Joshua Feingold, Level 3, Virginia, United States

This tournament report focuses on one specific event that occurred during a PTQ I headed judged on 1 November 2014. In particular, there was an investigation that led to a short extension and no infraction that very easily could never have begun or incorrectly resulted in an infraction being assigned at several points. This report will discuss why and how each step was taken and lessons learned along the way.

Late in Round 2 of the event, a player approaches me and hands me a card that he found sitting on a table. It’s an Embodiment of Spring in a black sleeve. The event has 74 players, and there are probably 20-25 players in the room with sleeves approximately matching this one. I decide to make an announcement at the start of round 3 that I have this card, in hopes that the player realizes it’s missing and comes to me to get it. Between breaks and deck checks, I don’t have time to hunt this guy down, so this is the most logistically feasible approach to getting this card back to its owner.

I make the announcement while starting round 3. Nobody comes up. The card goes into my shirt pocket while I deal with the rest of the event.

Cut to round 5. About 6 minutes into the round, I’m walking by an ongoing match. I notice one player has black sleeves and has forests and islands in play. At this point, I put the odds that this guy is the owner of the card at about 15%. Lots of people have these sleeves and play those colors. So I duck in and check his match slip for his name. Importantly, I do not stop the match. I don’t know if anything is wrong. If I’m going down the wrong path, I don’t want to tilt players and issue an extension for no reason.

I find the player’s deck list. It contains an Embodiment of Spring. I go back to the table. I check the player’s hand and battlefield. I tell the players I need to check something, but they can keep playing. I look through the player’s deck, and there is no Embodiment of Spring in there. I pull the card of out my pocket and do a double check that the sleeve matches. Things are looking pretty grim for this guy, so I stop the match. I show him the card. He looks baffled. I tell him about how I’ve had it since round 2. Does he remember playing a copy of this card since then? He doesn’t. Does he think this is probably his card? He does. I have him double check that there isn’t a copy of this card in his deck that I’ve missed. There isn’t. I’m getting ready to give this guy his D/DLP Game Loss.

Then I stop myself and ask another question. “This is game 1, right?” Actually, no, it’s game 2. Apparently game 1 was done in well under 5 minutes. This deck doesn’t have to match the one on his list. And the IPG tells us to issue on penalty if sideboard cards are missing. And Well, I guess he dodged that bullet. But wait…

“Did you realize that card was missing?” He had no idea. “Then the deck you’re playing right now is missing a card? So, you’re playing a 39 card deck right now?” Actually, he registered a 41 card deck. So he thought he was still playing 41, but he’s actually playing 40. Making sure he keeps his hand and battlefield separate from his library, we do a quick count and confirm that there are, in fact, 40 cards in his presented deck. There sure are.

So we know these things: he has played three game-ones where his deck did not match his list; those games are all over; we don’t issue D/DLP infractions for games that are over; he is currently playing a legal 40-card deck. So, we have no infraction here. Through this bizarre confluence of events, I found the player with the missing card, I returned the card to him during a game about 7 minutes into the round, the first game of his match had finished within 5 minutes so I didn’t catch him when the card was required to be in his deck, and due to a slightly unconventional deck building choice his current deck is actually legal.

“Well, merry Christmas.” There is nothing to be done here but return the card to his sideboard, have him shuffle his library because I had him look through it, give a 5-minute extension, and have the players play on.

So, what are the takeaways?

• Be diligent to the needs of your event and the games going on in that event. It didn’t make sense to dedicate manpower to this lost card earlier, but if I weren’t thinking about this lost card in the back of my mind and watching Magic, I never would have found this player.
• Don’t stop a match just because something could perhaps potentially be wrong. By waiting until I had more information, I saved about 3 extra minutes of extension here and avoided the situation where I potentially issue a 3 minute extension and make players confused and nervous while I go read a deck list, check a deck, and determine everything is fine.
• Let the player confirm before going forward with a D/DLP. It’s possible for cards to stick together or be overlooked, and giving the player a chance to confirm the problem is real is a great way to prevent this.
• Even when assumptions seem safe, check them! It will infrequently be game 2 six minutes into a round at a sealed PTQ. Infrequently is not never. I very nearly issued a game loss because of my assumptions, but caught myself at the last possible moment.
• Do not let players disrupt the game state until you are 100% sure you giving a game loss. If during the counting of cards or checking for the missing Embodiment, I let the player mix up his game zones, we would have had a problem. Keep disruption to a minimum (ideally fixable with a shuffle or other simple measure) until you are 100% certain the game is over.

This was quite an interesting experience for me as a judge, and I had lots of questions from spectators afterwards. It’s one of the more unique investigations I’ve been a part of. I hope seeing the thought process and near-misses that made up this investigation will help you quickly and cleanly resolve your own odd future situations.

This report is originally posted on JudgeApps Tournament Reports sub-forum. Please feel free to leave your comments and feedback here.