Asking The Right Questions

From The Empyrion - September 2005
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Asking The Right Questions
by John Danker

In one of the many Pink Panther movies the inspector is talking with a man who has a small dog standing in front of them. Eventually the bumbling inspector asks the man, "Does your dog bite?" The man calmly replies, "No" The inspector smiles and reaches down to pet the dog and immediately the dog tears into the inspector's hand with a vicious growl and teeth. Pulling his hand back quickly the inspector, a bit shaken, blurts out, "I thought you said your dog does not bite!" to which the other man replies, "It's not my dog."

This can sum up a great many situations that a judge stumbles upon. It's very easy to take a current state of play or a question at face value or assume that the statements made are all there is to the story. A good percentage of the time, however, these assumptions and failure to ask the right questions or perhaps not any questions at all, will result in an incorrect ruling. Not asking the right questions just might get your hand bitten as well.

When you're called to a table to make a ruling immediately access the current game state. Check to see which cards are in what positions, quickly take a check of the top couple of cards in each graveyard, and see what is out of play, try to do this quickly as you ask who is the current turn player.

If you've been judging any length of time you know that players will likely give you only the information that supports their claim to being correct. As well, players will explain the current game state but seldom include details about what brought about the current game state. This is where you need to kick into detective mode.
  • Who is the turn player?
  • Was a cost paid for card "X" in the correct game phase?
  • What began the chain?
  • Was a monster/character summoned at the beginning of the turn?
  • What turn count is it for card "X"
  • Is there a card active on the field that's preventing the attack to begin with?
  • Was the monster / character's battle position changed this turn?
  • Was the special summoned monster / character correctly summoned the first time?
You can easily see where the answers to these questions might completely change your ruling. All too often the events leading up to the question at hand do one of two things, either they clarify what ruling should be made or they completely negate the need of a ruling to be made in reference to the current game state but rather a ruling made previous to the current game state. In the second case it's often an illegally played card before the current game state that causes the turn to be wound back, cards in the graveyard or on the field to be returned to a player's hand, and a replay to occur.

Get in the habit of not assuming anything. After you've been judging a while, especially if it's around the same group of people, you'll probably have a tendency of assuming too much and you may overlook key actions that have previously transpired. Getting in the habit of asking background questions will overcome that tendency and help to insure that your ruling looks beyond the obvious and gives an accurate ruling not only on the question at hand but on the entire game state.
 
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I have to agree that this is a very useful article.
Even if someone's into judging for quite a long time, he should think about it again and focus on asking the right questions.

Thanks for bringing it up to my mind again John. :)

soul :cool:
 
I would agree that it is very difficult to just walk up to a situation and make a snap judgment.

I almost always try to get a replay of the situation, just for my own benefit, so I can try to work it through. You almost always just get the last cards played when you "just get there".
 
My classic example to this was what would seem to be a very simple situation at the 2004 nationals.

I was called over and one of the players says, "My Fiber Jar is flipped face up, can he Ring it before the effect resolves?"

Taking the situation at face value I respond, "Sure, why would he not be able to?"

The player looked at me dumbfounded and I told them I'd double check with the head judge if it made them feel better. When I returned with the head judge that same player explained the scenario again, only this time it changed to...

"He attacked my Cyber Jar, can he Ring it before it's destroyed?"

"Whoa!" says me! "You didn't say it was attacked and flipped face up before, you said it was flipped face up"

Now if I would have asked some very simple questions I would have avoided that Exchange and nearly missing the ruling. Wording is so very crucial in this game that we can't leave even what seem to be very simple and obvious answers to chance by not exploring the scenario a bit deeper.
 
I've seen a Judge walking by and a player asked him

' He wants to use 7 Tools of the Bandit against my Limiter Removal in the Damage Step, is that possible??? '

Well, the Judge just said ' sure he can '...

After the round, the player told me that a Judge just made an incorrent ruling. I asked the judge to move over and then when the player described the situation, he told us that he activated Limiter Removal in order to double the ATK of his Jinzo in the Damage Step.

Well, this might seem to be obvious, but if you're in a haste and just ' stop by ' to answer a question, you should still take your time!
One closer look at the field would have solved the whole problem, but the Judge just didn't take the time to ask the right question and get a complete description of the Game State.


Just my 2 cents! ^^

soul :cool:
 
It shouldn't have taken looking at the field to know 7 Tools can't negate Limiter Removal anyway ;) .....but your point is very valid and the whole crux of my article. We just assume that the verbal question is all that is needed to make a correct ruling....a great deal of the time it's not.
 
From the sound of it, it would appear that the Judge was more interested in "not" being one, than what actually happened in the game.

It's hard to be on your feet all day at an event if its a large one, but that shouldnt be the reason you gloss over someone who really needs our attention.
 
Well, that puts a whole new twist on things!! Obviously, you can't activate Traps while Jinzo is active, regardless of the Damage Step or not.

As far as Magic Jammer AND the Damage Step, you should be able to do so since you are activating a Trap Card to prevent your opponent from increasing his attack power.

And I think we've all made the mistake of writing something other than what we meant, hence the importance once again of this post. I often use "Solemn Judgment" in place of Seven Tools of the Bandit, and they are similar, yet VERY different effects.
 
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