Introduction #

In March 2022, I was the Support Judge for The Calling Indianapolis, a large Tier 3 event run at Professional Tournament Level using the Classic Constructed format. In lieu of a normal tournament report where I go through the prep and the event step by step, I instead want to focus this report (and your attention) on a few specific areas of policy that I think need further discussion and development as FaB professional organized play continues to grow.

With this being a public document, I want to emphasize a few things. My purpose in sharing this is to help develop the next generation of FaB tournament policy and tournament operations knowledge. I’m going to focus on some areas where the tournament policy documents leave some small lack of clarity. I do not want to give the impression that the sky is falling: Judges have access to a body of knowledge of previous rulings, their own judgment and sense of fairness, and in extremis, even official sources from LSS. Our goal is to give fair and consistent rulings, and I believe we accomplished this goal at this event. However, as we start to have more large events being run by more judges - not to mention hundreds of ProQuests being run by judges around the world - I have a few areas that I think Judges and LSS should focus on, with the goal of developing more clear policy and sharing it more widely via the official documents.

Finally, I want to thank all of the Flesh and Blood judges - regardless of role or certification status - who helped make Indy a success. I heard a ton of great feedback from attendees and spectators, and it was the hard work of the many judges and staff members that made that the case.

Quick Hits #

These are a few of the more routine calls I had this weekend, which didn’t make it into their own section with a detailed analysis. Jump to Marked Cards if you want to skip to the good stuff. In each scenario, you are a Head Judge or Appeals Judge of a CC Professional TL event.

  1. A Floor Judge comes to you with the following scenario: A Dash player forgot to put their item into play at the start of the game. Their opponent won the die roll and on their first turn, arsenaled and drew. The Dash player realized they forgot to put an item into play, leaving it in their deck instead. Both players want to allow the Dash player to find the item they want, and the Dash player says that if they are allowed, they will get an Induction Chamber. Do you allow this, and if so, logistically what actions should the FJ take to handle this call? Do you issue any penalty?

  2. A Floor Judge brings the following appeal: A Prism player plays Haze Bending, and then passes the turn. Their opponent on Starvo says “I’m good”, and then a few moments later, plays Awakening. In the interim, the Prism player has already started to draw for turn. The Prism player argues that it is too late for Starvo to play Awakening because he said “I’m good” in response to Prism’s priority pass. Over the course of the game, Starvo has typically used these words to mean that he has no responses and is passing priority. The Starvo player argues that he does have the right to play Awakening before leaving the action phase, but hasn’t given much more information than that because the Prism player has largely been monopolizing the judge call. The floor judge ruled that Starvo may play Awakening, and the Prism player is appealing. What information do you need, how do you rule, and is there any penalty?

  3. A Floor Judge brings an appeal of the following rules question. A Viserai player is attacking Haze Bending with an Attack Action card, which has caused 1 Runechant to trigger. The Viserai player believes that they can cause the damage from the Runechant to destroy the Spectral Shield that will be created when Haze Bending is destroyed. The Prism player believes that they can take the 1 Arcane damage before creating the Spectral Shield. The floor judge ruled that the Viserai player can destroy the new Spectral Shield using their Runechant. Is this correct?

  4. A Floor Judge brings an appeal of the following rules question. In a Prism mirror, Adam attacks with Shimmers of Silver targetting an Aura with Spectra. This was their first attack this turn. The floor judge ruled that Shimmers will gain the +1 counter. Is this correct?

  5. A Floor Judge brings you the following scenario. A Prism player has in play a Shimmers of Silver and two Spectral Shields. They attack with the Shields, and then finally with the Shimmers. They then attempt to place a +1 counter on Shimmers. The judge witnessed this interaction, paused the match, and brought it to your attention. How do you proceed?

My rulings below.

Marked Cards #

Going into the weekend, I had some questions about our Marked Cards policy. Under the Penalty Guidelines, we have a designated penalty of a Warning for marked cards. However, if there is a pattern, at Professional, that is instead a Disqualification. This is a huge jump! Most upgrades are from a Warning to an IP2. However, I wasn’t really expecting this to be a major concern for the weekend: calls of Marked Cards with a pattern are usually pretty rare, and it didn’t make the list of things that I wanted to sync with the Head Judge on before the event. (We did talk about the GRV upgrade path, the Concession policy, and a number of tournament operations topics.)

Well, that didn’t go as expected. I personally was part of at least three Marked Cards calls, a few more discussions that we had during our courtesy deck checks of the Top 8 players, and I’m aware of a few more that were handled by the Head Judge. They fall into two main categories, but both test the borders of the Penalty Guidelines. The PG does not discuss at all what constitutes a “pattern”. It is clear that malicious intent is not required in order to apply the Disqualification - any rules breaking with intent would be considered Cheating. The Marked Cards disqualification is therefore an intermediate level for cases with a pattern, but without the intent required for Cheating. So, the only question is the presence or absence of a pattern.

Rotated cards #

One major category was cards turned the wrong way in the deck during play. We had one case where a player shuffled mid-game - maybe for an Awakening? - and every card put on the bottom after that was turned the opposite way as the deck. This allows players to see the difference between those two sets of cards, and we ruled that this does constitute a pattern. However, we also had a player who had accidentally turned their deck the wrong way sometime in the middle of the game, and so, some unknown number of turns worth of cards were turned the opposite way. Since we were not able to determine when this happened, and the players did not know either, I ruled that this was not a pattern. This is because the markings were not specifically tracking the second cycle through the deck, but instead some other unknown point in the game. However, this is a rather fine line and it is not one that I am comfortable using as written policy. It is too easy to accidentally turn your (or your opponent’s) deck around for the penalty to be so severe.

In another call, a player had drawn their hand, found that their deck was upside down, and rotated it. They pitched two cards that turn. The next turn, they again found their deck upside down, and rotated it again. This raised two questions. First, were their first four cards turned the wrong way, and if so, why? Second, what do we do about the fact that their bottom two cards - their only pitch cards so far this game - are now turned the wrong way? You certainly could make an argument that the bottom two cards are now marked with a pattern.

Judges need more guidance on when this upgrade should be applied, and what it is trying to accomplish. A smaller spread between the penalties applied in the pattern and no-pattern cases would also help reduce the impact of this decision.

Deck Checks #

We also discovered some marked cards during deck checks. On one occasion, we found that in an all-foil deck, the only notably warped card was a single copy of Art of War. The card was easily visible when it was on the top of the deck, and knowing that it was there could certainly influence a player’s decisions. Is this a pattern? If you see that card on the top of the deck you know what it is, and you may even be able to see it elsewhere in the deck due to the warping. On the other hand, it was also one of the older cards in their deck, and may have been more susceptible to curling due to differing printing methods in different sets.

GRV Upgrades #

The PG states that the penalty for a GRV may be upgraded in the case where the player committing the infraction is deemed to have gained a considerable advantage. Based on previous conversations as well as test content, we know that the bar for this is reasonably low - for example, if a player fails to pay for an attack, even if a judge is called and that is rewound, the fact that a player got to make an illegal attack is justification for the upgrade. There are two areas where I think this could use more clarification.

Effects belonging to both players #

First, oftentimes one player will make a GRV in part due to the opponent’s effect increasing a cost (Lake Frigid or Frostbite) or reducing an attack’s power (Parable). In these cases, I normally consider enforcement of these effects to be a shared responsibility between the player who brought the effect into the game and the player who is being affected by it. However, how does this interact with the upgrade? Should the upgrade be applied if the player forgets to pay for Frostbite? (What if they make the very common error of trying to use Tunic to pay for Frostbite?) Or if the players record life total changes ignoring the -1 from a Parable?

In one call, a Starvo player miscalculated resource costs in a situation consisting of a Channel Lake Frigid, a Frostbite, and some number of Seismic Surges. As a result, they paid 1 resource too few. Should this be upgraded? I didn’t, on the basis that it’s an easy mistake to make and since there were effects from both players affecting the resource cost, it was a shared responsibility to correctly determine the cost.

Digression #

These types of effects are also tricky when determining whether to rewind, since the PG says that the opponent chooses whether to rewind (if the judge has deemed it possible to do so). If an error is made by both players (for example, if one player has an effect that tells an opponent to do something, like banish some cards), who gets the GRV and who decides whether to rewind?

Frostbite’s trigger that causes it to be destroyed is also in this category. It would be very awkward to allow a player to claim that, since the affected player didn’t remove the frostbite from the table, that they missed the trigger to destroy it and so it is sitll in play. For this reason I consider it to be a shared responsibility, and it would have to be a pretty high bar in order for me to rule that a Frostbite is sticking around past the point where it should be destroyed.

Wording Change #

One player pointed out that in a situation where we were seeking to apply an IP2, that they didn’t gain any advantage, because their opponent called Judge and the game state was rewound. Obviously this interpretation is not correct - applying the IP2 only when the effect was not reversed would create a strange situation where the opponent would have to choose between allowing the error to stand, but imposing an IP2; or rewinding, but only imposing a warning. This does not seem to be the intent.

Instead, we suggest the following wording:

If the player who committed the infraction would have gained a considerable advantage if the error had not been noticed, it is recommended to upgrade this penalty to an IP2.

We would also benefit from some examples in the policy of what LSS believes is and is not a “considerable” advantage.

This change should also be applied to HCE, which lists a penalty of W/IP2 but does not explain when to apply each penalty.

Extra Turns #

In one round, a player was just finishing their turn when time was called. They had declared an attack, it had been defended, and the turn player said “OK, Pass”. At this point, but before the combat chain had been cleared and the turn player had drawn up to their intellect, time was called. The player argued that since they had already passed, and only cleanup remained, that their opponent should be considered turn 0. The player also explained that at a tournament in NZ judged by LSS staff, this was the ruling which had been used. I recall hearing something like this before and accepted their argument - however, in the interest of consistency, the tournament policy should be updated to explain the desired timing.

Bluff or Mistake #

I was initally consulted by the Floor Judge on a call where a Starvo player started off with a Lightning card from Arsenal, and then asked first their opponent, and then a judge, if they would be able to use their Starvo ability. Obviously both said no. The turn continued, and eventually the turn player played out a card from hand that did not have any element types. Evidently, due to the player’s 3 card hand and some information that had been previously revealed, the Passive Player had concluded that if the Turn Player had access to all three elements for Starvo’s ability, then he could not have this card (one of the Elemental Guardian cards, I don’t remember), and he played accordingly. This card wound up allowing the Turn Player to make a game-winning attack.

The opponent was unhappy with this - he saw this as a case where the player had “revealed” that he had all three elements by calling the judge and asking if he could do Starvo’s ability. On the other hand, the Starvo player claimed that this was all a mistake - he had Ice and Earth in hand, and when he looked at the table and saw that he had played a Lightning card, he claimed that he forgot that the Lightning card had been played from arsenal and believed that he would have legally been able to reveal.

While I’m not happy with the player choosing to waste limited judge resources just so he could make a bluff, I was not able to find any infraction which he committed. An argument could be made for USC (as a disruptive action), but I didn’t feel that this rose to the same level as the examples used in the PG for that infraction. Instead, I initially instructed the Floor Judge to simply direct the player not to do this again. If he did, then failing to follow direct instructions could certainly be the basis for a USC or Cheating call. I took the appeal from the opponent, who argued that he should be able to “go back” and change his decisions. After hearing both players' arguments, I explained several times that the player had not committed any infraction and so no backup was possible. This ultimately allowed the Starvo player to immediately win, since the defending player did not have enough cards left to adequately defend this attack.

Quick Hits - Solutions #

  1. I approved this request. Since both players are fine with allowing this, and no relevant game actions have been taken, this is safe. We generally wouldn’t allow this without the opponent’s consent, however, when both players resolve an issue to their mutual satisfaction, this is a good outcome and doesn’t typically require judge intervention. The Floor Judge suggested that a judge could search through their deck, find a copy of Induction Chamber, and thereby leave the rest of the deck in the same order. The issue here is that it leaves the remaining two copies unevenly distributed: if you start searching from the bottom of the deck and remove the first one you find, then the remaining two are more likely to appear earlier in the game than if you shuffled. So, we had the player find their item and shuffle their deck. No penalty was issued.

  2. My investigation here was largely to verify what the floor judge had already reported, and I found that the facts were as he had described them. I upheld this ruling, allowing Starvo to play Awakening. I did this for three main reasons, only one of which I actually described at the table.

    • First, that verbal responses that acknowledge an opponent’s priority pass are not necessarily priority passes themselves. The classic is “OK”. You play a card, I say “OK” - that could mean I’m allowing it to resolve, or it could mean that I heard what you have said and I am thinking about a response. Clear communication and body language can clarify the intent - if I put my cards down and look at you expectantly, then I’m probably letting your thing resolve, whereas if I’m looking through my hand, I’m probably thinking and you should wait to see what I do.

    • Second, that it’s neither uncommon nor illegal to change your mind about a decision, as long as you do so promptly and without gaining access to any relevant information that you should not have had when making that decision. There was no such concern here.

    • Finally, that all else being equal, the objective of judges is to help a game reach its fair and natural conclusion. There was no harm in allowing the Starvo player to play Awakening, it is the action he wanted to take, so that is the ruling I gave.

  3. Yes. Both Spectra and the Runechant trigger simultaneously, and the turn player chooses which order to layer them in the Layer step. If they choose to allow Spectra to resolve first, the Haze Bending will create a Spectral Shield, and then the Runechant will deal its 1 Arcane damage.

  4. No. Shimmers triggers when you attack with a certain type of weapon. Spectra closes the combat chain in the Layer step, before Shimmers would trigger.

  5. Shimmers triggers once per turn on the first attack with an Illusionist aura weapon. The turn player may not intentionally miss this trigger in order to defer the counter to a later attack. Investigate to determine whether the player is aware of this. There is a small potential for advantage here, as it is better to have the +1 counter on a Shimmers rather than on a Spectral Shield that can be destroyed by incoming damage. We determined that the player was not aware that this was illegal, so we explained the situation to them, and advised them that they had missed their Shimmers trigger for this turn.

Back to scenarios,