Anytime a judge issues a ruling that lasts more than a minute or two it is policy that the judge should give those players extra time to finish their match. This also applies to the time that players have had to wait for a judge to come to the table. The amount of time given does not have to be exact, but an approximation of the amount of time that players were not playing in their match because the judge staff was either answering a question, conducting an investigation or checking a deck. The philosophy behind this is that the entire match time should be given to the players to be playing their match, anytime other than a brief interruption that is taken up by the judge should be ‘given back’ to the players.

Often, granting this extra time is forgotten as judges are focused on handling the situation at hand. If a judge does forget to grant extra time, it is best to politely ask for some. However, remember that this only applies to rulings that take more than two minutes.