<\/p>Step#2: Analyze the board<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I tried to find actual evidence hinting at what the correct life totals should be. Indeed, demonstrating your reasoning through factual elements is the best thing that you can do to make players feel at ease with your ruling.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[Contextual]Energy counters<\/u><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I first tried to find factual evidence, checking how many energy counters Andrea had left on turn 6 to assess whether this matched the number of claimed boosts. Andrea was using a die, whose face when I reached the table was matching the claimed number of three boosts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This felt like an easy one but when talking to Noah to highlight this, she indicated that the die was moved several times during the Floor Judge\u2019s ruling since he recounted the energy as well and it may very well have been moved an placed back to the incorrect face, a fact the Floor Judge could not confirm.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/strong>Life Pads<\/u><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Since this wasn\u2019t an unreasonable claim, I went further in this investigation. I therefore took a look at Noah\u2019s lifepad, which was displaying the following regarding her life totals:<\/p>\n
20\/16\/17\/13\/9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Each number but the 9 is cleanly scratched so it remains 100% readable.<\/p>\n
Then I took a look on Andrea\u2019s lifepad which shows, without any kind of scratches, Noah\u2019s life record as<\/p>\n
20\/16\/12\/8<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Life pads, despite they are the primary source of confusion, are paradoxically your best friends<\/strong>. Indeed, they will show where the discrepancy happened. They should be your primary source of unbiased information.<\/p>\nThese two players\u2019 life pads gave many hints:<\/p>\n
\n- First, they assessed that the issue indeed came from turn 3. The fact it was clearly scratched with a clean 16\/17 on two different lines made me feel like Noah was probably not cheating, or she would likely have tried to hide this a little bit better. Note that I didn\u2019t discard the idea of Cheating entirely, simply my attention was slightly lower and I focused more on resolving the issue.<\/li>\n
- Then, I asked Noah why she moved her life up a point from 16 to 17. She said that she felt it was obvious Andrea would boost the Brawler when he first attacked with it so she wrote 16 but then, when he didn\u2019t boost, she was surprised and crossed the 16 to make it become a 17.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nStep#3: Strategic Implications<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/strong>Assessing the most probable plays<\/u><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say that on her turn 2, Noah played a 2\/2. Considering Voltaic Brawler\u2019s ability is a triggered ability triggering when it attacks, it would make no sense for Andrea to not boost, or if he didn\u2019t, no sense for Noah to not block with the 2\/2, as this would be a good trade.<\/p>\n
Therefore, if a 2\/2 had been cast by Noah, Andrea would certainly have boosted and the ruling would likely be over. Unfortunately, in this situation, this wasn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nIn general, knowing whether a play makes sense is definitely something to evaluate<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Note: It is perfectly reasonable you may not feel comfortable evaluating whether a play makes sense or not. While I do have a strong competitive background, I realize not everybody has one. In this case, you can either consult with another judge, who may have more play experience than you have or simply ask the player to explain why they performed this specific (series of) action.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/strong>Asking players their reasoning behind the contentious play<\/u><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I then asked Noah to explain to me why it would make sense for Andrea to not boost the Brawler on turn 3. She said that if Andrea has very few means to gain energy in his deck, it makes sense to only deal three damage in the first turns to save energy for a moment where the Brawler will need to be a 4\/3 so as to be board relevant. While this made perfect sense from Noah\u2019s point of view, a quick look at the game state revealed that Andrea had many other ways to gain Energy in his deck.<\/p>\n
To double check this, I asked Andrea to tell me what he had in his opening hand and he told me about two other cards giving him energy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Note: This was a key element in this investigation. Only one thing made possible to gather this important element: My precaution to separate both players initially.\u00a0 Neither player had a chance to hear anything about the specifics I discussed with the other, so Andrea would be a criminal mastermind if he managed to anticipate the reasoning behind this question and game it. Also, since there were two additional cards giving energy, the probabilities one was in the opening hand is fairly high.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/strong>I could almost conclude with certainty at this point. However, I still needed to address Noah\u2019s claim that the die was moved during the Floor Judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n
I asked Noah several questions about the situation:<\/p>\n
\n- How can she explain that Andrea\u2019s life pad indicates a clear 16?
\nNoah indicated that they never verbally acknowledged life totals but that the Energy die was left on 2 as damage was dealt. She indicates that Andrea may have thought he boosted but he never made any indication of it whatsoever.<\/li>\n - Why didn\u2019t she call attention to the life totals\u2019 discrepancy until turn 6?
\nShe said that\u2019s the first moment when both players verbally acknowledged life totals. On turns 4 and 5 both players said \u201ctake 4\u201d. Both players agree on this.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>Step#4: Wrapping up<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was not under the impression that Andrea or Noah had been Cheating or were currently lying. This being excluded, I now had to make a decision.<\/p>\n
\n- The Game state, through the energy counters, tends to indicate that the Brawler was boosted all three turns.<\/li>\n
- Andrea\u2019s basic strategy also supports this fact.<\/li>\n
- Andrea did register a straight 16 on his life totals, despite Noah registered 16 then 17.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
Noah\u2019s claim essentially boils down to Andrea making a strategic mistake. Despite she states she clearly noticed it, she didn\u2019t draw attention to it very early (to say the least) and I could gather no proof of it happening:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nConsidering there is no evidence a strategic mistake happened, then it is likely that there was none.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Why do I believe Noah is not lying? In the exact same way as I could not gather evidence Andrea made a strategic mistake, I could not gather evidence that Noah lied. It\u2019s not because I rule against Noah that she was lying.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kevin Desprez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Life totals are something special. While each player needs to track their own, the fact they\u2019re generally tracked on each player\u2019s own life pad may lead to discrepancies which may be discovered sometimes way too late to be safely backed up. As a judge, you will need to make a decision that may be game […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"language":[14],"class_list":["post-1174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1174"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1287,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions\/1287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1174"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=1174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}