has any info been updated on the waco PCQ, the UDE site shows July 3rd and July 5th. That link they have does not go to a working site.

the problem was that it was the head judge that made that ruling. i was standing right behind him during the whole thing.

man i so wanted to go, but just couldn't make it, oh well i will be on vacation in Ga just in time for the PCQ in atlanta, and they is always waco too.

can't wait for wizard world texas, hopefully there will be some Vs going on.

Just talked to Paul from the Game Closet, their PCQ is actually THIS Sat. Hope to see some of you guys there. Well, except B.J. White. I hope to never to see THAT Doom deck again.

That's interesting. I was the head judge for the San Antonio PCQ, and that's not exactly what happened.

We actually had three judges for the PCQ, including myself as the head judge, and Tay ("Locke").

This situation occurred between two players both playing decks with Lost City and Relocation. Earlier in the game, they had called for a judge as one player controlled two Lost Cities after Relocating one of his opponent's, and wanted to know if they were cumulative. The judge ruled that they did - thinking the Lost Cities were triggered, instead of generating a replacement effect.

Later in the same game, another judge noticed they were playing Lost City incorrectly. When he informed him that they were _not_ cumulative, the players told him about the previous ruling.

That's when things got interesting.

First, let me say that situations like this are very difficult to "fix". I apologized profusely to both players, as I understand how disappointing it is to them when something like this happens. We do our best to prevent them, but mistakes do happen.

Also, there was no question about how multiple Lost Cities worked - I was very lucky to have one of the netreps as a judge, and can't thank him enough for his help.

The real question was how to resolve this situation. Several turns had passed since the original ruling, so it was impossible to reverse the game state as both players had made decisions based on the current situation, taking into account the incorrect ruling.

My decision was to allow the current game to continue using the current ruling (that the Lost Cities were cumulative), but that the rest of the match would be played under the correct ruling.

You may ask why I did not instruct them to continue play under the correct rules. At the time I made the ruling, one player had two Lost Cities and a Relocation face up in his resource row, and the other player also had a Lost City and a Relocation face up. The game had been significantly affected by the incorrect ruling, and changing it again would only further disrupt the game.

These situations have no "right answer", and are one of the most difficult problems to resolve. I considered reversing the ruling for the current game as well, but felt that it would disrupt the game even more.

If anyone has any questions please contact me.

Thanks,
Ben

Considering the the player that had two lost cities in play, had won game 1 of the match. You should of reversed your ruling right then. By not reversing it you gave the player with two lost cities a huge advantage. Each pump he did was equivalent to flipping over 2 it's clobberin time. Had u reversed the ruling my friend would of actually stood a chance of making a comeback and winning that game to force a game 3. This ruling really upset him and now he is going to quit playing VS all together. He feels that when its a tournament for money and an invitation, that a bad ruling like this is inexcusable. As a head judge you of all people need to have a full grasp of the rules and should not make a mistake like that. I just hope I can talk my friend out quitting this great game.

bdrago

I personally believe it is never acceptible to play by incorrect rules. If someone made an incorrect ruling earlier that's no reason to keep following the incorrect ruling.

If I make a ruling that I'm unsure about I say "play it this way for now and I'll let you know if it's right", then look it up to see whether I made the right call or not. If I didn't make the right call, I go back and say "this is how you play it from now on." If it's possible to re-wind, I do so, but I don't let the incorrect ruling stand.

That this was a well known ruling makes the original decision unfortunate. That there was a UDE Netrep there and the ruling wasn't verified makes the situation appalling. Evltom's buddy is right to be pissed off if a Head Judge doesn't make the right call on something that's been gone over on several forums like that ruling has.


Evltom

Your buddy should have had a copy of the Comprehensive Rules Document (which was available that Friday) and the Individual Card Rulings and questioned the Judge when they made the ruling. While the lion's share of the fault lies with the Judge that made the original ruling, some fault lies with the player that knows the ruling is incorrect, but accepts it anyway and hasn't properly prepared for the situation where the Judge is wrong (which will happen sometime in some tournament you play in, guaranteed).

We had to drive down to San Antonio on Friday and had no idea that the comprehensive rules were out yet. We found out at the tournament that those rules got released. I agree that my friend should of questioned the ruling, but he is new to the tournament scene and is still learning the rules himself. He was depending on the judges to make the right rulings cuz that is what they are there for.

Hello all,

I think this is an interesting discussion, and would like to continue it as long as it can stay civil. I'd also like to point out that I'm also a Level 3 DCI certified judge, and have been actively judging events for over four years. This was my first Vs. event, but most of the "judge philosophy" is the same between the two systems.

A majority of the time this is correct. However, there are situations where the integrity of the game has become so corrupted that simply fixing the problem may actually be more disruptive then letting it stand.

Normally, these situations are avoided because the problem is caused by one of the players. This is usually a relatively easy fix, because it falls under "Procedural Error-Major", which carries a penalty of a game loss:

"This penalty is appropriate for an unintentional infraction that a player commits that causes an irreversible disruption of the game state. The game state is beyond repair, so the penalty is more severe than the one for a minor procedural error.

This is an appropriate penalty to use when a player unintentionally misplays a card incorrectly that causes a major game disruption."

The situation discussed in this thread is different, because it was a judge that made the error, and not one of the players. So the option of simply issuing a game loss was not available.

The original ruling had occurred on turn 3 according to the players. It was now turn 7. For the sake of convenience, let's say Player A controlled two Lost Cities and a face up Relocation, while Player B had a single Lost City and a face up Relocation.

Now, my options at this point are:
1) Restart the game
2) "Fix" the game by adjusting endurance totals, putting back KO'd players, etc.
3) Allow the game to continue as is using the correct rule (Lost Cities are not cumulative).
4) Allow the game to continue as is using the incorrect ruling

Options #1 and #2 are both very bad, and should never happen in a sanctioned event regardless of the problem. Discussing them could be an entire thread of their own, so I won't try to go into detail with them. "Going back in time" is almost impossible to do fairly, as both players have made decisions based on the current state of the game, and would have likely made different choices.

So the real decision is between #3 and #4. I polled some experienced Magic judges about this last night, and they were pretty evenly split between the two options. At first it may seem obvious that you should pick #3, but consider these possibilities:

- Player B had just played a face-down Relocation, and would be able to flip it and win during his attack step.
- Player A had already declared and resolved attacks this turn under the assumption that his Lost Cities would generate +6/+6 throughout his attack step

Personally, I felt that both choices were valid, and my decision ultimately hinged on the fact that they were in turn 7, which is very late in a Vs. match. I believed that changing the rules at this point would have been more disruptive then allowing them to stand for the rest of the game.

As a judge with a lot of experience, I highly recommend not doing this. If your unsure of a ruling, tell the players to wait, confirm the correct rule, and then let the players continue and add the time used to look up the rule to their match.

Again, I was not involved with the original ruling. I only got involved as I described above, after the players had been playing under the incorrect ruling for four turns.

I'd also like to point out that I spoke to Player B later in the event about the situation. At that time, he told me that he managed to win the game where the ruling occured, even though he was at a serious disadvantage. I believe he did lose the match however.

I've been judging for almost 3 years and in my experience, even if a judge made the wrong ruling before, I would have restored the integrity of the game as best as I could which means begin at that moment to play by the correct rules.

In any case you can't be wrong since you were the head judge ;-)

I think your memory of the occurance is a bit fuzzy Bdrago. I just talked to my friend and he did not have a relocation face down. Even if he did have one face down how would you know unless u decided to check his face down resources. The face up relocation was from Player A when he relocated the lost city. Had the ruling been reversed at the point my friend said that he probably could of won the game cuz he managed to do enuff damage, but since the ruling stayed in effect (+6/+6) Player A was able to come back and just boost once and win the match. At this point Player B dropped from the tournament and left the venue, extremely pissed off.

You must have this guy confused with someone else cuz Player B (my friend) lost 2 straight and did not win the round at a serious disadvantage.

I am still trying to talk him out of quitting the game completely but the damage has already been done.... :(

No offense, but if the guy is gonna quit the game over 1 bad ruling (that he definitely should have argued) then you should just let him quit. He will likely just quit sometime later over something else minor. Things like this happen in games, if he can't handle them then maybe he shouldn't play them.

It was the HJ that handed down the final ruling. You can't argue with the HJ and expect to get anywhere once he's ruled on something.

EvlTom, I'd point your friend to this thread. I'm 100% behind him and believe he is fully justified in his dissapointment with the event. At the same time, bad rulings do occur, and there will always be more events. At least he hasn't experienced the judge that intervenes during matches when his friend/spouse is involved in their favor, giving him/her advice during the match and calling for a random deck check during the match to see if they have any outs, then saying, "forge can shuffle your deck" with emphasis. Yes, that actually happened.

I see bdrago's point on not wanting to upset the game. I mean imagine a situation where a judge ruled that characters could attack from the back row w/out range (I know, ridiculous, but imagine it...). Now the head judge comes over in the middle of an attack phase and points out that a proposed attack is illegal because the character in the backrow attacking does not have range. The players inform the judge that another judge ruled differently. You would really upset the balance of the game by reversing that ruling in the middle of someone's attack phase. Very likely losing them a game if the circumstances were right (they put their biggest attacker in the backrow thinking he could attack based on the judge's ruling and suddenly he can't attack).