<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the easiest you can do. Stop at a table, look at both players\u2019 life pads and make sure they match. With so many fetchlands, painlands, Shocklands or Thoughtseize<\/a> being played these days, you\u2019ll catch quite a few mistakes. Guillaume Beuzelin<\/a> And even if both life pads match, you can go through a quick check that life totals are correct by taking a look at the cards currently in the graveyards. As long as no creature attacked, that\u2019s a pretty easy thing to do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [BASIC]Checking which game players are in<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Especially towards the end of the round, knowing if a player is ahead on games is pretty important in assessing potential Stalling. Indeed, if the player who is playing slowly is down a game, you can exclude Stalling (but not Slow Play).<\/p>\n On a related note, assessing the pace of play as soon as you reach the table is a huge help: If you start thinking about Slow Play after players have brought your attention to it, it might be too late for you to efficiently act. More information on Slow Play and Stalling available here.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [BASIC]Checking for potential Sideboard cards in game 1<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Color hosers aren\u2019t usually played Main Deck. If you see a player with, let\u2019s say, Glare of Heresy<\/a> in his hand and we\u2019re in game 1, that\u2019s likely worth checking his decklist to make sure he\u2019s not covering his mistake. Here\u2019s a small story from GP Denver 2015:<\/p>\n Steven Zwanger<\/a> He therefore asked the player if he was playing Glare of Heresy Main Deck. Player said yes.\u00a0 He involved the Head Judge who determined that the player believed the penalty was a Match Loss so he intentionally didn\u2019t call a judge to not receive a penalty. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [BASIC]Monitoring combats<\/strong> <\/p>\n In a big combat, proactively calculate combat damage yourself and see if it agrees with the players’ assessment. Indeed, on complicated boards, it\u2019s easy to forget something.<\/p>\n If you end up with a different count, make sure you didn\u2019t forget a hidden lifelink (or a non-hidden one like Whip of Erebos) or a +1\/+1 boost or counter.<\/p>\n Also, that\u2019s a great way of training your brain to count faster!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [BASIC]Monitoring land drops<\/strong> <\/p>\n Players have a habit to first drop a land then go deep into thinking, cast a few spells or activate abilities, attack etc. Then they ask “Did I play a land this turn?” And nobody can remember if they did or not! To monitor that as a routine task rather than actively, you can extend your right index finger when a player plays a land while remaining focused on the game. When it’s the other player’s turn, reset the finger and use your left index!<\/p>\n When you get asked the question, simply check the status of your finger and if players are unsure, perform a more thorough check with the procedure described here<\/a>!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [ADVANCED]Counting cards<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Especially if the game is at its early stages, it is possible to count the number of cards drawn by each player in an attempt to detect Drawing Extra Cards: If no draw\/search effect has happened, the difference should be one card only. If there\u2019s more difference than that, feel free to ask players if one of them mulliganed!<\/p>\n Interestingly, since most players shuffle their hand as a habit, that makes counting a player\u2019s cards even easier!<\/p>\n A detailed procedure on how to count cards can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [ADVANCED]Check what\u2019s central in the game being played<\/strong> <\/p>\n Try to see if there’s an obvious vector that is directing the game, to understand player’s potential motivations for cheating – e.g. if there’s a flier that is clocking a player who is stalled on the ground, be aware that fliers\/removal are tempting targets for shuffle cheating.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take an example of why this can be relevant: <\/p>\n Kevin Desprez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Soon-to-be a decade ago, I used to be a player. A competitive player. I\u2019d only judge PTQs if I was qualified for the corresponding PT. This background means I love watching games. I get thrilled watching tense games. I still remember that quarter-finals between Eduardo Sajgalik and Shi Tian Lee at PT RtR: So many […]<\/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":[8],"tags":[],"language":[14],"class_list":["post-649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tournament-procedures","language-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649","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=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":653,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions\/653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.magicjudges.org\/whatsupdocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/span> reported that as soon as he starts doing it actively, he can catch 5-10 discrepancies a round.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/span> was watching a match and noticed a Game 1 Glare of Heresy, then a second getting scried to the bottom. That seemed weird so he checked the player\u2019s list and saw the latter wasn\u2019t playing them Main Deck.<\/p>\n
\nDespite the player was intentionally not playing them while they may have been useful in the match-upthe fact he failed to tell us about it so he could avoid the penalty, he was disqualified for USC – Cheating (Hiding an infraction).<\/p>\n
\n(courtesy of David Lyford-Smith<\/a><\/span><\/span>)<\/em><\/p>\n
\n(courtesy of David de la Iglesia<\/a><\/span><\/span>)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWorse, as it’s been recently exemplified during PT Brussels Round 6 with Patrick Chapin, the seocnd land is played and nobody notices.<\/p>\n
\n(courtesy of David Lyford-Smith)<\/em><\/p>\n
\nAP has 7 lands, casts a morph, then taps only two Swamps and exiles all of the 3 cards from his graveyard to cast Sultai Scavenger<\/a> (which costs 5B, leaving him two lands open to activate <\/p>.
\nThis is suspicious. However, NAP\u2019s main threat is an unblockable creature that the Ramparts are tapping every turn. NAP doesn\u2019t have a flyer so curving the 3\/3 is, of course, a benefit, but it\u2019s not game decisive. NAP would be better with it but is not dead without.
\nThis situation happened during PT Fate Reforged<\/a> and, based on this, I chose to conclude it was a mistake rather than Cheating.<\/p>\n
\nNow, you’ve got no excuse to not watch games \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n