Penalty Question(s)

[Tkwiget]

Alright, just wondering about this. I have two specific situations that I'm thinking of that may or may not occur enough to merit knowledge of so I'll assume that it does. Assume both situations are following all YGO policy documents.


Situation #1:

Note: Both players in this situation are regular regional players.

Player A and Player B sit down at their tournament table and stuffle up their decks and present it towards one another. Player A requests that Player B count out his Side Board and Player B counts out 14 cards. Player A calls a judge over for a ruling since the decks were presented to be legal decks.

My Ruling: I would give Player B a Game Loss on the grounds that he/she is an experienced player had has experience in dealing with tournament policies in the past.

Situation #2:

Note: Assume only one of the two players in this situation is a regular regional player with experience and knowledge in tournament policies. Player B is the inexperienced player -- think of someone playing in their first regional.

Player A and Player B sit down at their tournament table and stuffle up their decks and present it towards one another. Player A requests that Player B count out his Side Board and Player B counts out 14 cards. Player A calls a judge over for a ruling since the decks were presented to be legal decks.

My Ruling: I would give Player B a minor warning on the grounds that they're inexperienced of tournament policies and potentially tournament procedures as well. With this in my mind I would find it a fair and logical ruling to let the inexperienced player off with a minor warning and explain to the person why I reduced the penalty and what could happen if the penalty is issued again to him.


I could be head judging an event in a few months and I'm going to have to brush up on my player management and penalty situations. It's something that I really haven't focused on like I have with game mechancs.

 

[densetsu_x]

And again, a "penalty" doesnt have to be a Game Loss or above. It CAN be a Warning, and a attempt to repair the situation by finding the missing card, or eliminating the use of the Side Deck altogether if warranted. Always the attempt is made to stay as low as possible on the punishment, unless the situation is clearly a intentional breach in Game Play.

It CAN be but that would go against one of the exact examples they give:

"¢ A player enters a Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG tournament with a seventeen-card side deck. The judge issues a game loss and the player must remove two cards.

See that is a very easy to fix thing yet still warrents a game loss. That differs from putting 14 or 16 cards down on the deck list but actually having 15 cards in the side deck. Yes there are always judgment calls and situational experiences, but again at the bigger events, the players have more expectations on them and accountability should be consistant for everyone so they know what to expect at the next event as well.

 

[masterwoo0]

Then think of the consequences a missing card can have on the overall game itself. The spirit of the rules is to make gameplay fair for everyone, is it not? Then what happens if all an unscrupulous person has to do is shuffle one of your cards into his deck and get you kicked out the game? There's plenty of ways to loose a card in the chaos of a tournament, and the more important the event, the more chaotic things usually become. Without a spirit guiding the letter of the law, then the more unscruplous people can take advatage of it. That's one of the things wrong with a good many judicial systems. The letter is often manipulated to overide the spirit.

I'm glad you mentioned that!!! The last Regional I attended in Maryland (I played because it was my last one there, as well as my last chance to be less than a hour away from one), there was a issue with cards being turned different ways in their Deck Sleeves, and the Head Judge issued a statement at the start of the Event to let all players know that they need to have (within reason) all cards facing the same direction in their Sleeves, and many players were heard to be plotting to manipulate the Decks as they shuffled their opponents Deck, to switch the direction of the Cut Piles as they reshuffled them back into their opponents Deck, making some face different directions than others and get the affected player a Game Loss.

This is the kind of thing hardcore cheaters look for when they know Judges stick to the letter of the law with punishments, and never try to adjudicate a lesser punishement when warranted.

 

[Tkwiget]

A situation like that can be repaired before the game even begins. You call a judge over and request tha they adjust the position of the sleeves so they all face in one direction. Problem solved. No penalty needed.

At least that's how I would solve the situation if I was called over. Giving someone a Game Loss over something like that is being a nit-pick. People should use something called "common" sense on stuff like that.

 

[John Danker]

Along the lines of investigation, if a player has a 14 card side deck after the decks were presented as the scenario has been described, we shouldn't assume that the person has failed to deside deck. That 15th card could easily be in the main deck. Funny how the obvious escapes me at times <rolling my eyes at my own lack of thought>

One might consider as well, did the player gain an advantage by having a 14 card side deck? Not likely. Since as it's been mentioned already, we don't know how long the player has had that 14 card side deck, it would be well advised to retrieve the deck sheet, check the main deck for the missing card (assuming the player listed 15 cards in the side deck on their deck sheet) as well as their deck box and any other probable misplacement area, then reaccess the situation.

If the card is found in the main deck it's obviously failure to deside deck, if the player finds the card in their deck box or laying on the floor I'd add it back to the side deck, issue a warning, and move on. If the player doesn't list 15 cards on the deck sheet and only has 14 to begin with and the game hasn't begun I'd have that person put away their side deck and consider it unusable for the match....perhaps the tournament depending on what round it is. That's a topic for another thread as we've discussed before, it can be a form of trying to adjust to the local metagame.

Thanks for bringing up the topic. It helped me to examine my own though process on the matter.

 

[masterwoo0]

A situation like that can be repaired before the game even begins. You call a judge over and request tha they adjust the position of the sleeves so they all face in one direction. Problem solved. No penalty needed.

At least that's how I would solve the situation if I was called over. Giving someone a Game Loss over something like that is being a nit-pick. People should use something called "common" sense on stuff like that.

You failed to see the point. Nothing is going to be said if half your Deck is going this way or that by your resolution, so the player has already established that the Judge will "only" make him change the cards that are not facing correctly if his Deck is checked. So now, I change my Cyber-Stein, Heavy Storm, Last Will, Overload Fusion, Future Fusion, Exiled Force, around in my Deck, and I should only expect the same thing to happen if my Deck is checked, right?? I mean, their just a random assortment of cards, aren't they?!?!?!

 

[blade146]

This actualy happened to me once in a tournament. We had already played one game and I went to side deck. I counted my deck then my side deck and it only had 14 cards. I didn't recieve a game loss because the other card wasn't in my deck. My main deck was legal. I wasn't allowed to use my side deck for the rest of the tournament. This was a fair ruling to me.

 

[masterwoo0]

It CAN be but that would go against one of the exact examples they give:

"¢ A player enters a Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG tournament with a seventeen-card side deck. The judge issues a game loss and the player must remove two cards.

See that is a very easy to fix thing yet still warrents a game loss. That differs from putting 14 or 16 cards down on the deck list but actually having 15 cards in the side deck. Yes there are always judgment calls and situational experiences, but again at the bigger events, the players have more expectations on them and accountability should be consistant for everyone so they know what to expect at the next event as well.

There's quite a bit of difference between creating a Deck List that has exactly 40 Main Deck and 15 Side Deck, and at some point along the way, you end up with 14 cards in your Side Deck, yet maintain a "true to copy" 40 Card Main.

Ending up with a 17 Card Side Deck should be pretty easy to investigate. Either the player had extra cards in their Deck Box, which they shouldn't have; the player ended up taking some of their opponents cards by accident (but how did they end up in the Side Deck???).

It's hard to "increase" your Side Deck from 15 to 17, yet easy to decrease it. I would have no problem issuing a Game Loss, as the player is going to have a hard time explaining how they got extra cards that also have the same color sleeves.

 

[Tkwiget]

Ok, I got another question. Not sure if this is a Game Loss or Match Loss.

Player B has had two Set Spell or Trap cards on the field with a Sangan that was Special Summoned from Mystic Tomato's effect. Player A attacks Sangan with his D.D. Warrior Lady. Player B responds with Sakuretsu Armor. Player A chains nothing. Player B chains Draining Shield.

Before the chain starts resolving, Player A calls over a judge to confirm if Player B's actions are legal. The judge comes over and figures out who's turn it is and then tells the players to rewind game play to the beginning of Player A's Battle Phase and then slowly show in the correct order which cards were played correctly.

This is where the juicy part comes in.

Player B accidently put Sangan back into his deck and shuffled the deck exactly once. Player B has now turned this simple situation into a much more complex and unrepairable one.

So would this fall under Procedural Error - Major (Penalty: Game Loss) or would it be a Procedural Error - Severe (Penalty: Match Loss) instead because Player B is unable to finish the remainder of his Match because he shuffled Sangan back into his deck?

P-14 Procedural Error"“Major (Penalty: Game Loss)



This penalty is appropriate for an unintentional infraction that a player commits that causes an irreversible disruption of the game state. The game state is beyond repair, so the penalty is more severe than the one for a minor procedural error. This is an appropriate penalty to use when a player unintentionally misplays a card incorrectly that causes a major game disruption. In one game matches, where this penalty essentially becomes a match loss, judges should make sure that the game state is truly irreparable before issuing this penalty.

P-15 Procedural Error"“Severe (Penalty: Match Loss)



This penalty is appropriate for an unintentional infraction that causes a player to be unable to finish the remainder of the match.

I'm not sure on what the ruling for this would be. A little help?

 

[densetsu_x]

Don't know why he'd do that but it would just be a Game Loss since the state of that Game is unrepairable, but just shuffling your cards back together in no way means you can't complete a Match (assuming that noone had 2 wins yet).

 

[magnumcyclonex]

How is the game state irrepairable? If no other cards have been drawn or played, then that Sangan can be retrieved from the deck, placed onto the field in the same zone it was (think CDIP) and the deck should be reshuffled. Unless a card such as Big Eye was involved earlier, the deck is considered to be random at all times.

 

[Tkwiget]

How is the game state irrepairable? If no other cards have been drawn or played, then that Sangan can be retrieved from the deck, placed onto the field in the same zone it was (think CDIP) and the deck should be reshuffled. Unless a card such as Big Eye was involved earlier, the deck is considered to be random at all times.

You failed to realise that by shuffling that Sangan back into the deck after a judge was called over to make a ruling on the current situation presented in front of him/her, that the situation that would have been ruled on is irrepairable. There is no way to determine the order in which the cards were of Player B's deck before the judge came over. Big Eye has nothing to do with it. The fact that the order of the cards changed. Which alters the outcome of that duel. Player B already searched for Sangan before the judge came over with Mystic Tomato's effect. At that point, the cards were merely being moved around on the field from the beginning of Player A's Battle Phase to the point Player B activated Sakuretsu Armor and Draining Shield in a chain together.

So I believe densetsu_x is correct. The Match can continue if Player A doesn't have a win already since there weren't any factors like a liquad being spilled on the table or someone trying to walk between the tables accidently knocks the person's cards around.

It's true the deck should be random at any given time. However, when a judge is standing there trying to understand the current situation he/she was called over suddenly changes, then the situation that the judge was going to rule on could then be irrepairable.

This stuff seems awefully tricky at times. =/

 

[John Danker]

We've had a couple of discussions about random order to random order deck when a mistake was made on the L3 list. At this point there isn't an offical stance on the topic from UDE / Konami...so it's really up to the HJ to making a ruling on it, however, it seems the concensus of the L3s that they'd give a procedural warning for such an error and let the game move on.

 

[mortals]

John is right on this one. The deck will remain randomized, warning for procedural error after "Sangan" has been retrieved from the deck and play moves on.