I had an awkward judging decision go against me at the UK Nationals today, so I’m interested to know what the community think would have been a fair resolution to the situation - given the absolute lack of guidelines from FFG. Not sure if this belongs in rules or general, so @SneakySly can move it as necessary.
I’m running vs. HB and I break into a remote with two unrezzed cards (through a lone Eli) and see Breaker Bay Grid (which I trash) and an Eve Campaign (which I leave due to insufficient funds). I pass to the Corp who installs a new card into the server with Eve Campaign, does a few other things and passes back to me. I take my turn (probably cards and money) and pass back. At this point my opponent makes the illegal play of advancing out a Vitruvius from the server which I know to contain Eve Campaign.
I call the judge over who rules that the Eve is trashed but the agenda is scored. I’m pretty sure that must be the wrong call, since my opponent has effectively masqueraded an agenda as an upgrade. Had he actually installed a card over the Eve campaign I would almost certainly have run it on my previous turn.
Now, I genuinely don’t believe my opponent was intentionally cheating - I think he just got momentarily confused and thought I had trashed the Eve and left the BB Grid. Nevertheless, I feel the judge got it wrong on this occasion, but I chose not to make a scene. I’m just interested to know how you guys might rule this kind of situation? You can’t re-wind to the point of the infraction because the runner turn has injected so much new information into the game, so you can’t undo the damage. How would you rule it?
As a side note, the same player had an alt art SMC in his runner deck that was in French. Again, I didn’t cause a fuss, but I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been an official FFG alt art SMC, so it’s probably a custom one that he bought on ebay. Can any of the French players confirm? Was he effectively running an illegal deck and what should the punishment be in that case?
Oh yeah, I agree the judge is in a tricky spot. You can’t make a ruling here without favouring one side or the other, but I feel that if the Corp makes a procedural error, he shouldn’t be allowed to benefit from the play and any adjustment should favour the other player.
I agree, but I don’t want a witch hunt against the players or TO or anything. I’m interested to know what a reasonable adjustment is for this situation. Should this be a game loss? Is the agenda forfeited? Should the runner be awarded it? Trash it? Leave it in the server, advanced? What is fair? There basically isn’t a rule to cover this.
The judge was absolutely wrong, and you should have argued it for sure. It is a game loss, really no other way to rule it unfortunately. Saw a guy install a biotic labor in a server int he top 8 at a regionals 2 years back (basically an SC) and it was a game loss as well. Sucks, but it happens.
Well this is pretty much my own opinion, I surely could see a DQ but I would give him a warning and the agenda to you. Regarding the SMC It depends, if the original card is altered manually, I have no problem with that. It’s pretty common in magic. If the card is printed via a third party, I would let the judge decide, since the weight/cardboard strenght could be a factor for your opponent to find the card easier in the shuffle process.
On the alt art, since it’s easy: I don’t mind crazy alt-art IDs, but alt-art cards in your deck are kind of a drag, since it’s harder to recognize on sight from across the table.
On the judge call: it’s clearly wrong. I’d rule that the agenda (and turn and cash spent advancing it) was forfeit, and if a similar issue came up again I’d issue a game loss.
A TO cannot just hand a runner the agenda. That makes no sense.
I agree it makes no sense, so what’s your ruling? I’ve thought about it a bit and can’t really come up with much better other than rewind the turn and not allow the agenda to be scored that turn. It’s a tricky one. DQ might be reasonable. It seems harsh though.
I feel like there’s too much information and confusion there for it to be anything other than a game loss. There’s no way to rewind to your last turn or their last turn honestly, and they’re the one that made the mistake. I get how it happened, it’s easy to lose track of something like that in the excitement, but there’s no other way to do it.
It easy for him to say he’d have trashed the Eve, and you to say you’d have run it (and I believe you would have), but he made an illegal move.
In all seriousness, the punishment that seems most fair to the both of you is a Game Loss. Much better than the ruling made, or something like giving you the agenda or making him trash both the Vitruvius and Eve and redo the turn or something.
We split the match. I won my Corp game against his Runner deck with the suspect alt art, but I lost the Runner game vs his HB where the serious infraction happened.
I think the least disruptive decision would be to not allow him to score the agenda until his next turn. That effectively gives you the shot at it you didn’t have, and penalizes him by 3 credits and a turn. If you steal the agenda, you would have gotten it. If you don’t, then his illegal play was an issue, but not game-changing.
And if he had any similar oops moments in any games that day, I’d DQ him.
I think because it’s nationals, it’s a snap game loss; you can’t go pulling that shit without any punishment whatsoever. If it were a store championship or something, I would maybe look for a way to rewind the game back to the start of your turn, (probably with random card from HQ returned to R&D) with the vitruvius known to be installed and the eve trashed.
Lower level play, I’d say eve is killed and they cannot score that turn after advancing. Gives runner a clear shot at it for a turn with as little game state change as possible.
The level you’re at is probably correct to say game loss because any ruling is going to cause heart ache, its best to use a ruling which can be the most consistently enforced and expected as possible.
TOs in netrunner are notoriously bad at giving out a game loss when it’s warranted. I heard a story of someone at worlds who was playing PE, but presented an RP identity instead during a match by accident. His opponent played into the game as if it were RP, not running remotes without first running a central. The judge (not sure who but I hope not Lukas) ruled that he simply had to finish the game playing RP and play PE for the remainer of the tournament as he wrote down on his decklist. Fucking outrageous.