At the end of Anna’s turn, Nalick taps out to play Azorius Charm, choosing to draw a card. After it resolves Anna’s friend Ben says “You should probably cast that,” pointing to the Magma Jet in her hand. Anna responds “Are you sure? I was thinking maybe this one instead,” pointing to her Boros Charm.
Jim’s explanation complete, you turn to address the problem with Anna and her friend. Before you begin, Nalick says “Judge, I just cast an Azorius Charm and I accidentally drew two cards that were stuck together”.
Your investigation confirms that Anna and her friend did discuss her best play in this situation, and that Nalick did draw two cards. What do you do?
Judges, feel free to discuss this scenario on Judge Apps!
[expand title=”View Answer”]In this situation Anna and Ben are both guilty of Unsporting Conduct- Outside Assistance. Both will receive a Match Loss. Anna’s will be applied to the current match. Since Ben is watching and his match slip signed and turned in, we apply this penalty to his next round, due to IPG 1.2:
Match Losses are applied to the match during which the offense occurred unless the match has already ended, in which case the penalty will be applied to the player’s next match.
Nalick is guilty of GPE- Drawing Extra Cards. He will receive a game loss. Since Anna is getting a Match loss this round, we apply that game loss to the first game of his next match. This is due to IPG 1.3:
Separate infractions committed or discovered at the same time are treated as separate penalties, though if the root cause is the same, only the more severe one is applied. If the first penalty would cause the second one to be inapplicable for the round (such as a Game Loss issued along with a Match Loss), the more severe penalty is issued first, followed by the less severe penalty in the next round.
A few of you considered downgrading this game loss due to the phrase in the IPG concerning players calling a judge on themselves before they have the potential to gain an advantage. However, this penalty should absolutely not be downgraded. First, keep in mind that we are looking at this DEC infraction as a separate incident from the OA that occurred in the match. The outcome of one should not influence the outcome of the other. When it comes to situations that fall under DEC, once a player has drawn extra cards they have committed the infraction and we will award the proper penalty. The exception to this rule is given in the IPG:
If the identity of the card was known to all players before being placed into the hand, and the card can be returned to the correct zone with minimal disruption, do so and downgrade the penalty to a Warning.
A few good points were made in your responses. Good work to:
-Eric Pare, for his emphasis on involving the head judge, and for thinking to have another judge keep an eye on the match while you locate the head judge. While some Head Judges will give their floor judges permission to apply game losses on their own, more frequently the HJ will want any game losses and above to go through them.
-Aric Parkinson, who pointed us to the relevant policy concerning how we apply these penalties.
-Nathanaël François, who mentioned that the cards being stuck together could have come from the sleeves being in bad condition. It would be great customer service to do a quick check for Nalick and see if he should replace his sleeves before the next round.[/expand]