Vancouver, BC | Modern
Time: Sunday October 30th, 2022
Main Event Players: 89 | Winner: David Bishop
Role: Floor Team Lead


Sometimes, It’s CPV
AP Channeled a Boseiju, Who Endures on NAP’s Leyline Binding which was exiling AP’s Karn, the Great Creator. After the binding was destroyed they used Karn’s ability to take a Sundering Titan out of their sideboard and cast it. In response to Sundering Titan’s enter the battlefield trigger, NAP decided to channel their own Boseiju, targeting the Sundering Titan, at which point AP then realized that NAP hadn't searched for a land from the previous Boseiju. I spoke to the players and AP made the point that if NAP grabbed a land it would just be destroyed by Sundering Titan anyways. I told the players that AP would be getting a CPV and that we could either rewind or not, and if NAP wasn’t going to fetch a land anyways, then the rewind would be a waste of time. NAP shrugged and said they weren’t thrilled about grabbing a land and putting it in the GY so I didn’t bother rewinding. I did issue the CPV though.

Suspicious Chalice
AP cast Chalice of the Void for X=2 but only paid two mana. It looked like they were overwhelmingly winning, with a Teferi, Hero of Dominaria ticking up, as well as a few other board stalling permanents, facing down an opponent’s empty board. I wasn’t too worried about cheating here, I got them to tap the correct mana, as it had just happened, and issued the GRV.

A Fetching Ruling
AP used Scalding Tarn to fetch for a plains and then used it to cast Leyline Binding along with an island, and a Steam Vents on his opponent's Teferi, Time Raveler. AP was on control and Teferi is very good against him, so I wanted to investigate a little bit. The other side of the board had three or four attackers. During the investigation I found out that AP was still at a pretty high life total and a shock from a fetchable Hallowed Fountain wasn’t a big deal and that while removing the Teferi was important, he did have a wrath coming in the next turn and this Leyline Binding wasn’t a particularly relevant play. This didn’t seem like cheating, I ruled GRV and rewound the spell and had them make a legal choice for their fetchland.

Judge Authorized Tokens
During the event I noticed that another judge was signing a player’s tokens, which were just basic mountains marked up with sharpie. I asked them why they were doing this and they mentioned that the player’s deck produced many different types of tokens and they wanted to make some to help with board clarity, but didn’t want a game loss during a deck check. I thought this was interesting, but didn’t think it was the best approach, since in the event that the player did want to sideboard in a mountain that said “treasure” on it, it was unlikely that the opponent would think it was suspicious enough, so the player would likely get away with the cheat. I didn’t think authorizing the tokens really mitigated potential advantage. I suggested that next time the judge recommend that the player simply present their sideboard, which would allow them to keep basics and whatever else in their deckbox. Honestly though, the entire situation is a pretty unlikely and low value cheat either way.

Policy Problems
AP mulligans but forgets to put a card on the bottom, AP starts the game and plays a land and then notices the error. Policy says that this is squarely an HCE, but this feels incredibly punitive as there is literally no advantage to be gained here. I was talking to some other judges who mentioned that game rule violation has a line that says “if a player failed to return cards from their hand to another zone, that player does so” which would fit nicely here as a partial fix. I feel like this is a stiuation where policy somewhat contradicts itself, MPE definitely says that this is an HCE but GRV says that it’s a GRV. Personally I feel like, particularly in the situation where AP hasn’t gained any information, I’d probably rule the GRV and have them simply put a card on the bottom. I think in the situation where AP is playing second and gets to see NAP’s turn one play and it’s game one, there’s more of an argument for the HCE fix, however taking a land out of AP’s hand might be incredibly damaging especially before they’ve played one.

You Can Always Count On Eventlink to Ruin Something
During the event I noticed that another judge was frantically collecting decklists for some side event. I wasn’t doing much so I meandered over and asked if they needed help. They shrugged and said "not really, it's only a 30 player event" I said I wasn't doing anything on the main event anyways. They decided to take the help and asked me to hang onto decklists and help with round one deck checks. I agreed. Then there were some problems with EventLink and they asked me to start the round, I did that and then swooped for a deck check. As we were checking, the event had a few calls and the other judge attended them. I realized that before sitting down for this check we should’ve flagged the other bored judges on main and asked them to keep a light eye on the event for calls while the check was happening. All in all, the check didn’t drag too much, and ended up being a marked cards upgrade for semi-transparent sleeves and double faced cards, and in total ended up with a 15 minute time extension as we helped the player re-sleeve.

...In Conclusion
It was a slower event, which was a little disheartening, since the last F2F Vancouver had us turning away people because we were full. That being said, I had some great policy discussions and got to do a lot of mentoring with the other judges on the event.