Life totals not recorded?

[dahcmai]

We had this come up and we can't find an answer to it so I ask you judges who've seen this one come up since it's obvious it had to have happened once in a while.

Two players are playing in the top 4 (that part kills me) and neither of them realize the other is not tracking life totals for like 10 turns! I have no idea what they were doing, but for some odd reason it really happened.

Then of course one of them finally asks what life the other is at. Friendly game and I guess they weren't thinking about it for a while. The thing that makes me wonder is one of them was playing a sort of Goyfsligh. How can you not keep track with that type of deck.

Anyway, we had to stop and think about this since it's so far into the game there's no way to go back and add up the attacks and such. Floor rules seem to have nothing about it at all surprisingly.

Anyone run into that before?


They ended up just deciding on what they figured it should be, but that's just funny and surprising there's nothing about it in the rulebooks.

[cdr]

It is in the MTR (1.10), though it may not be easy to find:


A player must bring the following items to a tournament in order to participate:
• A physical, visible, and reliable method to maintain and record game information (tokens, score counters, pen and paper, and so on).
...

You are required to have something "physical, visible, and reliable" to record life totals with. At higher REL tournaments, pen & paper can be required by the HJ (no dice etc, since they are not as reliable).

There is no penalty that covers failing to track your life total (aside from a scolding from the judge), but unintentionally misstating your life total or being unable to provide your life total can be a Player Communication Violation.

If a situation like this occurs, even if it ideally should not, call a judge and the judge will assist both players in resolving it as best as possible.

[dahcmai]

Yes, we saw that entry about bringing the paper and such, but they had paper and pen, just not remembering to use it.

I was wondering if there was anything about that actually in there as I couldn't find it if there was.

Ah well, I guess we ended up with the best that could have been hoped. Both agreed on totals in the end.