loss. You don’t have to reveal a morph when you play it as what it is you simply have to show what it is any time it changes zones or the game ends. With this change you’ll receive a warning for forgetting to do this now instead of immediately receiving a game loss. However if you DO play a non-morph as a morph it is still a violation that will cause a game loss unless as the article states you notice it near immediately, this of course would be more specifically judged by a judge.
This would generally refer to a situation where someone plays a card from their hand, thinking it is their morph and then after playing it face down, they look back at their hand because they want to play another card and realize the morph is still there and rectify the problem. That would be a situation of almost immediately. Clearly, it would have to be judged the time period that goes by. Such as, if you only notice it at the end of your turn, do you get a game loss or not?
Chris, btw, I really think you need to read the articles. It says in bold text what the change is:
Thus, we’re going to update the appropriate Game Rule Violation paragraph in the IPG to read:
An error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded. These errors involve hidden information, such as misplaying the morph ability or failing to reveal a card to prove that a choice made was a legal one. If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield at the end of the game), do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.
I think what is confusing you is the use reveal in this article. When you play a morph face down, its hidden from your opponent, as it should be, and you don’t have to reveal it during play. However, if that card ever leaves the battlefield (back to your hand, back to the library, exiled, to the graveyard, or at the end of a game when you are collecting your deck) it must be revealed to your opponent to ensure what you played face down was a legal morph. Your opponent can’t simply ask you to reveal a face down card, as that would defeat the purpose of morph, but when it changes zones, in order to assure it was a legal morph, at that time you must reveal the card to your opponent.
The rules change is this: “Effective immediately, failing to reveal your morph is now a Warning. A non-morph played as a morph, unless it’s caught by the player almost immediately, remains a Game Loss.” Prior to this, the rule was “Failing to reveal your morph is a game loss.” So what has changed is that now if you scoop up your morphs at the end of the game without revealing them, or you put it to the top of your library without showing it, or the card changes zones at all and you fail to reveal it, the fix is to reveal the card and to give the player a warning, rather than a game loss.
The reason for this change is the penalty was overly harsh and occurring much too frequently. As it says in the article, “Penalties are designed to incentivize correct behavior,” and it now seemed that this penalty was going beyond that. While people potentially abusing morphs and failing to reveal information are out there, the majority of these losses were being given to people who simply forgot and made a mistake, and they were being given out in much larger numbers than anticipated. So the penalty has been downgraded from a game loss to a warning, to cover the vast majority of cases where it was a simply mistake, and judges will continue to investigate the rare times we believe a player is intentionally “forgetting” to reveal in order to gain an unfair advantage.
Hopefully this helps you better understand the article.
Chris,
He’s referring to revealing the morph card when it dies/leaves the battlefield/etc. while still face down. It’s done to verify that the card you played as a morph was indeed a morph.
This issue was dealing with the fact that if you failed to show your opponent your morph AFTER the game had finished, and therefore had no way of proving that you didn’t just play a non-morph face-down, you would get a game loss.
You reveal your morphs whenever they leave the battlefield, and at the end of the game.
This is for judges primarily. Judges should know the rule already. The short version: at the end of a game, or if a morph changes zones (to hand, graveyard, exile, etc) it must be revealed to ‘prove’ it has morph (and you’re not just playing a land as a 2/2). Failure to reveal is not doing this.
Cheers
That’s not true at all.
The rules for morphs are the same as they have ever been, but the penalty for accidentally failing to reveal is no longer a game loss, but a warning.
Basically, since an illegally face down card is likely to be discovered by an opponent(if the creature is killed, for instance), the penalty upgrade will not apply.
He explained the rest because there isn’t a “morph disqualification rule” that could be changed. They had to change the underlying rule that was responsible for the situation if they wanted to fix it.
While the game is going on and the morph creature is in play face down, of course your opponent shouldn’t know what the card is. But if the game ends with the creature still in play and face down, you have to turn it face up so your opponent can see it was indeed a creature card with morph. (Otherwise, what’s stopping you to play, say, a sorcery card face down as a morph? It’s hidden after all!)
Failing to do this resulted in a game loss (because of the potential for cheating), and the change is that it no longer does.
The change is quoted and bolded in the 3rd to last paragraph.
Chris, the relevant text is “If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield at the end of the game), do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.”
Basically if a game ends, and I scoop up my cards without revealing a morph creature that was still on the battlefield, I won’t get a game loss.
There were a few instances of gamesmanship around the rule previously, and frankly it’s perfectly fair to put the onus on both players to ensure morphs are revealed at the end of the game.
Did you read the new ruling? It’s the third to last paragraph, the one with the bolded text. The issue with the rule before was that the loser was trying to take advantage of it to win after the fact. The new rule makes it both parties responsibility so that the loser can’t.
He did explain the change as quoted below:
“Thus, we’re going to update the appropriate Game Rule Violation paragraph in the IPG to read… or on the battlefield at the end of the game”.
The last clause in that sentence of that part of the IPG was not there before, and adding it allows up to not upgrade end of game failure to reveals.
Hey Chris,
I think the article goes in with some prior knowledge of this issue assumed. Laying the morph “wrong” as you’ve said is referring to the placing of a non-morph card face down and treating it as though it were a morph. “Not Revealing” is talking about once a morph is moved from the battlefield to another zone (e.g. hand, library, graveyard etc.), the player must show the card’s front to prove that it in fact IS a morph (to verify they hadn’t played a nonmorph card as a morph)
They did actually directly lay out the change they were making as the relevant section of the Infraction Procedure Guide now reads: An error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded. These errors involve hidden information, such as misplaying the morph ability or failing to reveal a card to prove that a choice made was a legal one. If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield at the end of the game), do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.
“How can you lay a Morph card wrong and how do you “not reveal” it? ”
At any point, if a morphed creature changes zones, you are required to reveal it. In a case of “not revealing” a situation that you can think of would be an Upheaval where the player with the Morph just scoops up all the cards in a motion as so that you don’t see it. The other, is on the END of GAME. After all, if the game ends and he doesn’t show you before he shuffles back into his deck, it could be concidered cheating. If you know he was playing 4x copies of one specific creature in the deck, you could think to yourself “Ok, he’s got a morphed Angel” when in reality he may have accidently, or on purpose, declared playing a Morph creature, in hopes that you wouldn’t catch it or he could coast it home for the last few points of damage, than scoop it back in before you might ask what it was anyway.
It also gets revealed when it gets returned to the hand, as to prove what it was, and that it was a legal card to play anyway. It’s not about letting your opponent know what you have in your hand… as apposed to making sure that the person isn’t accidently cheating or playing incorrectly.
What they are saying as far as “not revealing” is that after the game has ended, it is customary to reveal the unmorphed cards to prove that they are in fact morphable creatures. this prevents people from cheating by paying the 3 colorless to play a thoughtseize, a sorcery card for example, as a 2/2 unmorphed creature. The article tells that they are going to increase the penalty for not showing any unmorphed creatures at the end of the game. Currently, you just get a pee-pee slap (a warning). They want to make it more stringent in a effort to keep people from using it to cheat.
I’m not certain you understand the issue.
At the end of the game, if a morph creature is still face-down, you have to reveal it to your opponent so they know you didn’t just play a forest and call it a morph creature. The same goes if they bounce it from the battlefield to your hand.
Between calling the content “random blahblahblah”, I have to assume you didn’t actually read to the end of the article where the specific paragraph of the rules that was changed is written out in full. I would recommend giving that a look.
It’s literally in bold at the top of the page, man. Come on…
So, sorry for the huge draw it out conversation and retaliation to a few choice words, but essentially Im recieving input and feedback is there is no actual change in the “rules”, just the penalties for breaking them,.. correct? That for one explains the confusion. Secondly, I have no real clue people at any tournament actually played a non morph creature and tried to pass it off as a morphed one into a game win. Haha crazy. I was always under the impression that unless it specifies “exile face-down” once it leaves the battlefield it was able to be shown/seen to and by all players upon resolution (in most cases).
Actually there is a change. If you read one part of the IPG with regards to this issue, you will notice the change:
IPG before change:
If the information needed to verify the legality was ever in a uniquely identifiable position (such as on top of
the library or as the only card in hand) after the infraction was committed, do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the
information if possible.
IPG Update With New Change:
If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield at the end of the game
The “or on the battlefield at the end of the game” is the change to the rule, basically adding morphs to what it already included, since morphs are “on the battlefield”.
Correct, Chris. As far as any player is concerned, nothing has changed in the morph game rules.
The only relevant change is in how judges will handle forgetting to reveal morphs when they change zones at the tournament level. =)
Lets just get back to the good old days of magic events without thousands of dollars on the line , so people would not be so petty as to trick/ distract a player to get a win.
People do that sort of thing around kitchen tables when nothing’s on the line. It’s part of human nature – it’s not great, but that’s why we have rules.
if anything cheating used to happen way more then it does these days, the early days were extremely notorious for cheating
To quote from the article: “Effective immediately, failing to reveal your morph is now a Warning. A non-morph played as a morph, unless it’s caught by the player almost immediately, remains a Game Loss.”
And “An error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded. These errors involve hidden information, such as misplaying the morph ability or failing to reveal a card to prove that a choice made was a legal one. If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield at the end of the game), do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.”
To elaborate more: Failure to reveal a morph is a Game Rules Violation, or GRV. GRVs usually have as their penalty a Warning. GRVs where the opponent did not have the chance to verify the legality were upgraded to a game loss. Going forward, it seems, the philosophy is that the opponent has the opportunity to remind a player to reveal his/her morphs, and so mere failure to reveal a morph will not be upgraded. A player who played a non-morph card as a morph has committed a GRV that the opponent could not verify, and still will get a game loss.
Hope that is clearer.
“A player who played a non-morph card as a morph has committed a GRV that the opponent could not verify, and still will get a game loss.”
I would contend that a mere GRV is probably the leas of the guilty party’s concerns in this situation 😉
Kai Budde did it once. It happens. Cards have similar art!
🙂
And I agree with your contention, Sean.
I should have been clearer still: if a judge investigates and believes that the person had intentionally played the non-morph card as a morph, the proper infraction will be Cheating and the penalty will be disqualification.
@ Chris Marshall
The change is that if a player was able to show at a previous stage what the morph was, then it is just a warning for not revealing, not a game loss. Say for example I had two cards in hand when I got despised, a morph dude and another card. My opponent took the other card, and on my turn I drew a land, played it and played a morph. I have no cards in hand, and if my opponent was paying attention, then they know what it is.
What are you talking about Chris?
The article seemed pretty clear ro me. The rule as it was left the responsibility to reveal the cards at the end of the game to the owner of the morph. This created situations where players would lose because the opponent would simply distract them at the end of the game. Now, the responsibility lies with the opponent to check, making it so the opponent should flip over the opponents morphs to verify at the wnd of the game. That seems much more intuitive to me, and will hopefully result in less awkward small talk and shady behaviour.
Im a little confused. In the topmost statement it sounds like practically all failure to reveal a morph is considered warning but in the pointed changes in the rules it seems to only affect the end game.
Im kindly asking for a bit of enlightenment on this.
The end of game information is necessary due to the fact that previously not revealing a morph at the end of game was considered a game loss under the IPG. Any other situation is rectified when the morph leaves the zone it is in. For instance, if a card is played as a morph and then bounced by the other player, the morph HAS to be revealed. by rule because it changes zones. Previously, the end of game procedure for morphs simply followed the rule surrounding hidden information and the penalty was upgraded to a game loss if the morph was not revealed. There were game losses that resulted AFTER a player had won their match, thus resulting in a match loss. The new wording basically adds “or on the battlefield” to the list of stuff that included on top of the library or the only card in hand as items that do NOT have their penalty upgraded to a game loss.
Jakob, it applies to all situations when morphs should be revealed, such as bouncing a morph (it was on the battlefield, so opponent had an opportunity to check the legality – when bouncing it). The “end of game” part in rules is just a most common example.
Chris, the relevant text is “If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield at the end of the game), do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.”
Basically if a game ends, and I scoop up my cards without revealing a morph creature that was still on the battlefield, I won’t get a game loss.
There were a few instances of gamesmanship around the rule previously, and frankly it’s perfectly fair to put the onus on both players to ensure morphs are revealed at the end of the game.
Chris Marshall, you seem to have misunderstood. The rules do not change. Playing a morph is still the same action that it has always been.
What changes is how judges treat breaking the rules, and particularly the rule that says (paraphrased) “play only cards with morph as face-down creatures”. You are basically required to “reveal” your morphs *at the end of the game or any time they leave the battlefield* in order to show your opponent that you have not played a random extra land as a morph, for example. It is easy to forget that and break the rule – you just put the card in your deck and shuffle it away… not exactly an uncommon scenario. Until now, that would have caused you to lose the game in a competitive tournament, even if you had won. As of now, you would only get a warning (“a slap on the wrist”, if you will).
I hope that explanation is clearer to you. The above article sure was interesting for those of us who actually have to apply it, i.e. the judges…
hi toby
if i interpret the new rules correctly, casting a mystical tutor without revealing and noticing after the draw is no longer game loss. could you confirm it please?
Chris, i think you should be more respectful with your comments. the basics (for players) are on the top of the article: you no longer get a game loss when you fail to reveal the morph at end of the game accidentally. thats it.
That hasn’t been a game loss for years. As long as it went to the top of the library for a bit, it was in a known location and could be verified.
I need a sanity check… Was it ever an upgraded GRV to not reveal off Domri Rade’s +1 before bringing the card to your hand? The information was in a uniquely identifiable position as provided above, but that seems somehow different from the Tutor example given.
Never mind I’m a dummy. The current IPG said “after the infraction was committed” …not revealing off Domri WAS the infraction, and the card was on top before the infraction. The new IPG entry eliminates that bit in quotes. Sanity check no longer required. I think.
Yea, my bad, need to double check before asking, sorry. I just thought the bold text was all new before checking the IPG.
Thanks for the answer.
So if I fail to reveal a morph either:
a) when bounced to my hand of say 5 cards
b) at end of game and then shuffle all of my cards together
…would these be upgraded to a game loss since my opponent can’t identify the card, therefore not able to verify the legality of the play? What if in scenario a) there is a morph in my hand? Do I just reveal that morph and all is good? That still wouldn’t prove it was the card in play though, so…
Please clarify.
No, those would be Warnings. That’s the point of this change.
If you don’t have a morph in hand at all, that’s a pretty easy investigation and DQ.
Can we get confirmation that the new penalty does/does not apply to bounced morphs?
The summary at the top of the page makes no distinction between bounced morphs and morphs that should have been revealed at the end of a game; the paragraph immediately before the new IPG text strongly implies that the new penalty does cover bounced morphs as well as end-of-game morphs; the list in brackets in the new IPG text *does* say at the end of the game, but it’s not strictly logical to assume the list is exhaustive given the language used (i.e. “such as”). For these reasons I’m assuming bounced morphs are also only a Warning. However, I’ve seen several people insist that bounced morphs still a Game Loss. Would appreciate clarification on this.
Correct. That list is illustrative, not exhaustive.
It’s been a while since I’ve been a real judge, so forgive me if I’m just behind the time, but this part confused me: “A non-morph played as a morph, unless it’s caught by the player almost immediately, remains a Game Loss.” That seems like blatant cheating that should result in a DQ not a Game Loss. It would be pretty hard to combine me that you thought that Sorcery was a Morph card… Does this happen a lot?
“I play a morph.. oh, wait, I grabbed the wrong card from my hand. Judge!”
Happens on occasion. That’s why you get a moment to catch it.
Intentionally committing Game Rule Violations is Unsporting Conduct – Cheating (which results in a DQ). That applies (if I am not mistaken) to both intentionally playing a non-morph as a morph and intentionally not revealing a legal morph (for instance for your opponent not to play around it in games 2 or 3). There can be cases in which someone did not intent to play a non-morph as a morph, and not realize it immediately (for instance with cards in a foreign language, confusing an outlast card with a morph card – or even just by negligence). If you play a non-morph as a morph, but then reveal your fake morph when you are supposed to (and then realize it was not what you thought it was), I think “game loss” is a reasonable penalty for that. If you intentionally commit both infractions (playing an illegal morph and failing to reveal it) in order to gain an advantage, that is cheating (but it’s up to an investigation to determine that).
There were already exceptions to the failing to reveal rule – notably Ashcloud Phoenix once it had already been revealed and then reborn as a morph – known info.
What if you goof for a split second (forget to reveal on the spot) and then flip it over as it hits the graveyard? Technically that’s still revealing even if you have a ‘doh’ moment. Is there a distinguishable difference between failing to reveal and refusing to reveal? We all good sometimes…If the opponent points it out and your reveal it in graveyard, it would be common courtesy not to call a judge because the card was ultimately revealed. Thoughts?
Sean – Ultimately it comes down to whether your opponent knows what the morph was or not. If the creature is dying, then putting it in the graveyard face up is revealing it in every sense of the word.
As for the difference between failing and refusing to reveal – that’s a huge difference. “Bounce your morph – what was it?” “I’m not showing you because I don’t want you to know. “Judge!” – probably a DQ. Compare that to “Bounce your morph – crap what was it?” “Damn, I should have revealed it – Judge!” – a warning and reveal the info if possible.