As most people probably know, I don’t jump into debates like the one currently going on about the “Mike Long Incident” at U.S. Nationals, and I’m not about to change that practice now (especially considering that I wasn’t even at Nationals and have no first-hand knowledge of the incident in question). However, while reading through the various articles on the Dojo about the subject, the following section of Eric Taylor’s post leap out at me: >Yet. . . What happens if you catch someone mana weaving their lands? > >Some judges just pick it up and give it a shotgun shuffle. Some judges >give a warning. Some judges give a game loss. > >The system of punishing the cheaters right now is set up 1) in a way that >you have to prove someone tried to cheat on purpose, 2) without any >appreciable guidelines to punish in gradations the various levels of >cheating. Right now if someone deliberately cheats you punish him, but if >someone accidentally cheats then you don't punish him. > >Imagine if you could argue your way out of a traffic ticket by just >saying, "I'm sorry officer, I didn't go through the red light on purpose. >It was an accident." > >It's just too hard to prove intent to cheat. Eric raises a good point—we have established rules covering the actual game of Magic itself, but the only existing set of published rules regarding tournaments (the October 1997 DCI Standard Floor Rules) is nowhere near as comprehensive, all-inclusive, or all-governing at, say, the D’Angelo Rulings Summaries are or the Oracle Judges’ Reference is intended to be. This is a multifaceted problem, and one I’d like to comment on here. When people raise the point that Eric did, which is basically, “Why aren’t there published rules for how to judge, how to give warnings/penalties, and what bad things will happen to me as a player if I purposefully or accidentally violate a rule?” If you ask many people this question, you’re probably going to get many different answers. The most common answer is, “Well, judging isn’t an exact science like the Magic rules, so in many cases, there isn’t anything to write down.” Another common answer is, “Well, if we were to write out exactly what all the penalties for the various offenses are, players would be better able to cheat because they would know exactly what could be gotten away with.” These are both valid arguments against having written-in-stone judging rules, there’s no denying that. If judging were like the Magic rules, judges’ hands would be tied, and players would, in some cases, be able to commit murder and get away with only a mild rebuke. If a rule existed which said, “The first time a player draws extra cards in a tournament, he or she gets a warning,” then players would, at some point, decide they’d prefer to have the top ten cards of their library in their hand rather than in the library. As one player I know put it, “Always cheat to win when it’s most crucial as long as you know the penalty is far less than the advantage gained.” This would be a clearly unacceptable situation. On the flip side, the lack of concrete guidelines of any sort leads to precisely what Eric talks about in his article. There is no standard of enforcement for a certain penalty, and this leads to there being no uniformity of enforcement from one event to the next or even from one judge to the next. If you forget to desideboard at Tournament A, you just get a warning, but when you do the same thing at Tournament B, you get a match loss. This frustrates players to no end, especially since a great number of warnings and the like do in fact result from accidents or unintentional mistakes, rather than flagrant cheating. Related to this issue is something that’s not really a headache for players, but, rather, for the judges. Since there are no written standards for most penalties, there is no easy way for a judge to ascertain what the “accepted” normal penalty is. This makes it difficult to learn and difficult to teach, and it can sometimes make it nearly impossible for somebody to pass a Level III or IV interview. What all this has led to is a “sliding bar” of assumptions and philosophies of judging. Judges land all over the place on the issue of the “accident vs. intent” assumption. That is, there are no clearly enforced standards or criteria for evaluating when someone is cheating and when someone is merely being stupid. A common offense (for example, misplaying the mulligan rule) is assumed by Judge A to be almost always accidental (and his penalty is a simple warning for the first offense), whereas Judge B believes that this rule is easy not to violate, and anyone doing so must be trying to cheat (and she therefore gives a double warning and match loss whenever it occurs), and Judge C falls somewhere in between. This isn’t surprising, since judges frequently have different skills and will, therefore, tend to focus more intently on different aspects of judging. For example, in the history of the PT, three different people—Tom Wylie, Charlie Catino, and Jeff Donais, have each judged some events. Each of these guys is a fine judge, but each, in my experience, tends to focus somewhat differently. (For the record: Tom is into enforcement and compliance, and has a very rules-based judging style. Charlie’s judging style tends to be fair and impartial towards everyone. Jeff is extremely diplomatic with irate players, and tends to keep things calm. They all enforce the rules and run great events, they just each have their own particular style). This “sliding standards bar” drives players insane (it annoys judges too, but that’s a separate issue). Obviously, players say, something is wrong with the DCI or Judging Program because someone who was “obviously” cheating (Mike Long at Nationals) is allowed to continue playing and win $15,000 whereas someone who was “clearly” just being stupid (David Mills at the 1997 PT LA) gets unfairly penalized and loses $10,000. The truth of the matter is, there’s nothing wrong with the DCI or Judging Program (OK, yes, the DCI and Judging Program do have some problems. I’m talking strictly about judging philosophy here). The fault, in my opinion, is due to a two-part failing 1) The lack of any form of written judging guidelines and 2) The lack of any form of written judging assumptions about what sorts of penalties should usually be regarded as accidental/non-disruptive and which to be seen as intentional/disruptive. (NB: For those not familiar with the tenets of judging, those penalties in the former category result in penalties which basically say, “Don’t do that again,” and those in the latter return, “You’re outta here” to the offending player). To solve this problem, a couple of things need to be done. First off, a set of judging guidelines needs to be written. These would, of course, be guidelines. Their intent is to provide “standard” penalties for “standard” offenses. Basically, players throughout the world have a tendency to violate the tournament rules in the same ways, almost all the time. Many of these situations are alike enough where a standard, recommended penalty could be written down for judges to consult. In its simplest form, these guidelines would look something like, “The first time a player draws extra cards, he or she gets a warning. The second, he or she gets another warning and a match lost. The third time, he or she is disqualified.” Obviously, such guidelines would be guidelines and not rules. The first axiom of judging has always been, “Discretion and judgement above all else.” (As well as it’s related precept, “Let the penalty fit the crime.”), and the creation of hard and fast, inviolable rules would not only completely handicap the judges’ ability to run a fair and impartial tournament, it would lead to abuses such as the ones I described above. These guidelines would also enable judges to be better able to learn how to be judges (because they could learn and know the penalties and the reasons behind them) as well as enable players to know exactly what kind of hot water they can get themselves into. That, difficult though it may be to believe, is the easy part. The more difficult and the far more important issue that needs addressing is the creation of a standards and assumptions. For example, the U.S. justice system functions off the standard, “Innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Some judges have tried to apply a similar standard to Magic tournaments, resulting in obviously non-sensical situations like the one Eric Taylor described in his article. To avoid these problems, a different set of standards need to be adopted. Since I’ve already pointed out the necessity of written judging guidelines, the best way to go about creating these assumptions is to simply integrate them in the suggested penalties in the judging guidelines. This sounds a bit esoteric I know, so here’s a concrete example: Currently, everyone knows that if you turn in a Type II deck list with only 59 cards in it, you’re going to get ejected. This is a judging standard. The baseline penalty is based off the assumption that turning in an illegal deck list is highly disruptive to the event. For this reason, the penalty is automatically harsh, even if the offense was, as it usually is with decklist problems, completely accidental. So, each violation would have its assumptions built into the penalty. So, since misplaying the play/draw rule is much more likely to be accidental than stalling, the penalty for misplaying the play/draw rule is merely a warning, while that for stalling is at least a warning and loss of game, and may even be disqualification. This kind of “integrated penalty system” raises yet another issue, namely that different sorts and types of tournaments should have different assumptions about the kinds and types of players that play in them. PT players are expected to be more professional and knowledgeable (and therefore given less leeway and held to a higher standard) than a QT player. Similarly, QT players are expected to be more professional and knowledgeable than the kids playing the weekly Extended event at Joe’s Comics. If we assume that PT play is the standard, then some eight-year old is not going to take kindly when some judge disqualifies him for misplaying the mulligan rule at Joe’s Comics. Conversely, if we assume that Joe’s Comics is the standard (which it is, going by sheer numbers of tournaments and players only), then the PT player who tries to Paris mulligan for seven cards is going to get slapped on the wrist. There’s a simple solution to this problem. Recently, the DCI enacted an Enhanced K-Value Policy (I hope most folks are aware of this one by now. It’s the most significant change to the way sanctioned tournaments are run since the creation of the Intentional Draw Rule). This policy basically alters the maximum amount of points a player can win or lose in each match of a sanctioned event based on a number of criteria having to do with the tournament. Many of these critera address the judging aspects of the event (such as the head judge’s level, whether decklists are used, etc.). Included in the K-Value Policy is a note about the “Rules Enforcement Level” of the event. There are five levels, and it makes sense that any set of judging guidelines would use these five levels to define different penalties for the same offense based on the tournament’s rules enforcement level (which is part of the K-Value Policy, and thus governs the “level” of the event itself—Joe’s Comics, QT, PT, etc.). So, for example, a kid accidentally drawing an extra card at Joe’s Comics might get only a notice. A player at a QT would get a warning. A player at a PT would get a warning and lose a game. This would lead to an elegant system of assumptions and penalties, and the assumptions about what violations are going to be considered more often accidental versus those that are going to seen as usually intentional, and in what events, would be developed. This would enable judges to learn and understand the tournament rules better, and it would allow players to have a better idea of what kind of penalties are going to be enforced against them as well as help ensure a uniformity of judging throughout the world. By now, most readers are probably saying, “That’s all well and good, Dan, so who is going to write this stuff?” The good news there is that it’s already written. Based on a quick draft set of judging guidelines I wrote a couple months ago, the DCI has decided to create an official set of DCI Judging Penalty Guidelines. These Guidelines were written by me, based off my original set and integrated with the new K-Value policy. They’re currently in review and editing at Wizards of the Coast. While my non-disclosure agreement prohibits discussing exact aspects of the Guidelines (I’m not even sure if I should be discussing their existance, but, oh well), I think they will be useful for everyone. Clearly, a written document in and of itself won’t diminish cheating or help judges catch it better. What they will do, however, is enable judges to have a clear idea of what to do when “iffy” situations occur. It’s an unfortunate fact that we’ll never be able to completely eliminate cheating (Las Vegas casinos spends thousands on surveillance equipment, law enforcement professionals, and former professional cheaters, and they still get ripped off on a regular basis), but these Guidelines coupled with the willingness of judges to use them and the unwillingess of players to tolerate cheating any longer (this is the impression I’m getting from reading the Dojo over the past few months, anyways :) should help at least reduce cheating and the widespread belief that cheating is overruning sanctioned Magic play. Thanks for listening. Dan Gray Level IV Certified Judge Official dcijudge-l Network Representative for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Magic: The Gathering Playtester Member, DCI Policy Advisory Committee P.S.—A note on perspective: I realize most folks reading the Dojo today are concerned and some are even highly annoyed by the “Mike Long Incident” at Nationals. It’s important to keep in mind that nearly every major Magic tournament has had a controversial event. Some are really famous (Remember the “Jason Gordon Incident” at 1997 Worlds), whereas others get virtually no press (like a certain European player who almost got thrown out of PT Dallas for racking up the warnings). High pressure situations lead to players sometimes doing either stupid things or illegal things. Both tend to cause controversy, and are, in my opinion, an integral part to the spectator appeal of professional Magic play. Don’t get me wrong—I hate cheating as much as anyone, but unique events make good news, and not all unique events are benevelont in nature (like the 2 ½ hour Hammer/Tom Guevin match at the first PT LA). Such is life.