Grand Prix: Louisville (01/06-09/2017) with TES

[Bryant Cook]

http://www.theepicstorm.com/grand-prix-louisville-0106-092017/

[ESG]

Interesting how the judge just allowed himself to be shrugged off. Do you think there was something Ross was hiding? Aside from that, I'm curious about the action merely from a rules perspective. I see nothing in the tournament rules (http://www.wizards.com/contentresources/wizards/wpn/main/documents/magic_the_gathering_tournament_rules_pdf1.pdf) that state that a player can dismiss a random deck check.

2.8 Deck Checks
Deck checks must be performed at all Competitive and Professional REL tournaments, and the Head Judge has the option to perform deck checks at Regular REL tournaments. The DCI recommends that at least ten percent of
all decks be checked over the course of the tournament. If a player has drawn an opening hand and potentially made mulligan decisions, the contents of the hand will be preserved unless a game loss is issued as a result of the
deck check. Players may not sideboard after a deck check, though they may continue to mulligan if they had not finished the process.

From your article's recounting, this seems like a case of a pro buffaloing an inexperienced judge, and as such, it gives me reason to wonder about his motivations for doing so.

It seems to me that this could fall under the last bullet point in the Unsporting Conduct section:

5.4 Unsporting Conduct
Unsporting conduct will not be tolerated at any time. Tournament participants must behave in a polite and respectful manner. Unsporting conduct includes, but is not limited to:
• Using profanity
• Acting in a threatening manner
• Arguing with, acting belligerently toward, or harassing tournament officials, players or spectators
• Failure to follow the instructions of a tournament official

Maybe more experienced players and judges could weigh in on this?

[Bryant Cook]

I personally don't think he was hiding anything, I think it was just the annoyance of a mulligan paired with a Judge wanting to deck check you.

No one likes being deck checked, your deck comes back in order which leads to bad hands after shuffling (because let's be honest, it never feels fully randomized after it's been ordered).

[Minniehajj]

I asked an L2 friend of mine about that after reading your report, here's what he had to say:
"Ross is probably right. MTR and IPG say at point of presentation. Not during mulliganning.
but depending on how it was delivered, I wouldn't rule out a USC minor.
the way i read cook's sentence there is that it was kind of dick-ish. if he was dumbfounded, then it likely was. so i probably would have usc minored but picked another table to deck check.
alternatively, you could still check them but remind them on your return that they were both going to 6 cards."

So it's possible some context was missing, based on mannerisms and whatnot. Can you kind of describe how he said it, etc?

[jrsthethird]

If a player has drawn an opening hand and potentially made mulligan decisions, the contents of the hand will be preserved unless a game loss is issued as a result of the
deck check.

I mean, the MTR handles the case where any mulligans may have happened. It's one thing to politely inform the judge that they had already mulliganed, but it's another thing to snap back and say, "No, we haven't."

I think the judge should have, at the very least, asked them to pause and conferred with another judge (likely the Deck Checks Team Lead, who may end up checking with the HJ) to see what the best further course is. In a vacuum, it may have been an honest mistake (on the judge's part) and they should have moved on to check another match; but the way it's written here makes it sound like Ross was aggressively talking back to the judge, which is not only USC Minor, but also raises red flags that should prompt further investigation by any reasonable judge. Such red flags would require them to follow through with the check and go back to the match with both players on 6.

[Claymore]

I guess Turbo Depths is a Chalice of the Void deck.

The design is still evolving, but most Turbo decks are moving into Sphere of Resistance due to the reliance on discard, crop rotation, and Surgical. Many still do play Chalice (clearly), so it's a crap shoot which one you get.

[Whitefaces]

The report reminded me of this classic scene.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv2LEdIfkuY

[Maxe]

I personally don't think he was hiding anything, I think it was just the annoyance of a mulligan paired with a Judge wanting to deck check you.

No one likes being deck checked, your deck comes back in order which leads to bad hands after shuffling (because let's be honest, it never feels fully randomized after it's been ordered).

There is a method judges using alot, where they do NOT sort the deck. Just going one by one through ur deck. Its even faster in practise then the old version AND players dont have to shuffle afterwards because evrthing is still in the same order as before.