Kill the Umpire!: Judging Magic Judges, Part One

an MTG article by: CML

Part Two

Part Three

1. Judge Unworthy

My name is CML. I play Magic.

The most resilient memories Magic makes are social. I will go to my grave happy with the friends I have made in this game. (You don’t make friends playing on Modo and writing for TCGPlayer!) But if the strongest positive Magic memories come from people, the strongest negative ones do too. As a kid, I quit playing for a decade because of my negative reaction to an overbearing rules lawyer; I believe this to happen often, and try to be a fun and pleasant opponent.

Yet it is this self-image that contrasts with, and might have brought about, my worst Magic experience since the childhood rules lawyer.

This experience happened over a year ago, in April 2013, and it wasn’t even that bad. At a PTQ in Burnaby, BC, Canada, I was inappropriately – ludicrously – disqualified by head judge Niko S. I tell people I was disqualified “for the crime of being awesome in Canada,” and because I didn’t lie to the judge. Though those statements are both true, they are glib and offer little guidance in how to minimize risk of repeat “offending” – how to avoid setting yourself up to get unlucky, in other words. Moreover, the negative emotions associated with such an experience have, similarly to a costly play mistake, clouded it with the kind of self-justification that makes it impossible for judges to improve at judging, impossible for Wizards to fix the culture of Magic, and difficult for Magic players to improve inside and outside the game.

In this article, I’ll dissect the incident in fine detail, then combine my conclusions with other observations about judges and judge culture to give the reader an idea of why Magic judging is the way it is, and what you can do to deal with it.

2. Memory’s Journey

Most games do not have judges. Sports do, but the referee’s (supposed) omniveillance makes fraud a corner case. Poker has dealers, but floor calls are rare, maybe because the stakes are so much higher. Chess has very few judges (and ample opportunity and incentive to cheat during rounds). StarCraft has no judges. League of Legends has no judges. Magic Online doesn’t have judges, which is one of the few design features that work.

Magic Online’s (mostly) functional rules engine proves you can program that part of a judge, and that doing so is more trivial than programming the rest of the interface, so there is no reason for a paper-Magic judge to get a rules question wrong, ever. Having judges settle these questions makes as little sense as having human umpires call balls and strikes. Tournaments are sometimes ruined by this kind of errant decision, but not often … beyond that, though, there is little for me to say about it.

Judge errors begin to get more numerous, and more interesting, when paper diverges from Modo. Sam Black misrepresents the board state in a do-or-die (or does he?); an AEther Vial with Thalia in play must be cast for 2 instead of rotting in hand (or maybe not?).

Now we are moving into that realm where things have gone wrong, or may have gone wrong, and only a judge can fix it, or so thinks the judge.

Such a situation brought about my ruin in Canada. Here is a portion of the letter I wrote to the regional coordinator a couple of days after shit went down. I have supplemented it with extra information, which is not italicized:

Hey Gavin,

[…] into round six I was 4-1; I quickly won game 1; in game two I needed to rip a red source to cast Blasphemous Act; I drew Dragonskull Summit, cast the Act, then won the game a few turns later. After the match was over and the result slip had been signed and deposited, a friend told me that the Summit should have come into play tapped (leaving me dead on board, forcing a game three). As soon as that friend said that, I knew it was true; I remembered I’d had an Orzhov Guildgate, an Isolated Chapel, and a Plains – an unusual draw for that deck. While I smoked a cigarette and spoke to my friend, a Canadian overheard; “Are you going to tell [your opponent]?,” he asked, and I said there was no reason to.

Fifteen minutes later the head judge, Niko, pulled me aside and said, “What happened?,” so I related these events.

“Why didn’t you tell a judge?” he said.

“I’d already turned in the match slip, and neither player caught it, so I assumed it was a done deal,” I said.

“It’s not a done deal,” responded Niko.

He went to confer with another judge and, some five minutes later, returned, asking me “How long have you been playing Magic?,” which I also answered truthfully. Two minutes later, Niko came back and said, “You’ve been playing long enough that you should know what M10 lands do.” At this point, I was becoming a bit agitated, as was Niko; my good friend Rob said, “This doesn’t look like this is going your way.” I still felt confident because no specific charge had been leveled, until Niko came back and said, “We have reason to believe that you’ve lied to us”; then I was worried, but still there was no specific charge. Niko would walk away and then walk back; eventually he said, “Judges are here to help you; we told you that before the tournament started. If there’s a problem, you call one of us. We told you that!” He paced away, then paced back: “I’ve got to protect the integrity of the tournament,” he said, “I’ve got to protect the integrity of the tournament, so I’ve got to remove you from it. I’ve got to protect the integrity of the tournament. I’m not going to recommend a suspension. Write a statement. You don’t have to, but if you want to be heard …”

Niko left to start the next round, and Rob said, “I almost told that judge to go fuck himself.” I am glad he didn’t, because he won the PTQ. On the way back it was agreed that an earlier incident, where my opponent had supplied me with Human tokens for Assemble the Legion (and I’d used those to put counters on my Falkenrath Aristocrat), might have doomed me.

Looking back at the letter, I am surprised it skimps on these details. It is heavy with generalizations, such as one might use, as a judge, to reduce the specificity and impact of a bad experience. It is a bad beat story, and not much else; furthermore, all anger is narcissism, and thinking my narrative was exceptional was stupid. At any rate, the letter concludes:

This [the land coming into play untapped] is a common error; it’s a natural error, too — so natural that neither my opponent nor I caught it in the middle of the game. For this, the IPG suggests a warning, maybe a game loss. But, in order to disqualify me, per the IPG, Niko must have suspected fraud, though it was never made clear to me what exactly the allegations were. Fraud is a serious accusation — far more serious than a common game-play error — and it ought to have a rigorous burden of proof that I believe was not met. My understanding of the IPG is that fraud is based on an intent to cheat. There was no concrete evidence to suggest that I cheated deliberately, and much evidence to the contrary the staff ignored. In order to issue a disqualification, there should be very strong indications that I intended to cheat, yet the immediate and broader context suggest quite the opposite. I don’t cheat at Magic.

Thanks! CML

–

I look back on my letter now and see I missed the point; my innocence and stupidity make my fate partially my fault. Past a certain point, I ought to have realized what was going on, and acted on it. What could I have done differently?

3. Arrest

A friend of mine summarizes his views on Magic judges with the epigram, “Don’t talk to the cops.” I could have steered my friend’s conversation away from the game in question, I could have not told the Canadian outside smoking (though why would I, had I cheated), and I could have told Niko that “it was all hearsay,” or “I don’t remember.” In this case, nothing would have happened, which is the best-case scenario when you’re wanted by any justice system. Yet keeping your mouth shut, not openly discussing these things, is not only unpleasant for players, it also creates an atmosphere of deceit that is partially the fault of judges and the judging system.



If we fast-forward to the point where, away from the trouble, I discuss the game’s particulars, it is too late to “say nothing.” But if I have the benefit of hindsight then, and know telling the truth will lead to a DQ, what do I do? Should I say that the smoker’s tale is all a fib, that I had a Godless Shrine in play (why wouldn’t I claim that had I cheated), or that I’d only been playing for a few months and that this was my first PTQ? By considering these possibilities, am I not already guilty of that which I appear to be guilty?

I’ll pursue these questions later; they are complicated, and an interpretation of what Niko’s words really meant is simple. They are nothing but self-justification. “It’s not a done deal” establishes a new truth; he gives himself the strength to go on. If we read what went down in the span of a minute, instead of real time, it’s obvious that the conclusion is not in question. Viewed in this way, “How long have you been playing Magic?” becomes less a fact-finding query than an excuse to keep going; in general, the investigation’s actions are there to drive the investigation forward, while effecting the appearance of thoroughness. Throughout the proceedings, Niko keeps me in the dark; he presents no possible consequences until the very end; he never levels any specific charge of fraud; his self-righteous vagueness mirrors my own in the letter. By saying “I’ve got to protect the integrity of the tournament,” Niko aligns himself with an abstract ideal that we’d all agree is worth protecting; by saying “I’ve got to remove you from the tournament,” he uses euphemism to sooth me; by reiterating his instructions at the beginning of the tournament – “Call a judge if you have a problem” – he justifies his “fixing the problem.” Yet we know (or can assume for the purpose of argument; there’s no difference at this point) that Niko’s involvement was the problem; the situation would have been resolved satisfactorily, for me and in the abstract, had he known and done nothing.

Now we know the meaning of “judges are here to help you” – Niko’s Hypocritic oath, a way of saying: “I can do no harm.” The meaning is transparent, yet whenever a major site’s article mentions judges, you hear the same thing from every writer: “Judges are there to help you.” Some of these writers are good players and smart people, yet the discourse is self-deceptive, worse than meaningless, worse than useless.

4. Judge’s Familiar

I do not think Niko deliberately miscarried the affair; in some way his mistake was as “honest” as mine. If you look at the judge blog, though there is a great deal of self-justification, much of it is pretty reasonable, far more than an analogous organ for a police department. But I don’t think these things are important. Good intentions can only go so far. As Magic players, we always intend to win, we always intend to make the right read, and then what happens? The kinds of players that can never admit fault go nowhere, but this is precisely the kind of flaw that judging encourages, that and, you know, covering it up.

This flaw is also present in many judges before they start judging. Ask yourself: what kind of weirdo travels to a large Magic event, gets up early, sweats over minor details, ignores the outside world, and then doesn’t play? As Magic players we are weird, but judges are often weirder.

Magic players are not in the habit of analyzing judges in this way. They should be. No judge has ever lied or made a mistake, at least not in front of players. To a judge, all judges have good judgment. This means that judging encourages bad judgment. Who judges the judges? The players do. the players must!

To judge the judges, you have to consider their motivations. Obviously these generalizations aren’t universal, but they’re a good place to start. Judges must like Magic, but prefer adjudicating to playing; this makes it likely they’re weaker or more casual players (e.g. Sheldon Menery). They must want some amount of power of others, and drink a few extra drinks of Kool-Aid. They crave, like many nerds, a benevolent authority; they want to become that benevolent authority. Judging doesn’t look like much fun – and if someone isn’t doing it for fun, they are doing it for self-satisfaction, belief in the benevolence of their mission, or rubbish pay.

A friend once told me that “judges are Azorius,” which is a terrific description. By this I mean not that judges enjoy law and order, but that they are a caricature of people who enjoy law and order, as filtered through nerds – human Magic figurines, also designed by Wizards: cardboard incarnate. A related idea is that they are “chaotic neutral” but think of themselves as “chaotic good.”

Compared to schoolyard torments and invisibility in day-to-day life, judging, with its lousy pay, its early mornings, its obese beneficiaries, begins to make more sense. A nerd’s life is one long struggle not to be laughed at, and judges are rarely laughed at, to their detriment. I’ve also noticed that, when someone becomes a judge, or begins to judge more often, their attitude changes … they no longer want to hang out with you as much; they feel distant and aloof.

My own investigation began right after I got back home. I spoke with my chat thread about what’d happened. I learned what the IPG was and looked up “fraud.” The story quickly spread around Seattle. A local judge confirmed that the ruling was “ridiculous.” Many people, some of whom don’t like me, offered condolences. I Tweeted at Helene Bergeot (I don’t know how she deals with getting these all the time) and lodged the complaint you see above.

I wasn’t so bummed out I couldn’t accurately describe Niko. That being said, I was clearly a little too bummed to critique myself (or judging culture in general). Too many facts sink slowly into a sea of sentiment. It takes time and distance to not avert your eyes from mistakes; sometimes months pass before I can admit to myself, buoyed by a present happiness, that I’d taken a bad line with respect to Niko. This is the kind of perfectionism that is the opposite of self-criticism. Pretty common stuff in Magic.

Thus, the investigation has continued, in the background, like a running joke, a suspended sentence, a Kafka trial, right through the present. My thoughts had stalled, and were in danger of staling, until I decided to start this article. That set off another cascade of associations, and, after I showed a local judge a draft, he agreed to speak to Niko at the next big event and forward a periphrasis to me. I am indebted to him for passing onto me Niko’s version of things; it is hearsay, but it is the closest to transparency we’ll get from people who are in the habit of describing themselves inaccurately. Remember that we are also working with a lesser burden of proof here:

Story Niko hears from spectators is: you’re facing a lethal attack next turn, and have been holding blasphemous in hand without red source for 2-3 turns. you draw dragonskull summit, tank for 10-15 seconds, play land untapped, cast blasphemous act. when he investigates, he surmises your claim to be “I didn’t notice until after the match, when my friend pointed it out.” Niko said he asked your friend when you first realized, and your friend tanked and said “uhhhh,” and didn’t apparently have an answer for Niko. His conclusion was, given that you tanked upon drawing the land (according to spectators), and given that your friend didn’t have an answer for when you first realized you made a mistake, that you either did it intentionally or probably realized the mistake during the game.

This kind of narrative is very common in legal discourse. I imagine judges, who talk to each other a lot, traffic in such tales all the time. On the surface, it appears reasonable. An outside observer would find nothing objectionable; plenty of innocent players, fearful of authority, diffident about their own memory, and cowed into stupidity, would not contradict it. Its style is that of a report addressed to a superior, with enough detail to avoid the appearance of cherry-picking. Yet its weaknesses are manifold. The most damning is that no specific details are needed to call it into question. This is because the ambiguous pieces of evidence, of which there are a paltry two, could be the opposite pieces, and still provide support for a guilty verdict. Had my (admittedly stupid) friend answered Niko right away, it could have meant I tampered with the witnesses, or he too was lying of his own volition. And, if I’d slammed the land, I could have premeditated what to do with Dragonskull Summit, and, in fact, blitzing the opponent, giving him no time to process what’s going on, is a common tactic employed by cheaters like Alex Bertoncini. The player’s story can be falsified; the judge’s cannot.

Multi-level thinking thus becomes a tool to clarify, rather than complicate, judgments; judges often use it as an excuse to reverse the significance of details as they see fit, to make every reported ‘fact’ fit their tale. Maybe this is why players are explicitly disallowed from using it when talking to judges?

Once the tale situates itself within more specifics, it collapses completely; the facts work with themselves, but not with others that were omitted. Knowing that it was game 2 of a good matchup, that everyone was tired enough to tank with fatigue, that Niko spoke to my friend with the intent of discounting positive testimony on the grounds of friendship, and that Niko’s mind was already made up when he spoke to said friend, is sufficient to debunk that flimsy version of events. Next to real life, Niko’s worldview has the thin and smooth brittleness of retrospective self-justification. Yet why would Niko call himself out on this? This is the problem in any system where a judge is also a prosecutor.

The undue emphasis on intent, let us not forget, has grown out of this: judges have difficulty coming to terms with creating more conflict than they resolve. This is why calls often result not in “games of Magic determining the outcome of the tournament,” the stated goal, but the opposite.

In part two, I’ll delve into the people who created the IPG, the IPG, and the people the IPG created!

@CMLisawesome on Twitter