Show and Tell

[porcupinetreeman]

If seen this happen at several large Legacy events and always wondered if it was a legal play.

Player 1 plays Show and Tell.
Player 1 and 2 put a card face down.
Player 1 reveals his card.
Player 2 concedes without revealing his card.

Does Player 2 need to reveal his card before he concedes?

[PirateKing]

104.3a A player can concede the game at any time. A player who concedes leaves the game immediately. That player loses the game.

No
under review

[H]

No

I don't know that this is correct.


If seen this happen at several large Legacy events and always wondered if it was a legal play.

Player 1 plays Show and Tell.
Player 1 and 2 put a card face down.
Player 1 reveals his card.
Player 2 concedes without revealing his card.

Does Player 2 need to reveal his card before he concedes?

Show and Tell instructs both players to reveal at the same time. So, if you want to see what one player put down, you do need to show. You can concede after choosing, but since you both reveal that the same time, there is no actual opportunity to concede having seen theirs and not revealing yours.

[PirateKing]

Maybe we have different interpretations of what "at any time" means.
"leaves the game immediately" doesn't really suggest 'but only after they flip over a face down card'
I've never known it to be a APNAP issue.
If someone concedes you can't say 'wait I need to finish resolving my spell'; the game is over, they conceded.

[H]

Maybe we have different interpretations of what "at any time" means.
"leaves the game immediately" doesn't really suggest 'but only after they flip over a face down card'
I've never known it to be a APNAP issue.
If someone concedes you can't say 'wait I need to finish resolving my spell'; the game is over, they conceded.

Well, the issue here is that both cards should be revealed simultaneously. There should not ever be even a second of literal real-time where one card is revealed and the other is not.

Of course in real life, you can't be perfectly synchronized with another human being, but in practice, since Show and Tell says to reveal the cards at the same time, there should not be a time where one card is revealed and the other is not. The issue here is that Show and Tell was not resolved correctly, not when a player can concede.

[PirateKing]

I guess "at any time" is open to debate after all; remembering back to the arguments over resolving Urza's Bauble (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31402-Urza-s-Bauble-reveal).
The rules do make a few mentions to "at any time" and I always understood it as having the normal English meaning, not part of the rules of the game.
But then that's getting more into IPG stuff than game rules.

[H]

I guess "at any time" is open to debate after all; remembering back to the arguments over resolving Urza's Bauble (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31402-Urza-s-Bauble-reveal).
The rules do make a few mentions to "at any time" and I always understood it as having the normal English meaning, not part of the rules of the game.
But then that's getting more into IPG stuff than game rules.

Well, here is my issue with that.

How much time is between simultaneous events? Zero, by my understanding, that is what simultaneous means as I understand it. So, while you can concede at any time, there is literally no time between the two reveals.

Consdier the following case:

You play Show and Tell. For some reason or other, you ask a Judge to resolve the spell (perhaps you had some sort of disagreement with this opponent before). How might the Judge do this? Presumably, you each would indicate the card you choose and once that is done, the Judge would reveal both cards at the same time, as Show and Tell instructs. In this instance, were you deprived of your right to concede having seen their card and not revealed your own? Certainly not, as there was no time where one card is revealed and the other is not, that is simultaneity as we colloquially conceive of it.

I guess if you want to make some kind of 4D non-Euclidean spacetime argument to the Judge in this case about there being no such thing as simultaneity, you can try, but I don't imagine you win that one...

[PirateKing]

No you're right, simultaneously is just that.
Maybe I misspoke, I'd really like to here the warning for concession.
If you pick up and start shuffling (presumably for the next game) and they call a judge over, how do you resolve that?

Opens up a whole new world of griefing with every 'simultaneous' effect. "Sorry you can't leave the game until you put all the cards from Warp World into play"

[H]

No you're right, simultaneously is just that.
Maybe I misspoke, I'd really like to here the warning for concession.
If you pick up and start shuffling (presumably for the next game) and they call a judge over, how do you resolve that?

Opens up a whole new world of griefing with every 'simultaneous' effect. "Sorry you can't leave the game until you put all the cards from Warp World into play"

Well, as I am definitely not a Judge, I'm really not sure what they can do, besides I guess a GRV for not resolving Show and Tell correctly? I really don't know IPG well enough to say what they could really do in that case.

What this is though, is an imperfect way to prevent someone "gaming" the Show and Tell reveal. Because in that case, well, both players could just bluff revealing, hoping one would do so first and give away information before the other could concede. Magic is specifically made to not be a game of reflexes (you know, why we can't Chaos Orb each other), so the rules try to avoid things like this. It's also why there aren't many simultaneous reveal effects on cards, because it's just hard to coordinate.

I mean, you can think of it as the joke, "if you want to see mine, you need to show me yours" writ both ways...

[FTW]

If you really want to discourage players from doing this for information gain, do this:

Put your card Face Down
Opponent puts card Face Down
"Both reveal on 3."
"1, 2, 3.."
Flip your card.

Most of the time this will encourage players to play simulataneously instead of waiting for your reveal to decide, avoiding innocent mistakes.

If he disagrees and says "no you reveal first", you explain the card says to reveal simultaneously. If he still refuses, he's Time Wasting (you can't legally continue resolving the spell as long as he stalls on his side). At this point almost all players would just agree to reveal on 3 and keep going, otherwise you can sit there indefinitely and you're not the one responsible for stalling.

[H]

If some cheater fakes you out and doesn't reveal on 3, concedes, and immediately shuffles the card back into his deck before you have a chance to ask to see it, call a Judge. Claim they resolved Show and Tell illegally by putting down an instant. They can't prove otherwise. Best case they're forced to admit what they did and the judge can decide what to do.

While I agree with the rest of your post, I don't agree with this. I think it's generally a bad idea to lie to a Judge, even if you are doing so to display that someone is cheating. Because now you made one problem into two, the opponent cheated, or at least did something illegal in game rules and you violated tournament rules by lying to a Judge. Technically, although maybe not practically, you both should accrue violations in that case.

The ol' "two wrong don't make a right" sort of thing. If you call a Judge, just tell them exactly what happened and the apparent violation will likely be clear.

[tescrin]

Just call a judge immediately. If the guy grabs his stuff and starts shuffling you can still get him a warning to discourage doing this multiple times in a tournament. Don't lie to the judge and don't make it bigger than it is. Normally if you immediately yell "JUDGE!" like you're supposed to, everything will halt. If he's scooping and trying to get everything in his deck you just need to be assertive and tell him to hold on.

Because he concealed information there may be some kind of mitigation strategy; but I'm not going to go try and look up what it could be as I haven't been a judge for 5 years or so.

Honestly, at competitive REL, I wouldn't be surpirsed if he just got a game loss (which after he just conceded, would hand you the match)

[FTW]

The lying thing was a joke. I deleted it immediately, realizing it would be received problematically, but H must have ninja'd in first. The intended point of that excerpt was that you have leverage over the cheater. He can't prove his game state because of what he did, and the threat/realization of that should be sufficient to convince him not to do that again because he could get screwed back even worse. Cheaters have shady ethics and therefore tend to assume others could stoop to the same level they do, so it's a plausible threat. Actually lying to a judge is never advisable, but 99.9% of the time you wouldn't even need to call the judge at all because most people aren't going to lie to you and maliciously cheat.

The main advice was about being assertive in advance as prevention. Clearly dictate the terms under how you will both simultaneously reveal. If the opponent disagrees and asks you to reveal first, explain how the card works. That should solve 98% of cases. No judge call. No card hiding. Prevention.

If someone is still reluctant, you can just sit and wait. Technically they are the one time-wasting by refusing to comply with you on resolving the spell. You can't legally resolve the spell without the opponent agreeing to do their part. Again, when they realize that, it should solve another 1% of cases. The chance of someone agreeing to flip on 3 and lying about it (an actual "cheater") is very small, so that was about an extreme corner case either way.

[Michael Keller]

Good reading material on the subject (https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rulestips/2013/01/best-practices-for-resolving-show-and-tell/) from the Judge Rule Blog.

The long and short of it is, the cards need to be revealed at the same time - period. If someone flips one first and the other person fails to do so, it's in your best interests to call a judge - regardless of whether you think it's legal or not or are unsure. It's actually much simpler than it sounds, but because people lazily (and it's okay - I've done it, too) just proactively flip their card first because they feel like they're going to win no matter what, they forget that there is a proper way to resolve Show and Tell.

But the right way to do it is at the exact same time. If your opponent decides they want to sit back and drink an iced tea while you politely inform them that you need to flip simultaneously, I would err on the side of caution and call a judge. The issue the OP has is in regards to the window of time between resolution of Show and Tell and a concession (with a little bit of questionable morality involved). You can concede at any time, but if your opponent tries to punk their way around the situation by simply watching what you flip first - I would call a judge, because they have two choices at that precise moment in the game: concede or reveal; they don't have priority and the spell is in the process of resolving.

Resolution of the card, as already stated, involves you selecting a card in turn order and flipping the cards at the exact same time. You, as the caster of Show and Tell, have an obligation to know how your card works. If at any time you have doubts, call a judge.

[Technics]

As I judge I would treat this similar to not revealing a morph card at the end of the game. (That is now simply just a warning (https://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2014/12/12/changing-morph-handling-in-the-ipg/)) I would issue a warning to the player and have the reveal if possible.