Columbus, Ohio | Modern
Time: Friday November 22nd – Sunday November 24th 2019
Main Event Players: 657 Winner: Brain Coval

Friday – PM Sides lead


A Nonbasic Problem
While walking by an EDH event I noticed one of the Tropical Islands on the battlefield looked odd, I picked it up and realized it was a counterfeit, I asked the owner of the card if he had the real one, he mentioned that yes he did, but at home, I sighed and told him to swap out the fakes for basic lands. He picked up his deck and then began pulling out a bunch of different counterfeits. The player decided to concede from the pod as replacing all the cards would be very time consuming. I was a little blindsided, since this isn't something I deal with often. Another judge mentioned to me that I should probably investigate and see if the player knew what he was doing was wrong and was intentionally trying to deceive. I took the player aside and asked him a few questions, he said he had real copies of the cards at home, and had these proxies to avoid having to buy more than one of his expensive cards. It was all his fetches, shocks and duals. He produced a few of the cheaper shocklands. I took a look through his binder and found a few expensive cards, but nothing on the level of a dual land. I also found a suspicious looking overgrown tomb. That looked like a card that had been acetoned and then printed on. I couldn't really identify whether it was a real Overgrown Tomb that had been printed on to look like an alter, or an entirely printed on card. The investigation was taking a while, so I decided not to spend too long on it since we already had a problem with some more obvious fakes. I consulted with CFBE and their response was to ask a few more questions, but also to drop him from the event he was currently in even if there was no DQ. I ended up not DQing the player, since his story of “I got these fakes intentionally, but meant to switch them out beforehand,” seemed plausible enough. However, I'm still really uncertain, I feel like, upon reflection, if we're dropping him from the event, we should process the DQ anyways just for tracking purposes.

Two For Me, One For You
I had a draft where a player who was in a mystery draft and had only drafted once before, with his brother in a battlebond draft earlier in the day. In the first pack the players had noticed that they were short cards, except for one player who had four extra cards, there were also 7 cards on the table that no one really knew anything about. A judge had been called over, and his solution was to have everyone donate a card from their pool to the mysterious 7 cards on the table, and then to draft the final pack around. This notably, doesn't really fix any of the problems. At the end of pack two the drafters noticed that there was once again a problem, as they were short cards. At this point I was called and discovered that one player had been taking two cards per pack because that's what he'd done in the Battlebond draft earlier. He was pretty disturbed and afraid of the other players being upset with him and offered to let them draft out his pool, I knew this wasn't going to fix the problem. He dropped from the draft and I took him aside to calm him down, as he was visibly very upset. I flagged the PM Show Manager over to fix the problem with the draft, suggesting he just throw another pack into the draft for each player, this wouldn't perfectly fix the problem, but would help the players be less irritated with the entire ordeal and would ensure they at least weren't short cards. I later found out that as it was a Turbo draft with only one round the PM Show Manager decided to randomize the pairings, otherwise a player would know that they were effectively getting a bye in the event (since one player had left) and would be highly incentivized to money draft.

Minor Violations Not Handled by Players to Their Mutual Satisfaction
At the end of a match in the third round of a sealed event, a spectator asked AP why his Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig with 6 +1/+1 counters on it was still tapped. AP mentioned that more than a few turns ago his opponent had played Queen of Ice which had tapped it down. The spectator then mentioned that Queen of Ice only taps it for one turn. NAP kind of shrugged and didn't say too much, but it seemed like it was very possible that he knew how Queen of Ice worked, noticed the error and didn't say anything. At the time I wasn't really sure what to do, as the game was over, and I wasn't really sure what kinds of questions I should be asking. Upon reflection I wish I'd taken NAP aside and at least tried to investigate.

Protection From Optimal Damage Assignment
Each player is at 4 life, and they're on turn 3 of the final round of a modern side event. AP attacks with Gurmag Angler, NAP blocks with Eternal Witness, before damage AP casts Temur Battle Rage, NAP responds by activating Giver of Runes to grant Eternal Witness protection from black. I didn't really hear what kind of communication was exchanged but it seemed like the players settled on a draw and scooped up their cards. They shook hands and then a spectator started explaining to AP how trample and protection work, and how the attack was actually lethal. Both players look surprised as they thought that it worked differently. There is a small pause and NAP shrugs and says “I guess you got it then”. And gives the win to AP. At first I thought this was perhaps cheating as NAP could potentially understand how the interaction works, similar to the Queen of Ice scenario above. But after discussing it with a colleague I realized (rather embarrassingly) that AP's damage assignment is still legal. However after thinking about it further I realized that it could still be cheating, depending on what was said. If NAP says “take 0?” this is fine, but if he says something like “You can only deal 0 to me here,” that's no good.

Regular REL is not “No Rules REL”
In mystery draft, a player was recurring Gunk Slug and filling NAP's deck with gunk tokens. NAP ran out of sleeves and called a judge, the FJ ruled that NAP was to just play with unsleeved tokens shuffled into their deck. This is... awful for many reasons. “oh I'm drawing a gunk next turn? Better play differently” or “oh there's a gunk on top, better crack my fetchland”. A much better solution is to start unsleeving graveyard or battlefield cards to fulfill the requirement. This falls apart if a wheel effect happens, but otherwise it's a totally fine solution.

Saturday – PM sides lead


Terrain Generator
While I was pm sides lead on Saturday I spent most of the day focusing on ODEs, as the area was quite busy. While taking over for the ODE lead I noticed that we were basically at capacity for events. I asked AM sides lead about space and she let me know that the sealed event would be done in about an hour and we could have two rows from it. At the time of asking I realized I had one block left in which to place a draft, I figured we could last an hour if we put one or two drafts in the turbo town area, and simply put in the location in kefka as “turbo town”. Players are searchable so I didn't think it would be a big deal. However A M sides lead let me know she'd rather I numbered the turbo town area instead.

In Mystery Draft Every Question is a Corner Case
A player late at night was very excited about casting The Grand Tour on his opponent's Animate Dead that was enchanting The Gitrog Monster, as doing this causes the opponent to be unable to target The Gitrog Monster again with Animate Dead.

Rewind Through a Game Loss
In a multiplayer match, what should happen if I go to combat, kill an opponent and then cast Do Over? The Karn Liberated rulings state that if a player has left a multiplayer game, restrating the game won't bring them back in However, I ruled that with Do Over we aren't restarting, we are undoing. And we are undoing both the damage and the SBA that caused the player to lose the game, so if the player hasn't wandered off too much, and if it's logistically feasible, I'm willing to have them “unlose”.

Reading the Card is a Powerful Resource
AP controlled Underdark Beholder had revealed three cards, the final card being Dangerous Wager. The players wanted to know what happened to the revealed cards. At the time I let them know that they would cast and resolve Dangerous Wager, drawing the two revealed cards (as being revealed doesn't change the zone they are in the library) and then shuffling any remaining cards back in (which there were none). This is pretty incorrect, as Underdark Beholder, like most abilities that cast a spell upon resolution, instructs the player to cast the revealed card, not to resolve it. The correct ruling is to complete casting Dangerous Wager, then shuffle the revealed cards back into the library, then after the ability has finished resolving to being resolving dangerous wager. I was lucky in this instance since another judge saw me rule incorrectly and corrected me before the game became too corrupted.

Misdirecting Call
AP was trying to use Misdirection to change the targets of Mutiny, I let him know that he could change a single target on the spell but that there were no legal choices for him to make as he only controlled two creatures and therefore we would rewind the spell. However later as I continued to think about it I became concerned that the ruling was incorrect and discussed it with another judge and determined that Misdirection can only target a spell with a single target (the last line being a targeting restriction). I went back to the players and explained more correctly how misdirection worked.

When Reading the Card Fails
I got called over to a table and was asked if blighting could now target planeswalkers. I double checked the oracle text and confirmed that it could. Then they asked who would discard if the spell targeted a planeswalker. I read the oracle text and let them know that if it hit a planeswalker no one would discard. It felt weird though, so as I was walking away I asked another judge to confirm that it worked this way. The other judge was like “lolno, read the oracle text” I was confused, read the oracle text again and realized that I had somehow read it incorrectly the first time. I went back over to the players and corrected my mistake, unfortunately some time had passed and the match had concluded. I apologized. Luckily the players didn't seem too upset but it was a pretty aggressive mistake to have made.

Oops, All Punts
I screwed up a lot of calls this weekend. I think while it's optimal to not make mistakes, it's really important to know how to handle it if you do. I think the single most important thing to do once you realize you've made a mistake is to return to the players and ensure that they understand the correct ruling and make it right to them if you can. Unfortunately I think this is also one of the hardest things to do as a judge, and as a person, especially if your ruling has ruined the game for the players. But even if you did wreck their game, coming back to talk to the players to make it right shows them that you are willing to followup if something has gone wrong and have a commitment to your job. The players might be more upset with you at the time, but think of how dissapointed they will be if they find out you were wrong in 3 weeks from Reddit.

Sunday -ODEs


When You Wish it Was Just Bribery
I noticed a pile of money on a table in ODEs, surrounded by a gaggle of players. I was immediately concerned and decided to investigate.
Player: I just pulled money out of my bag and it's wet
He feels the money.
Player: I don't think its water
He smells the money.
Player: I think it might be olive oil,
Me: Why would it be olive oil?
Player: I had a fancy bottle of olive in oil in my bag last week.
At which point I was like, this is probably not bribery, and probably not my problem.
Me: I'ma let you sort yourself out.
A few hours later the player found me again.
Player: Judge, judge! It was a banana! I got banana on my money!


This Ruling is a Red Herring
AP had a Red Herring in his hand and controlled NAP's Akroan Horse. He wanted to activate Red Herring to put his opponent's Akroan Horse into his hand. I ruled that since a part of the exchange couldn't happen (putting an opponent's card into your hand) the entire exchange wouldn't happen.

...In Conclusion
Overall I think I enjoyed Columbus. The event was challenging for many reasons, Friday really taxed my investigation and logistics skills, and Saturday bombarded me with rules questions. I don't feel like I performed particularly well on either front. But I feel like with each new experience, I learn a little bit more and can hopefully serve the players better at my next event.