{"id":83,"date":"2015-10-08T22:04:03","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T19:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rules\/?page_id=83"},"modified":"2019-04-02T10:38:39","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T07:38:39","slug":"ipg3-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/rules\/ipg3-3\/","title":{"rendered":"IPG 3.3 Tournament Error \u2014 Slow Play"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Definition<\/h2>\n

A player takes longer than is reasonably required to complete game actions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Penalty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Warning<\/p>\n

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Players are required to play at a reasonable pace, but what is a reasonable pace? It’s not really defined anywhere. There is no explicit number of seconds to make a decision. If we say “taking longer than 30 seconds to make a decision is slow play,” then players can legally take 29 seconds to make every decision, and we have just legalized Stalling. Making a slow play call as a judge is subjective, therefore judges have to use their best judgment when making them. Two methods judges have reported using are: <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

– If you have had time to assess the board, figure out what to do, and then get bored, it’s slow play <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

– If you start wondering if you should give Slow Play, you should have already given it.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/p>\n

If a judge believes a player is intentionally playing slowly to take advantage of a time limit, the infraction is Unsporting Conduct \u2014 Stalling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Players can be playing slowly unintentionally without realizing it. If they are playing slowly with the specific purpose of eating up time on the clock (either to cement the win, or force a draw, or for other reasons) then it\u2019s not Slow Play, it’s Stalling (i.e. cheating). Keep in mind they are very difficult to tell apart, and typically revolves around how much the player was aware of the remaining time on the clock.<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n

It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of iterations and the expected resulting game state.<\/p>\n

This is one of those sentences that whole articles can be written about. Most loops have a finite ending \u2014 I do X 10 times, but stop early if Y happens. Using the rules for shortcuts as found in the MTR, you must also be able to explain the specific end state. There are many loops out there where they will reach a certain condition \u201ceventually.\u201d Eventually is not a specific number. These loop end states are also not specific enough. You cannot perform the loop \u201cMill myself until the last 2 cards in my library are Emrakul\u201d because you can’t specify how many times you will need to loop to get to that state. You could loop \u201cA million times!\u201d but there is still a chance it won\u2019t happen until the million and first. Fine, I loop 2 Million times! There is still the chance it won’t happen. It doesn’t matter how small the chance of failure is; if it\u2019s there, you can’t loop. \u00a0Also, if the opponent wants to respond when you have milled both Emrakuls and both shuffle triggers are on the stack, how do you determine which state happens first?<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n

Examples<\/h2>\n