Interesting judging decision - what would you rule?

Rules Questions
81

Since I was the player making this screw up, want to pitch in and give my 2c. This was the last game during swiss with 15 mins left when we started, and I needed to get a win to make the cut. I was rushing in the hope of still finishing on time, as a timed win wouldn’t get me there. The intention was to put an ash in that remote to make it more taxing, but to be completely fair I might have just as well thrown in the eve to bait a run and then forgot about it. The previous rounds and games had been quite draining and at the speed I was playing it became a bit of a blur, however there is no doubt that I screwed up big time and deserved the game loss. Trying to revert the game to a previous point would have been impossible and as everyone here agrees: at the regionals playing for the cut, the only appropiate penalty is game loss. We still called the TO and I explained the situation, and he really had no other choice but to agree with me that game loss was the only way to go.

I can understand that TOs want to keep the game fun and relaxed, however I am all for stricter rulings to avoid even giving people the idea they can get away with things since “it was an honest mistake to make”. Especially at regionals or nationals, you should expect people know how the game works and ensure to keep a legal gamestate. Even if TOs are hesitant to give out game losses, I’d hope people at that level are honest enough to man up and concede instead of jumping through hoops trying to revert the game state. I might be naive, but I truely feel all other players I know personally would have argued for the game loss like I did.

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82

This is what upsets me most about this. Even if it was a genuine mistake, the player who made the mistake should have spoken up and said that gaining a significant advantage doesn’t feel right. @Arkhon was perhaps too British in accepting the ruling, I would have pushed back a bit.

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83

Yeah if I’d been the guy who made the mistake I’d have handed over the agenda to the runner without a second thought when it was pointed out. I don’t understand the need for a game loss when you can simply hand over the agenda and keep on playing. It’s a clear, simple fix that punishes (runner effectively gains 3 free clicks for your mistake since they could have run + clicked eli) but doesn’t completely wreck someone for an honest mistake.

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84

Exactly, which I think is why the view from the other side would be interesting (maybe @Arkhon has some insight?).

Either:
a) the opponent knew they had gained an advantage, but didn’t think anything of making the most of the situation (which would make them a bit of a spanner);
b) they read the game state differently to @Arkhon and didn’t realise they had gained such an advantage.

It’s not impossible that the Corp assumed that @Arkhon still wouldn’t have run the server if they had trashed the Eve correctly, not fully comprehending how the decision would have been different. If so, they might have thought that trashing the Eve was fair enough, as the server wouldn’t have been run anyway.

If on the other hand @Arkhon made it abundantly clear exactly how the mistake had changed his decision-making process (i.e. that he would have run the server if he’d seen the Eve get trashed), it seems a poor judgment and even poorer behaviour by the opponent to accept the unearned bonus.

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85

This is the best way to handle the situation. Ideally, players could work out most situations themselves in a way that both are satisfied with the end result (if not the mistake that led to the issue). TOs would ideally be needed for extremely tricky or important situations, but the world isn’t perfect.

This is what I would hope from other players.

If a player volunteers this once the mistake has been noted, this is totally reasonable. I feel like once the TO is called, things should get…stricter as @popeye09 said, but ideally players could work it out.

Of course, we only have one side of the story, so we should probably hesitate to pass judgment unless we can get more information, or have a clear enough picture of the whole thing.

This does bring up an interesting point in my mind. I had originally posted about this, but edited it out as I wasn’t sure how I really felt about it without more thought. If a TO comes over to resolve a dispute, and he comes to a conclusion, that, in your mind is not really fair, is there any onus on the player who broke the rules to argue for a call that is worse for him? So, Annie accidentally cheated, and Billy called the TO over. The TO made a ruling that Annie thinks is too lenient on her, given the situation. Should there be any pressure on Annie to argue for a ruling that is more harsh against her?

86

Just to note that players had been specifically asked not to sort out problems between themselves, on pain of something or other nasty that I don’t quite remember.

This was at the beginning of the day, before anyone went hoarse from shouting into a massive tent, so everyone should have heard!

87

It’s tough when mistakes break the whole gamestate, isn’t it?

If possible to repair the boardstate, it’s probably better to repair the boardstate. In the case of scoring out the agenda next to the Eve Campaign, it’s pretty tricky because there’s a whole turn of Runner actions to unwind, and the drawn card from R&D. That’s a lot of information to rewind, and I don’t think that’s possible. The closest thing I can think of might be to return the Vitruvius to hand and assert the corp could not have installed the Vitruvius (as Eve wasn’t trashed) or advanced it. If you want to be generous, I guess you say the corp spend those four clicks gaining credits instead of installing and advancing three times, but that could affect the board state too much (if, for some reason, clicking for credits was actually a pretty good move). So I think those clicks just vanish into the ether.

Non FFG cards has to be a game loss and, if the deck can’t be made legal, a DQ, right? Sure, at a casual night, nobody cares. But at Store Tournament level or higher, there’s an agreement with FFG here we’re all supposed to be honouring.

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88

Hi this is Cj one of the head TOs of the event, do you know who made the ruling? Cause this is the first I heard of it, and with the rulings I made during the day I would of been a lot more strict (stricter?) in that case. Problem was we were understaffed and had a couple of new TOs working the floor who wouldn’t always call the experienced judges over.

As for the AA card, again first I heard of it, was it sleeved in his deck or to the side? If in his deck that’s not cool and should of been brought to mine or Mike’s attention (if it was brought to Mike’s attention and he didn’t do anything then…he was wrong). If it was seperate and he was replacing a real installed SMC with it, then that is okay as long as his opponent agrees (see Wall of static on a world stream)

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89

The whole situation is really tough. I think it’s the first instance that I’ve been aware of where the gamestate has been totally broken by a rules infraction. This is the best example I know of to push for a set of floor rules. It shouldn’t be down to the TOs discretion what happens here (especially not at a top competitive level event).

Also, rulings on cards need to be collected somewhere official - FFG should work with @jakodrako to complete and legitimise (that’s probably not the right word, but it’s as close as I can think of right now) Project ANCUR. PDFs of that document should be released (probably after each datapack, but at least once per cycle).

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90

I remember a similar situation at the Sheffield Regionals. I can’t remember how that was ruled.

91

Also judges are human and will make errors, if you ever feel there has been an error ask for a second oppinion, you can also ask for it away from the table to not be in ear shot on the opponent.

If I ruled that I would of given a GL. I gave a GL for someone having too much memory (forgetting about parasite) and his opponent had been playing around parasite and the game state for 5 turns. I would of given a GL for installing an agenda on eve, especially as it was known to be eve by the runner.

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92

I was right down on the last table for round 1 and it was very hard to hear the announcements even at the start. I certainly didn’t hear anything about not trying to sort out problems ourselves. I think next year they need to borrow @evilgaz to do the announcements, he’s a lot louder than Mike!

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93

PRELUDE: I am a Netrunner judge since 2013 and a Bridge judge since 2013.

I was the head floor judge at this event, along with a colleague who was a head judge as well as scorekeeper.

This post contains 2 problems:

  1. Can a corp score an agenda illegally?

  2. Is an alt art card allowed in a nationals tournament?

Let’s start with point 2. The alt-art would not be allowed, but a judge was not made aware of this at the event. Yes, it would count as an illegal deck and a GL would be issued.

As for point 1, I was called over by another judge at this event to rule.

The Damaged Player (DP) said that their opponent had a Breaker Bay Grid and an Eve Campaign on a remote server. The Offending Player (OP) had trashed a card and installed a card on the server. DP then has a turn. OP scores out the Vitruvius. JUDGE CALLED.

While ascertaining the situation, OP made the mistake and both players agree to the events above.

I do agree with the many posters that it should be a GL…nearly every time.

However, 1 turn has passed. If it had been 2 or more turns, immediate GL. However, only 1 turn has passed, making this situation somewhat easier to examine.

I gave a warning to OP for Failing to Maintain Game State

I asked DP if the Eve Campaign had been trashed, would they have run the server? DP said they would not have run the server.

This is the important part of the ruling, as it makes the server irrelevant. If the runner does not intend to run at the newly installed card, then the corporation could, on their next turn, score out the agenda and the game state corrected.

If, however, DP had said they would run the server, then a GL would be issued.

At the end of the ruling, I asked if there was anything else. OP and DP said no.

Again, this is important. If DP had asked for an appeal, or had asked for a second opinion, the other head judge can come and discuss the ruling with me and reach a consensus. As both players did not raise their concern at the time, there is very little I can do about making a ‘wrong ruling’.

I would like to remind Netrunner players that there is no official rulings booklet on Netrunner judging. As a NR TO, you have to examine the board state, state of mind, and the incident in question. I feel this is what I did. While I do agree that DP has not been compensated sufficiently, I feel their honest admission of not running the server makes this a repairable game state rather than a strict GL. Please remember that GLs should only be given if the game state cannot be repaired, and not like M&Ms.

Further, please remember that TOs are human and not everything is cut-and-dry. We trust players to tell the truth and play fairly and, in return, players should understand the situation and the ruling given, be honest, and communicate with their TO. If a TO makes a ruling and you don’t know why, ask to speak to them away from the table. We’re more than happy to explain the situation, rather than having players snap.

A couple of points to note:

  1. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CONCEDE A GAME. This is counted as unfair determination of a match, and you can be DQ’ed for this (Check the tournament rules).

  2. No, I’m not giving the runner the agenda, because that would be far, far worse.

  3. Forfeiting an agenda gets us nowhere, and removes 2 AP from both players. This is a simple repair/GL.

Finally, I would like to say that these TOs give up their time and effort in order to run well-timed and pleasant events for players. We could be playing in these events too, but instead we work for the benefit of the players and the game. Please remember this, and try not to say sweeping statements against these TOs that could give you a bad reputation.

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94

Thank you for replying with more information. I can see where you’re coming from.

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95

Given that knowledge what you did was entirely reasonable. Reminder to the community that one side of the story is rarely enough. Its easy as a player to get personally upset over something like this, but the first rule of TO’ing is see if the two players can come to amicable solution on their own. If they haven’t, see if you can guide them there if the offense isn’t outrageous. And finally lay down the law.

96

Good of you to come along and explain your decision making process. A couple of things differ from your understanding and the original poster’s explanation though, which may be partly why people are questioning the decision. You state that you thought the corp trashed the card while OP states that he trashed the card. You also state that OP was asked if he’d have run the server and OP doesn’t mention that. Both key factors in the decision that were hitherto not known, so I wouldn’t worry about what seems a damning indictment of your decision before both sides of the story were known.

97

At least as recently as last year FFG still ran their Worlds and US Nationals as less of a “THIS IS THE PINNACLE OF THE GAME!” and more of a “hey, come try out this other fun game we make too!” This year they seem to be making Worlds a bit tighter, but they’re still offering a four-event pass for 90 bucks. Last year there were a bunch of people who came for other games that were playing what ammounted to a few casual rounds of Netrunner before dropping.

I think reading this thread has given me a pretty good idea of who came to this game from Magic and who came to this game from board games. The whole cheating discussion seems really strange to me, but then I haven’t played Magic since they still had summons and interrupts. As far as I’m concerned, if someone decides they have to win a silly game badly enough to cheat, that person probably needs it more than I do. Of course, I’m also that dude who lets people take moves back and runs ONR Snares in tournaments of any level, so whatever. I’ll scoop and forfeit a round rather than play against someone who would demand a game loss over an ONR Snare.

You know, it’s possible I might not have the temperament required for high-level competitive play. I apologize in advance to all of my Worlds opponents, but at least you’ll get free match points after you call the judges to DQ me after flatlining on my ONR Snare!

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98

I think the question of would you run is irrelevant. The simple fact is that an asset and an agenda were installed at the same time and that is blatantly a rules violation. How this came about is a different question and one that is unclear based on two sides of the story, so I am going to reserve judgement because frankly I do not know enough.

I have been in a similar position as a TO where someone questioned my decision, so I totally sympathize with the TO here, its a totally shitty situation to be in, and why I suggested to the mods here, and am not helping to hammer out at least a Stimhack set of floor rules. They might not have made much of a difference in this situation, but this clearly demonstrates the need, and community desire for consistent rulings.

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99

this directly contradicts the scenario the OP related. I wonder if it was an miscommunication between the players and the TO, or if someone is remembering/telling the story incorrectly. whether or not the eve has been seen by the runner makes a big difference as to whether this was a simple and minor misplay or a major misrepresentation of game-state.

this information goes right to the heart of this call, and if what he says is true then I’m tending to agree with this TO. If @Arkhon did indeed state that even if the eve had been trashed when the vitruvius went in he still would not have run, then the game state can be repaired: the eve would’ve been trashed and the vitruvius scored. If it went down like this then it might just be a case of “too honest for his own good” as a simply, “yeah, I would have run on it” (not an outrageous claim) could’ve gotten him a win.

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100

No It doesnt make server irrelevant, the fact that Corp had a known asset in that server and ended up scoring an agenda out of it, that’s illegal and TO should have given consideration to that (whether someone runs on it is unimportant, its illegal game play!). Again the aggrieved party was too honest to state that he would not have run (although his own post contradicts it). Also I can see why he would not have run the remote, who puts an agenda behind rezzed Eli. but again Corp didnt play those mind games (i.e. trash Eve and put new card in there), he ended up sticking an agenda on top of the Eve.

Something can surely be done, maybe start with accepting that the ruling was wrong when one allowed to score out an agenda out of server which had asset in it (and hopefully not making similar ruling while TOing next time).

Atleast the OP didnt make any sweeping statements against TO, he merely put forward a question based on experience, he is least in chance of getting bad reputation. Unless you are talking about getting a bad rep with TOs like yourself (for bringing up valid questions) !