The Most Controversial Rule In Magic: the Gathering | Or: How to be a Better Person.
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- Опубліковано 5 чер 2024
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I think I understand baseball better now. Thanks for the rule explanation jorbs.
love to know that there's a control room of three people in Nevada that decides when a balk occurs! that's my favourite part of all this.
If only baseball existed. Sounds like a very enjoyable game
Baseball rule 7 - You can't just be up there doing a balk like that.
It would take an act of -Magic- for Babe Ruth to hit a home run.
"IS THERE SOMEWHERE I CAN BREAK SOMETHING" - Dumbledore asked calmly.
"Harry, did you put a land card into the Goblet of Fire?"
Are you ok?
Great vid, I linked it to Stan
It’s just one of those days
The reddit thread (now locked) I saw on this had a more balanced take than Twitter overall. One comment that resonated for me was when they were 14 years old and playing in events, it made them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome when adults had angry outbursts. I thought that was a good point.
I don't know if we read the same reddit thread, because the one I read made me feel like I was taking crazy pills😅 the good takes were few and far between
@@ffjes yeah, I think there were a few that popped up and then got locked
Even as a semi-adult first learning M:TG (college), arguments over rules always made me uncomfortable, especially when I was consistently breaking rules that I didn't yet understand.
It seemed common to either angrily call them out (uncomfortable), not say anything if it didn't benefit my opponent (a "must" condition that helped me in some way that I did incorrectly or forgot about), or just let it slide if it didn't effect the outcome (I didn't learn the correct mechanism). It's a big part of why I enjoyed M:TG Arena more than paper magic and still feel more comfortable playing that way. Too many bad experiences with paper magic as a conflict-averse person.
when i was 14 on those events and trashy adults had an emotional outbreak i felt very welcome and i laughed at them for losing to me, but i would never come to the idea that i have to be protected by the organizers from certain feelings
Man i am an adult it meeks me uncomfortable and unwelcome to se other adults use thier shit. I feel replacment shame for their lack of self control.
Across many competitive games I enjoy I have noticed that strong players often demonstrate a remarkable level of emotional control. In MTG I watch pros get draws that would leave me fuming and their response is just a simple "Oh well / bad beats / go next." Of course exceptions exist but I'm personally convinced that the higher levels of these games strongly select for emotional discipline.
If Brad is serious about a professional commitment to the game being his "dream," the community should encourage him to view this as a growth opportunity and a nudge towards a more professional attitude, rather than doubling down on an ill-conceived desire for outbursts to be accommodated.
Oh, yeah. This is, in fact, precisely how I think a player aiming at pro status should be filtered
Tilting is the worst possible thing that can happen to a player in a tournament. Salt produces bad play and clouds judgement/retrospection, which often produces more salt.
Tournaments are taxing. Part of getting good at games is getting good at holding one's self together through tournaments, especially in either not tilting or noticing + recovering from it near-instantly.
(edit - typo)
High level MtG players are part of teams that share prize money. They don't care if they lose because they likely have a teammate that is taking home money anyway.
You mistakenly assume that people care about encouraging somebody to be better. They don't, they want someone to villify and shit on without facing social repercussions for it because the person they're trashing "deserves it"
I think one factor for that is that they have played thousands of games and have been on both ends of all the bad beats. Just like getting mana screwed/flooded it is an integral part of the game and you have already written off x number of losses due to rng before you sit down for a match :)
One of the main reasons the "Improperly Determining a Winner" rule is in place, to my understanding at least, is to prevent people from bribing their way through tournaments, or otherwise cutting deals with their opponents by offering things outside the game.
This actually leads to really stilted and bizzare conversations, given the intersection of this rule with one that allows a player to concede the game at any time and for any reason.
Saying, "I'll give you the win if you give me that card in your trade binder" is not allowed, but people often hint at the exchange without being explocit, like, "I like that card in your binder; I'm considering conceding the game so we have more time to trade."
Judge here:
The only reason that rule exists is to prevent issues of players gambling at a tournament, since if there is an official event where players are seen to be gambling, then you need a license. Since Wizards tournaments don't operate with a gambling license, this is a big no-no.
The JAR (Judging at Regular) document on the mothership actually covers the philosophy on these rules
What you are talking about is actually covered in the very next rule 'IPG 4.4 Unsporting Conduct - Bribery and Wagering' which is in place to prevent what you are talking about, and is purely to maintain the integrity of the tournament. Different rule, different philosophy.
For the record, if I overheard a player say that line you used as an example, I would DQ that player. Not only is it against the rules, it also shows that they were aware that were they were doing was against the rules by making an attempt to circumvent the ruling by making it appear innocent.
Then there is the option to say something like "i would like more time to trade" the opponent concedes and then you gather your things and go to your next match lol
If your opponent asks, "I'd like to improperly determine the winner of this match, can you call over a judge and give me a match loss?" can you call them on it without getting a match loss yourself? :3
grognard's paradox
Knowingly invoking the name of the rule upgrades it to Cheating
lifehack
the most terrifying situation
You can call a judge without getting a match loss, because a party losing for IDW constitutes a proper DW.
The winner is properly determined in accordance with IDW rules.
This whole thing is weird to me because as a Magic player there are basically 2 tournament rules not in the rulebook that have been drilled into me by the community
1 shower
2 judges are to be respected
You have a good community around you.
This.
i treat judges like aliens from planet vulcan
@@henkdachief Just like police, right? :P
With that comparison in mind, I do think the type of attitude "Brad" displays in his writing is pretty pervasive and damaging throughout society. Whether it's lack of self-awareness or otherwise learned double standardizing (not necessarily malicious or intentional), throwing a tantrum when things aren't going your way is not "just okay because it's human". Sure, it happens, we have feelings and they can guide our actions but it's still a regretful occasion; that's how we learn.
As a bartender, his story reads to me like when a guest is arguing about being asked to leave. It's the type of behaviour that puts whatever we want ahead of other people, when being drunk makes us forget what we learned about being respectful, professional and neighbourly. Isn't that part of growing up? Saying you don't regret this is saying you don't want to learn from this, it's saying you want or expect this to happen again, that acting this way is okay. Yes, feel your feelings but also understand them and think about how to deal with them less destructively. This type of learned behaviour is what leads to nurses and police being assaulted at work, it's often how domestic violence occurs in seemingly peaceful relationships.
Probably not the right spot for this rant to come out but I started having some strong feelings and this is a pretty harmless platform to vent them. It's funny how putting ones feelings into words and the thought that someone might read this is enough to alleviate the will to break something and shout into the abyss in public huh.
@@Hunted0LessShirt yeah also you dont really have to shower because there are 0 girls around
I've been in nearly the exact situation at 35:00 . It was a prerelease draft and my opponent mulliganed to 5 then said "Can I check the top card of my library? If it's not a land I'll just concede." I said no. He kept the 5 card hand and lost. It turns out he only put like 12-13 lands in his 40 card draft deck. I wasn't aware of the IDW rules at the time but I wouldn't have called a judge even if I knew about it.
EDIT: I know the guy had a 12-13 land deck because after the game we chatted, it turned out he was fairly new to Magic and had only been to one draft before. I gave him some friendly advice about his deck's construction; he added a few lands, swapped out a few cards, and won his next two matches. He's a super nice guy.
I really liked the ending fo your story:)
There's definitely a lot more forgiveness intended at lower "rules enforcement levels" than "Competitive REL," and a prerelease tournament at your local LGS is not likely to be handing out game or match losses to brand new players without having determined the intent to cheat was there. In fact, calling a judge in this situation to try to get a Judge Match Win against poor Timmy who just started playing the game would have been pretty obviously unethical, I think.
You shoild have Saïd yes, prerelease IS the most casualrules enforcement level. Judge would have just explained you why it was not okay, but never give you a match loss for that.
@@tinu7551what do you mean they "should have said yes"? it's against the rules and you know that. just because they would have gotten away with it doesn't mean they should have done it. it just would have made that new player think that it's an okay thing to do.
@@tinu7551 Just because the rules enforcement are lower, that doesn't mean the rules matter any less in that environment. Be polite and friendly, but do your best to follow the rules you've agreed to by entering that event. I think that @ObsidianKnight90 did the right thing by saying "no" then giving the guy pointers afterwards to help him improve his deck and understand how to deck build a little better.
Finished the video now. Another manipulative thing that stuck out to me when reading this document that you didn't mention-- there are a LOT of moments where Brad can't remember (or doesn't explain) what people said to him if it's not convenient to the narrative, but he's also very mad that people aren't listening to him (by which he actually means, "doing what I want you to do and not penalizing me for breaking the rules"). This leads to this amazing moment when a second judge comes over to Brad and explains the situation with "Some soup of words including IDW and “I understand” as I plead for my tournment life. We try to appeal again. Isn’t there anyone? Please. Someone must actually hear us." Brad's complaining that the judges aren't listening to him while simultaneously admitting he's not listening to them, or at least pretending that he can't remember so he doesn't have to relay the actual explanation to his audience.
Yeah, there is a lot of this.. Brad wants to be listened to, shown empathy and respect, but he isn't prepared to do any of these to others. Also, in this story there always seems to be a crowd of nameless people cheering on Brad and telling him he is right wherever he goes, according to him that is.. except for the moments where he is dramatically alone, of course
The video pointed out so many things I didn't see. But I did see what you did, the Missing Missing Reasons. It's a good article about parents who "don't know why" their kids went no contact with them. The parents will talk about how their children made them feel. But never ever the actual words used. Somehow they "don't remember." Just like this guy here. But ask the children and they can list out events and conversations in great detail.
"I slam my fist on the table directly in front of myself, intensely shout something to the effect of 'this is absurd'..."
I'd bet that 'absurd' is not the word he intensely shouted while slamming the table. And I'd bet that he's minimizing what he actually shouted as he got physically violent around tournament staff and attendees.
This was one of the biggest things that stuck out to me. “You aren’t listening to me” was actually secret code that meant “you aren’t willing to bend the rules for me even though I really want you to.” Willing to bet a lot of money that one of the first (and often repeated) things in the judges’ “word soup” was the definition of an IDW and why they couldn’t bend (break) the rule
Is it bad that my first thought was "play island first to play around Wasteland"?
Nah, just means you're Legacy/Vintage-brained. In most formats there's minimal downside to leading on a nonbasic, but in Wasteland formats it's crucial to be able to weigh the cost of damage against the risk of being set back a turn.
legacy player detected
@@sheepy403 who's playing steam vents in legacy?
@@RickyRister Death's Shadow lists play the shocks.
Also people who (very reasonably) can't afford the duals.
@@RickyRister the “good” dual lands from legacy are like 500 dollars each my dude. I have whole commander decks that barely match that price tag
Something that sticks out to me about Brad's story is that he doesn't go into ANY detail about what an IDW is, simply that he and Jessica accidentally broke some kind of rule called an IDW.
On one hand, I assume that the audience of this post is supposed to be other people that play MTG on a tournament setting, so knowledge of the rules could be implied. That being said, he and Jessica are somehow exempt from this assumption, and both of them are entirely blindsided by this rule that the author is now assuming to be common information.
Not only that, but he could have used this post as a way to inform others to not make the same mistake that he made, as it was a truly honest mistake from both parties. Rather than doing that, though, the author just uses this wall of text to complain about his own "unavoidable" misfortune, and decries the judges that acted reasonably throughout the incident.
Edit: Also, he literally says that the second judge says "some soup of words including 'IDW' and 'I understand' ". So even as he's writing this, he still has no idea how the rule works???
I'm just imagining the judges /only/ referring to it as an IDW without ever saying what the rule was, but we both know that the guy would have complained about that as well.
Brad and his opponent L Simpson. Wait, that's too identifying.... Lisa S.
I was laughing pretty hard at the name changes 😂
That said it's pretty much impossible to talk about an incident like this without making it easily google-able; at least attempting a name change is something.
@@Drapabee I mean it's not like Tipple Famousperson did anything super emotionally manipulative and embarrassing on the interwebs across several pages of writing
I agree with the vast majority of what was said here with one BIG caveat: appealing to other judges should ALWAYS be accommodated if it is possible. This option allows players to verify that it is not the lone judge interpreting the rules, but the rules being enforced in general. Even the head judge can get things wrong, and it helps everyone involved to get more eyes on a situation. This is particularly true for competitive REL. (Disclaimer: I am not a judge, but I have passed all the tests, I just haven't had the experience running events to get a judge to sign off on my judgeship)
At 37:50 you start discussing that you don't have to call for a judge, and I agree that that should be mentioned. One thing you did not mention that I think is important, is an argument for why you SHOULD call a judge, regardless: it creates a paper trail. It can establish patterns of behavior or rules infractions that allow judges to catch people deliberately angle shooting or cheating.
If you call a judge and your opponent made an innocent mistake they take the associated penalty and hopefully learn from the encounter, and are a better tournament player for it. It can suck in the moment, particularly when you run afoul a TOURNAMENT rule, rather than a GAME rule. But also, this is a Competitive REL event, and it's each player's responsibility to understand the rules of the event they're playing in.
If you call a judge and your opponent was deliberately trying to cheat, it establishes a history that can be referenced for future judge calls.
If you don't call a judge and your opponent made an innocent mistake then the tournament carries on and your opponent may make that mistake again in the future because they never learned.
If you don't call a judge and your opponent was deliberately trying to cheat, then they're free to continue their tactics against future opponents.
I think we can all agree it is important, and one of judges' jobs, to catch cheaters and remove them from competition. Having an established track record of behavior is an important tool for executing that responsibility.
There was a moment way back in a semifinal with Kibler and Finkel where a wolf token stayed on the board that should have been removed. There was a 20 minute-ish stoppage in play. I don't think anyone there was trying to cheat or play the rules wrong but its important in competetive games (not just magic but all competetive games) to try and get the rules as right as you can and do whatever you can to ensure the results of the competetive environment can't be put into question.
Hard disagree. If you don't think they were trying to cheat, calling a judge can only be bad. Telling them that they cant do that does the same thing and doesn't kick someone while they're down. IF you don't think they were trying to cheat(or angle, w/e)
@@dudaseifert Even if you don't think they were trying to cheat, calling a judge is still just strictly better. I wouldn't trust my opponent (nor should I ask they trust me) to remember the rules as perfectly as possible, and we both have a vested interest in any interpretation of the rules that's within our favor (regardless of whether or not we wish to exercise it). The judges exist for exactly the purpose of arbitrating these situations, and should be relied upon as such.
@@ArceusShaymin "stritcly better" in the winning the game sense, not in the human sense, which is the whole point of the text. yes, if you want to win at any cost, you'd gain from 0 to 1% calling the judge in that board position, but winning isn't everything everytime
@@dudaseifert Not even what I was talking about, though? It's literally even explained in the video. Not everyone is even going to KNOW what an IDW even is, let alone how to look out for one. It's just better to get into the mindset of "Oh, I don't know what to do in this situation; let me call a judge!" instead of trying to take all the workload onto yourself as a player.
Judge calls aren't only for angle-shooters and strange rule corner-cases. You call them when there's any question that you can't yourself answer, period.
I dunno where everyone seems to have gotten this idea that calling a judge is, like, an attack on someone's person? Or, like, an unempathetic act that's cruel and inhumane? They're there to HELP you arbitrate confusing situations. They're probably the least biased entities in the building.
I wonder how many people who released comments/tweets/replies supporting the player were influenced by initial comments doing so, and also how many of them have been in tournaments at the level of this player. Like just with the context of youre essentially in a satellite tournament for a spot to compete for $130k should make people realize that rules are written in stone for a reason and it's on players to know the rules. Intent being the determining factor for whether or not a total DQ takes place and having no effect on the loss just makes this an incredibly clear-cut decision.
Competition for over a hundred thousand dollars is never and will never be about fun, people who actually compete at these stakes (and honestly, even way lower stakes) know this.
Probably a lot of them... Reddit had much more varied and balanced takes. Could be because on reddit it was posted by not the person in question, which encourages people to process it more neutrally
Anti-WotC sentiment is a big part of it I suspect. There's an intent to get the big meanie company, which, however understandable, ignores that judges are not scions of WotC.
There is no such thing as a reasonable take on this topic which does not insist upon permanent lifetime bans for this infraction occurring.
I feel like a piece of this story is missing. When this all happened a lot of people went to Reddit before the players in the game wrote anything online and told a similar story to the this, these posts were met with compassion but most people said “but the rules are the rules”. Then someone claiming to be the head judge of the event got the posts taken down by saying “actually this all happened on turn 5 of turns” which makes all of these stories look even worse because this is a card no one would have ever seen. But ~48 hours later everything came out for real and the person who claimed to be the head judge obviously lied. I think that is the biggest reason so many people were upset about this and backed up the player. Since it all went down I haven’t seen anyone verify that person was actually the head judge or not.
Brad: "...as I shouted into the abyss"
Jorbs: this is a lot
LMAO
The way he tells the story, I’m surprised “I shouted into the abyss” didn’t get him a further penalty because “the abyss” isn’t legal in the format he is playing.
Friendly reminder to NOT go after "Brad" in any way.
The internet doesn't need more lynch-mobs and that is not behavior to condone
In addition: that falls into the same trap that this whole video is about. Reacting emotionally and constructing an echo-chamber of people who all want to validate someone by kicking other people down. Very important to keep the above in mind :)
Yeah, totally, don't go after the person i alluded that should be ridiculed and gave all the possible identifying info (while faking trying to hide it), please, don't anyone consider that, i truly don't want anyone to go after this person
Contains sarcasm
Don´t have much to say to that. Perhaps Jorbs thought the effort of obscuring the names was wasted when all you need to do is google MTG drama to find the source.
Perhaps he has faith in the community he built.
Who am I to say. I'm just a voice in the void of the internet.
I don´t think it's correct to say he faked it though. That seems a bit unnecessarily accusatory,
@@mee4062 perhaps. altho i don't think the point even matters. i felt this video was made in very poor taste
@@dudaseifertGood thing noone cares what you think.
There is actually an established “correct” way to name players in stories about Magic. When you are taking a test to become a judge, most questions will describe a game state. Of the two players one will have a masculine name, and the other a feminine name. The active players name will start with A and the non-active players name will start with N. So Nate vs Amy or Alex vs Nicole.
Huh TIL
Thiugh now I'm wondering why not have the 2nd/non-active one start eith B (and in turn order C, D,... for multiplayer stuff) would fit with the cryptography/phsilosophy/math convention of having Alice and Bob
@@TheLuckySpades I think it’s just that “active” starts with A and “non-active” starts with N
@TheLuckySpades , the other commentor is correct, that the A and N names symbolize Active Player and Non-Active Player. Most of the magic we oversee as judges is played 1-on-1, so communicating the order of the NAPs isn't really that important.
That said, there are practice questions about commander games and other multi-player formats. When it does matter, the players will be listed in turn order: "Amy is playing a game of Commander with Nick, Natalie, and Nathan. Amy has 2 life and a Steam Vents in hand" etc etc
(Also, a well-written question would only name the players relevant to the scenario. In the above example, Nick, Natalie, and Nathan would all have some impact on the situation. If the question were focused on a single interaction between two players, it might be written as "Amy is playing in a four-player game of commander with Nick")
Really great and interesting comment. Natalie famousperson is my fave magic player. 😂
Courtesy of Jon Bois:
BALK RULES! IMPORTANT!
1. You can’t just be up there and just doin’ a balk like that.
1a. A balk is when you
1b. Okay well listen. A balk is when you balk the
1c. Let me start over
1c-a. The pitcher is not allowed to do a motion to the, uh, batter, that prohibits the batter from doing, you know, just trying to hit the ball. You can’t do that.
1c-b. Once the pitcher is in the stretch, he can’t be over here and say to the runner, like, “I’m gonna get ya! I’m gonna tag you out! You better watch your butt!” and then just be like he didn’t even do that.
1c-b(1). Like, if you’re about to pitch and then don’t pitch, you have to still pitch. You cannot not pitch. Does that make any sense?
1c-b(2). You gotta be, throwing motion of the ball, and then, until you just throw it.
1c-b(2)-a. Okay, well, you can have the ball up here, like this, but then there’s the balk you gotta think about.
1c-b(2)-b. Fairuza Balk hasn’t been in any movies in forever. I hope she wasn’t typecast as that racist lady in American History X.
1c-b(2)-b(i). Oh wait, she was in The Waterboy too! That would be even worse.
1c-b(2)-b(ii). “get in mah bellah” - Adam Water, “The Waterboy.” Haha, classic…
1c-b(3). Okay seriously though. A balk is when the pitcher makes a movement that, as determined by, when you do a move involving the baseball and field of
2. Do not do a balk please.
I love Jon bois
Among all the other things that are wrong with this guys actions, here is an underrated angle I think people are underestimating.
What if his opponent had looked at the top card of the library and it WAS a land. Is it cool to keep playing then? Like what if she, without asking about conceding had said "hey before you cast anything can I just look at the top card of my library? I want to know if I'm going to draw a land. I'll tell you if its a land." Like would THAT not be a really weird thing to ask someone in the middle of their 3rd turn. My gut says he'd have either said no, or even have actively called a judge in that scenario. It's all of a sudden ok if there is some hope that you'll be able to get out of the rest of the game without needing to play it out?
And thats literally why its IDW. Took a 95% chance to win to 100% improperly!
The fact so many people can't see it is wild. Glad you brought it up.
So much of the emotional manipulation here comes from framing her as a pitiable figure, wherein not letting her concede via IDW in the way she did would be a horrifically cruel act, akin to beating her. I feel like jorbs brought it up but didn't expand on it for very long, but the fact that this was totally in his favor played a huge part in him accepting the IDW. If what's important is winning, the playing the game isn't nearly as important even where there is a good bit of play left. Bard doesn't really talk about Magic itself as an enjoyable thing for him. He talks about the pain, struggle, and long hours he spent slaving over this meta breaking deck to chase dreams of victory, but he doesn't really talk about how it's fun. At most he says his conversations with Jessica Famousperson are friendly
This is the only real point that needs to be made, the rest is just drama.
I feel like this is just a really weird way to look at it. I've had plenty of games where I'm just sitting there like "okay I literally can't win if I don't draw card type x here", and the questions is as a gesture towards your opponent and as a kindness to yourself, to not make them or you waste your time playing the rest of a non-game
Yes it doesn't save a ton of time, but if you're sitting there watching someone scry 1 and mull over whether or not they're going to keep it when the only thing that matters is if there's a card that makes the game even continuable on top of your deck it feels pretty bad. It feels like people are trying to inject malice into this situation, where it doesn't feel like there actually is any. Like, yeah, she shouldn't ask, but I can empathize with the feeling of wanting to.
@@peterkirk8510I think that whole scenario is covered by the setting. This is a competitive tournament. I fully understand saving a single players turn of hemming and hawing for a probably loss game in a casual setting. In the tournament setting, just wait the turn. Even if the time ends up wasted, there's nothing gained - it's a timed event anyway.
JUST ONE PROBLEM BRAD
APPEAL TO WHO, BRAD?
I'm dying, this video is brilliant.
FUCKING AQUAMAN?
@@nedo4749omg thank you. It was bugging me the whole time. I could pitcture the tone hbomberguy had but not the whole quote.
so funny to see the hbomb quote
Jorbs, I don't ever comment and just lurk/watch your videos. Your brain works in a magnificent way that gives me so much insight on a completely different perspective that is so thoughtful. You touch on so many different ideas that resonate with me and are just so damn interesting. Thank you. Sorry to gush but this was wonderful.
Pointing out the game state being Forest, Mountain, Mountain(T), Questing Druid, Monastery Swiftspear versus Otawara is utterly hilarious tbh. He had me believing he was going into a 5 minute turn, about to storm/combo off, when he was literally casting a Play with Fire (2 damage instant + scry 1), leaving just a Forest untapped, allowing for 0 additional spells unless (looking at his friend's event-winning list, which I assume is identical, and assuming you don't board in Pick Your Poison against 4c Legends) he had EXACTLY Snakeskin Veil, before attacking with a 2/3 (or 4/5 with Veil) Swiftspear and a 3/3 Druid (buffed by Swiftspear and by Play with Fire but not by Veil [or by Pick Your Poison]).
Best case, with Snakeskin Veil in hand, he would have cast two more spells and dealt a total of 9 damage before passing the turn - without Veil, he would have cast one more spell and dealt a total of 7 damage before passing the turn.
Hardly inhumane to make your opponent wait until their draw step in either case.
2 HOUR POWERPOINT FROM JORBS LETS GOOOOOO
mage ferago comment let's go
1:07:47 I feel so validated by that part, I had people angry at me for saying that the whole document, even IF made in good faith, was emotionally manipulative.
You don't write like that if you're not trying to rile up people.
I think there's quite a bit of nuance around why one might intend people to be riled up, though. The good faith version of emotionally-manipulative writing is the desire to powerfully express one's emotional experience, as honestly and clearly as possible. If you want people to really feel 'what it was like' for you, then obviously that's a form of emotional manipulation, but the agenda behind it won't always be clear. In this case it is pretty clearly an appeal for general sympathy (and some other less good-faith-reading things,) but the desire to express one's emotional experiences to others is I think a pretty general impulse.
@@icecreamemperor fair, but in this case I feel they pushed it way too far for me to not consider there's a good chance they did it on purpose.
Like, the whole writing style feels like it belongs to those bad romance novels aimed at middle-aged housewives 😂
@@icecreamemperorexactly… Right? I just took it as effective writing from someone who deeply cared about telling their story
Once again, everyone is making negative assumptions about someone they literally don’t know. Kind of like the guards who pretended to ask him if he was okay, only to turn around and use his words against him… 🤔
I'm only an hour 13 into the video atm, but I found the point about a social agreement to try to win a game carrying over to broader social interactions and thus violating social norms and being manipulative quite interesting. I'm autistic and often struggle with social norms, have a high competitive drive, play a lot of strategy and optimization games, and yet I don't think that that leaks to general life in the same way. I find my attitude of "I want to win this" tends to get pushed into wanting to improve the world in some way, or making myself a nice fish dinner, or spending time with my friends in a way we all enjoy. Granted, that's something I've had to train myself at, because I know in middle school I would've reacted very differently (and often did) to perceived wrongs (which happened a lot because kids are cruel). It wasn't easy or anything, and definitely involved some unlearning of seeing myself as superior for being a smart kid (maybe we shouldn't constantly tell kids how smart they are and put pressure on them for it, but I digress), but the real thing that made it possible was just realizing that I wanted to make the world a better place for everyone, not just myself, and that my current "optimization strategy" wasn't doing that. Hopefully this video serves as a nudge in the right direction for someone in a similar situation. Great first half of the video jorbs and I look forward to watching the second half :)
this is a good comment, thank you for sharing!
I feel exactly what you're saying.
I love you taking the time to make a detailed video about your stance, and after reading people’s responses to your tweets on this, it’s clear to see why you did. I thought I was taking crazy pills seeing the mental gymnastics people were doing.
If I was in this tournament and witnessed this, I would have expected a match loss for both players. “Brad’s” argument is that this ruling is unfair to him, but he fails to see that bending the rules for him is unfair to everyone else in the tournament who stays within bounds (or even those who don’t but may not get the same leniency).
So many people were so quick to say it did not change the result of the game, but don’t care that it *could have* changed the result of the game, and that is what is really important. You don’t get to break the rules and determine based on the result whether that was okay when there are real stakes (prize money) on the line for everyone playing.
It's really weird he never addresses the fact that the chance her topdeck was a land was about 40% at that point. What was their plan if she saw a land? Keep playing this weirdly tainted game seriously? What if her luck did a 180 and she topdecked the absolute nuts the next 5 draws while he drew 5 basic lands and ran out of steam?
I get that she was probably feeling pretty depressed, getting mana screwed in a game 3 deep in a tourney, but it's magic, it happens to everyone. It was such a bizarre request! Why give her opponent all of this free information if just one land was enough to keep playing? If she was giving up, she should've just conceded, then rabbit hunted.
@@discrep "What if her luck did a 180 and she topdecked the absolute nuts the next 5 draws while he drew 5 basic lands and ran out of steam?"
I guarantee at that point he yells "JUDGE" and explains that she illegally looked at the top card of her deck, leaving out that he agreed to the construction and hoping that she was too distraught to say he did (or that the judges simply didn't believe her). That's what a *real* "strategy gamer" (aka angle shooter, aka confidence artist) would do.
@@doylerudolph7965this is weird fanfiction. the fact that he behaves poorly in this case doesn’t imply he is this malicious character you are making him out to be. his actual transgressions and what you are suggesting are different in nature and severity
@@discrephe does say in the post though that to his knowledge the slogurk deck doesn’t have any plays for a single blue mana. as far as he’s aware there’s no decisions shes going to be able to make this turn in game that this would affect. the game isn’t “weirdly tainted” in any sense that matters on a gameplay level. obviously in hindsight they shouldnt have done it, it’s a good heuristic not to agree to do things like that in a big tournament, etcetera, but without specific knowledge of the idw rules theres nothing that obviously sinister about the request.
@@aidan8578 He hadn't attacked yet. If she peeks, sees a land, and puts it back down intending to continue, he has additional info he's not supposed to have. He stated he had intended to cast Play with Fire, but he hadn't actually cast it yet. This extra info may have changed the way he played the rest of his turn, which could have affected the outcome of the game. She still had 20 life
Whoever won that game would have won a non-standard game of MtG. Improper conduct doesn't have to be sinister to be improper. I don't think there was bad intent from either party, just a careless mistake.
I'm about halfway through the video and just want to say that I'm glad someone made a comprehensive breakdown of the interesting or unique elements of this situation (both ruleswise and as an example of social manipulation). A couple of things I've seen in the discourse that are worth noting to me (which may or may not be addressed later in your video):
*A lot of people have made a big deal out of the fact that the IDW offer example on the magic judge blog features a "nonland I lose, land I win" component where the offer in this tournament only featured a "nonland I lose" component. I think the significance people are finding here is that there's very little potential advantage to taking this deal if your opponent already thought a nonland put them out of contention for the game-- you'd be winning the game anyways if the card on top was a nonland, and if it was a land all that's happened is that information has been revealed a bit early, since your opponent would draw and play it M1. I get that the combination of the negligible advantage to taking the deal combined with the ignorance of the ruling makes some people feel that the punishment should be less harsh, since the player both didn't know that this behavior ran afoul of the rule and also didn't stand to gain any of the unfair advantages that the rule was designed to guard against described in the "philosophy" section of the blog post. But I still think this is a fairly clear IDW, and as you say-- judges are not prone to mess around with that stuff.
*Another argument I've seen made is that by giving their opponent permission to flip the top card, the player on the receiving end of this situation was actually executing a tournament shortcut, essentially forgoing combat and M2 without formally announcing that. I don't think this is a tenable argument-- a highly competitive player on tournament life in an event that potentially could qualify them for a 6-figure prize pool is not going to forgo a turn of combat to let their control player find their footing. For instance, imagine if this same offer is made and the top card that's revealed IS a land. Do you really thing the player on gruul aggro would just let the control player draw that card and continue their turn as if the aggro player had shipped the turn? I don't find this persuasive at all. Even in the very selective version of events we got from the twitter recap, there's no indication that this was the underlying meaning that the gruul player was trying to convey with their acceptance of the deal.
*Finally, one last argument I've seen here is that the judge essentially entrapped the gruul player by waiting for them to respond to their opponent's offer rather than immediately issuing the opponent a game loss. For those who haven't read the MTR, one thing it lays out is the time and manner that a judge should respond to a rules violation. According to the document, "judges do not intervene in a game to prevent illegal actions, but do intervene as soon as a rule has been broken or to prevent a situation from escalating." Since even the offer to forefit the game with a topdecked nonland was itself a rules violation, you can argue that there shouldn't have been any opportunity for the recipient of the offer to get themselves in trouble by accepting the deal if a judge was watching the whole thing. This is maybe the most persuasive argument of them all, but I don't find it compelling enough to change my view of the whole situation. For one thing, we don't actually know if the aggro player paused for a full 10 seconds to consider this deal or if this is just how it felt to them while looking back at the moment in retrospect. For another thing, it might be that the judge was ALSO trying to process the offer, focusing on the boardstate, focusing on another game, interpreting the comment as a joke until both players followed through with it, etc etc., and didn't notice the IDW until both players had followed through with it. There is enough ambiguity in the situation that it sounds like entrapment is likely if you take the aggro player's twitter recap at face value, but there are enough suspicious/manipulative details in that document that I'm not sure it's a reliable account of the situation.
"...the player both didn't know that this behavior ran afoul of the rule..."
Even if it wasn't specifically this rule being broken, picking up the top card of your library when nothing within the rules is allowing you to do so is still cheating. Blatant cheating. I find it hard to believe that neither player understood that.
"...by giving their opponent permission to flip the top card, the player on the receiving end of this situation was actually executing a tournament shortcut, essentially forgoing combat and M2 without formally announcing that."
I agree that this is not plausible. The request according to Brad is, "Can I look at my top card?" Since "look at" is rules terminology that is not synonymous with "draw a card", and nothing is allowing Jessica to take that action anyway, I'd think a judge would call it what it is - an illegal action.
I find it so silly that everyone is debating the IDW ruling and skipping past the fact that even without that rule, he should have known he was allowing something illegal when he let the opponent peek at a card. I cant imagine doing this in a FNM let alone a high stakes event. Just wait 5 seconds and scoop on your turn.
There's actually a few IDW promo cards that they gave you for getting a match loss this way. A lot of them have Dack Fayden on them.
Those IDW promo cards were insert cards for the IDW Publishing MTG Comics featuring the story of Dack Fayden, hence why a lot of them have him featured in the art. If someone is handing them out as part of giving a match loss due to IDW, that is simultaneously one of the funniest and saltiest things a judge could do.
Tangentially, Dack Fayden being the greatest thief in the Multiverse fits well for cards that would be given away for breaking the rules.
@@dereksimon3317 They are not actually doing this. It was just a little joke.
I was hoping someone would notice that in this situation I set up, you'd have to get a match loss and not a DQ, so if you knew about the promo cards, you wouldn't actually be able to get them.
Its funny to see this as a jorbs video topic. There is practically a ritual chant you have to do if you want to arrange a mutually agreeable prize split with your opponent without tripping over this rule and back in the day there were definitely angleshooters who would try and use it to their advantage (which is itself probably a rules violation)
Okay, now I am really curious as to what the ritual chant is
@@timmietimmins3780 its been a long time since i played competitively but it was like this if you wanted to split where one person gets the tournament invite and you dont want it.
Do you want to attend the GP?
they say yes.
I want to propose a prize split where the winner gets the invite and the loser gets the product
they say yes.
You say “ i concede”
Nobody can say “i would win” or “i would lose” or “i will concede” or its against the rules. But people who didnt know the details of the rule would always want to confirm that they would be the one getting what they wanted so they would say one of those things and cause an idw.
This is my best remembering and it may work differently now, consult a judge if you want to do this nowadays.
It's interesting how that's come to be, and how it plays within the rules as defined. How you known of any disagreement within the scene with people not liking this on principle? Having there been instances of people reneging on their part of the bargain, or is this fairly well regulated by personal reputation?
@@liampouncy7808 there are definitely people who dont like splitting, especially people who get annoyed by people who treat splitting as the default (generally tournament grinders). i never experienced someone trying to renege on an agreed upon split but im sure it happened occasionally.
I felt myself emotionally swayed by this in the first reading. I was putting myself in his place for a moment. On the second reading, among other things, it's interesting how immature it is that he keeps saying anyone that does something he doesn't like is "not treating him as a human".
I felt for the guy but I immediately thought he was overreacting quite badly.
I'm the main character, why aren't these judges letting me do whatever I want?
When reading things like this, it's good to notice signs that the person tilted (and in this case, seems to still be on-tilt at time of writing). They tend to put everything into perspective. Nothing wrong with feeling bad for the guy, emotions can get distractingly extreme in tournaments, but it's good to see that said emotions probably influence the way they remember and are retelling things
Yep. First reading I said, hey, that sucks that that happened to you and it doesn't seem like you were treated fairly, even though you did break the tournament rules.
Second reading I said hey, wait a minute, you were ABSOLUTELY treated fairly.
Or, you know… he’s just being honest
As an Autistic person, I’ve been treated with disdain and hatred for most of my life. So-called “normal” people are very cruel and inhuman indeed
As someone who has been a tournament organiser for the past decade and is looking to step away from it almost entirely at the end of this year, thank you for validating not only my decision, but validating my feelings that the people who did shitty things at my events were in the wrong.
I don't like how we have to be extra vigilant when we're playing against inexperienced opponents, lest they do something that gets us both in trouble. Making sure opponents don't get one over on you is necessary and understood. Making sure opponents don't get one over on themselves doesn't feel right.
An opponent of mine this year got DQ'd because I resolved a card incorrectly (to my detriment), despite the fact that my opponent was the one to call a judge to fix it.
I respect people's opinions to follow a strict interpretation of the rules, but I believe there should be leeway given based on context.
I think it's so important to consider that emotional responses are meant to be considered as generically emotional FIRST, and any sense of pathology or otherwise is meant to be a more specialized and specific consideration AFTER disproving that they were simply having a fairly expect-able emotional response.
Yeah, I'm tempted to make comparisons to someone I used to know, but then of course that person's problem was they acted like this _all the time._ One day under high emotional stakes? Put away the notebook, Freud. No need for a diagnosis here.
It is insane how easily this could have been avoided simply by saying, "If you believe you will not be able to win after your next draw phase, you are free to concede."
yea but he was trying to be nice to the female NPC
Strategy Gamer (Derogatory)
As someone who has spent half of my 20-year customer service career dealing with escalated cases; this whole document is incredibly familiar behaviour. Any result not in Brad's favour is "unfair". People enforcing that result "aren't treating him as human". "Kindness" equals telling him he's right. Stereotypical "Karen" shit.
For the record, "I understand" is a terrible phrase if you want to de-escalate. It's literally day 1 in corporate de-escalation training. An angry person who sees you as an obstacle to getting their way is almost never going to believe you, no matter how convincing you say it (and most people - even with training - aren't very convincing). It nearly always makes things worse. If Judge Academy (or whoever's training judges now) is encouraging people to say it, they should stop.
Your perspective is really interesting here! Do you know what recommendations you would have made for the judges in this situation?
I agree with your apparent opinion, which is that the way they were taught to deal with this was not very effective. Judge 4 certainly got him less upset -- that's great -- but I think it's likely that Judge 4 was the tournament organizer and the interview was the pre-ejection exit interview recommended by the rules.
If I'm right, then Judge 4 clearly failed to convey that information, instead making it Judge 3's problem. Not terrible but certainly not optimal, because Brad got back into the event and physically touched a player.
I'm wondering if it would have been more effective to deliver all the bad news in the first conversation -- could they have gotten to a DQ/ejection immediately after the threatening behavior?
@@economicsbat8329 I feel like more of:
1. an explanation of the way the rules are
2. an explanation of why the rules are this way
3. here is the penalty we have to issue
4. I'm sorry that it has to be this way, but it's part of the rules and it is our job to enforce game integrity
Notably, I would have said this should've been downgraded to a warning + a talking of "if this happens again there will be significantly stronger penalties" - leaves a paper trail so if it happens again there is no deniability.
@@peterkirk8510
Yeah -- I do feel like this is likely to be a good strategy with a lot of people!
I admittedly also think that if we read between the lines of OP's distorted account, elements 1/3/4 are probably there, somewhat. He definitely understands that the judges are mechanically enforcing a rule, and seems to loosely understand that the rule violation occurred when he let his opponent look at her cards.
Re your downgrade solution: I don't find a warning unreasonable in principle. At Regular enforcement, this is a warning, followed by a Game Loss, and the judges have discretion if it's marginal. These tournaments matter way less, so the judges can do that.
But this is Competitive. The Competitive rules stipulate that this is a Match Loss. If his going to the judge and complaining is worth a differential of 3 points, then maybe once per tournament you've got a situation where someone could get three extra points by being a real asshole. I don't think giving people the chance to roll a charisma save against Match Loss penalties is actually good for the meta.
I also want to dispute Brad's valuation of the penalty. A Match Loss is much closer to a warning than to a DQ. By Brad's own math, you get like four of them.
At 7-3 with fourish matches to go, Brad's chances of getting into the pro tour were pretty low anyway. But Brad was psychologically committed to the idea that he was still in it as long as he had less than four losses, so he discarded all the outcomes where he just loses the normal way and assessed his equity as being really, really high. If he sees 7-3 as 80% winning and 7-4 as 10% winning, he's likely just wrong. And in a way he actually benefits from the match loss/DQ, because if he hadn't been penalized he would have probably gotten one of those outcomes he was discounting, puncturing his ego.
I'm not disputing Brad's valuation because I think the value of the penalty should be an input to the process -- I think any penalty is fine as long as it's the same penalty regardless of whether the player complains. I'm disputing it because Brad's completely wrong valuation appears to be persuasive to a lot of people, and especially because Brad seems to have been really successful at convincing people that a Match Loss is really bad for him, specifically. I do not know that you believe those things, but I suspect someone reading my comment may.
One last thing -- You might be pleased to know that the escalation policy is basically as you've described. Cheating is a DQ, and if they've warned you, then you're Cheating.
@@peterkirk8510 A downgrade to a warning at professional REL - for performing the action of, and agreeing to the validity of the action of, looking at the top card of your library at a time when it isn't allowed by the rules of the game and using that information to determine whether you concede or not - would be entirely unconscionable. You don't get to downgrade a penalty just because you feel bad, because the penalty would result in consequences within the tournament, or because the player didn't know it was wrong (which, btw, is the reason it's a Match Loss and not an immediate DQ for Cheating, if you read IPG 4.3).
@@doylerudolph7965 Ok, now imagine they waited until her upkeep then did this. Still a match loss?
I love how people keep quoting what the rule says at me like my point isn't that the rule is bad and should account for this. I also love how people consistently remove context from the situation because it suddenly becomes really hard to justify. The point isn’t “if the top card isn’t a land I concede”, the point is “I can’t win the game if the top card isn’t a land, so I will concede”. You are *required* to divorce this from the context to get to IDW.
As a teacher, I regularly have to deal with people (students) who think that if they are pityable enough the rules should not apply to them. It's a very toxic mindset that you can't really get people out of. But you have to still apply the rules. Otherwise people will never even start to think about taking responsibility for their own actions.
We don’t though. You would steal food if your kids were starving. Everyone has some threshold where they stop following rules. The exact boundary is different for each individual but rules are something we choose to follow not something external and absolute
From one teacher to another, this itself is a toxic mindset and a crass interpretation of events. If you are in a situation where two children have unknowingly broken an inconsequential rule with no victim, and one of them is about to receive a significant punishment for it, you are letting your love of the rules overcome your empathy towards another human. You are responsible for how that person reacts and often, in the case of children, you aren't teaching them not to break rules - you are teaching them to never trust an authority figure to help them.
@@Waterseeker_ there's a lot of room for nuance between the two and the big difference is always in the understanding of the students and their needs.
It helps that I teach young adults, which means that my position changes a bit.
I do agree with your point and there are many situations where I take that exact route, but those are not the situations I'm talking about.
In the end, the profession of teacher is one that stands or falls with the relationship you have with your students. Everything you do both stems from that relationship and feeds it.
@@Waterseeker_ The rule is not inconsequential in this case. Also, Brad's tournament run is not likely to be over because of this match alone, so there is no significant punishment here.
@@smokelingers9857 The one potential victim of the events as described is the OP himself, if his opponent had been unsporting and continued the match after checking their top card, which didn't happen. It is, in a very literal sense, inconsequential - there are no material consequences had the judge chosen to not enforce that ruling.
I also think there might be an interesting connection between Brad's perceived cruelty and appeal of the first female judge and his weird behavior around "Jessica." I know I may be stereotyping a bit, but he's not really giving either of them the same authority or respect that he gives to the security guards or the "listening" judge. It feels like there's a bit of sexism going on that didn't make the rest of the situation better.
The real hypothetical question is, if his opponent were some random nobody male competitor, would he have tried to "take it easy" and let them make a silly illegal peek at their topdeck? My guess is no.
My favourite comment was the "reading this actually made me angry". Yeah man, that was the entire purpose of posting a whole twitter essay. What a ridiculous situation, social media never fails to disappoint.
As a women in MTG, the way he wrote about the woman he played with was frightening. This analysis was very enlightening. Thank you!
Seriously, especially when he comes back to hug her. Like, she just met him, watched him slam his fist on a table and yell at three judges before angrily storming off, and then come back a few minutes later, crying and wordlessly indicating he wants a hug. How does it not occur to someone that this would be absolutely terrifying from her perspective??
@@willowparker-ct3pqthat would be one more thing he would be, at best, completely clueless about. Even before that, his view of her feels like some form of fiction, concerning and kind of embarrassing. To make it worse, the five page story suggests he wouldn't listen anyone pointing it out to him either
My take, knowing nothing more than what was mentioned in this video, is that Brad probably knew on some level his opponent's request was improper, but due to both his dominant position and his "nice guy" desire to curry favor with her, he didn't want to turn into a rules stickler and agreed. I think if his opponent was a man, he would not have agreed, because it was a weird request in a high level tournament setting.
Like, no, you can't peek at your topdeck. If you're that fucked, just scoop. If you need just one land to have a fighting chance, just wait 20 more seconds until your turn.
Yeah I also got reeeally creepy vibes from that. Like he was okay with her receiving the game loss (which she would have received without the ruling anyway), but the moment it happens to him, it’s ABSURD. He doesn’t express any concern for her outside of him “being nice” by not “beating her down mercilessly” (aka just playing out a common type of game as normal), and instead latches onto her, using her as a scapegoat.
Gross. But also sadly too common in these kinds of communities.
Honest question: why are you doing this to yourself? Like, I'm a 5'5" fat guy with too much free time and some disposable income so it was either mtg or train models but I couldn't imagine doing this if I had options.
It's not even that good a game and wotc/hasbro has to be the worst company to give money to.
I think a huge thing people seem to miss is that something that's acceptable in a casual game is absolutely NOT acceptable during structured play. I'd still not allow it during casual play, but the stakes are different.
I think that's one of the reasons twitter responses leaned his way (in addition to the emotional manipulation of the doc). Most Magic players aren't tournament grinders, and so they're looking at it from a casual level, where saying "no" in that situation would be kind of a dick move.
@@GroundThing Even then, "My turn's almost over, just wait until I'm done and then make your decision on your next Draw Phase" is a reasonable response, even in casual play
@@GroundThing I agree with this and this is a huge problem. We don't want Magic tournaments only to become for the spiky spikes. And that's one thing really strict rules does, it makes the game less accessible for people who are largely there for a good time. It may even turn them away from Magic forever. I know a few people who got, in their opinion, rules lawyered at FNM and never went back to an LGS. They just didn't think they could have a fun experience there. One was a girl and she felt it was because she's a girl and she just didn't want to play Magic again. I know that's FNM and all, so it's supposed to be more casual, but 90% of the Magic base isn't all that serious even at MagicFest/GPs when those were a thing. So Magic really has to do a good job of balancing the need for the average player to have a good time and not feel "spiked out" and keeping the integrity of events in tact. For the most part, I think they do, but I think there's a few instances of where people see something and go "I'll never play in an event because of that."
@@sonic232s True. I actually find the behavior by the other player to be really rude in this, even if it were a casual game. I would never ask to peek at my deck, I would either concede and peek at the card, or keep my mouth shut and let my opponent take their turn.
@@JD-gk7eh Looking at IDW as merely rules regulation for WotC's CYA is an incomplete picture, IMO. There's a sportsmanlike conduct angle to it as well. Its an example of enforced ettiquette that should be held even outside a body that has the capability of providing punishments for breaching it. As @CatacombD mentioned, a good way to look at it is that if you're THAT discouraged, conceeding immediately or waiting until your draw phase are both acceptable alternatives. Asking to breach the rules to determine the winner is poor sportsman conduct, and if they're a new player then you should nudge them towards proper ettiquete. If they're a seasoned player, and they continuously conduct themselves this way, well... I've been in gaming circles where those players routinely end up frustrating everyone else in the group to the point that only newer players will play with them. And eventually, they learn why everyone else avoids them.
Fantastic video, I sadly doubt that the people who most need to see it never will, and the ones watching likely need it the least, but this was a masterclass in every aspect of the situation.
Also, very sweet of you to sneak an hbomberguy reference into the last 5 minutes as a treat for devoted viewers ❤
35:33 If the opponent had said "If I don't draw a land on my next turn, I'm going to scoop." That would be the proper way to phrase this. Gently encouraging your opponent to play faster in this way seems fine.
In a tourney, if the rules state you get a loss, and the judges allow you to draw or win by ignoring the rules, then you are affecting other players. Your record affects the cutoff for prizes and advancement, so an artificially high placement unfairly demotes everyone that you jump. In this case, there is a PT spot on the line, apparently. If the judges ignore OP's infraction and OP then bumps someone else who didn't break the rules, how is that fair? Sports and gaming tourneys are rife with rules decisions that cost one team/player a game, ranking or playoff spot- enforcing that is part and parcel of organized competition with real consequences on the line.
As to him getting kicked, if he had hypothetically come back to that judge and put a chair across his face or took it out on some other attendee, then there would be a cry of "why didn't they take action after he was visibly angry and shouting?" I don't think OP would do that, but if I get it that wrong, it has no impact on anyone's safety. If the judges and tourney organizers get it wrong, they have one or more injured attendees and potential lawsuits on their hands. The judges only knew OP had been frustrated and expressed it with striking something and shouting. They don't know what escalation could happen and have to act with everyone's safety in mind.
(edited- conclusion was a little too judgmental against Brad given this post is literally the only thing I've ever seen from him)
As a woman who enjoys strategy games but often does not enjoy dealing with certain strategy gamers, everything in Brad's essay about Jessica made my skin crawl
As a dude who enjoys strategy games, and who by virtue of a Y chromosome doesn't really have to deal with the same gamers in the same way, I really didn't like that either. It sounds very parasocial, with a healthy pinch of stalker vibes. He is obsessed with how nice and friendly and funny she is.
And apparently, after a single match and a minute or two of friendly chat, she was his choice of a shoulder to cry on, literally. As said in the video, crying is awesome, and guys in particular should be more open about crying. But even if we should aim to dismantle any shame and stigma around crying, we have to acknowledge that there are inappropriate ways to do it, and he was way too comfortable and intimate around her.
@@MasterHigure Why should men be more open about crying? Why should them? When someone writes a whole story about crying on some other person's shoulders, talking nice things about them, saying they were the first ones to cry with them, then we just don't believe the man. We call him creepy.
Why should any man be comfortable to show his emotions with a woman if when they do, they get labeled as having a parasocial relationship, even when they are relating that the person in question is "even nicer than what the community was saying".
Why, if this happened between 2 men, we would be applauding both parts, applauding the "progresiveness", and all the buzzwords.
Why, if this happened between 2 women, it would just be "the norm", that's just how most women are, caring and protective of one another.
But why, the moment a man and a woman share this moment and it is narrated through the man's perspective, we don't believe it. We call him creepy, annoying, parasocial, the whole combo.
Argue what you want about the judges, the call, the idw, MtG, etc. But why does this always end up somehow blaming men for being 'unappropiate' with woman, even when it wasn't even remotely close to being the topic of discussion? Why?
@@inakiarias7465 Because so often, men behave in creepy ways that put those around them in harms way or under threat of harm.
@@serenaishere2639 It's pretty great how your response in no way answers the question, and instead is a bigoted claim against men. Chef's kiss.
@patrickhall6627 not true. It answers the question posed in the final paragraph.
The Twitter responses to this incident are very upsetting, thank you for taking the time to break down the situation with the necessary context and nuance. I don't know how persuasive this will be for people who already disagree, but I can only hope they can take the time to understand the rule, why it exists, why it matters, and why it was applied here.
I was not aware Twitter was even usable at all, still. I guess this isn't actually evidence that it is. I will continue believing that Twitter is not usable.
@@renshank6736 Time spent not reading twitter is never time wasted!
Oh, I have no problem admitting that the existing rule was properly applied in this case…
The main issue is that this rule shouldn’t exist in its current form in the first place. And citing whatever civil/criminal laws that encourage its existence isn’t helping (those laws shouldn’t exist either)
It’s almost like laws have very little to do with morality… But unfortunately very few people seem to understand that
This is really good! I was definitely on the player's side after the initial reddit post and reading his post, but didn't really think critically about the situation from the perspective of the judges and the other players at the event. You're absolutely right, it sounds like they did basically everything right in an unfortunate situation.
One big thing people fail to differentiate is Agreement with the rule vs agreement on the ruling:
all the people complaining about how the situation is unfair and it doesn't change anything are NOT disagreeing with the ruling but the rule, problem is they don't understand it... and thus take out their anger at a judge who has a DUTY to apply the rule as it stands not as he, the reader or an entitled Brat err Brad thinks it should be.
A discussion about whether the consequences should be a match loss for an accepting player can be interesting but it must be taken in the theoretical thinking of all situations and then applied EQUALLY or the entire point of fairness goes down the drain.
Reminds me of will reading from Always Sunny, "I'm just reading the words that someone else wrote!"
This is a great video. I think one thing that would make the reason why this ruling is good for the game and good for the players is missing though. This rule is not in place to prevent this situation. It’s in place to prevent the inverse.
Player B looks at their top deck, finds a land, does not concede. Now imagine they come back to win. Which is more likely than you think for the control deck in the match up. If they have no land, by definition their hand is full of action. They start hitting lands, they are in the game. Winning a game where player A let them cheat, thinking they were getting a concession.
That is a big part of why this rule needs to be enforced.
I don't agree with this sentiment at all. Jessica wants permission to look at her top card, and if it's not a land, she will concede. If it is a land, Brad would not expect a concession. That's what they agreed to. It's also a problem that nobody can confirm that Jessica looked at a land, not even a judge, because they'd be revealing information that is hidden to Brad. Jessica could have intentionally or accidentally skipped playing a land on turn 2. Only Jessica can know that, so how do you determine if this was a fair deal?
The reason this rule is in place is not necessarily to prevent these deals from happening, it's to ensure that the outcome of the deals are governed in a way that's legally compliant and upholds the integrity of fair competition. That's why people argue that a judge should have jumped in when Jessica offered the deal. Which would be ideal, but alas, can't always be the case.
These deals are governed because they can be considered as match-fixing, gambling, etc. It's the same in other sports where you'll see a player having an uncharacteristically bad game, and then later it's exposed that they sold the match. It's difficult to tell at the time, so the most plausible way to combat it is to do so after.
I thought there was something off about this whole thing! I leaned towards the side of "yeah, that sounds like a niche ruling, and you were "trying to help"... but if them's the rules then them's the breaks", but actually seeing it spelled out like this really clarified the situation a bunch.
I think the biggest issue is that in the CORE RULES of Magic: The Gathering, the official way to determine who goes first (Rule 103.2) (how to determine who goes first: 'the players may
use any mutually agreeable method (flipping a coin, rolling dice, etc.) ') I've seen 50 yard dashes, arm wrestling, some weird stuff over the years, but it is in the SPIRIT of the CORE game. The rule you cite comes from their 'INFRACTION PROCEDURE GUIDE' which is an appendix and not part of the CORE rules. They should merge the 'Improperly Determining a Winner' rule into the CORE rules, or consider acceptable workarounds. No one wants a Draw due to time. There should be a 'SUDDEN DEATH' rule that players can 'summon' when approaching time.
I thought the agreed upon method needs to be agreed upon as *sufficiently random* by both players, but nope, you're right. "Mutually agreeable" followed by several examples of pure randomization is where it stops. I'm sure I've heard judges tell me we're not allowed to do a push-up contest or something like that.
However, I guess nobody could forbid you from having an unrelated push-up contest, losing, and then deciding in unorthodox fashion to let your opponent take the play. 😉
one time i played a game of uno to determine who went first
"Why do we have to have all these like, rules, man" is a pretty funny attitude to have regarding a game tournament you voluntarily take part in.
I'm sure Brad is all for rule enforcement when it's in his favor
Voluntarily entering a heavily regulated tournament and then getting upset at the regulation of said tournament really is baffling.
@jeffe2267 i can at least understand why some people get upset by this because well despite the rules being broken. According to the players the match was decided both players agreed to this and the outcome of the match wouldn't have changed despite the rules being broken. Add on the intense amount of appeal to emotion and well we're here. Why they didn't either wait to Jessica's turn 3 or have Jessica scoop and then reveal her top card saying something like "The game is over. You won i concede but with the game over I'm gonna see what my draw would have been." idfk.
@@jmanwild87 The reason they didn't do that is because Jessica wanted to cheat, asked Brad, and Brad said "Go for it." To clarify what I mean, Jessica's a blatant cheater and Brad knows that, but he chose to go along with her because he felt it was more difficult not to.
@@smokelingers9857wrong and dumb but that’s okay little buddy 🙏
Another thing to consider here is that... for some reason, the judges for MtG are generally construed as "the bad guys". Always. For some reason, they're just assumed to be the fun killers, the "out to getcha", the ones that make BS rulings. Their rulings always get appealed and then upon second opinion from a higher up judge, like, 95% the ruling is upheld because these judges know what they're talking about when it comes to serious rulings that involve game/match losses. Judges are just volunteers and SOMETIMES low-paid people who are giving up their entire damned day for a tournament. It's not like a passion job for them, it's just necessary for the tournament to run. They're not having fun and playing Magic. They're wandering about and de-escalating or solving issues. Cut them a break. They don't want to ruin your day. They're just trying to do their job. But still, they're forever going to be considered as a big bad evil boss.
Some people say "you're not listening to me" to mean "you're not agreeing with me".
Not that far into the video but one of my first thoughts for land order was playing Shivan Reef to project the threat of lightning bolt or some cheap blue counterspell/bounce. Hadn’t even considered the other false/bluff information that could imply.
Although I do only play magic casually and don’t really keep up with tournaments.
That backpack scene is just chef's kiss. The first time you showed it, I was like "This is what you're being charged with, isn't it". Huge tonal whiplash.
The way he interprets the guards "are you okay sir" as a question about his personal wellbeing, and nothing else, is also unsettlingly hillarious to me. Makes an impression that the writer just doesn't know what professional conduct is.
@@ZeroPlayerGame I drive city bus and "are you ok sir/ma'am" is 95% of the time me deciding if I need to have the cops/ambulance called.
@@ThisNameIsNotTaken99 yes precisely
@@ZeroPlayerGame yes, when the security guards ask for the second time "are you ok?" when you are going back in, you really need to understand what they are implying is "you should not be going back in". You definitely can't just say "no" and expect there to be no consequences at that point.
@@tilly6085 well this person seemed very focused on their personal grievances, so I'm not too too surprised they missed the cue
It is genuinely painful how clear it is, even with this player casting them in the worst possible light, that the judges were going out of their way to accommodate this person, and that the comments (at least those shown in the video) about this largely focus on bashing those same very helpful and polite judges.
So many of the comments on this topic are of the form, “ok, so he broke the rules and should lose. Ok, so he behaved unsafely and should be DQed and kicked out. But still, those judges should have done a better job.” That seems completely at odds with how I’m reading this - the judges were calm, accommodating and explained why, even though it was an understandably shitty situation for him, still a loss. The problem at that point becomes his reaction to the situation, the judges did a great job keeping their cool and being professional. Any judge taking a firm stance here would’ve been interpreted as “not treating him like a human,” because he’s expecting them to bend the rules for him. The bad situation here is entirely caused first by his willingness to break the rules and secondly about his meltdown. I don’t see anything done wrong by any judge, even taking his version of events as the truth.
A balk is the perfect metaphor. Even the biggest mlb nerds don't understand what's happening when it's called. I've seen players/managers tossed for arguing a correct balk call. And there's absolutely no chance you could explain it to a casual fan. So when you check Twitter afterwards, it's a cesspool.
...what are you talking about, a balk is simple. The pitcher interrupts the process of a pitch to do something else instead. This includes any and all cases where it looks like the pitcher is about to perform the pitch,, and then doesn't. No exceptions. If you start the motion and the ball doesn't leave the hand toward the plate, it's a balk. It's excessively simple.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 wandering into the comments of a jorbs video a month late to be a contrarian is either the most or least on the nose, I can't decide.
Best of luck in your efforts to explain a balk through condescension to non baseball fans.
@@eyetwitch0 I literally just did. Without condescension. A balk is any time the pitcher begins a motion that appears to be the pitching motion, and then doesn't complete the pitch. I'm not being contrarian, I'm just pointing out the fact that a balk is a very simple concept that's extremely easy to explain.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 Off the top of my head, I can think of five examples of balks that do not fit within your definition.
1. The pitcher does not come set for long enough.
2. The pitcher fails to remove their foot from the rubber before attempting a pick off that includes a move in the opposite direction of the batter.
3. The pitcher attempts a pick-off to an unoccupied base.
4. The pitcher accidentally drops the ball from their glove with their feet on the rubber.
5. The pitcher makes a move to pick off from the set position but fails to throw the ball to 1st/2nd/3rd
And I can think of examples that would fit your definition but aren't balks.
1. The pitcher's wind up includes a move away from the batter after initially coming towards the plate.
2. A lefty pick off to first (or right to third) which includes the exact same leg kick from their pitching motion.
And that's without looking at the rule book in years, so I'm sure I'm missing some. It's very much not simple, which is why professional athletes, managers, and broadcasters regularly get confused or angrily protest when balks are called. Check out the rule book if you must, there are so many exceptions and vague statements that the thing is excessively complicated.
And get someone to proof read your comments for you if you don't think "...what are you talking about, a balk is simple." "It's excessively simple" isn't condescending.
@@eyetwitch0 The examples of balks you give are examples of the pitcher not successfully completing the pitching motion. However, you are correct in your example of a left handed pitcher throwing out at first. That does fit my explanation of a balk without being a balk. My bad.
Vagueness is not evidence of being complicated. It tends to be the opposite. I stand by my assertion. Balks are excessively simple. If you believe it to be condescending for a description to be accurate, that says more about you than it does me.
Hi jorbs! Thanks as always for the well thought out video. This incident and the insane 5-page writeup is a great starting point to discuss emotional manipulation, and I very much appreciate the breakdown of how different parts of the document were emotionally manipulative.
My main gripe, really, is that this incident has too much going on for it to effectively serve as the focus for a discussion of IDW which aims to be objective. In other words, it is hard to think about IDW objectively when the context we have involves the player losing the game, throwing a tantrum, getting kicked out of the magic hall, and then trying to rewrite the events through an emotionally manipulative document.
The effect of this is that I think we are a little bit less critical of the rule itself than perhaps we ought to be. I really appreciated that you had a whole section (13:57 - "Why?") about the rationale behind IDW - it made it clear that there is a good reason for a rule like this to exist, and even for the ruling to be severe. What's missing, however, is a reminder that just because there is a good reason for a rule to *exist* , does *not* mean that the current iteration of the rule is good! Responding to a complaint that a judgement is too harsh with "You should have read the rules" is still an "appeal to law" fallacy, but I think it's one that is extremely palatable when the person who broke the rule is being a total dickweed.
All that being said, I don't personally have a strong opinion on whether or not the rule is fine as is. I simply wonder, what would the discussion look like if 'Brad' had collected himself, not thrown a tantrum, then went home and wrote a document calmly and accurately explaining the situation, accepting the judging while arguing that the punishment was probably a bit too harsh, and maybe offering up some alternatives for the future? It might have led us all to consider some more significant questions, such as "would Magic actually be at risk of being classified as gambling if IDW gave judges jurisdiction to issue one-time warnings?". I don't know the answer to that question, but I'd probably watch a two hour video about it!
Jorbs power points are my favorite genre
I don't want to armchair diagnose anyone, so I'm just going to speak for myself --
I have Borderline Personality Disorder, and while you stated you yourself are very different from him, I personally *can* relate to Brad, and have acted similarly to him in the past (not in the context of MTG though) prior to receiving treatment.
The way that you calmly went through everything wrong with what he did was very illuminating. People who suffer from extreme emotional instability are often either unaware or only partially aware of how their actions manipulate or harm others. I feel that your video could be helpful to these people even if they know nothing about competitive card games.
I'm glad you mentioned the time draw situation. In Pokémon we have similar issues with Bo3 50+3 rounds, and thats very rarely enough for three full games unless both players are playing extremely quickly and also playing fast decks. While top tables might ID the final 1-2 rounds, mid tables can be completely screwed by a draw when theyre already 4-0-2 or a similar record, and it's unfortunate that the goal of the game (winning) is not always in agreement with the goal of the setting (winning a tournament).
Level of entitlement is insane
49:10 This is the first time I've ever heard Jorbs raise his voice. scary...
1:59:50 F*CKING AQUAMAN!?!?
the hate for judges is so ridiculous.
Is it any different than all the "ref is shit" that's all throughout every sport with a ref in it? No one likes a cop, a lawyer, a taxman etc.
I agree, I feel the issue was not for a judge to "decide" but I do understand the frustration towards the rule. If I am not mistaken, couldnt this be easily resolved by adding addendum to the IDW rule that specifically states, "If a player unknowingly accepts an IDW situation the match will be over, the offerer given an IDW, and said unkowning accepter be given an offical warning" Because in all fairness I agree fully that the integerity of the match is immediatly shattered if you begin to play "theoretical" mtg to which point you can no longer undo what actions have been taken. And if we are to genuinly be looking at this without emotional input I don't think it is logical to give an unknowing player the exact same punishment as the "knowing" party in niche instances like this. If we are to use the instance of murder, as Jorbs has done so we can elevate the morale aspects of a situation like this, its clearly a case of a murderer saying "Hey would you like to kill this guy?" and the unkowning party saying "Uh, sure?" While yes, the unkowing party has made a terrible judgement I do not feel that the "malicious" (its just mtg its not THAT serious) actions specifically taken by the knowing party have to be given to both parties. And we see this often when we talk about adolecense and crimes commited, as they usually will be given leniances for not understanding these certain nueanced situations.
Is it true that the game state would be completely and utterly ruined if that action had been taken? Yes.
Is it true that the offering party should be given IDW for prompting to break the game state? Yes.
But if you were to ask me
Is it true that the unknowing party is also at equal fault for agreeing to this breaking of game state. There I would personally say no.
Please feel free to add to this hypothetical as I find this conversation intresting!
Oh, and I do think there is an argument to be had about being a proffesional level tournament, but I also think its unfair even to proffesional players if they accidentally make the blunder of "Whoops you accidentally played a gotcha card on me in our proffesional game of magic."
@@DiiaxPlaysall professional players should be aware of this rule though. It's a very well known rule among pros but unfortunately it's often learned the hard way the first time. It's happened to me at a ptq and that was like 10 years ago at least. Judges give out this ruling all the time. We all know it's the strictest rule.
@@davidfarnham5623 I totally get that too is the thing!
The thing I think is odd is that just because it HAS been the rule for a long time doesnt mean it NEEDS to be the rule if that makes sense.
I once again totally agree with you on professional level play being, well professional. But that would be like an eSports setting where emoting is banned professionally and if you are in a lossing scenario you emote to try to get the opponent to emote as well and make both of you lose.
The issue I see with the rule is that it can be abused by a knowing party to grief an unkowning party and dont think it needs to be the rule "Oh, everyone falls for the emote ban once" rule. And I think this issue is a result of that.
The one thing I didn’t hear(I was listening to this while I was working) was if the judges pulled out the rules and showed him the one he was breaking and the escalation path based on the rules enforcement they were playing in. Because this ruling was such a simple one it shouldn’t have taken any time and for most judges to find the rule. That should be enough for the average player to stfu and move on. I’ve had a judge get a call wrong on me before. I escalated it and the next showed me how things were supposed to work and why, the judge who got it wrong apologized and explained his logic, I explained my logic on why I thought I was right. In a funny twist I was right for the wrong logic and he was wrong using the right logic. But everyone stayed cool and friendly so there was never a problem just an honest mistake.
I think people are missing the point t that it was a tournament to get a spot in the pro tour, you should know the rules to make it to the pro tour. More then that though I think people are misunderstanding that by granting the request, they has gained knowledge that they should not have by doing something not legal in the game and now has a a advantage over anyone else in the same game state following the rules. What if she flipped a settle the wreckage and knew if she hit a few more land drops she could wipe the board, what if she flipped a ramp spell, what if she flipped any card that gave her a reason to continue playing, wins or draws, moves on a takes a seat feom someone who didn't get the same advantage. That is the reason for the rule, now, I think warnings can be used in situations where it's determined to be a genuine mistake, 1 warning because now you know or are reminded of the rule but I still think the rule should be enforced.
The players agreed to match-fixing at a high-level event with a significant prize pool. I personally think it's a good rule. They weren't even disqualified. That's already lenient in comparison to other tournament settings.
The rule where the player lost the game because of how specifically to call out steps and the foreign language barrier drove me up the wall.
This? Nah. Just a weird edge case. People take emotional outbursts too seriously. Dude should be embarrassed and I think he knows that.
It is not even an edge case. The dude agreed to cheating in order to get closer to the prize.
@@gg829cheating involves intent. Thats why knowledge of IDW being forbidden and doing it is a DQ and just doing it without knowing it's against the rules is a match loss.
@@Shaudius I am not talking about IDW.
He agreed to breaking of the rule that states that the order of the cards in a deck is unknown to players. He agreed to it in order to secure a benefit for himself.
If I look at the top card of my deck, that is cheating, regardless of setting. Even if both players agree to it, that kind of conduct is cheating against other players who participate in the tournament.
IDW is added on top of that.
@@gg829 that's still not cheating. If it was cheating the penalty for IDW would always be DQ.
@@Shaudius So breaking the rule of the game in order to expedite a victory is not cheating?
Mind you, they did not do a coin flip to decide the outcome. Flipping coins while playing MTG is not prohibited by the rules of the game. You can flip coins while playing as much as you want.
They specifically performed an action that is prohibited by the rules of MTG.
man some people really aren't self-aware of their gamer rage
My local baseball team does not consist of fools, they play indoors and never get rained out at home. With that out of the way, I simply think that if you want to play official MTG games for prizes you need to be a bit of rules stickler and play more robotically than one does in casual games and to understand that what you say at the table can have in game consequences. I'm kinda surprised that people got upset with the judges as the ruling was cut and dry. I suppose it's people empathizing and sympathizing with the upset match loss receiver, which is fine, but to escalate to anger at the judges is a bit much. I guess if one of the judges involved made a 5 page reply about how rattled and upset they are they'd get some sympathy posts too. It kind of boils down to that quote from that Conservative nerd of "facts don't care about your feelings". I'll catch the 2nd half of this video later :P
If that's the cut and dry ruling, the game needs to change because the game is leading to people deserving IRL beatings. It's not good for anyone
@@juter1122 How is the game leading to people deserving beatings?
@juter1122 Absolutely psychotic take. Play by the established rules or don't play at all. It's very obvious that MTG has to play in a very well defined space to void falling afoul of the law concerning gambling.
Except thanks to the response, the replies to the story are more like the cool literature teacher counter quote of "no, your feelings don't care about the facts"
@@juter1122 Do you ACTUALLY mean you would threaten any of the people involved with physical violence over this?
Out of curiosity, what is the reason for a player who unknowingly agrees to the IDW proposal getting the match loss? I understand the player who makes the proposal getting a match loss, but I don’t see why agreeing should penalize someone who doesn’t know the rules.
I didn’t know this was a rule until watching this video. Upon learning this, it seems like it has a potential for abuse. A malicious player could, to spite their opponents when they don’t know the rules, offer these simple IDWs when they would otherwise concede in hopes that the opponent agrees while a judge is watching, feign ignorance of the rule and derive some sort of malicious enjoyment in knowing that at least their opponent didn’t get the win either. Is there anything other than the judge psychoanalyzing the players genuine reaction to prevent this?
Btw this isn’t me agreeing with brads actions; they were very rude and disrespectful.
Because it's a tournament. "I don't know the rules" being a valid excuse to cheat in a competition with stakes is absurd. Especially when it necessarily indicates there should be a free pass once per rule that exists. This is an extreme and hyperbolic example... but imagine a monster murders his first opponent and gets away with the "oh I didn't know that rule"... then stacks his deck on the next; "Oh I didn't know that rule". Rips up his opponent's cards "Oh I didn't know that rule". Draws multiple cards during the draw step "Oh I didn't know that rule".
The point of this absurd example is that there are an infinite number of ways to not understand the rules. Getting a pass for cheating simply out of ignorance invites both ignorance and malicious actors.
I have not finished the video to know if he addresses different levels of rules enforcement. This is a situation where competitive level of rules enforcement would be applied. The stakes are high and you are expected to know the rules.
If this was a prerelease, where the rules enforcement level is lower, my guess is it wouldn't be as strict on the person who didn't know.
I think the video is a great breakdown of the situation and 99% agree with you altho i'm a LITTLE more sympathetic to "brad" than you are: did want to add that I think specifically the fact that the initial judge WATCHED the entire exchange go down, allowed it to happen, and then handed out the match losses is kind of crazy. Like, watching a player break a rule and then letting them drag a second player down with them, then LET THEM take the time to actually look at the top card and move on for a bit before stepping in seems pretty sketchy to me
Preventing the cheating isn't their job... to catch it is. Once the cheating has happened, it's because both players cheated. If he refused the deal, then either no cheating occurs or just the opponent cheats. By accepting the deal, they both cheated together. It's done like this to prevent the obvious angle shooting of "my opponent intended to cheat, DQ them please". Because at that point, you've already accepted the premise that the actual violation of the rules doesn't need to have occurred yet to be punished for it.
Actually, in response (heh) to the land question at the start: I would almost always play Shivan Reef first. With it, I have the potential to have 1 blue or red mana. This might mean my opponent doesn't want to play a small creature, in fear of Lightning Bolt, or an important spell in fear of Spell Pierce. Then, depending on whether or not I will likely have a 3 mana spell to play, I would play either untapped Steam Vents or Island.
My next most likely line would be paying 2 for an untapped Steam Vents turn one. Even if I don't have a 1 mana instant, the fact that I played the Steam Vents untapped tells my opponent I almost certainly do have something to use with that mana. This might intimidate them into leading with an unimportant spell, then assume I have no forms of interaction if I do not interact with that spell.
Of course, this depends heavily on the format, my deck, my opponent's deck, and so on. If I know that my deck has many one mana spells, then I will almost always lead with a way to generate 1 mana on turn one. If I know that my deck doesn't have many one mana spells, and most decks also do not have one mana spells, then I would play Steam Vents tapped. However, given the lands in question, that would be an extremely weird format to be in.
Land questions are a special action that don't use the stack, so they can't be responded to :^)
A smart player does not fear removal... they consider the things you would target with removal to be removal FOR your removal. If the opponent gets baited into refusing to play the game simply because you have mana available, your opponent is simply bad at the game. If I think you're going to fire off a Force Spike or Lightning Bolt, I'm going to play my 1 mana creature anyway. If I think you're BLUFFING a Force Spike or Lightning Bolt, I'm going to play my 1 mana creature as well. At a fundamental level, you will never win any game if your strategy is hard countered by the existence of an opponent who theoretically COULD do something to make it more difficult for you to win.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 It really depends on the matchup. If, for example, your one drop was Sylvan Safekeeper in your Nadu deck, you would be a fool to even risk it. If you're playing Boros aggro and the creature in question is a Monastery Swiftspear, then I would agree with you.
@@TheAweDude1 Am I missing something? Swiftspear is definitely more crucially important to an aggro deck than Sylvan Safekeeper is to a combo deck... especially since Safekeeper is kinda an anti-synergy piece that actively interferes with Nadu. Sure you get manaless triggers for Nadu, but you can't really dig that far into the deck with the way it does it. I guess the idea is, you start with 4 triggers and hope you profit?
when i was tutoring under a judge to become one myself the general rule of thumb was deck list's. if its fnm or a casual event you can use discretion and make learning experiences. if its anything more major (something you would have to submit a pre event deck list in is a great rule of thumb) theres a very strict guideline for violations and it is there for a reason
Brad would backseat and complain when he gets banned.
Can't he appeal to someone about that at least
The way this guy charactarizes his opponent makes part of me really wonder if he would have worked himself into such an emotional frenzy had his opponent been male.
I was thinking that too. He could've framed his narrative like 'this devious opponent who knew they were already going to lose the game tricked me into getting disqualified so they could go on and try to win the tournament in my absence'.
While I completely agree with what you said and it makes sense in context of tournament play, this is one of the reasons I've never wanted to play in tournaments. The pressure and feeling I need to watch everything I do made them completely unappealing. Kitchen table FTW
I could smell the fedora tipping when he writes “incredibly kind young woman” to describe the opponent.
This rule does seem to be enforced unevenly. In round 15 at the win-and-in tables of the most recent PT, "show me the Thassa's Oracle in your deck", and Carlos picks up his deck and looks through it to show the oracle. Being able to draw the entire deck was extremely likely from that position, but not guaranteed. This also flies in the face of 4-horsemen combo.
Link: ua-cam.com/video/1gXDVZfNxk4/v-deo.html
This guy is treating a 130k tournament like its a local fnm with his buddies. I understand that he likely puts a lot of emotional weight on his personal prowess as a magic player, but he clearly isnt all that if his mindset doesn't even distinguish between the varying standards of play at different levels of competition. At a casual event, we let things like IDW's slide because we are not playing for large sums of money and it is more important to both players and organizers that everyone is enjoying themselves in an environment that is safe, welcoming, and accessible for new players and veterans alike. When you have life changing amounts of money on the line, the priority is to make sure that the sum of money is awarded to the winner fairly. If you were to let rules slide with this much on the line, you would be creating an unfair competitive environment where people can bend the rules to get ahead.
As judges, we have different standards that we are supposed to follow given the context of the tournament we are judging, and an RC should have the strictest possible level of rules enforcement. Given the vitriol that this player has directed towards the event staff who, by this players own account, enforced the rules in a fair and professional matter, he should feel lucky that the penalties ended at being expelled from the event area.
This is just major cope. The reality of the situation is that the outcome of the game would’ve been functionally the same whether or not the action was taken.
@@wizardsmix7961 What if the top card had been a land? Will the game just proceed with both players having access to information they shouldn't? At a major tournament like this one, you can't just do things because you'd like to. The question isn't whether what happened actually changed the match result, it's whether it could have, and I don't think that's debatable.
@@GolbezSA Literally nothing changes. Whether or not an agreement is made to reveal the top card both players know the game is over if it isn’t a land.
The only situation the game continues is if the top card is a land, therefore the turn player is already going to play as if the top card is a land.
It’s all functionally the same no matter when the information is revealed.
@@wizardsmix7961 the rules are cut and dry and they were clearly broken. You can't just pick and choose how the rules are enforced when players are competing for a 130k prize pool. This sort of thing frequently flies at low stakes events like your local fnm but it's just not how REL events are run.
@@Pnic1193 All I need to do is point out how similar actions wouldn’t be punished nearly as harshly. Even if you were caught intentionally looking at the top card of your deck when you weren’t supposed to the vast majority of judges would issue a warning.
This is being improperly categorized as using an alternative method (gambling) as a way to determine the outcome of the game. It isn’t that whatsoever.
The player is simply recognizing that if they don’t draw a land they might as well concede. They mention this to their opponent, and then they make the illegal action of revealing the top card of their library.
The only illegal action being made is revealing the top card of the library when it shouldn’t be, which isn’t a match loss level punishment in most cases, especially for both players.
At worst the player revealing it should receive a match loss.
I really want to applaud your style of presentation for a line of thinking I don't think is necessarily natural to me. Sometimes when you discuss a strategy gamer and how they might even unconsciously manipulate the way they present reality, I feel like it'd be easy for a lesser discussion to flounder and sound extreme. When you mention things like the fact that he was clearly processing hand information from his opponent's land drop, and you tied it back to your first question about land drops, it all comes together in a very beautiful way. Obviously I don't enjoy the scenarios that bring us to these "type" of videos, but I do think the way you navigate the subjects is honestly very interesting and worth reflecting on my own train of thought!
Welp, at least he was playing a deck with colors matching his emotions.
Half-serious thought: How big can the draw-play difference get before the coin flip is the determining factor, thus making it gambling?
In brawl on arena I sometimes will play a shock land untapped as a way to strongly suggest I have a 1 mana instant I might play, (but I don’t actually have it)
Nice of the bots to finally appreciate the clear visibility and the anti-aliasing features of the Office Suite
I chuckled.
1:52:18 "May have turned out differently" is a bit vague but my reading of it is Not "The ruling could've been flipped" but rather "It would have hurt me and Jessica less and I wouldn't have felt so attacked"
So, when In the “Rhystic studies” video about lantern control, the one guy asks the other “can I beat you?” And the other says “no” which prompted a scoop.
Did they end a game of magic by deciding on the genuine faith of the player saying “no”? As it seems they did press a kind of “eject button”. Or it’s fine because asking is not technically a “illegal game action”?
Conceding is a legal game action. Asking your opponent questions is a legal game action. Responding to questions is a legal game action.
Its insane how much traction Jorbs longform spreadsheet visddeos get, it shows just how interesting his thought process is. I love these types of videos the most.
NEW POWERPOINT FROM JORBS!
TWO HOURS!
ON MTG!
This was a joy, especially the read-through of the document.
As someone who refs for competitive robotics, i can tell you that rules like this suck. There are far more DQ rules for very specific situations and its never fun to deal with. Never thought musch about it in competive magic. Fascinating video
Pre-viewing: I'm SO GLAD you're talking about this because it was one of the most bizarre things I learned about when I started learning about MTG rules, especially when it goes against one of the most important implicit understandings in structured, competitive games: a player may concede at any time, for any reason. Implicitly or explicitly, so many aspects of a game stop functioning without that understanding-- it's probably only second to "players will make a good faith attempt to achieve their objective". It also is very brand to hear about from you specifically, as you've always had good things to say about proper respect and consent in gaming.
Incorrect. There are almost no serious competitions where conceding is actually allowed at all. Much less at any time, and certainly not for any reason. In fact, all legitimate competitions explicitly ban a HUGE number of reasons for concession.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 yeah that's sort of the problem the video is about. But as far as the GAME, yes, you can concede because there's nothing to force you to play inside the game mechanics....
I came out the other end of the video never wanting to play an organized magic event
Organized magic is fun, just, don't touch Competitive REL unless you're prepared to eat penalties for things you didn't even know there were rules about.
And pre-releases in a lot of stores (sometimes FNMs too) are often casual enough that judges are rarely involved in anything besides explaining how new cards work if neither player knows (or they disagree).
havent started the vid yet but this is a topic that has fascinated me for the past few years
1:34:00 "I know she didn't mean to" is weirdly a perfectly normal thing to say here, in another context - She did make the offer, someone trying to attribute malicious intent could call it "baiting" (which jorbs somewhat goes over in the intro).
"I know she didn't mean to create a situation in which I could fuck up" and other versions of that can be abbreviated like that.
At least that is how I first read it, but reading it that way requires assuming the author wanted to be brief and not get to into it - it works as an offhanded comment, maybe a tweet which ahs strict character limits, but in this 5 page manifesto it is completely out of place and jorbs is right then it is just wrong and trying to pretend like "Jessica Famousperson" is at fault.
Maybe that part of being emotionally manipulative isn't on purpose, but I think it is impressive that the statement has layers in manipulative language.
I have a ton I could say about this and looking back I guess I did. I owned an LGS for seven years where Magic was my mainstay, and before that I was a tournament organizer and manager for the biggest store in Boston and ran a bunch of Pro Tour Qualifier events and so forth. And I've done judging and OP policy for smaller games too, some of which had different policies about this stuff.
Your analysis is really good and I mostly agree with it, just wanted to share some supporting evidence and a few anecdotes. In my experience you're right about the judges - even when the penalty was even more severe (I recall it was an automatic disqualification for a while) judges were very on-point about assessing this. Partially I think it was just that judges IME have an understandable regard for the rules, I also think because it's a rule that people often fall afoul of, judges made and make sure to enforce it vigilantly because it's even worse if something like that isn't uniformly enforced. The judges on my event staffs knew which rounds and situations were a big risk of improperly determining and made sure to include the warning in the announcements before the event and before those high-risk rounds (generally the last few rounds of Swiss and the beginning of top 8 in some tournaments where making top 8 is the biggest goal). Then having made those announcements they enforced it strictly. Personally I think that's the best you can do as a judge, though the question of whether this should be the policy is of course more complicated, as you point out.
On the concession discussion - I won't say it's not weird that players can concede whenever they want. On an interesting note about that, those rules are different in competitive commander, because there are cards that let you steal an opponent's resource or even control their turn, and it's a multiplayer format, so if a player's resources are being used by another player and the plundered player conceded, it hurts the chances of the person stealing their stuff in a way that the game rules don't account for. So in competitive commander my understanding is that you're only allowed to concede as a sorcery, which doesn't eliminate these concerns but does reduce them.
In terms of the broader question of "why can you concede whenever," from the perspective of a former TO and store owner, I think it basically has to be that way. In addition to the obvious difference that a televised game makes, Magic is individual vs say baseball being a team sport, and when you've got an individual event, people need to be able to end a match if they need to for personal reasons, and IMO we shouldn't be looking to further penalize that. If someone is feeling sick, if they have a personal emergency or need to take an urgent call - in general I think that's important to allow. Of course in many of those cases the player would also drop from the event, but that's not necessarily the case. Someone needs to go to the restroom urgently but expects to be back for the next round, important call but no further action needed, so they'd like the distraction after, someone has to drive someone somewhere but it'll only take a round - these are things I've seen. On top of this, most Magic tournaments don't have designated meal breaks and go really long - if you're going into say, game 2 in a bad matchup and you lost game 1, I could see why you'd rather go get food than struggle through the 5% chance or whatever and I don't think that's a disaster. (Of course, the argument that we should just have lunch breaks is reasonable too.)
To me this is similar to the way individual athletes in a sporting event might go out of the game for a while with an injury. An injury is of course less likely to be the result of a Magic game, but I think the principle holds - people have individual circumstances that we should respect by giving flexibility to individuals, and that just looks different in an individual competitive activity. There are certainly potential cases where this could be abused, but in most of those conceding the game is the same as leaving the tournament. I certainly don't think the policy should be that people can't leave the tournament entirely if they need to for all the reasons above, so it seems like making a concession require a drop (de-facto disqualification for conceding) would just penalize the most reasonable cases without really controlling for the least favorable. (There are a few edge cases, like conceding to a teammate in a situation where that allows or maximizes both of your chances to make top 8, but that's pretty rare in my experience.) If WOTC (reasonably imo) wants to cut down on this I think they'd be better off narrowly targeting the bad behavior than trying to ban concessions or drops.
On the actual incident, yep. Not the biggest meltdown I've seen over a judge ruling, but definitely up there. (I had someone refuse to accept a DQ once and had to summon hotel security, for example.) I do have some limited sympathy in the moment because people get so emotionally invested and I think many of us have let that behave in ways we aren't totally proud of - though mostly not to that level. I'd have removed that player from the venue for sure, but wouldn't have expected them to be suspended or anything. But also, posting online that you don't regret it once the moment is passed is...not great.
I don't really see much of a point to allow the opponent to look at their top card to determine if they concede or not in this case. It's like turn 3? And I'd be playing agro if I was Brad here, how much time was left of my turn? Declare attacks, no blocks, cast a spell or two, pass turn... That's like 5 minutes at most, more likely 30 seconds.
I feel like the main points could have been summed up in a much tighter format without losing much nuance. Was reading through the guy’s whole spiel really necessary? A couple of slides could have pointed out the problematic behaviours after the initial overview of his social media post in the slideshow format, instead of scrolling through the entire GDocs thing.
Then again it’s on me for watching a 3-hour thing. Interesting stuff.
"Well you did not even address everything he wrote" "You took it out of context" etc would be the response.
jorbs wouldn't be able to be smug for 2 hours if he did that though, which was more or less the actual point of the video
@@MrAndoProductionsand what is the point of your comment?
@@MrAndoProductions Jorbs is this, he can start with a beautiful 30 minute presentation of a topic to talk about an incident, talking about nuances and strategies in a really interesting card game and how rules can affect this, all of this presented in a well organized and objective format.
Then he can go on for 1 hour and a half into a completely biased, partial, unapologetic and smug dive into why a player making a discharge about a ruling against him is actually creepy, inappropiate and socially manipulative.
That's why I sometimes really enjoy watching him and then (maybe in the same video) I just have to quit the video to convince myself I'm not crazy.
@@inakiarias7465if you don’t think Brad was being creepy, inappropriate, and socially manipulative you need to go to therapy.
Fairly sure the secondary market argument is bogus. WotC can't just claim something exists because they didn't make any statement on the subject.
I'm confused, when does he get to why Deathtouch shouldn't be able to kill a number of blockers up to the power of a Trampling Creature when determining the outcome of a battle phase?
... Deathtouch should and does, because any amount of damage is enough to kill due to deathtouch, and trample allows you to assign damage *beyond* what is enough to kill to the next defending player or planeswalker. 0 is not an amount of damage, and we can't do fraction, so 1 damage to each creature is enough to kill all of them.