Cavern of Souls

[PirateKing]

I can't believe that I am responsible for my opponent's skillful ability to operate the game. By all measures what my opponent means is a mystery to all, I can only judge on what they say. When my opponent says "fish", in what world am I supposed to know he means otherwise? What sort of game is it where I am motivated to correct him?

[Windmill]

It is true - you can misname a card (you say Card A), but if it was clear to the judge that you meant a different card (Card B) then the judge will rule in favour of Card B. You don't even need to know a creature type name, you can describe it in detail and that suffices for official rulings. They do that, to make the game more accessible to everyone. If he says "fish" then explains to the judge that he means Merfolk and everyone calls it fish and he thought that is what it was, he'd probably be warned, but it would pass through. If he said "lion" then no, that would not suffice.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

As a player, if my opponent named "fish", even if I didn't ask for confirmation, but especially if I did and the confirmed "fish", then I would accept my opponent's choice and hold them too it. They are free to summon Battering Krasis, Breaching Hippocamp, Coral Eel, Dandân, Devouring Deep, Electric Eel, Elusive Krasis, Giant Shark, Hammerhead Shark, Island Fish Jasconius, Jace's Mindseeker, Manta Ray, Quagmire Lamprey, School of Piranha, Shambleshark, Sky-Eel School, Skyreach Manta, Slipstream Eel, Windrider Eel, Wormfang Behemoth, Wormfang Behemoth. Or add to their pool, it's up to them.

Amazing list...

[Angelfire]

I saw someone lose a game to tapping a Batterskull with his Merrow Reejerey and then attacking only to have his fish:P blocked by the Germ >_< There are almost zero scenarios where you would want to tap Batterskull over the Germ, but he clearly said tap the Batterskull which is a legal target. I guess you gotta let stuff like this stand as to not run into problems when the area is more grey.

[Quasim0ff]

Really, that is the reason why some judges suggested polling players.

Is it 100% clear to the opponent that by "fish," he means merfolk? If yes, then current judging policy supports saying that he can cast the Cursecatcher. If not, then current judging policy supports saying he cannot cast the Cursecatcher.

Imagine this: It's R1 of a GP. You are sitting down, facing an opponent. He win's the roll, goes first, ponders his hand and keep.

His first line is: Cavern of Souls naming "Fish". You get clarification that "fish" is meant. You have no reason to believe he isn't an avid vintage-player who took his Bant Fish deck with him, compared to an old time legacy player, who played menfolk before Mental Misstep was a thing.

You, as a competitive player, should be explicit in your actions, such that these situations occur. If they two knew each other, and how known each other for years, would they misunderstand each other? Obviously not, due to the fact that they both, most likely, knew which deck he was bringing. You have to be clear, and leave NO chance of misinterpreting. Ahmed did here. That's just too bad. (Consider before there was issued the "new" rule to cavern: You had to explicit name creature type, AS WELL as mentioning you used caverns SECOND ability to cast said creature type, otherwise you could get judge-called on. You have to be explicit, otherwise you leave yourself in this situation.)

[FTW]

So what happens in the stoneforge example when an opponent says human and I know they really meant Kor? Both of us know all they wanted was an uncounterable stoneforge, does this change because of what I've quoted above?

If my opponent says fish, I clarify by asking "fish?" and they say "yes, fish", I'm really really hard pressed to see that cavern on anything but fish the actual creature type. However if i ask what deck Tim Turner is on and my buddy tells me "Fish", I understand that to almost exclusively mean merfolk in this format, barring Vintage Noble Fish ported to legacy.

The Stoneforge situation is different, because he still could have meant Human (for a later Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, etc.) as Human is a popular creature type among tier Legacy decks and is a legitimate choice. Even if he is casting the Stoneforge Mystic off that mana this turn, it is not clear he meant to make the Stoneforge uncounterable (as opposed to some other creature he might play later).

Nobody plays Fish.tribal. If you see mono-Islands and a Caverns naming Fish, any experienced Legacy player (regardless of whether being anal retentive and refusing to admit it) intuitively knows that the player is referring to Merfolk. Any dispute over the matter is rules lawyering over semantics, but not an expression of actual confusion over intent. Thus, without actual confusion, I would say the 100% rule applies here.

The Human situation is a bit more up to interpretation, therefore "tough luck".

[Lemnear]

The Stoneforge situation is different, because he still could have meant Human (for a later Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, etc.) as Human is a popular creature type among tier Legacy decks and is a legitimate choice. Even if he is casting the Stoneforge Mystic off that mana this turn, it is not clear he meant to make the Stoneforge uncounterable (as opposed to some other creature he might play later).

Nobody plays Fish.tribal. If you see mono-Islands and a Caverns naming Fish, any experienced Legacy player (regardless of whether being anal retentive and refusing to admit it) intuitively knows that the player is referring to Merfolk. Any dispute over the matter is rules lawyering over semantics, but not an expression of actual confusion over intent.

The Human situation is a bit more up to interpretation.

Sorry, but being to stupid to name the creature types in your own decks is nothing your opponent caused, nor see I the requirement to confirm my opponents decision more than once.

It's like casting Cabal Therapy for Spell Pierce and after your opponent reveals spell Snare you Start discussing that you meant the other and want your opponent to discard Snare.

[TsumiBand]

Yeah, there's no way that naming an established creature type when you mean another should be acceptable to rewind, regardless of player's understanding of the game state.

There are certain times where being unable to name something correctly can still result in the correct play. Last time I checked, this was a viable example -- Meddling Mage resolves and the player goes to name their card, but they suddenly draw a blank. They call a judge, and say "omg I'm trying to remember the name of the card, it is a 4/5 flyer with Morph, it's an Angel, and when it deals damage its controller gains that much life…" The judge can correctly state the name of the card and acknowledge that the player named Exalted Angel as part of Meddling Mage's resolution.

In the OP's situation, they are using a real creature type and it doesn't matter if it's a good one or the right one - he named a legit creature type and confirmed it. You can't just use words that have a game-relevant definition! That's why we have different words for all the things! If my opponent names "Fish" I'm not gonna be like "now when you say fish…" This isn't a Google search, there's no "did you mean: merfolk"

[FTW]

Sorry, but being to stupid to name the creature types in your own decks is nothing your opponent caused, nor see I the requirement to confirm my opponents decision more than once.

It's like casting Cabal Therapy for Spell Pierce and after your opponent reveals spell Snare you Start discussing that you meant the other and want your opponent to discard Snare.

Yeah, exactly. Being stupid to the creature type (Stoneforge example) is not the opponent's fault and therefore you should get "tough luck". The creature type is locked in as Human and Stoneforge being a Kor is unaffected. I think we're in agreement on that. If you screw up, too bad.

Same with picking the wrong name on Cabal Therapy, particularly when both cards are commonly played. The guy fucked up. Too bad. But if he said "Liliana of Veil" or "Liliana of the Whale", neither of those are magic cards, but it's pretty clear what the guy meant. I bet any judge would allow that. Maybe the guy just has a lisp/accent/etc.

The "fish" case is not being stupid to the creature type. It's a case of the opposite: the player is so familiar with the format that he is using a shorthand. Shortcuts are acceptable in competitive play and shorthands are acceptable in naming cards as long as there is no reasonable grounds for confusion. Although Magic is a game of a precision, when played in person and not on MTGO we communicate in English (or another language), not code with binary logic. The whole point of having shorthands and shortcuts is to allow people to communicate in language instead of speaking like monotonous anal-retentive robots, particularly when there is clear understanding of what is intended on both sides, or at least a clear interpretation to a judge and the average Legacy player base. This makes the experience of playing the game more pleasant while still requiring attention to details, understanding of the game rules, understanding of the format, skill at Magic, etc.

Example 1: If you name "Bob" with Cabal Therapy, it means Dark Confidant. If the opponent is new and hasn't heard that nickname before, he might be confused, maybe mistake it for "Penumbra Bobcat". But a judge would rule that "Bob" is a long-accepted nickname in MtG and allow it.

Example 2: I believe with meddling mage you're allowed to say "uh... that red enchantment you played last game that costs 3R and lets you put a hasty creature from your hand to the battlefield until end of turn for R" and a Judge will count that as meaning Sneak Attack without punishing the you for forgetting the name.

Until I see someone sleeving up DandanTribal.dec at a major Legacy tournament, given the long history in the magic community, I think "fish" is an acceptable shorthand for "merfolk", despite the conflict with an existing creature type. Even for a Vintage player, hatebear.dec doesn't share a tribal creature type specifically associated with the strategy so it is unlikely a player would make that association when naming a creature type with Cavern of Souls. I mean, a player hypothetically could, but it would be making an unreasonable leap. Whereas "fish"="merfolk" is a pretty reasonable leap for the average Legacy player. Especially if his registered decklist has all creatures of type "Merfolk".

I think the two situations are very different. It's not a case of being stupid to the name or the creature type or missing a trigger or really even an error. It's just colloquial communication, like "bob", and would hope that any judge that doesn't have a stick up his/her rectum would allow it to count.

[PirateKing]

Magic is a code, but it's a code written in plain English. You may need some hand holding to learn the rules, but you shouldn't need any special treatment to follow basic instructions. In game or out. Magic lore or history or nomenclature should have no bearing on card function. Shortcuts exist, but are clearly spelled out in the rules. Find me the one where I can shortcut [CREATURE TYPE] for [CREATURE TYPE]. He named fish, he was questioned on fish, he confirmed fish. If he meant literally anything other than fish, then he has a problem with words, not Magic.

[FTW]

Magic is a code, but it's a code written in plain English.

Magic lore or history or nomenclature should have no bearing on card function.

If he meant literally anything other than fish, then he has a problem with words, not Magic.

If you do a Gatherer search on "Bob", one of the top hits is Penumbra Bobcat. In fact, it is the only hit that has any word that starts with "Bob". Without factoring in Magic lore or history or nomenclature, it is the most logical interpretation. (that, or no existing Magic card at all).

Yet would a judge not accept it as "Dark Confidant"?

[alphastryk]

Magic is a code, but it's a code written in plain English. You may need some hand holding to learn the rules, but you shouldn't need any special treatment to follow basic instructions. In game or out. Magic lore or history or nomenclature should have no bearing on card function. Shortcuts exist, but are clearly spelled out in the rules. Find me the one where I can shortcut [CREATURE TYPE] for [CREATURE TYPE]. He named fish, he was questioned on fish, he confirmed fish. If he meant literally anything other than fish, then he has a problem with words, not Magic.

+1

If you do a Gatherer search on "Bob", one of the top hits is Penumbra Bobcat. In fact, it is the only hit that has any word that starts with "Bob". Without factoring in Magic lore or history or nomenclature, it is the most logical interpretation. (that, or no existing Magic card at all).

Yet would a judge not accept it as "Dark Confidant"?

"Bob" isn't a card and clarification is needed. Can assume nothing.

[FTW]

"Bob" isn't a card and clarification is needed. Can assume nothing.

If clarification is returned as "Bob" which is not a Magic card and you call "Judge!" what would the judge rule here? Would the Therapy just do nothing because it named a card that does not exist?

What about when a player says "I'll 6 you" or "all yours" or "go ahead" or "swing with the team" or "just the Delver" or uses any other euphemism for declaring attackers or ending the turn? Do all those players have problems with words? Even using acceptable shortcuts in the rulebook, you don't need to say "Declare combat phase. Skip to declaring attackers. Declare the Wurmcoil Engine on the left as the sole attacker" or "End My Turn" every time in sanctioned events. Trust me, people don't. Players like to think Magic is played in code, but people use euphemisms and non-specific language all the time, even in competitive events. It's the nature of human language. Judges understand that and apply that all the time, particularly when the language made it 100% clear what was intended.

[TsumiBand]

If you do a Gatherer search on "Bob", one of the top hits is Penumbra Bobcat. In fact, it is the only hit that has any word that starts with "Bob". Without factoring in Magic lore or history or nomenclature, it is the most logical interpretation. (that, or no existing Magic card at all).

Yet would a judge not accept it as "Dark Confidant"?

EDIT: What about when a player says "I'll 6 you" or "all yours" or "go ahead" or "swing with the team" or "just the Delver" or uses any other euphemism for declaring attackers or ending the turn? Do all those players have problems with words? Even using acceptable shortcuts in the rulebook, you don't need to say "Declare combat phase. Skip to declaring attackers. Declare the Wurmcoil Engine on the left as the sole attacker" or "End My Turn" every time in sanctioned events. Trust me, people don't.

There is 'one' Dark Confidant and it is colloquially referred to as 'Bob'. There is no standalone instance of 'Bob' being a cardname in Magic.

Contrary to this, 'Fish' is very much a creature type. Its competitive relevance is besides the question; Cavern of Souls says "Name a creature type". 'Fish' has a meaning in the game. 'Bob' does not.

Let's imagine I'm naming a card with Cabal Therapy, and I say, "I name… oh, fuck, judge!! I'm trying to think of that card, you know, what's it called?! It's a Bear and it Tims things, that's all I can remember right now." Like, what do you even do with that? Search the opponent's decklist for their putative 2/2 that can deal damage to things? There is a minimum of effective communication that has to be established.

Using in-game words is the clincher here, for my part. There's a big difference between 'Bob' and 'Fish'. 'Bob' doesn't exist in the game. 'Fish' is a creature type. Dude said 'Fish'. The ability to let 'Fish' represent multiple creature types when others typically just represent their own ('bear' vs 'Bear' is not really much worse or better than 'counter' versus 'counter', though it is a little unfortunate).

[FTW]

Let's imagine I'm naming a card with Cabal Therapy, and I say, "I name… oh, fuck, judge!! I'm trying to think of that card, you know, what's it called?! It's a Bear and it Tims things, that's all I can remember right now." Like, what do you even do with that? Search the opponent's decklist for their putative 2/2 that can deal damage to things? There is a minimum of effective communication that has to be established.

100% agreed. There's a minimum amount of information that needs to be given to make the reference unambiguous. If you say "that blue spell that costs 1 mana and draws cards", it could easily mean Brainstorm, Ponder, etc.. and that would be insufficient. Because you actually might not know what he meant. That would clearly be an error on the player's part. In the case, the player doesn't remember important details, forgot something, doesn't know the format well enough, is stupid to the card name, etc. But when saying "fish", there is no stupidity. There is no forgetting the creature type, or lack of knowledge of the cards or the format. The mental mechanism behind it is completely different. He does not fail know something important to the game. He's probably just being "cute" and saying "Fish" as an homage when he very well knows that the creature type is "Merfolk" and intends to apply it to "Merfolk". That's the major difference between the scenarios.

You argue that because "Fish" exists as a creature type there is possible ambiguity (unlike with the cardname "Bob" or the creature type "Gobbos"). But if his registered decklist contains all Merfolk and 0 "Fish" creatures and the title of his deck is "Merfolk" then there really is no ambiguity to either player or any judge. Everyone knows what he meant. If everyone knows what he meant, then the language was sufficient to communicate the required game information, just like any of the other game euphemisms.

It's a judgement call on whether the information provided is enough for both players and the judge to know what he meant. In the "2/2" or "blue draw spell" or scenarios, the information given is too vague and insufficient. With "Fish", given his registered decklist is a Merfolk deck, it is not. I would hope some judges would recognize that.

So it boils down to whether a judge should punish a player for being cute when everyone knows what he meant. Or if the judge would decide that simply saying "Fish?" back was not sufficiently asking for confirmation (saying "do you mean the creature type Fish?" would be). For all the player knew, opponent could have meant "Fish?" as casually asking if that's the deck he was playing, not confirming the creature type choice. The request for confirmation is vague... could be interpretated different ways... or could be interpreted as pretty lame attempt to trap the opponent... Both sides are being vague.

[PirateKing]

I don't know what he meant! I only know what he said! Which was, back to back, fish. If his meaning was something else, he should take some time on his own to work on that. Meanwhile, as his opponent, there is no chance I'm letting him produced colored mana for anything other than creature type-Fish. Even if I knew that he might mean something else, what of it? Two players agreeing on something means zero for the game. I want to play Ponder on my opponent's turn. He has no objections. After all, Sorcery and Instant are just words, right? They hold no other game function beyond those set by Mr. Webster, right?

If words don't mean words, then I don't know how to play this game anymore.

[Koby]

If clarification is returned as "Bob" which is not a Magic card and you call "Judge!" what would the judge rule here? Would the Therapy just do nothing because it named a card that does not exist?

What about when a player says "I'll 6 you" or "all yours" or "go ahead" or "swing with the team" or "just the Delver" or uses any other euphemism for declaring attackers or ending the turn? Do all those players have problems with words? Even using acceptable shortcuts in the rulebook, you don't need to say "Declare combat phase. Skip to declaring attackers. Declare the Wurmcoil Engine on the left as the sole attacker" or "End My Turn" every time in sanctioned events. Trust me, people don't. Players like to think Magic is played in code, but people use euphemisms and non-specific language all the time, even in competitive events. It's the nature of human language. Judges understand that and apply that all the time, particularly when the language made it 100% clear what was intended.

The difference between naming "Fish" for Cavern of Souls and naming "Bob" for Cabal Therapy all comes down to GRV.

The former is a legal play.
The latter is NOT a legal play; as no card called "Bob" exists. The corrective action is to issue a GRV warning, then make another legal selection.

Tournament Shortcuts should be clear for their purpose, and NOT made up on the spot.

4.2 Tournament Shortcuts
A tournament shortcut is an action taken by players to skip parts of the technical play sequence without explicitly announcing them. Tournament shortcuts are essential for the smooth play of a game, as they allow players to play in a clear fashion without getting bogged down in the minutia of the rules. Most tournament shortcuts involve skipping one or more priority passes to the mutual understanding of all players; if a player wishes to demonstrate or use a new tournament shortcut entailing any number of priority passes, he or she must be clear where the game state will end up as part of the request.

A player may interrupt a tournament shortcut by explaining how he or she is deviating from it or at which point in the middle he or she wishes to take an action. A player may interrupt their own shortcut in this manner. A player is not allowed to use a previously undeclared tournament shortcut, or to modify an in-use tournament shortcut without announcing the modification, in order to create ambiguity in the game.

A player may not request priority and take no action with it. If a player decides he or she does not wish to do anything, the request is nullified and priority is returned to the player that originally had it.

Certain conventional tournament shortcuts used in Magic are detailed below. If a player wishes to deviate from these, he or she should be explicit about doing so. Note that some of these are exceptions to the policy above in that they do cause non-explicit priority passes.

Emphasis added for relevancy.

Tournament shortcuts work so long as both players have a clear understanding of their use. Anytime there is a dependency, players should slow down, communicate clearly their actions, and allow for priority to pass back and forth. Moving from Main Phase 1 and tapping your creatures and saying "attack for 6" is a shortcut that means: "I'm want to move to my attack phase and attack with these creatures for 6". If the opponent has something to respond, they will stop you as appropriate.

The OP mentions a scenario in which both players agree - "Fish" is named with Caverns. That is a legal, but stupid, play. No Game Rules Violation occurs, and such there is no corrective action to fix the game state. Again, I reiterate, Judging should not be correcting legal missplays in which both plays agree occurred.

[TsumiBand]

100% agreed. There's a minimum amount of information that needs to be given to make the reference unambiguous. If you say "that blue spell that costs 1 mana and draws cards", it could easily mean Brainstorm, Ponder, etc.. and that would be insufficient. Because you actually might not know what he meant. That would clearly be an error on the player's part. In the case, the player doesn't remember important details, forgot something, doesn't know the format well enough, is stupid to the card name, etc. But when saying "fish", there is no stupidity. There is no forgetting the creature type, or lack of knowledge of the cards or the format. The mental mechanism behind it is completely different. He does not fail know something important to the game. He's probably just being "cute" and saying "Fish" as an homage when he very well knows that the creature type is "Merfolk" and intends to apply it to "Merfolk". That's the major difference between the scenarios.

You argue that because "Fish" exists as a creature type there is possible ambiguity (unlike with the cardname "Bob" or the creature type "Gobbos"). But if his registered decklist contains all Merfolk and 0 "Fish" creatures and the title of his deck is "Merfolk" then there really is no ambiguity to either player or any judge. Everyone knows what he meant. If everyone knows what he meant, then the language was sufficient to communicate the required game information, just like any of the other game euphemisms.

It's a judgement call on whether the information provided is enough for both players and the judge to know what he meant. In the "2/2" or "blue draw spell" or scenarios, the information given is too vague and insufficient. With "Fish", given his registered decklist is a Merfolk deck, it is not. I would hope some judges would recognize that.

So it boils down to whether a judge should punish a player for being cute when everyone knows what he meant. Or if the judge would decide that simply saying "Fish?" back was not sufficiently asking for confirmation (saying "do you mean the creature type Fish?" would be). For all the player knew, opponent could have meant "Fish?" as casually asking if that's the deck he was playing, not confirming the creature type choice. The request for confirmation is vague... could be interpretated different ways... or could be interpreted as pretty lame attempt to trap the opponent... Both sides are being vague.

So, I agree sort of, but only because I understand the dialog around the game. See, this puts the responsibility on the listener and not the speaker to 'just know' what's up. What if Player B has been out of the loop for several years? They checked the banned list, updated some jank control list from 200X, registered in a tournament and now they are sitting across from someone who is using a real creature type to reference a different one. To that individual, the game state is being misrepresented, because the 'Fish' land is actually sitting on 'Merfolk', and just nobody told him because, oops, we're Magic players and we love our circumlocution and shortcuts.

I know Fish has been around a while, but if we move from the specific to the general, this is just a case of misrepresentation. Moving back to the specific from that understanding means, IMHO, that it isn't worth the trouble and the Merfolk player should name his creature types like a good player.

I don't want to invoke a slippery slope argument, but I guess I don't like the amount of "I know you know I know" that this can lead to. You can't start allowing for "CLEARLY I meant [blah]" with Cavern and then get pissed when judges have to deal with bad or unclear Meddling Mage/Cabal Therapy calls. "Therapy naming Goyf" *reveals a Lhurgoyf* "Yeah I'll take that." Dude you said 'goyf' "Well DUH I meant Lhurgoyf, you aren't playing any others are you??"

[Quasim0ff]

100% agreed. There's a minimum amount of information that needs to be given to make the reference unambiguous. If you say "that blue spell that costs 1 mana and draws cards", it could easily mean Brainstorm, Ponder, etc.. and that would be insufficient. Because you actually might not know what he meant. That would clearly be an error on the player's part. In the case, the player doesn't remember important details, forgot something, doesn't know the format well enough, is stupid to the card name, etc. But when saying "fish", there is no stupidity. There is no forgetting the creature type, or lack of knowledge of the cards or the format. The mental mechanism behind it is completely different. He does not fail know something important to the game. He's probably just being "cute" and saying "Fish" as an homage when he very well knows that the creature type is "Merfolk" and intends to apply it to "Merfolk". That's the major difference between the scenarios.

You argue that because "Fish" exists as a creature type there is possible ambiguity (unlike with the cardname "Bob" or the creature type "Gobbos"). But if his registered decklist contains all Merfolk and 0 "Fish" creatures and the title of his deck is "Merfolk" then there really is no ambiguity to either player or any judge. Everyone knows what he meant. If everyone knows what he meant, then the language was sufficient to communicate the required game information, just like any of the other game euphemisms.

It's a judgement call on whether the information provided is enough for both players and the judge to know what he meant. In the "2/2" or "blue draw spell" or scenarios, the information given is too vague and insufficient. With "Fish", given his registered decklist is a Merfolk deck, it is not. I would hope some judges would recognize that.

So it boils down to whether a judge should punish a player for being cute when everyone knows what he meant. Or if the judge would decide that simply saying "Fish?" back was not sufficiently asking for confirmation (saying "do you mean the creature type Fish?" would be). For all the player knew, opponent could have meant "Fish?" as casually asking if that's the deck he was playing, not confirming the creature type choice. The request for confirmation is vague... could be interpretated different ways... or could be interpreted as pretty lame attempt to trap the opponent... Both sides are being vague.

Everything you said makes sense from the point that, both players knows what's up.

Image player B, Norbert, has two lands in hand: A wasteland as well as… a fetch-land. He plays daze. He neglects to waste Ahmed land, due to him naming and agreeing that he named fish. Ahmed then proceed to cast some sort of menfolk-creature-type dude, ie. a lard. Norbert dazes, but Ahmed points to his cavern and says "It's on menfolk". How should the judge handle that situation? Ahmed clearly misinformed his opponent. That's hiding public known information, and is most likely a warning. Just because he used shortcuts. If he said "Cavern on fish" "Fish?" "Merfolk, obviously, but they are fish anyway" then everything was clear, and both player A and player B was aware that the cavern was on Merfolk. He didn't, which is his own fault and he should get punished by it, not player B.


Besides: if you name "Bob" with Cabal Therapy, and player B goes "Bob?", you obviously declare "Yeah, Dark Confidant". Be upfront, and these situations won't happen all the time.

[LMental]

I'll be the dissenting voz:

The idea was clear. The dude named fish; everyone here is an adult — that is, a semi-competitive, intelligent player of Magic: The Gathering (are we really adults, in that case?) — and therefore, as these adults are playing legacy, knows what everyone means when they say "Fish." We're not stupid. We're not, as someone pretty lamely pointed out earlier, children. Therefore, we owe it to each other to cut each other some slack (be mature, sí?). What Norbert did was to abuse the niceness of his opponent, who clearly was buddying around, having fun, saying "Fish" because he knew both he, and his opponent, knew what he was talking about. Norbert, obviously, took advantage of that. Look, you can tell me that he didn't know. And if he really didn't know, then it's different. Then I'm totally cool with Ahmed being screwed. But, since we're all players of competitive Legacy here, let's not pretend Norbert didn't know. He shouldn't pretend he didn't know. If you're going to win a game, let it be on the strength of your ability and meta-game choice, not on your ability to be anal and make people feel bad.

My several sense.