Magic is a complicated game. While we can’t prevent players from making mistakes, we should do our best to fix situations as fairly as possible. It is important that players know that when help is needed or something goes wrong, calling a judge is the best course of action. Our solutions should focus on educating the players and keeping the game going rather than worrying about the impact on the game. You should intervene if you see something illegal happen in a match, but beyond this you can exercise your discretion. For example, whether you step in when you see a player miss a trigger should be determined by the tone you want to strike for your event – it may be appropriate to provide this extra help in a more causal environment, but less so if your play group is more competitive.

When answering a question, double check the rules if you aren’t sure of your answer. Remember to give the players extra time to finish their match to compensate for time taken by a ruling. The fixes found in the Infraction Procedure Guide are designed for a stricter environment and don’t apply at Regular REL. If a player accidentally breaks a rule, use the remedies described below and your common sense as guidance to make the best ruling you can. If you feel that the suggested remedy is not suitable to your particular situation you may suggest a more appropriate fix which is applied if both players accept it. Player education is a priority; remind the players to play more carefully, but avoid being heavy-handed in order to keep your events fun and relaxed. If a player continues to repeat a mistake despite multiple reminders, you may warn them that the next occurrence will result in a Game Loss. Hopefully this final step will not be required, but knowing it is possible should get the player to correct their behavior. Knowingly breaking a rule is a Serious Problem (see below).

If your event requires deck lists, provides large prizes, or is otherwise of a more competitive nature, it may be better to run it at Competitive rather than Regular REL. This will require use of the full Infraction Procedure Guide instead of this document, so make sure you’re familiar with it before trying a higher REL.

Common Issues

A player forgets a triggered ability (one that uses the words “when,” “whenever,” or “at the beginning”, usually at the start of the ability’s text)

These abilities are considered missed if the player did not acknowledge the ability in any way at the point that it required choices or had a visible in-game effect. If the ability includes the word “may,” assume the player chose not to perform it. Otherwise, put the ability on the stack unless you think it would be too disruptive – don’t add it to the stack if significant decisions have been made based on the effect not happening! Unlike other illegal actions (which must be pointed out), players may choose whether or not to point out their opponent’s missed triggers.

A player sees a card in a library that they shouldn’t have seen

Shuffle the card seen into the unknown portion of the library. If any player legally knows the position of any cards in the library, ensure that your fix preserves the positions of those cards.

A player accidentally draws or has more cards than they were supposed to

If the identity of the card(s) were known to all players, return them to their proper location. Otherwise,
determine how many extra cards have been drawn, take that many cards at random from the player’s hand and place them on top of the library. Don’t shuffle the library after doing this! If the extra cards were drawn while drawing an opening hand, shuffle the extra cards back into the deck instead and allow the player to continue making mulligan decisions with the remaining cards.

A player makes an in-game error not mentioned above

This will cover the bulk of player errors, and usually the least disruptive option is to leave the game as it is after fixing anything that is currently illegal (e.g. an Aura enchanting an illegal permanent). If the error involved a player forgetting to draw or discard cards, have them perform the appropriate action now. Otherwise, if the error was caught quickly and backing up is relatively easy, you may undo all the actions back to the point that the illegal action happened. This can include returning random cards from the hand to the library to undo card draws (though don’t shuffle the library if you do this), untapping permanents and undoing combat. This can be very disruptive where lots of decisions have been made or hidden information has been revealed since the illegal action, so don’t go crazy with this!

A player has illegal, insufficient, or another player’s cards in their deck

Remove any cards that shouldn’t be in the deck, put back any cards that should, then add basic lands of the player’s choice if the deck is below the format’s minimum size limit. Any cards that are added to the deck should be shuffled directly into the library. If the error was discovered during a draw effect, have the player complete the draw effect after the deck is fixed and shuffled. Encourage players to count their deck and present their sideboard (face down) to their opponents before starting a game to avoid these errors.

General Unwanted Behaviors

• Inadequate shuffling.
• Taking unreasonable amounts of time making play decisions or sideboarding.
• Asking for or providing strategic advice during a match or draft.
• Tardiness (a player who is more than 10 minutes late to a match has forfeited and should be dropped from the tournament at the end of the round if still absent.)
• Determining match outcomes by incentives, coercion, or outside-the-game methods, or gambling on any part of a tournament.

The priority is to educate players who exhibit these behaviors. It can be useful to reinforce this education with a Game Loss should the unwanted behaviour continue. Intentionally taking any of these actions when the player knows it is against the rules, or trying to track their opponent into doing so, is a Serious Problem.

Serious Problems

Certain actions will not be tolerated under any circumstances. Every effort should be made to educate players before and during events but any player engaging in the following must be removed from your event and, at the Organizer’s discretion, removed from the venue entirely:

• Aggressive, violent, harassing or abusive behavior (physical or verbal). this includes insults based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, or sexual orientation, and intentional misgendering.
• Knowingly breaking or letting an opponent break game or tournament rules, or lying, in order to gain an advantage. “Bluffing” about cards opponents can’t normally see is permitted.
• Theft (including things like replacing a card in a draft with one from a player’s binder).

Removing players in this way is called a Disqualification, and we must always try to educate our players on why these actions are unacceptable. Also let the player know that while your decision is final, Wizards of the Coast would still like to hear their side of the story. Disqualifications should be reported here. Please include the Wizards Account email address of the disqualified player and that player’s opponent.

Resources

Got questions? Try chat.magicjudges.org or asking in the #mtg_rules_chat channel in the Magic: The Gathering Official server on Discord.

The Magic Tournament Rules give more information about how to run tournaments at any REL, and can be found at: http://wpn.wizards.com/en/rules-documents.

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