SLOW PLAY - Why I stood up & left the table

[Julian23]

http://i.imgur.com/tYxkulY.png

"In July I played in the Bazaar of Moxen Strasbourg, the series’ third stop of the season. While I usually focus on both the journey as well as the gameplay, I want to emphasize a different aspect of Magic in this report. In round 6 of the Legacy Main Event, I had one of the worst experiences in my competitive Magic career, which eventually led me to just standing up from the table and leaving both my match and the opponent behind."

This is something I wanted to write about much earlier but then never really got around to finish it. Usually I try to submit tournament reports for all the big events I play in, but things kinda got in the way of each other and it certainly didn't help that it was something really unpleasant I wanted to write about. But since the topic itself is always relevant (one might say...timeless), I figured there was worth in finishing it. If only just to vent some steam and/or keep pushing for stricter enforcement of Slow Play rules.

SLOW PLAY — Why I stood up and left the table (http://itsjulian.com/slow-play-in-strasbourg-or-why-i-stood-up-left-the-table/)

[taconaut]

How much time was left on the clock when he had to decide on his attacks?

[Julian23]

Must have been around a couple minutes. But that question is already quite misleading as the time left in the round has nothing to do with Slow Play. If anything it might help with differentiating between Slow Play and Stalling.

[square_two]

I don't think I ever realized that the slow play ruling really makes no concession at all for game state complexity. You hear that excuse all the time though.

Also, I need to get a wrist-watch to use for this...glancing at the second-hand position seems way easier than counting to 30 seconds if you are wanting to process your own decisions while the opp tanks.

[PirateKing]

Getting over your fear of calling a judge can be one of the biggest obstacles for newer players, and it still surprises me when experiences players let things go by. Until they generate a penalty for too many judge calls, when in doubt call a judge. I'm not lecturing you Julian, you're a far better player than I am; we just need to eliminate the stigma that comes with calling a judge, and appealing calls to the head judge. I agree these are issues that aren't included when learning the rules of the game, and change has to start somewhere.

[twndomn]

Must have been around a couple minutes. But that question is already quite misleading as the time left in the round has nothing to do with Slow Play. If anything it might help with differentiating between Slow Play and Stalling.

Is it possible to discuss slow play in Legacy without discussing the card SDT?

I hate to digress. Often topics become:
1. Perceived stereotypes of Miracles SDT-ing vs actual fast Miracles players.
2. Storm with singleton SDT, or burn with singleton SDT, non-Miracles players doing the slow SDT-ing.

[Pdingo]

Haha sorry Julian for the Ad Nauseam on 3 Life:)
Best Ad Nauseam ever<3

[rufus]

I don't think I ever realized that the slow play ruling really makes no concession at all for game state complexity. You hear that excuse all the time though.

Also, I need to get a wrist-watch to use for this...glancing at the second-hand position seems way easier than counting to 30 seconds if you are wanting to process your own decisions while the opp tanks.

You could build an hourglass into your life counter...

[thecrav]

I don't think I ever realized that the slow play ruling really makes no concession at all for game state complexity. You hear that excuse all the time though.


Not only does the rule not make a concession, it specifically states that complexity doesn't matter.



5.5 Slow Play

Players must take their turns in a timely fashion regardless of the complexity of the play situation and adhere to
time limits specified for the tournament. Players must maintain a pace to allow the match to be finished in the
announced time limit. Stalling is not acceptable. Players may ask a judge to watch their game for slow play; such
a request will be granted if feasible.

[tescrin]

The problem here is that MTG, despite having a normally mathematical ruleset, doesn't seem to specify the time to make a decision. I think it's probably because it's abusable; since if it takes a minute per decision, dropping your only land on turn 1, a creeping tar pit, would allow you to delay (if it were somehow advantageous.)

Even so, they need to put a limit on it and just stick to it. Then.. I don't know, have an enforcement policy like "your opponent chooses whether you sacrifice a permanent, discard a card, or drain the mana from your pool" [covering all the bases, since a storm player taking a 20 minute turn won't care about a lost permanent or discarded card, but most decks won't care about losing mana in their pool; you get the idea..]

There may be a better way; giving a 3-strike rule where if you slow play three times while being watched (and maybe you get a warning buffer where they say "hey you're slow" and you get 10 seconds more to figure it out) and you just lose the match.

Something. Well defined. Would solve the problem. The problem is, as it often is, ill-defined rules. MTG is far and away one of the best defined rulesets I've ever seen; but the 40k problem creeps in (for those unfamiliar, famously badly written rules that haven't improved much in decades.) Just go to the rules thread in a place like Warseer, and see the shitshow that is the life of rules lawyers in that game. Those problems, and this one, are 100% ill-defined rules that; when it comes to deciding the entire game in a tournament over; feels very bad for a judge to have to determine RAW vs. RAI. I think the way to solve this isn't to get judges to take it seriously, it's top down. Get wizards to make the rule better, and boom. The problem will be over over-night. A new problem may occur with the top paragraph; but if that's the case it's not much different than people taking time-outs at the end of an NBA game to move up the court or w/e. If we enter an age where people have to build faster decks because the possibility of "allowed slow play" exists, w/e.

[HammerAndSickled]

Slow play is an epidemic in Magic, not just legacy. I honestly think it's killing the competitive scene for me. People take AGONIZINGLY long on simple decisions.

[Fox]

Is it possible to discuss slow play in Legacy without discussing the card SDT?
2. Storm with singleton SDT
Even with SDT out, a deck like ANT will spend much more time analyzing the lines of play during the resolution of a Brainstorm - and for good reason. Either way, storm decks like ANT aren't causing events to go to time. By itself SDT is an unambiguously poorly designed card, but it at least gives non-blue decks filtering and also really punishes opponents for overloading on discard without showing genuine interest in actually winning a game in a timely manner.

Naming off decks that use SDT you've got the ones that kill before turn 5 (i.e. ANT/Burn), ones that hard-lock opponents out of the game and should be often just be conceded to (Painter-Grindstone), needlessly turn-intensive [competitive sure, but still kinda ridiculous] (Post, Enchantress, NicFit), and then Miracles...there are others, but these are the usual SDT suspects. We can sit here and argue about SDT as the time-waster, but the fact of the matter is that Counterbalance is ultimately responsible. This card is absolutely the largest direct offender when it comes to spinning SDT multiple times between draws; more important though is its indirect impact: pushing out decks that would otherwise prey on slow SDT decks. Ban SDT~kill miracles won't ever stop Counterbalance from trolling the card pool looking for the next enabler to waste everyone's time in extra turns.

The OP is more about making slow decisions in a given match than the larger issue of extending overall tournament duration. I don't see this issue as much in legacy, as inexperienced players don't really happen upon the format by accident to a great degree. As someone who play limited though you can really see the dumbing-down of cards themselves; there is very little regard for understanding turn structure, what exactly happens between announcing and resolving a spell, putting things on the stack correctly, and passing of priority - and this sloppiness does spill over into legacy. You can't force people to intrinsically understand the game at your level, but you always have the ability (in any format) to clearly narrate the gamestate and simplify where things are, when they are, and what your opponent sees when you're passing priority. It is certainly tedious (almost needlessly so), but even newer players in simpler formats will quickly pick up proper short-cutting when a few entire turns are called out and you then begin using language like 'yielding priority, attempting to move through to cleanup.'

With the Eldrazi player it sounds more like an opportunity to educate and uplift a newer (??) legacy player was missed - this is fine; comp. REL and big event stress isn't exactly going to foster patience. If you do make the effort to simplify the gamestate's presentation unto their decisions, you'll probably be more comfortable calling the judge - they still are responsible for understanding and respecting the REL they have chosen to participate in. Concerning the Ross Merriam Brainstorm (where the player clearly understands the game), both informed parties can find intellectual worth in analyzing that scenario, but I can at least appreciate a non-blue deck's frustration with sitting through something their deck can't meaningfully interact with. By any measure 5 minutes is excessive, but in general I find myself more than happy to overlook slow play as long as both players are tacitly constricting these interludes to genuinely meaningful points in a given match.

[DarthVicious]

Amen to curbing slow play. A-fucking-men.

I know too many people that will tank a game away just because they can't win it, just to cheese their way into a match win from taking game 1. So what if you can't beat my sideboard cards? Quit being a little bitch, man up and take this beating I'm about to give you. Some of them are smug enough about it where I want to give them a literal beating in the parking lot after its over.

Before anyone asks, I'll take my own losses if they're deserved, and they're clear and happen in a reasonable amount of time. I've no problem losing to storm with D&T... but if Miracles takes game one and stalls game two out to turns... I want to punch him so hard his grandchildren get bruises.

TL,DR: If you can win, then win. If you can't, stop being a little bitch about it.

Edit: Also... good idea about the hourglass life counter. Maybe I can find a 30 second hourglass and make my own fancy little Slow Play Detector...

[taconaut]

Must have been around a couple minutes. But that question is already quite misleading as the time left in the round has nothing to do with Slow Play.

I think I'm in the minority on this board, but I feel like in situations like the one you described, I err on the side of more time rather than less. I know I personally ought to play faster, but I also feel that if:

- this is the decisive turn of the match
- there is a non-zero amount of time on the clock
- each of you has a win, so the opponent can't stall his way to a win
- whether or not you win or lose is mostly on the table, presuming optimal play (in this case, you were able to identify the correct attack, so as long as your hand didn't have any surprises, he should've been able to as well)

then it's fine to take some more time. If he takes a long time, and makes the correct attack, he wins, right - he took the time to carefully consider his options and played optimally, which is all we can really ask of our opponents. If he makes the wrong attack, he spent some time, and it didn't matter, because he was unable to take the correct line, allowing you to win, also good. If it really is a decisive turn, even if you go to time, you get some extra turns to decide it, and the match will still still end decisively.

Sometimes it feels like many of the posters here want their matches, including ones that go 2-1, to end in half an hour or less. For me, it seems like as long as the match ended before time is called, what does it matter the pace? If all the games end however Magic games are supposed to end, no one gets any points for being the quickest to pass the turn.

[Julian23]

With the Eldrazi player it sounds more like an opportunity to educate and uplift a newer (??) legacy player was missed

He's actually on a "major" country's national team but I decided to leave it who it was because I figured it would only distract from the actual issue I wanted to talk about.

[Zooligan]

Maybe tournament play needs individual timers like MTGO, implemented like a chess clock. You both get half the match time, and the decisions to which you allot it are up to you. Once you are out of time, if your opponent still has time, that's that.

[thecrav]

I think I'm in the minority on this board, but I feel like in situations like the one you described, I err on the side of more time rather than less. I know I personally ought to play faster, but I also feel that if:
...
then it's fine to take some more time.

The rule explicitly states that how complex the situation is absolutely does not matter. If people on the board would like to have a discussion about what the rule could or should be, we can certainly do that. But at this time, the rules say that complexity doesn't matter.


Must have been around a couple minutes.

One of the big problems with slow play is that people are just bad at perceiving time.

An experiment:
Time yourself counting and see how far off you are. I just did it and it took me 17.11 seconds to count what I thought was 15 seconds - an error of 14%! Now try counting time while simultaneously doing some brain intensive task. I just tried that, too. While writing powers of 2 on a piece of paper I counted out loud to 15 seconds. I got to 2^13 (8,192) and hit 15 at the same time. I checked my stopwatch and I was at 21.75 seconds - an error of 45%!



In order to speed up the game I announced a Wirewood Symbiote activation targeting Deathrite Shaman in order to produce the mana needed for an important spell. Following the activation I looked into my opponent’s face for a good 4-5 seconds, who just looked back at me like a stone. I untapped DRS, tapped it for mana and put the spell to the table. My opponent thought about the situation a good deal more, then calmy announced that he would like to respond to my Wirewood Symbiote activation by Dismembering my Deathrite. I knew he was within his right to do so as I never asked for actual confirmation of the ability to resolve, but COME ON.


This is something that, without changing the existing slow play rule, we can and need to fix. Many counter-heavy players already kinda do something about it, too. It's not uncommon to see a blue player stick out their hand and say, "thinking" to acknowledge that something has been put on the stack while not yet saying that the spell or ability will resolve.

When I'm not playing against those more considerate players, how long should I wait? At Eternal Weekend, playing Tin Fins, a player Show and Told in my Grisselbrand. I untapped, drew, played a Dark Ritual, and sat for what felt like 15 seconds. With no response, I announced that there was BBB in my pool and moved the Ritual to the graveyard. I played another spell. This time I counted to myself. After five seconds, I again announced the result of the spell and moved the card to my graveyard. After repeating this a few times, I started playing as if my opponent had announced that they were yielding to anything. How long should I have waited on the first spell? What about the second? Or the fifteenth?

Chalice of the Void brings a similar issue. I've played against a lot of prison players who aren't used to responding to things. When I play into a Chalice and they don't immediately announce their trigger, how long should I wait for them to either announce it or say that my spell is going to resolve? I certainly don't want to ask them if it resolves because I don't want to give them any hints that they should maybe counter the thing.

[thecrav]

Maybe tournament play needs individual timers like MTGO, implemented like a chess clock. You both get half the match time, and the decisions to which you allot it are up to you. Once you are out of time, if your opponent still has time, that's that.

I've stopped arguing with people about this in real life. Instead, I pull out a chess clock and tell them to walk through a turn. Every single priority pass requires hitting the clock. By the time you've played a land and said go, you've actually walked through half a dozen priority passes. Without dramatically simplifying the game, a chess clock is not doable in meatspace.

edit: Oh, and that's not to mention the problems that come about when SCG or the like has to acquire, maintain, and transport thousands of clocks to each event.

[apple713]

I've stopped arguing with people about this in real life. Instead, I pull out a chess clock and tell them to walk through a turn. Every single priority pass requires hitting the clock. By the time you've played a land and said go, you've actually walked through half a dozen priority passes. Without dramatically simplifying the game, a chess clock is not doable in meatspace.

edit: Oh, and that's not to mention the problems that come about when SCG or the like has to acquire, maintain, and transport thousands of clocks to each event.

The easy fix is that if a chessclock would actually help, SCG could build that functionality into their app. Probably take a programmer less than a day.

[Ace/Homebrew]

He's actually on a "major" country's national team.
I love the quotation marks on major. So that means it's actually a minor country!
And Vatican City is the smallest country in the world... so I'm guessing it was the retired Pope Benedict.

I could totally see him slow playing.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Pope-Benedict-XVI-in-prayer-300x218.jpg

[CptHaddock]

I think I'm in the minority on this board, but I feel like in situations like the one you described, I err on the side of more time rather than less. I know I personally ought to play faster, but I also feel that if:

- this is the decisive turn of the match
- there is a non-zero amount of time on the clock
- each of you has a win, so the opponent can't stall his way to a win
- whether or not you win or lose is mostly on the table, presuming optimal play (in this case, you were able to identify the correct attack, so as long as your hand didn't have any surprises, he should've been able to as well)

then it's fine to take some more time. If he takes a long time, and makes the correct attack, he wins, right - he took the time to carefully consider his options and played optimally, which is all we can really ask of our opponents. If he makes the wrong attack, he spent some time, and it didn't matter, because he was unable to take the correct line, allowing you to win, also good. If it really is a decisive turn, even if you go to time, you get some extra turns to decide it, and the match will still still end decisively.

Sometimes it feels like many of the posters here want their matches, including ones that go 2-1, to end in half an hour or less. For me, it seems like as long as the match ended before time is called, what does it matter the pace? If all the games end however Magic games are supposed to end, no one gets any points for being the quickest to pass the turn.

I think the big issue is what a reasonable amount of time per decision is given a constantly changing number of factors. It's just going to be different for everyone. Maybe the solution to this is have a set amount of time that a turn can last, but that is just going to cause more headaches.




This is something that, without changing the existing slow play rule, we can and need to fix. Many counter-heavy players already kinda do something about it, too. It's not uncommon to see a blue player stick out their hand and say, "thinking" to acknowledge that something has been put on the stack while not yet saying that the spell or ability will resolve.

When I'm not playing against those more considerate players, how long should I wait? At Eternal Weekend, playing Tin Fins, a player Show and Told in my Grisselbrand. I untapped, drew, played a Dark Ritual, and sat for what felt like 15 seconds. With no response, I announced that there was BBB in my pool and moved the Ritual to the graveyard. I played another spell. This time I counted to myself. After five seconds, I again announced the result of the spell and moved the card to my graveyard. After repeating this a few times, I started playing as if my opponent had announced that they were yielding to anything. How long should I have waited on the first spell? What about the second? Or the fifteenth?

Chalice of the Void brings a similar issue. I've played against a lot of prison players who aren't used to responding to things. When I play into a Chalice and they don't immediately announce their trigger, how long should I wait for them to either announce it or say that my spell is going to resolve? I certainly don't want to ask them if it resolves because I don't want to give them any hints that they should maybe counter the thing.

Can't you just solve this with simple communication? I know that this isn't ideal considering there are situations where you can use your knowledge of your deck/the game to gain an advantage in the matchup e.g. resolving spells under a chalice. I've resorted to constantly asking my opponent if a spell or trigger has resolved and if they say something like thinking I give them a little while before badgering them again. I've been burned too many times by trying to wait only for my opponent to finally them finally respond when I assumed a game action of mine had resolved, had a judge called and have the judge not rule in my favor.

[Julian23]

Don't you think the Pope would rather play...Miracles? :tongue:

[Mr Miagi]

Slow play is an issue in MTG in general, maybe even more so in legacy because people just don't play that many games/events so they are naturally more slow in processing game plays. Not that this excuses them much, just saying..

If an opponent plays at somehow reasonable pace all game and stops to think a bit harder during on of those crucial turn I would almost call it unsportly to start reminding my opponent of slow play and calling judge after 60 seconds. I would consider it even more unsportly if my opponent would start reminding/terrorizing me every 15 seconds interrupting my thought process, even more so in the presence of a judge. But as said this is only "true", when a player keeps playing at reasonable pace throughout the game and just make one, two (or very few) "deep tanks" during crucial turns.

However, if the player is playing at slow pace every single turn and takes even longer at crucial turns then yes, I would also call a judge and let him handle it without any further reminder to my opponent (while in the presence of a judge - he is the authority nonetheless).

It is also true that judges are not adequately trained on this topic and Magic as general doesn't have a good consensus/grip on what slow paly is and how to handle time per decision making in regards to game status. Until Wizards/Judge community don't address this issue more seriously (at least at competitive level) I don't see us (players) collectively achieving much, other than creating few self-proclaimed "experts" who will go around timing (terrorizing) every single opponent move. For the awareness to really kick in call for a change needs to come from top to bottom and not the other way around (especially with rules being so openly written right now..).

[Sloshthedark]

Maybe tournament play needs individual timers like MTGO, implemented like a chess clock. You both get half the match time, and the decisions to which you allot it are up to you. Once you are out of time, if your opponent still has time, that's that.

can you imagine how ridiculous would be the actual going to time?... Miracles players already "miraclously" speed up in last turns of the game, timing people on triggers in RL would lead into some really heated stuff... also how would player communication/judge calls and so on work then?

[Doishy]

One possibility for so much slow play is people going from small events at their locals to larger ones. Playing Doomsday at my local, people know me, know my deck choice and often are too helpful in giving me more decision time (which in one way is great, but in others actually hampers my ability to have to make quick decisions). This jump from one scene to another may be quite a step for those used to the friendlier confines.

Having made the jump at Prague this year. I found myself playing quickly but not rushing and people being quite friendly and lenient on one or two decisions I could have been called to speed up on but obviously everyone is different.

[ParkerLewis]

When I'm not playing against those more considerate players, how long should I wait? At Eternal Weekend, playing Tin Fins, a player Show and Told in my Grisselbrand. I untapped, drew, played a Dark Ritual, and sat for what felt like 15 seconds. With no response, I announced that there was BBB in my pool and moved the Ritual to the graveyard. I played another spell. This time I counted to myself. After five seconds, I again announced the result of the spell and moved the card to my graveyard. After repeating this a few times, I started playing as if my opponent had announced that they were yielding to anything. How long should I have waited on the first spell? What about the second? Or the fifteenth?

Chalice of the Void brings a similar issue. I've played against a lot of prison players who aren't used to responding to things. When I play into a Chalice and they don't immediately announce their trigger, how long should I wait for them to either announce it or say that my spell is going to resolve? I certainly don't want to ask them if it resolves because I don't want to give them any hints that they should maybe counter the thing.

Simple question. Can't you just ask "ok ?" (or "resolves ?", or whatever) each and every time you put a spell on the stack (and don't intend to keep priority of course) ? Either right then, or after a couple seconds if there's absolutely no reaction from the opponent. At least you'll have an answer - yes, no, or thinking - that you know how to deal with.

Not only should it solve your problem (?), but if it's systematic and natural, it won't raise suspicion when it is also asked in front of a Chalice. Although since Chalice is a mandatory trigger, even if the opponent misses it, you're obligated to remind him of it, so I'm not really sure what gain there'd be to expect.

[firstshot]

I think 30 seconds is on the short end. Normally if an opponent doesn't make a play within 60 seconds I will ask them what they are doing. There are spots where more time is needed but as the judges you asked said people should be planning ahead unless the board state dramatically changes. This weekend in modern one of my opponents got a prompt from a judge after thinking for 1-2 minutes. Was this warranted probably but a couple of turns earlier I had also tanked for a couple of minutes and when I passed the turn with about 16 mintues left I made the comment to him that this game(game 3) is probably going to end in about 4 turns and we both proceeded to take 1-2 minutes on each of our next few turns.

I think your biggest mistake was not calling a judge earlier in the process. You should be able to make decisions in a timely manner and if you/they continually do not do so a judge needs to be involved. People tend not to speed up when the opponent is asked and only when a judge is asked. While you did eventually ask for a judge you made it sound like he was not comfortable. At that point you could ask the judge to see if another judge would be able to watch for slow play (which could lead to a penalty for essentially disrespecting a judge) or another option is when you call over the judge write down the time left in the round(I'd try and make sure judge sees or verbally say there is X time left). And after 60 seconds I would say something to the judge. If he responds with a complicated board state you should say that shouldn't affect a slow play decision and the board has not significantly changed from previous turns. Yes people hate making slow play calls and tend to be more lenient in Legacy but they won't stop unless players keep pushing the issue. Also after the round you should probably have talked to the head judge about both your opponent and the judge. While to late for you he could educate his fellow judge and also keep an eye on your opponent and if he is playing slow either speed him up or game loss/match loss him out with enough slow play warnings

I've been called for slow play before and I am normally a pretty fast player. It isn't easy for the judges either because they sometimes come in at the most complicated time when you do truly need to spend a couple of minutes on the board and/or tank. But if you need to tank you can even after being warned to make a play. Just realize you will get a slow play warning which will only matter if you proceed to get more.

[Lemnear]

Simple question. Can't you just ask "ok ?" (or "resolves ?", or whatever) each and every time you put a spell on the stack (and don't intend to keep priority of course) ? Either right then, or after a couple seconds if there's absolutely no reaction from the opponent. At least you'll have an answer - yes, no, or thinking - that you know how to deal with.

You have no idea how many times I sat across a dude not answering that simple question for 10+ seconds.

The joke is that if you simply proceed and the other guy/gal decides to do something while the next spell is already on the stack its becoming a mess involving the Judge, you returning the second spell to your hand and the opponent getting the gamestate rewinded AND the additional information about your hand and plan.

P.S.: Don't get me started on some Judges, please. Every big event I played in France, I encountered a situation where I wanted to punch one of them for acting like a douche, making unreasonable rulings (see example above and Julians Article), discuss my altered cards IN THE MIDDLE OF A GAME despite me having the "ok" from the Headjudge to play them (distraction, hello?) or requested me to play faster during the combo turn in game 3 (wtf seriously?)

[apple713]

30 seconds is super short. Just for refernce i tbought id add that hearthstone turns are 1 min 30 seconds. I know the games arnt the same, blah blah blah but as i said its just a reference.

[Julian23]

30 seconds is super short.

If we could do away with that idea, that would already be progress towards a better playing environment. Nobody is gonna give you a Slow Play Warning after 30 seconds, but that's pretty much when you already start venturing into "this guy should really start doing something now" territory.

There's no fixed duration of time you can take. And that for good reason, as others have pointed out. Having a fixed time would open the doors to even more widespread time issues. It's already bad enough as it is right now.

[thecrav]

how would player communication/judge calls and so on work then?

In Warmachine, the clock continues running on the active player's turn as a kind of "you should know what your shit does." Obviously, in a miniatures game, things are a bit different though. Most judge calls in MTG seem to come from the opponent.


Simple question. Can't you just ask "ok ?" (or "resolves ?", or whatever) each and every time you put a spell on the stack (and don't intend to keep priority of course) ? Either right then, or after a couple seconds if there's absolutely no reaction from the opponent. At least you'll have an answer - yes, no, or thinking - that you know how to deal with.

Not only should it solve your problem (?), but if it's systematic and natural, it won't raise suspicion when it is also asked in front of a Chalice. Although since Chalice is a mandatory trigger, even if the opponent misses it, you're obligated to remind him of it, so I'm not really sure what gain there'd be to expect.

Especially in the case I mentioned, I feel weird against this because it feels a lot like I'm rubbing in that I'm about to crush the guy.

[Stevestamopz]

Top quality german restraint there.

If I'm at the point where I'm rage quitting, you can bet your kransky that I'm calling everyone involved a cunt.

[Zombie]

30 seconds is super short. Just for refernce i tbought id add that hearthstone turns are 1 min 30 seconds. I know the games arnt the same, blah blah blah but as i said its just a reference.

I'm not a particularily fast player, and in my experience 30 seconds is plenty to figure out a plan for action for most turns. I'd detest it as an absolute cap, but it's easily enough thinking time on most boardstates.

[bruizar]

They should treat draws as losses for both players, and perhaps even subtract a point as a punishment for delaying the logistics of the tournament organizer. That incentivizes people to avoid drawing. This way, Miracle won't remain a popular deck for people that are not able to play it quickly. The draws will force most miracle players to the bottom of the ranking, while the true masters will still make top 8's. This solves not only slow play, but also the time cost of cards like Sensei's Divining Top.

Also, if you constantly get into problems against miracle players, play revokers/needles/null rod and discard effects

[Beatusnox]

Chalice of the Void brings a similar issue. I've played against a lot of prison players who aren't used to responding to things. When I play into a Chalice and they don't immediately announce their trigger, how long should I wait for them to either announce it or say that my spell is going to resolve? I certainly don't want to ask them if it resolves because I don't want to give them any hints that they should maybe counter the thing.

Last I checked this is explicitly cheating and should get you a DQ.



Sent from my ASUS_Z00TD using Tapatalk

[Dice_Box]

Last I checked this is explicitly cheating and should get you a DQ.
Its not. You are free to cast anything you like, it is my job as the Stax player to remember that I have a relevant effect in play.

[Lemnear]

Last I checked this is explicitly cheating and should get you a DQ.

The intended tricking of the opponent to not respond to spells cast right into Chalice is something is saw and heared about plenty of times.

[thecrav]

So in the case of the Chalice, what am I to do? Do I put my spell on the stack and stare at my opponent's face until he either responds or time expires?

[apple713]

So in the case of the Chalice, what am I to do? Do I put my spell on the stack and stare at my opponent's face until he either responds or time expires?

don't you get a grv for intentionally allowing a missed trigger?

[Dice_Box]

don't you get a grv for intentionally allowing a missed trigger?
No. You can cast into a Chalice, its on the controller to remember the trigger.


2.6. Game Play Error — Failure to Maintain Game State
Definition
A player allows another player in the game to commit a Game Play Error involving an effect or action that he or she
does not control, and has not pointed it out immediately. If a judge believes a player is intentionally not pointing out
other players’ illegal actions, either for his or her own advantage, or in the hope of bringing it up at a more
strategically advantageous time, they should consider an Unsporting Conduct — Cheating infraction. Not reminding
an opponent about his or her triggered abilities is never Failure to Maintain Game State or Cheating.

[nedleeds]

The reactions to the chalice question confirm my belief that only about 10% of the people here play paper magic at CREL.

[CptHaddock]

So in the case of the Chalice, what am I to do? Do I put my spell on the stack and stare at my opponent's face until he either responds or time expires?

I just say "resolves?". That makes it clear to both you and your opponent that there was a spell on the stack and either it resolves or doesn't.

The whole missed trigger thing for chalice is a giant CF. I wish that they would have an exception in the missed trigger policy specially for chalice. I had a tournament a while back where I tried to resolve a key spell under a chalice, my opponent motioned that it had resolved (but didn't explicitly say resolved or not resolved) like he had been doing previously and as I was going to resolve the spell he pointed to his chalice and said countered. I appealed to the HJ but the HJ said that the spell had been countered and my opponent's motions that he had been making previously throughout our games weren't a valid indicator that a spell had resolved or not.

[Mr Miagi]

You should always pass priority/ask to resolve a spell/ability/activation! So I don't see a problem with chalice and you casting a spell into it. YOU JUST ASK IF IT RESOLVES. If the chalice player acknowledges the spell to resolve then he fogot the trigger and spell resolves. If palyer points out to the chalice trigger then it doesn't resolve. Is that so hard??? Rules are very clear on passing priorities. It should be communicated between players!

FFS people, stop angleshooting and trying to squeeze questionable mind tricks..

[apple713]

No. You can cast into a Chalice, its on the controller to remember the trigger.

possibly my least favorite rule in the game.

[Julian23]

It's not like anyone likes the current trigger policy. But it's also not like anyone has every really suggested a better way to handle these things. Remember the Kibler situation in the QF of the PT he won? I'm pretty sure that was the point WotC decided they needed to do something about the (old) trigger policy.

[Dice_Box]

possibly my least favorite rule in the game.

Mine is that some rulings are left to a Judge's feeling on a topic. Like Slow play for example, but it is not the only one. Hey look, we are on topic.

[square_two]

Working around Slow Play isn't something you ever normally practice.

If you are playtesting, you generally don't have any relevant clock, and could even be working with your friend to evaluate lines of play.
At a casual setting (personally I'm thinking about trying to be better at this at weekly FNM), you don't want to come across negatively.

I'm not too sure how I even get faster at playing my own deck. I know experience and time will help, but that's pretty vague. Maybe as prep for Louisville in the next month and a half, I'll see if I can sit down with a friend and actually try to limit all decisions to 20-30 seconds. The idea of "you have two options here but the time to evaluate the much more complicated option #2 means that you need to err on the side of option #1" isn't ever discussed. At the same time, I don't want to breed short/easy to think of lines of play into my playstyle :rolleyes:

[RobNC]

don't you get a grv for intentionally allowing a missed trigger?

Only if it's your own trigger. If you miss your own Chalice triggers on purpose then it's cheating; if your opponent misses one then it's on him/her.

[Richard Cheese]

This wouldn't be a problem if people would stop playing stupid slow boring decks and just play Zoo like Hanuman intended. All you have to decide is what kind of liquor you're going to have in all your copious free time between rounds. Plus after turn 4 your hand is empty so you can eat snacks. Nothing like a nice mid-match frito pie.

[Cartesian]

I am curious. If the slow play rule implies that we should all play relatively fast, even if there is plenty of time left in the round, and even during the final turns of the final game, when is it acceptable to 'tank' or just think a little longer than usual, if ever?

[tescrin]

The reactions to the chalice question confirm my belief that only about 10% of the people here play paper magic at CREL.

I half agree. I *really* despised that rules change because I'm sportsmanlike I guess. It bugs me that a non-choice effect that *has* to happen can be missed in paper magic.

I guess it bugs me as a CS/Math nerd, since it is a contradiction. [It says you can't do a thing, but you can actually do a thing if you're opp is bad.]

[GreatWhale]

This wouldn't be a problem if people would stop playing stupid slow boring decks and just play Zoo like Hanuman intended. All you have to decide is what kind of liquor you're going to have in all your copious free time between rounds. Plus after turn 4 your hand is empty so you can eat snacks. Nothing like a nice mid-match frito pie.

Don't forget your pocket chocolates.

[nedleeds]

possibly my least favorite rule in the game.

WTF are you talking about? You didnt even know the rule until this page of this thread?!!?!

[Megadeus]

This wouldn't be a problem if people would stop playing stupid slow boring decks and just play Zoo like Hanuman intended. All you have to decide is what kind of liquor you're going to have in all your copious free time between rounds. Plus after turn 4 your hand is empty so you can eat snacks. Nothing like a nice mid-match frito pie.

I attack for 5. Bloodrush my guy, trample and kill your Goyf. Go.
Opponent: Cards in hand?
Me: *fritos flying out of my mouth* ppfffnee.
OP: What?
Me: Waves empty greasy hands showing nothing.
OP: Okay, Untap terminus.
Me: Thuck you.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

I loled at the arvil larvin Belcher pic!

[Lemnear]

@Mega

I enjoy this post soooo much

[rlesko]

Although since Chalice is a mandatory trigger, even if the opponent misses it, you're obligated to remind him of it, so I'm not really sure what gain there'd be to expect.


don't you get a grv for intentionally allowing a missed trigger?

Please, stop spreading misinformation. The rules were changed quite some time ago.


possibly my least favorite rule in the game.

Huh? Didn't you just not know how it worked?

A missed trigger is exactly that, a missed trigger. If you miss a trigger and call a judge, it becomes your opponents choice if he wants to put the trigger on the stack or not- for example, I play rest in peace, say nothing, and pass. Next turn I say "oh, my RIP". Judge will come explain I missed my trigger. My opponent can decide if we put the trigger on the stack or not. This is to distinguish between beneficial and detrimental triggers. Another example, I am at low life with a dark confidant. I can "miss" it, but its up to my opponent if it benefits me or not (aka, whether we resolve the trigger or not). Although, I don't advise you do something like this, since it would be considered cheating to intentionally miss a dark confidant trigger at low life.

[tescrin]

This wouldn't be a problem if people would stop playing stupid slow boring decks and just play Zoo like Hanuman intended. All you have to decide is what kind of liquor you're going to have in all your copious free time between rounds. Plus after turn 4 your hand is empty so you can eat snacks. Nothing like a nice mid-match frito pie.

Honestly, I'd play that Hiddon Gibbons (sp) deck sometimes if Eldrazi weren't a thing. Maybe they'll make a mistake print a GR Instant "draw cards equal to target creature you control power, then sacrifice that creature."

I really think an instant-speed Duress would make Junk/Jund a lot better. Being able to react to DRits and what not would be enough to make them doable against those players. That by itself could change the format.

I realize I am now 300% off topic. So.. uh..


Slow play is all dumb n stuf yeh?

[Richard Cheese]

Don't forget your pocket chocolates.

Chocolates go in the pants pockets for softening between games (you can lick the wrapper clean in response to a spell to simulate playing a shitty deck). Up front you go with the shirt pocket sausages for vital protein without getting your hands greasy (let the shirt do the work).

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ec/f9/98/ecf998aa79fb244805af1ae573d06777.jpg

[JDK]

You should always pass priority/ask to resolve a spell/ability/activation! So I don't see a problem with chalice and you casting a spell into it. YOU JUST ASK IF IT RESOLVES. If the chalice player acknowledges the spell to resolve then he fogot the trigger and spell resolves. If palyer points out to the chalice trigger then it doesn't resolve. Is that so hard??? Rules are very clear on passing priorities. It should be communicated between players!

FFS people, stop angleshooting and trying to squeeze questionable mind tricks..
Passing priority is something that happens implicitly when you put something on the stack. Official tournament shortcut, so in theory it is up to the opponent to respond in a timely manner ("ok"/"in response..."). Of course, if he takes his time, absolutely go for it and ask.


The reactions to the chalice question confirm my belief that only about 10% of the people here play paper magic at CREL.
Most of the magic players aren't good with rules.


I half agree. I *really* despised that rules change because I'm sportsmanlike I guess. It bugs me that a non-choice effect that *has* to happen can be missed in paper magic.

I guess it bugs me as a CS/Math nerd, since it is a contradiction. [It says you can't do a thing, but you can actually do a thing if you're opp is bad.]
To me, remembering your stuff and having the game state in mind is something I would classify as "skill", so I don't think it's bad to punish people for this kind of sloppy plays.

[thefringthing]

The reactions to the chalice question confirm my belief that only about 10% of the people here play paper magic at CREL.It doesn't hurt that they changed the missed trigger rules so many times that you have to be a Level 17 Elder of the DCI Shadow Council to explain the current rules fully.

[KevinTrudeau]

Reminds me of the time Tomoharu Saito stalled to draw round 10 of GP Columbus 2010 when he was clearly about to lose game three, a GP he would go on to win (and get the $3500 grand prize). Same type of situation with a judge present and simply not doing anything, although Saito had literally just been Tsabo's Decreed of Merfolk and did not have a complex board state to look at. The opponent would later top eight said GP as well, but was really shook up over it and legitimately cried after the round because of it (this is not a joke, and I do not want to reveal who it is as he is a really cool guy). I do not blame, as it probably felt like getting mugged in front of a police station with no one doing anything to help you. There is nothing wrong with crying.

Comes down to M:tG judges not treating judging as work but rather some sort of fantasy cosplay.

[CutthroatCasual]

The reactions to the chalice question confirm my belief that only about 10% of the people here play paper magic at CREL.

I love cheesing spells into an opposing Chalice. If the controller remembers the trigger then I just scoop because at that point I'm in desperation mode.

[Fjaulnir]

Reminds me of the time Tomoharu Saito stalled to draw round 10 of GP Columbus 2010 when he was clearly about to lose game three, a GP he would go on to win (and get the $3500 grand prize). Same type of situation with a judge present and simply not doing anything, although Saito had literally just been Tsabo's Decreed of Merfolk and did not have a complex board state to look at. The opponent would later top eight said GP as well, but was really shook up over it and legitimately cried after the round because of it (this is not a joke, and I do not want to reveal who it is as he is a really cool guy). I do not blame, as it probably felt like getting mugged in front of a police station with no one doing anything to help you. There is nothing wrong with crying.

Comes down to M:tG judges not treating judging as work but rather some sort of fantasy cosplay.


The worst case of Slow Play I had ever done upon me, was while 2 judges were watching for at least 5 minutes (just as spectators, it felt like) while he literally slowplayed for the whole 50 minutes. Missed T8 of that event due to drawing 1 turn before being able to kill him. 1 round later I saw his next opponent nearly commit suicide over frustration about that guy's playstyle. I'm really glad he went from playing Legacy to Modern mostly as it's a known slowplayer in the community.

[Richard Cheese]

The worst case of Slow Play I had ever done upon me, was while 2 judges were watching for at least 5 minutes (just as spectators, it felt like) while he literally slowplayed for the whole 50 minutes. Missed T8 of that event due to drawing 1 turn before being able to kill him. 1 round later I saw his next opponent nearly commit suicide over frustration about that guy's playstyle. I'm really glad he went from playing Legacy to Modern mostly as it's a known slowplayer in the community.

At least that shit finally caught up with him. Anyone know if he's changed at all since the suspension?

[nedleeds]

It doesn't hurt that they changed the missed trigger rules so many times that you have to be a Level 17 Elder of the DCI Shadow Council to explain the current rules fully.

Not really. You are responsible for triggers on things you control. If your opponent misses a trigger on something they control you may at your discretion call a judge and have it resolved to your benefit, that opponent should catch a GRV. Besides some minutia around the specific card that's basically it.

What don't you understand?

[thefringthing]

Not really. You are responsible for triggers on things you control. If your opponent misses a trigger on something they control you may at your discretion call a judge and have it resolved to your benefit, that opponent should catch a GRV. Besides some minutia around the specific card that's basically it.

What don't you understand?I understand the missed trigger rules, but at this point I can't fault anyone who doesn't. The point at which an effect visibly changes the game state is different for different kinds of effects. (Some effects, like triggers that create a delayed trigger, never do this, and are just assumed to have resolved even if their controller actually missed them.) Genuinely missing a trigger and cheating by intentionally missing a trigger are indistinguishable in general. In many cases "do X" and "you may do X" mean the same thing. Whether someone should receive a warning related to missing triggers depends on whether the trigger is considered detrimental (in general), which is determined by looking up the triggered ability in a big fucking list of all the triggered abilities in the game. This is a fucking mess. Add to it the fact that before these rules were arrived at, the missed trigger rules were in rapid flux for quite a while, and you get a scenario in which I don't think anyone can reasonably be expected to know how to handle any given missed trigger situation.

[Plague Sliver]

I understand the missed trigger rules, but at this point I can't fault anyone who doesn't. The point at which an effect visibly changes the game state is different for different kinds of effects. (Some effects, like triggers that create a delayed trigger, never do this, and are just assumed to have resolved even if their controller actually missed them.) Genuinely missing a trigger and cheating by intentionally missing a trigger are indistinguishable in general. In many cases "do X" and "you may do X" mean the same thing. Whether someone should receive a warning related to missing triggers depends on whether the trigger is considered detrimental (in general), which is determined by looking up the triggered ability in a big fucking list of all the triggered abilities in the game. This is a fucking mess. Add to it the fact that before these rules were arrived at, the missed trigger rules were in rapid flux for quite a while, and you get a scenario in which I don't think anyone can reasonably be expected to know how to handle any given missed trigger situation.

So what would you suggest as a solution?

[Julian23]

Honestly, the current triggers policy isn't very hard to understand at all. And a really good upgrade from the previous one where you had to help your opponent. Also, the Kibler situation made it really quite clear that the previous one could no longer stand since it leads to those exact fucked up situations.


If your opponent misses a trigger, no matter whether any mysterious list you try to invoke considers it "beneficial" or not, if you want that trigger to resolve at any point during the turn cycle, you can call a judge and ask for it.

Whether he missed it on purpose or not is a completly different issue that is unrelated to the trigger policy. The question whether someone broke the rules in any way on purpose or not is a general issue inherent to judging. But it's not like the previous trigger policy provided any advantages here. In fact, it was even worse. Nobody knows whether Kibler knew his opponent had missed a "must trigger" or not.

[dte]

Honestly, the current triggers policy isn't very hard to understand at all. And a really good upgrade from the previous one where you had to help your opponent. Also, the Kibler situation made it really quite clear that the previous one could no longer stand since it leads to those exact fucked up situations.

hello,

That's the third reference to the "Kibler situation", but I am sure I am not alone not knowing what it refers to?

Otherwise I understand the frustration, and may add that playing against a slow player is also boring, which I find even worse as I come with the firm intent to have fun playing. Funnily enough playing against a slowplayer happened quite recently to me with elves and playing against Eldrazi :)

But I never could bring myself to call a judge for that, and wouldn't in the future, as to my eyes it would be a bad experience for both players (for slow play, I think I would call for stalling - I feel it important to distinguish these).
That being said I understand and find perfectly legitimate that more competitive player call judges for that.

[CptHaddock]

hello,

That's the third reference to the "Kibler situation", but I am sure I am not alone not knowing what it refers to?


Unless they're alluding to a situation that I don't know about. It was having to do with a mandatory angel of despair trigger in a quarterfinals match of the pro tour.

You can read about the situation here. (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/silvestri-says-judging-pro-tour-austin/)

[Julian23]

In the quarter finals of PT Austin (2009), Kibler played against Evangelos Papatsarouchas (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/event-coverage/pro-tour%E2%80%93austin-quarterfinals-ghost-quarters-2009-10-18) on Hypergenesis. In the final game of their series Papatsarouchas resolved a Hypergenesis and both players put in a bunch of stuff. Among the cards Papatsarouchas put in was a Angel of Despair, which has a mandatory trigger that destroys any permanent. Papatsarouchas missed that trigger, which was the deciding factor. Had he remember it, he would have advanced over Kibler (and judging by the Semis and Finals matchup, been a huge favorite to win the PT).

The only person in the room who was aware of the missed trigger was Kibler. Neither the judges nor the spotters on the floor caught it. Under the old trigger policy it would have been Kibler's duty to point out to his opponent that he had just missed a trigger. Kibler didn't. Instead the trigger went unnoticed and he won the match.

Technically this would have meant that Kibler was in for a DQ without prize. Here's the catch: Kibler successfully argued that while he was aware of the trigger, he wasn't sure whether it was mandatory ("destroy") or not ("may destroy"). He also didn't want to pick up the Angel and read it because that would be a losing moving if it in fact was non-mandatory, as it would tip off his opponent. So he said nothing and went on to win the PT.

It was a pretty fucked up situation. My point is not whether Kibler was to blame or not. Because in the end it's WotC who created the old trigger policy which made us have these situations in the first place. That's why even though the current trigger policy still is quite flawed in some ways, it's still the best we've had thus far.

The easiest solution to do away with all of this would be if WotC only slapped mandatory triggers on cards that *really* need them (like e.g. Leveler) but that ship has sailed many decades ago.

[dte]

Thank you both for the detailed story, it indeed shows nicely an important issue with the previous trigger policy.

[Fox]

The missed trigger policy is more or less fine when paired with rewinding of game states. With a Leveler trigger, you would go back put trigger on stack and hit the library. That said, if that player drew a card that shouldn't have existed, they will neither lose the card nor get a retrospective game loss due to what should have been decking - this is how I understand it anyways. The one that is worrisome is the missing self-Chalice triggers; the explanation at EW was rewind, put trigger on stack, does nothing b/c that spell is either now a permanent on the battlefield or resolved and in a graveyard...this is problematic...you're effectively allowed to mess up self-Chalice triggers twice in a tournament before getting a game loss while maintaining gamestate/battlefield advantages you shouldn't have.

[Meekrab]

I half agree. I *really* despised that rules change because I'm sportsmanlike I guess. It bugs me that a non-choice effect that *has* to happen can be missed in paper magic.

I guess it bugs me as a CS/Math nerd, since it is a contradiction. [It says you can't do a thing, but you can actually do a thing if you're opp is bad.]
Chalice doesn't have the word "can't" printed on it. I agree it's templated poorly and if it was designed today it would probably say "Players can't cast spells with converted mana cost X," but it plainly doesn't say you can't 'do a thing' and we are where we are.

[Varal]

Not really. You are responsible for triggers on things you control. If your opponent misses a trigger on something they control you may at your discretion call a judge and have it resolved to your benefit, that opponent should catch a GRV. Besides some minutia around the specific card that's basically it.

What don't you understand?

This is only half of it. The policy changes a lot depending on the REL of tournaments. Since most games are played at Regular, it is no wonder that many people are confused in higher REL events.

[Julian23]

This is only half of it. The policy changes a lot depending on the REL of tournaments. Since most games are played at Regular, it is no wonder that many people are confused in higher REL events.

That's a very good point that I hadn't even thought about. 95% of matches I play are on REL Competitive+, which I think should be the standard when discussing anything rules-related in (well..) a competitive context.
Like we do in this forum.

The consequences of certain rules policy alienating more casual-minded players is something that's actually not an issue of competitive play but belongs into a general community discussion.

[rlesko]

Honestly, the current triggers policy isn't very hard to understand at all. And a really good upgrade from the previous one where you had to help your opponent. Also, the Kibler situation made it really quite clear that the previous one could no longer stand since it leads to those exact fucked up situations.

If your opponent misses a trigger, no matter whether any mysterious list you try to invoke considers it "beneficial" or not, if you want that trigger to resolve at any point during the turn cycle, you can call a judge and ask for it.

Whether he missed it on purpose or not is a completly different issue that is unrelated to the trigger policy. The question whether someone broke the rules in any way on purpose or not is a general issue inherent to judging. But it's not like the previous trigger policy provided any advantages here. In fact, it was even worse. Nobody knows whether Kibler knew his opponent had missed a "must trigger" or not.

I agree 100%, and this is pretty much what I was trying to say in my earlier post.

[thefringthing]

So what would you suggest as a solution?The original trigger rules. If the effect says "may do X", you may do X but don't have to. If the effect says "do X" and you don't, you get a warning for missing a trigger. If your opponent misses a trigger you have to point it out so they can get a warning, or else you get failure to maintain. Accrue enough missed trigger warnings and you start getting game losses, match losses, DQs, whatever. Apparently this was too much work for judges (too bad), people don't like having to point out opponent's missed triggers when it's in their favour (too bad), and WotC thinks new players don't know what the word "may" means (what?).

[dte]

The original trigger rules. If the effect says "may do X", you may do X but don't have to. If the effect says "do X" and you don't, you get a warning for missing a trigger. If your opponent misses a trigger you have to point it out so they can get a warning, or else you get failure to maintain. Accrue enough missed trigger warnings and you start getting game losses, match losses, DQs, whatever. Apparently this was too much work for judges (too bad), people don't like having to point out opponent's missed triggers when it's in their favour (too bad), and WotC thinks new players don't know what the word "may" means (what?).

That does not solve the problem Julian pointed out with the Kibler situation: if you know that our opponent trigger is detrimental to you, but do not remember if it is worded "may" or "do", what do you do?

I would add that it would clearly increase the gap between regular and competitive REL, and to my opinion would be detrimental to the game experience (receiving or having my opponent receive a warning is never what we are here for).

[Julian23]

The original trigger rules. If the effect says "may do X", you may do X but don't have to. If the effect says "do X" and you don't, you get a warning for missing a trigger. If your opponent misses a trigger you have to point it out so they can get a warning, or else you get failure to maintain. Accrue enough missed trigger warnings and you start getting game losses, match losses, DQs, whatever. Apparently this was too much work for judges (too bad), people don't like having to point out opponent's missed triggers when it's in their favour (too bad), and WotC thinks new players don't know what the word "may" means (what?).

This doesn't solve the problem you're complaining about at all. And I even just explained that.

[thefringthing]

I was never complaining about the "Kibler situation" but obviously in that situation you ask to talk to a judge away from the table and find out whether the trigger is "may do X" or "do X".

To return to the issue of slow play, I wonder whether judges' reticence to employ the rule is a consequence of the rule's vagueness. I agree with the sentiments of some of the other posters here that it would be nice if the rule could somehow take into account the fact that some parts of a game are very routine and others very complex, but doing that in a consistent and objective way seems pretty tough.

[tescrin]

But I guess that's the sportsman or nerd in me. Kibler should've lost. He knew it. IMO that situation shows why that rule shouldn't have been changed.
*He lost*, but won the prize.

I realize I'm in the minority here; but I can't just see the 'kibler situation' used as an anecdote for the other side of the argument, because it perfectly displays the problem with the current rule. *He lost.* If they played in MTGO; he'd lose, guaranteed.

The rule at this point favors greed over sportsmanship. The argument in favor of kibler seems to be "but there was a few thousand bucks he would win as long as no one noticed!" That's not how games should work, or else we wouldn't mind the other forms of cheating (like that shuffling guy who made you topdeck a bunch of lands.) What at that point makes the Ancestral Brainstorm that people didn't notice illegal? There was $1000's on the line! All he had to do was purposely change the way the card affected the game so that the outcome was favorable.

Again, I accept it, but it seems stupid to win games you have no reason winning. It's not a lucky topdeck or a real flop by your opponent, it's ignoring the gamestate and getting away with it.

Putting it another way, if he called a judge, walked a ways away, had the judge look up the card, etc.. he wouldn't point out the trigger or look at the card in an incriminating way, and the judge would get to tell him that he lost. No one under that ruleset who saw the trigger would believe that Kibler would win.

[Richard Cheese]

But I guess that's the sportsman or nerd in me. Kibler should've lost. He knew it. IMO that situation shows why that rule shouldn't have been changed.
*He lost*, but won the prize.

I realize I'm in the minority here; but I can't just see the 'kibler situation' used as an anecdote for the other side of the argument, because it perfectly displays the problem with the current rule. *He lost.* If they played in MTGO; he'd lose, guaranteed.

The rule at this point favors greed over sportsmanship. The argument in favor of kibler seems to be "but there was a few thousand bucks he would win as long as no one noticed!" That's not how games should work, or else we wouldn't mind the other forms of cheating (like that shuffling guy who made you topdeck a bunch of lands.) What at that point makes the Ancestral Brainstorm that people didn't notice illegal? There was $1000's on the line! All he had to do was purposely change the way the card affected the game so that the outcome was favorable.

Again, I accept it, but it seems stupid to win games you have no reason winning. It's not a lucky topdeck or a real flop by your opponent, it's ignoring the gamestate and getting away with it.

Putting it another way, if he called a judge, walked a ways away, had the judge look up the card, etc.. he wouldn't point out the trigger or look at the card in an incriminating way, and the judge would get to tell him that he lost. No one under that ruleset who saw the trigger would believe that Kibler would win.

Except that all he has to do is claim he missed it too. There's no way to prove that one guy saw that trigger and chose not to say anything when apparently a room full of people, including judges there just to watch that match, missed it. Human error is always going to be a factor in a game this complex. The only way to guarantee all the game rules are followed correctly is to move competitive play to a digital format. Maybe someday Wizards will hire real developers and these high-profile matches can play out in some kind of AR system.

[tescrin]

Except that all he has to do is claim he missed it too. There's no way to prove that one guy saw that trigger and chose not to say anything when apparently a room full of people, including judges there just to watch that match, missed it. Human error is always going to be a factor in a game this complex. The only way to guarantee all the game rules are followed correctly is to move competitive play to a digital format. Maybe someday Wizards will hire real developers and these high-profile matches can play out in some kind of AR system.

Going full circle to the original topic; it's the only thing that also happens to solve the slow play issue in a nice way. [haven't used it, feel free to tell me that mtgo's priority system is actually a sack of garbage]

And even so, I can't see myself ever getting into MTGO lol.

[Megadeus]

I'm on the side of, being able to remember all of your triggers is a skill. I am fine with the current iteration of the rules.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I'm on the side of, being able to remember all of your triggers is a skill. I am fine with the current iteration of the rules.
As someone who played with Chalice in Legacy since before it was cool (Eldrazi), I agree. If you sneak a spell past my Chalice because I wasn't paying attention, you earned its resolution.

[jake556]

Slow play is hard, the way I see it is to just be a decent person whichever side of the table your on.

People have to remember that not everyone has been playing for 15+ years and playing against a skilled elves player would be intimidating imo. All the creature interactions tapping untapping bouncing replaying floating mana fuck..... Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

And if it was a close game I'm sure most people would slow down a bit to try and minimize mistakes. This is normal. And that player shouldn't really feel pressured to hurry and make a play.

Remember you don't know what the other player is thinking give them a break, something that is "simple" or "obvious" to you may not be to your opp.

The one thing that does suck, is when people purposely drag their feet to get a draw because they are salty. Like I said slowplay is a hard subject to deal with and I can see why judges are reserved about handing out warnings.

[Lemnear]

The one thing that does suck, is when people purposely drag their feet to get a draw because they are salty. Like I said slowplay is a hard subject to deal with and I can see why judges are reserved about handing out warnings.

Of course its kinda normal to take "more time" if gamestates are complex, but there is a gap between finding it acceptable as player/judge that declaring attackers takes two minutes, every Brainstorm takes 3 minutes and on the other hand dealing/receiving slowplay warnings after 2 minutes during a combo turn in the storm vs Delver matchup

[Echelon]

I think part of the problem is that people forget they also have time to think during their opponents' turn. I usually spend my opponents' turn planning my next one(s). If I'm playing a combo deck, I'm looking at what lines I'll have the next turn or what I'll need to create a certain line, and so on. It's part of why I can play at a rather quick pace.

I understand MtG is a complex game, but it isn't a matter of life and death. Especially at locals, but even there you see people spending literal minutes on Brainstorms, Ponders and Top activations. It's so annoying. It's a fucking game, treat it like one dammit. Have fun, go wild, see whatever crazy shit happens.

[Darkenslight]

Slow play is hard, the way I see it is to just be a decent person whichever side of the table your on.

People have to remember that not everyone has been playing for 15+ years and playing against a skilled elves player would be intimidating imo. All the creature interactions tapping untapping bouncing replaying floating mana fuck..... Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

And if it was a close game I'm sure most people would slow down a bit to try and minimize mistakes. This is normal. And that player shouldn't really feel pressured to hurry and make a play.

Remember you don't know what the other player is thinking give them a break, something that is "simple" or "obvious" to you may not be to your opp.

The one thing that does suck, is when people purposely drag their feet to get a draw because they are salty. Like I said slowplay is a hard subject to deal with and I can see why judges are reserved about handing out warnings.

That's a part of why the shanges to Slow Play effectively banned the Four Horsemen deck out of existence. It's a combo deck that has to go through a certain number of iterations (which is potentially an arbitraily large number) before comboing off. That means that it can take a long time to win with it.

[Dice_Box]

I think part of the problem is that people forget they also have time to think during their opponents' turn. I usually spend my opponents' turn planning my next one(s). If I'm playing a combo deck, I'm looking at what lines I'll have the next turn or what I'll need to create a certain line, and so on. It's part of why I can play at a rather quick pace.

I understand MtG is a complex game, but it isn't a matter of life and death. Especially at locals, but even there you see people spending literal minutes on Brainstorms, Ponders and Top activations. It's so annoying. It's a fucking game, treat it like one dammit. Have fun, go wild, see whatever crazy shit happens.

This is one of the reasons I love Prison strategies. "You have exactly zero ways you can impact this board state, are you willing to concede, or an I going to kill you with this Mishra's Factory/ Marit Lage?"

[Julian23]

Slow play is hard, the way I see it is to just be a decent person whichever side of the table your on.

People have to remember that not everyone has been playing for 15+ years and playing against a skilled elves player would be intimidating imo. All the creature interactions tapping untapping bouncing replaying floating mana fuck..... Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

And if it was a close game I'm sure most people would slow down a bit to try and minimize mistakes. This is normal. And that player shouldn't really feel pressured to hurry and make a play.

Remember you don't know what the other player is thinking give them a break, something that is "simple" or "obvious" to you may not be to your opp.

Jake, you really seem like a nice guy and I whole-heartedly agree with your analysis of the situation.

But nothing of it is relevant for the infraction that is Slow Play.

What you are talking about is the player's character. That one shouldn't fault them for the reason WHY they are being slow. That however is nothing that the rules are concerned with (outside of distiguishing Slow Play from Stalling.) The Slow Play rule doesn't care why your are unitentionally playing slow. It only cares about that you do. And therefore hands you an infraction.

After all, Slow Play didn't provide an unfair advantage to one of the players. The fact that they are new or unfamiliar with their opponent's deck shouldn't provide them with such an advantage. In fact, in the spirit of competitive play, inexperience is a real disadvantage that we shouldn't try to artificially decrease.


That's a part of why the shanges to Slow Play effectively banned the Four Horsemen deck out of existence.

What Slow Play change are you referring to? Four Horsemen has never been viable, rules-wise.

[Echelon]

This is one of the reasons I love Prison strategies. "You have exactly zero ways you can impact this board state, are you willing to concede, or an I going to kill you with this Mishra's Factory/ Marit Lage?"

Hey, that's all fair game as far as I'm concerned. Just as long as you don't take hours to think of whether you concede or not. Either go "Meh, you win" or go "Draw, go" and make your opponent kill you. The fact that you can't kill your opponent anymore doesn't automatically mean he actually can kill you. But those turns shouldn't take you more than 10 seconds/turn (if even that). You don't have to concede. I mean, you paid to be there so you might as well enjoy the show, right?

I did it a while back when I was on Manaless Dredge, vs an opponent on Enchantress. He locked me out of, well, everything (I was looking at Elephant Grass, Moat, Grafdigger's Cage and Rest in Peace, lol) so I just discarded Progenitus to handsize every turn until he finally got his kill. It was either that, or I'd deck him after enough turns. I had an out so I went for it, lol.

[Lemnear]

In fact, in the spirit of competitive play, inexperience is a real disadvantage that we shouldn't try to artificially decrease.

Jup, leave that to WotC and their NWO of removing all cardtypes but Lands, Planeswalkers and Creatures

[thecrav]

I think part of the problem is that people forget they also have time to think during their opponents' turn.

This is a massive problem in all games, not just Magic. I stopped bringing my phone to board game day because people see me on my phone and think I'm goofing off when it's not my turn but I've actually already decided my turn minutes in advance. Then they pull out their phone and start doing what they think I'm doing and when they look up to play, they have no idea what's going on.


That's a part of why the shanges to Slow Play effectively banned the Four Horsemen deck out of existence. It's a combo deck that has to go through a certain number of iterations (which is potentially an arbitraily large number) before comboing off. That means that it can take a long time to win with it.

It's worth noting that Four Horsemen is a very special case in that its loop is non-deterministic. IE, it is possible that you will continue executing the loop from now until the day you die without ever hitting the desired state.


This is one of the reasons I love Prison strategies. "You have exactly zero ways you can impact this board state, are you willing to concede, or an I going to kill you with this Mishra's Factory/ Marit Lage?"

Prison can also "abuse" the clock. I've seen so many matches go 1-0-1 because the non-prison player spends so much time in game one trying to get out of a nigh-unbeatable situation rather than conceding and going to another game that they might be able to win. I've definitely been on the prison side of the equation and not mentioned the potential for the opponent to concede so that I could burn more clock with them locked out.

[DarthVicious]

... I've definitely been on the prison side of the equation and not mentioned the potential for the opponent to concede so that I could burn more clock with them locked out.

This is one of the reasons I love Prison strategies. "You have exactly zero ways you can impact this board state, are you willing to concede, or an I going to kill you with this Mishra's Factory/ Marit Lage?"


I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.

[Lyle Hopkins]

The easy fix is that if a chessclock would actually help, SCG could build that functionality into their app. Probably take a programmer less than a day.

I was just thinking the same thing. Some sort of modfied chess clock app modeled after the mtgo system, where players can opt out of receiving priority, might actually be possible. I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss this kind of solution and with most people owning smart devices, it could be easily implimented. Regardless of how idealistic it may sound, it does seem like the fairest system.

[Dice_Box]

I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?

[Lemnear]

I was just thinking the same thing. Some sort of modfied chess clock app modeled after the mtgo system, where players can opt out of receiving priority, might actually be possible. I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss this kind of solution and with most people owning smart devices, it could be easily implimented. Regardless of how idealistic it may sound, it does seem like the fairest system.

And hit the clock every time you pass priority? This is simply not practical in paper MTG. Period

[DarthVicious]

Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?

Something about how fun it is pulling the wings off flies and microwaving the neighbors cat?

[Dice_Box]

I rather talk about watching the Miracles player who has tap all his mana to keep his Mentor tokens alive, that can not attack under Bridge but wants them to sac to my Stax...

We are so off topic.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Being on topic is for dorks and poindexters

Real men veer off into the great foreboding unknown

[Cartesian]

And hit the clock every time you pass priority? This is simply not practical in paper MTG. Period
What if the chess clock is only started if a player has to think for more than 10 seconds after receiving priority. For as long as players keep making their moves within 10 seconds after receiving priority, the clock is not started - it doesn't run for either player. Each player gets 10-15 minutes of personal 'tanking time' to use for the entire match. A player who runs out of time will have to keep making moves within 10 seconds, or lose the game/match at a judge's discretion.

[thefringthing]

So you want a chess clock *and* a ten-second hourglass timer that tells you when to use the chess clock? Are you just totally incapable of imagining how these idiotic chess clock proposals would work in practice? Or the smartphone suggestion! What happens at a GP where a hundred people don't have a smart phone? Does the TO have to bring a big box full of smart phones to hand out to people who didn't bring one? Or are we just going to require you to have the app on your own smartphone in order to register?

[Lyle Hopkins]

And hit the clock every time you pass priority? This is simply not practical in paper MTG. Period

I understand, but that doesn't mean we can't modify the chess clock system in such a way so that it works for Magic. Cartesian's post above is a suggestion of one possible modification. We should try to creatively figure out a solution for implementing an MTGO style clock system, instead of merely settling for something less fair.

[Dice_Box]

I have a solution, have the Judges call out this behaviour and punish it.

[DarthVicious]

We are so off topic.

I'm still laughing over 'eternal torment' lol

+1 about watching Miracles players squirm under pressure

Another +1 for quoting the whole thing lolol

[Cartesian]

So you want a chess clock *and* a ten-second hourglass timer that tells you when to use the chess clock?
Actually I was thinking that players could simply count to ten in the back of their head.
It doesn't have to be exactly 10 seconds. And judges would be there to look out for any systematic attempts to abuse the rule, just as they are there now to watch for slow play.


Are you just totally incapable of imagining how these idiotic chess clock proposals would work in practice?
I don't think that I am the one lacking imagination here.

[Lyle Hopkins]

I have a solution, have the Judges call out this behaviour and punish it.

I feel like this could be a fair option if each match had a judge that was timing priority and the punishment was universal (this is currently not the case at some competitive REL events, as Jullian Knab alludes to in his original post). You are right though; the best option in the current system is to simply have more rigourous enforcement by players and judges.

[Zombie]

So you want a chess clock *and* a ten-second hourglass timer that tells you when to use the chess clock? Are you just totally incapable of imagining how these idiotic chess clock proposals would work in practice? Or the smartphone suggestion! What happens at a GP where a hundred people don't have a smart phone? Does the TO have to bring a big box full of smart phones to hand out to people who didn't bring one? Or are we just going to require you to have the app on your own smartphone in order to register?

It doesn't have to be a clock, necessarily - players could well be allotted "tanks" to figure out more complex turns. Once every tanking time is spent, gotta keep up the pace. This is used in a Japanese Go tournament called the NHK Cup: In the NHK Cup tournament, starting at the beginning of the game, players have 30 seconds to make each move, but have 10 extended thinking periods of one minute.

The more classical Japanese use a timing system in Go that gives people N "chunks". When you get your turn, a chunk starts counting down. If you spend a chunk completely, you lose it. If you play under, you keep it. The more you tank, the more your potential to tank declines until you end up playing only on overtime and have to play fast or lose on time.

The clocks themselves aren't necessary, per se, but a regulated number of clearly long "tanks" might do good? That way keeping ordinary play reasonably snappy would be frowned upon less and the thinking needed for solving complex gamestates recognized by the rules.

[thefringthing]

The clocks themselves aren't necessary, per se, but a regulated number of clearly long "tanks" might do good? That way keeping ordinary play reasonably snappy would be frowned upon less and the thinking needed for solving complex gamestates recognized by the rules.Judge walks over, you say you're in your second "long tank" and opponent says you're in your fourth. What happens? (Have you ever even been to a Magic tournament? Do you know what Magic is? Are you gaslighting me?)

[Fjaulnir]

Judge walks over, you say you're in your second "long tank" and opponent says you're in your fourth. What happens? (Have you ever even been to a Magic tournament? Do you know what Magic is? Are you gaslighting me?)


Doesn't that hold true for anything? Your opponent can always lie about anything to a judge if he wants.

Fex. opponent mulls to 7 instead of 6. You call a judge, opponent says this is the first hand they drew for the game

[thefringthing]

How are you tracking whether a thinking period counts as a long tank or not? Clocks again?

[Dice_Box]

I have noticed, as the board state increases with Stax, the time I eat up is disproportionate to my opponent. They have no options, but they will make me play it out anyway. No joke, a turn on the late game is often this:

Untap,
Tabernacle on the stack
Smokestack on the stack
Tangle Wire on the stack
Activate Trading Post, make a Goat.
Tap Goat, Gods' Eye and Crucible
Sac Goat, Gods' Eye, make a token
Tap Metalworker, pay all Tabernacle triggers.
Move to draw.

We have not even hit my first main phase yet, this game is over, I am playing only because my opponent is choosing to make me. I do not accept that because my board state becomes more and more complex (Stax makes for some fucking crazy board states) and my opponent wishes to watch me play it out in place of scooping that I should start being punished.

At this point you, as the opponent have two choices. Accept now I am going to have a lot to do, I am going to eat time, and I am going to try and kill you or, conced. I am not a total ass. My deck has the combo of Metalworker, Staff and Factory so I can kill you in a turn. I also have tutors in the form of Inventor’s Fair. My deck is made to lock you, then kill you. Not fuck around. But if you want me to prove I have it, you have to give me what I am owed in that choice. That is the time to make the mechanical actions that my deck will force upon us both and the chance to plan and think around an ever increasing complex situation.

Now, you can argue that, and I am sympathetic to it, I made my bed I should sleep in it. But slow play is a contextual thing. Taking a minute or two to get though my Upkeep is a situation created by the board. If my opponent has plays, I have to walk him though each trigger, answer questions and explain the stack interactions at times. He is not slow playing any more than I am, but he will take far longer for his upkeep than I will. That's not his fault. It's contextual.

The only real option is to have a judge make the calls. Because the real reason that a clock works online is that all the triggers are stacked for you. Go look at that upkeep again and think how long that would take online. Now think how long it would take in real life. A few mouse clicks is much faster than having to move your hands around, tapping things and picking up cards, finding tokens, the add in shuffling and the speed that's handled online... The side effect is my decks combo kill doesn't work online. Because loops are not handled well there.

There is so much nuance in this game, a human being is often a much better judge of a situation then a clock is. Until Watson can watch every game and judge each on its merit, we should just fall back on the system we have. Teach judges to watch for this issue and punish it accordingly.

[ESG]

Teach judges to watch for this issue and punish it accordingly.

Any way we can get an informal count of judges on these boards?

[bruizar]

text

It's your choice to play stax. The fact that you eat up more time than the other player benefits you because you are playing against a person who will have less turns than people who play another match. That means, less turns to draw into things like ancient grudge, hurkyll's recall or shattering spree.

[Dice_Box]

Mechanical actions, when taken quickly, are not slow play. I am not tanking on my upkeep triggers.

A clock in paper is not comparable to online. Triggers are not handled the same, physical movements need to be made, shuffling can not be handled with a click, I myself, with my left hand, need help for that action in Comp REL.

[Darkenslight]

Mechanical actions, when taken quickly, are not slow play. I am not tanking on my upkeep triggers.

A clock in paper is not comparable to online. Triggers are not handled the same, physical movements need to be made, shuffling can not be handled with a click, I myself, with my left hand, need help for that action in Comp REL.

I sort of like the idea of the NHK Go 'tank', which would be plenty covered in your Stax example - you've taken a full minute to correctly resolve your triggers and activations, in as efficient a way as poosible. However, at no point are you likely to run into that tank.

The core issue with that idea is that some decks (such as Turbo Eldrazi) have hyper-complex lines of play to navigate early on. And such a clocking system would punish deck transferrence (that is, learning a new deck to the levels at which you could play your favorite decks)..

[Ronald Deuce]

Sounds like better judging is still the best solution.

I have trouble shuffling quickly; that would count against me with a clock, and it wouldn't have anything to do with my ability to play the game or my intention (read: lack thereof) to stall. I don't waste people's time when I'm playing cards, but I'm not going to smash-shuffle twice and assume that's good enough just to save time. There's a number of problems with implementing a variety of other solutions that, themselves, wouldn't really address the original poster's point, and I think they're getting to the point that they would take more effort to implement than it would take judges and players to address the problem themselves.

Sometimes I get the feeling that there's an element of box-ticking to judging a big event. That's not necessarily a problem, but it gets weird sometimes. Round 8 at Worcester (I scrubbed out!) I was paired against one of my friends from the local, and we were joshing each other and hamming it up—generally having a good time. At least two judges came and watched the match to make sure we weren't being intimidating or deriding each other, and we told them all the same thing, which is that we knew each other and were just kicking back at the end of a rough tournament. Every judge who did this stuck around for an inordinately long time to make sure some form of harassment wasn't in the offing. Priorities, team.

And how the hell did an Eldrazi player take more than ten seconds to make a decision? I think that deck's awesome, but it's pretty much chillin' at the bottom of the complexity scale with All Spells.

[DarthVicious]

I have noticed, as the board state increases with Stax, the time I eat up is disproportionate to my opponent. They have no options, but they will make me play it out anyway. No joke, a turn on the late game is often this:

Untap,
Tabernacle on the stack
Smokestack on the stack
Tangle Wire on the stack
Activate Trading Post, make a Goat.
Tap Goat, Gods' Eye and Crucible
Sac Goat, Gods' Eye, make a token
Tap Metalworker, pay all Tabernacle triggers.
Move to draw.

We have not even hit my first main phase yet, this game is over, I am playing only because my opponent is choosing to make me. I do not accept that because my board state becomes more and more complex (Stax makes for some fucking crazy board states) and my opponent wishes to watch me play it out in place of scooping that I should start being punished.

Mechanical actions, when taken quickly, are not slow play. I am not tanking on my upkeep triggers.

It looks like a lot, and is certainly time consuming, but in no way would I classify an upkeep taking a minute or two as slow play as long as things are actually happening.
Where I call slow play is when my opponent blatantly does/says nothing for what seems like an endless amount of time... then finally says "Resolves."
Either they have a response, or they don't. Digging for a counterspell with Brainstorm/Top or activating Vial or Stoneforge or Deathrite or Wirewood or whatever is a response, and none of that should take any more than ten seconds to decide on.

Instants are the enemy of fun.

[wcm8]

I think what people tend to forget, or at least minimize, is the human element of this game. Legacy specifically is more of a social event compared to many other MtG events. Sure, there are prizes on the line at tournaments, but compared to formats like Standard, Draft and even Modern, Legacy has a smaller, more insular community comprised of individuals with personalities. Over a long enough timeline, pretty much everyone playing Legacy in an area become acquainted with each other, and become if not friendly at least pleasant with each other. 'Rivalries' tend to dissipate eventually; maturity trumps childish emotion.

I can only speak for myself with absolute certainty, but I imagine I'm not alone in terms of playing Legacy more for enjoyment than as a means to an end. It's *fun* to tweak a decklist over multiple testing sessions and (intellectually) duke it out in a tournament setting to see if your theory-crafting and suppositions actually achieve victory despite the harsh environment of luck and innumerable chaotic factors working against you. Winning is fun, but it's not a requirement for having fun during a tournament. I see the tournament entry fee as more of a cost for several hours of enjoyment than as a ticket towards the prize, and compared to something like going to a movie theater it has a better time conversion rate.

Local events are mostly self-regulating. The point of having a comprehensive set of rules is more for the benefit of running a large tournament when disparate players from multiple communities are forced to play against each other, e.g. at a Grand Prix or SCG Open. Back at home in local events, if a player is being problematic (in terms of friendliness, rate of play and decision-making, being gracious as both a winner *and* as a loser, etc.), this person would be ostracized from the local playgroup and his/her enjoyment would go down, perhaps even to the point where they no longer want to attend MtG events. This happens to sore losers, players who don't want to put in the work of 'gitting gud', and people who emphasize winning over the journey it took to get there. Rarely does it require a local judge to enforce this, it's really more a natural result of the unconscious will of the group, some sort of dominance-hierarchy sub-structure enacting its law.

But unfortunately, MtG tends to draw some anti-social people. People who haven't been receptive to the shame of their poor behavior or anti-fun mentality. There are also sadists, people who derive a sort of sociopathic pleasure from seeing others suffer. These people typically play lock pieces such as Chalice of the Void and/or Counterbalance* :laugh:. At a large enough event, these people sidestep the shame that would've been enforced in a local environment and are able to continue their negative ways. The only hope is that they burn out and quit tournament MtG before continuing to spread their negativity too long.

In a local environment, it's up to the collective players to shame these players into either changing their ways or quitting. In a large event, it's completely justified to use the assistance of a judge to get the point across.

And if for some reason the judge called seems complicit with their bad behavior, that's what the appeal process is for.

Know the rules, call a judge when needed. You're not only making MtG better for yourself, but also for the Legacy community at large.

*footnote: there are many definitions of "fun". I think a game of MtG is fun when both players were able to interact with each other in a meaningful way, and where the outcome of the game had more to do with the sequence of choices made (and maybe a little bit of luck), rather than just being an exercise of going through the motions on a set rail path. Some players enjoy 'pillow fort' type decks, or 'prison'-style decks; that's fine as long as there's still some amount of meaningful interaction. And it typically beats non-interactive combo decks that function in a way to ignore their opponent almost entirely. I do think it takes a certain type of mentality to willingly choose to play a deck like Stax, however I am NOT saying that everyone who chooses to play such a deck is a sadist or sociopath. Just that it's more likely to find those sorts of people playing those sorts of decks :wink: