Silvestri Says – Judging Pro Tour Austin
Posted by Josh Silvestri
October 19, 2009 | 
74 comments
Judging Pro Tour Austin
Woo-hoo! This weekend we got to see a format that consisted of more than just one deck (Although Zoo tried its hardest to oversaturate the field) and was full of interaction, even in matches normally completely lop-sided like Hypergenesis vs. Zoo. Meanwhile the Last Chance Qualifier results were full of more misery for Standard players after seeing another top eight completely dominated by Jund decks. From what I've been told, the metagame of the LCQ was entirely Jund and Red oriented, with almost all of the control decks being knocked to the lower tables by the midpoint of the tourney, which I'm sure is sad times for all of you 5cc players looking for a good starting point.
First let me get my cheerleading out of the way and send props to Lucas Siow, Josh Utter-Leyton and David Ochoa for all finishing in the top 64. Further props go out to PVDDR for making the top eight of yet another major tournament and Brian Kibler for taking it down. Slops go out to that horrendous Gifts Ungiven Punishing Fire deck which was a kind of awkward that's difficult to describe, so I'll leave it to Chapin to explain it in his tournament report.
I was prepared to make a dash through the top Extended finishers, but something came up during the playing of the top eight that really got to me. For those who didn't have the opportunity to see or read the coverage of the top eight matches, the following is taken from Josh Bennett's write-up of the Brian Kibler – Evangelos Papatsarouchas G5 Quarterfinals match. .
"Kibler tried for a repeat of Game 4 with a Ghost Quarter for Papatsarouchas's Tendo Ice Bridge and a second one on Reflecting Pool, but Papatsarouchas was long on land and followed right on through with a second Ice Bridge and a Gemstone Mine.
Kibler, meanwhile, had played Grove of the Burnwillows and Noble Hierarch, and then a Forest for a second Hierarch. Papatsarouchas played his fifth land of the match and cast Demonic Dread. Hypergenesis allowed him Progenitus and Angel of Despair. Kibler had a meaty grip as well, putting down Meddling Mage naming Firespout, another naming Putrefy, and a third just in case. Naturally, Papatsarouchas was holding both.
Kibler untapped and slammed down Baneslayer Angel. His pair of Hierarchs meant it represented a drain of 7 a turn. Papatsarouchas hit with Progenitus, still ahead in the race thanks to his Angel sitting in the way, but then Kibler showed him Path to Exile. They traded blows, but lifelink kept Kibler out of reach. After uncooperative draws, Papatsarouchas extended the hand."
Anyone see the problem here?
When the Hypergenesis resolved the players skipped over the mandatory Angel of Despair trigger. Even worse were the nine levels of judge standing around the table failed to notice it either. When I saw it via the web-cast, I was befuddled as I knew the trigger had been skipped, but thought I had simply missed something in the video. This little screw-up completely changed the outcome of the match, as had Papatsarouchas targeted pretty much anything on Kibler's side of the board, Kibler would be left unable to win. Either Baneslayer Angel never makes it into play or the Baneslayer dies to Putrefy at some point in the near future.
The kicker is that Papatsarouchas would've been left in a great position to win the Pro Tour, as his remaining opponents were both Zoo decks. For his semis match, Hunter Burton's best play game one is to pray for a miracle and his post-board hate was nothing that the Hypergenesis deck hadn't already battled through during the swiss. Meanwhile Ikeda waiting in the finals already admitted his worst match was Hypergenesis and had almost no hate in comparison to Kibler or Burton's decks.
So what went wrong here? Certainly it wasn't as big a cock-up as the StarWarsKid – Billy Moreno fiasco a couple of years ago, but it certainly raised some eyebrows. For example, what's the point of having table judges if they miss things like that? Let me preemptively stop the ‘Look they're only human; they do tons of good, blah blah.' I'm not writing this part to slag every judge or even the ones watching the match (I'm sure they feel silly enough), but this happens often enough in situations where there's a substantial amount of money on the line that this has to be wondered. The idea behind having a table judge is that there's a safety net in case anything goes wrong with the game-state or a shady player interaction. If this isn't being accomplished, then I think the DCI needs to rethink its position on how they handle top eight matches.
Again, not just putting this on the people watching; obviously Papatsarouchas probably felt horrible after realizing his blunder and under the rules Kibler is technically at fault as well (more on this later). Would more Judges watching be the answer? Do we get someone watching all the angles of the video to look for any possible shenanigans? Or do we accept this as a natural occurrence just like at the lower levels of Tournament Level Magic? In the end though, just how far do you go to stop this from happening?
One possibility that's becoming increasingly attractive is just throwing the PT single-elimination rounds onto Magic Online so errors like that can't happen. 99% of things that could go wrong are removed as factors when done in the fashion of the MTGO Live Series. You could argue this brings misclicks or potential bugs in as a factor, but if you planned for it I think you could iron out almost all of the kinks beforehand. If something catastrophic does happen, well then the back-up of playing it out with real cards is still there. I don't think this will happen, at least not for some time, but with more MTGO events being run in the physical realm, I have to include the possibility for the future.
Let me be clear, I make no judgment on what Kibler did, nor do I have some magical insight into his thought processes so I won't pretend that I knew what he was thinking. I'm only going off what I've read / seen in the match coverage and heard from Kibler's interview after he won the Pro Tour. To clear something up, in the Day 3 wrap-up video in the event coverage, Kibler talks about having the Baneslayer Angel in hand when Hypergenesis was resolving and chose not to play it out of concern for Angel of Despair and then topdecked the land to cast it. This wasn't quite clear in the video footage, so hearing it directly from Kibler should help clear this point up.
As was stated earlier, its undeniable Kibler gained an advantage from this miscue; and under current DCI policy he is at fault in the situation for not speaking up when the trigger was missed. From his own admission, when Hypergenesis was occurring he was at least aware of Angel of Despair's ability. This naturally will raise questions about people ‘forgetting' mandatory triggers when in their best interests to do so.
Still, you need to put this situation into context. Kibler and Papatsarouchas are playing the deciding game of their match to advance to the semifinals of the Pro Tour. Whoever wins has a major advantage over the remaining decks in the field, meaning that the difference in prize payout is potentially $29,000 in addition to whatever bonuses they get from leveling up off 40 pro points. This will naturally generate a lot of pressure on both competitors and could easily throw them off on small cues like that. In addition the onus squarely lands on Papatsarouchas to be clear about his cards; who the hell forgets to blow something up with Angel of Despair?
So this brings us to the main issue this whole debacle, how screwed up are the mandatory trigger rules at this point in time? For a long time they've been described nicely as "Hand-holding" and un-nicely as a variety of terms that I can't reproduce on the site. There's no incentive for players paying attention to want to correct their opponents blunders and if they keep them aware of everything they do, most of the time it leads to one person screwing themselves over for the greater go"¦ er, the opponent. You know why the scary MTGO thing lurks in the back of people's minds? So this stuff never happens and nobody is put in this sort of situation.
You put me in the quarterfinals situation and my reaction would be something like, "lol he didn’t destroy anything! omg he didn’t destroy anything! I win I win!”
I don't have the answer to fixing the missed mandatory trigger rules, especially not under the current policy of everyone being responsible for the game-state. I just hope that things like this force an evaluation on the effectiveness of the current system for dealing with these types of game-states and how the players are treated in such a situation. The idea that someone is technically cheating if they do nothing for the opponent when he makes a blunder seems like a rather bold distinction. I'll be interested to see if any reviews happen in regards to the Kibler / Papatsarouchas match.
In regards to the actual Constructed value from the PT top eight"¦ Well let's just say it's surprising to me that Zoo actually managed to take down the title despite being widely speculated to be the most popular deck before a single game was played at Austin. The build Ben Rubin came up with and gave Kibler is really a thing of beauty when you consider how much inevitability the deck has in the Zoo mirror while simultaneously punishing older-style control decks. Having that type of reach while also keeping valid options in the Dark Depths, Hypergenesis and Dredge matches was even more impressive. If you want to play Zoo this season, start with the Rubin version.
As for the general data, I'm sure more will be forthcoming this week, but I just wanted to note the highest finishers in the Extended portion of the event that didn't make top eight.
Highest Non-T8 Finishers:
Rubin, Ben 27 (Punishing Fire Zoo)
Kelly, John-Paul 24 (W/U Control)
Zatlkaj, Matej 24 (B/U Dark Depths)
Mitamura, Kazuya 24 (Dredge)
Estratti, Samuele 24 (All-In Red)
Ootsuka, Koutarou 24 (Dredge)
Ochoa, David 24 (B/U Dark Depths)
Potovin, Nikolay 24 (Naya Zoo)
Two Zoo decks, two Dredge, two Dark Depths, a W/U Control and an All-In Red deck round out the top finishers. To me, these decks are just as important to take note of as what made top eight. For example, the top three finishers in points for the Extended portion were Rubin, Burton and Kibler, meaning the three highest finishing decks were all Zoo. Dredge also stacks up very well for its popularity considering it had four placements in the top twenty finishers. Despite Dark Depths failure in the top eight, it also posted a respectable four places in the top twenty.
And now for my favorite decks of the Extended portion of the tournament. Exactly how good they are, is up for debate, but they sure break away from the crowd in terms of what they cam do.
Lucas Siow: 7-2-1 (Combo Gifts)
Lucas had a lengthy Deck Tech video posted the other day, so I'll leave the explanations to him. Needless to say, the idea of combining the Dark Depths and Sword of the Meek / Foundry combos was excellent and gives the normal Thopter combo deck a much better game against the field. He even takes it a step further by boarding in Tarmogoyf post-board, giving him three different angles of attack against decks he can't crack easily with a straightforward combo kill.
Shota Yasooka: 6-3-1 (Gifts Control)
The deck eventually wins by Yosei locking the opponent via Miren, the Moaning Well and Emeria, the Sky Ruin, which is by far the coolest way to win I have seen in Extended in years. Oh, and plus his deck is configured in a way to give him insane Gifts packages against practically the entire field, while his default late-game choice could also be going for a Strip Mine lock via Loam and Ghost Quarter.
Makihito Mihara: 6-4 (Scapeshift Combo)
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This deck didn't finish with a great record, but I like it because it tried to push the Scapeshift combo further than anyone else took it. It includes multiple ways of finding the Scapeshift and accelerating the Valakut kill via multiple land fetching creatures and Khalni Heart Expedition. With a few tweaks and possibly a more robust disruption package, this deck could become a notable contender. It's one of the few combo decks not really hurt by the common combo hate people are currently playing and can actually buy enough time against Zoo to win.
That's all for this week, I apologize for the judging tangent and reduced quantity of article on Extended, but I couldn't help myself. I'll see you next week with a full article on Constructed; until then!
Josh Silvestri
E-mail me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom
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yep... says: October 20, 2009 @ 12:04 am
i saw the angel of despair thing, and it totally broke my heart because i was pulling for him to win and it’s such a huge mistake to look past
winner of that match was probably going to go on to win the whole thing
good article, pretty much had everything i wanted to see
kakashi says: October 20, 2009 @ 12:05 am
Great job for bringing the judges’ lapse to our attention. Certainly there needs to be changes to the rules and a better implementation of those rules.
ANaturalDeath says: October 20, 2009 @ 12:44 am
I am a fan of Kibler’s have been since I first started playing back when he was playing Rith/Cloak…but the way I see it and I think the way the current DCI policy sees he definitely cheated…which is unfortunate…especially if something does come of this it should hurt his HoF consideration.
Panimu says: October 20, 2009 @ 1:13 am
No anatural, under dci policy all he ‘definetly did’ was miss a trigger. making mistakes is not cheating, in dci terms.
MH says: October 20, 2009 @ 2:00 am
“just throwing the PT single-elimination rounds onto Magic Online so errors like that can't happen.”
yyyeeeah, just that I find mistakes like this infinitely more acceptable than “I lost the PT because I accidentally . And what happens when a bug in MODO causes something really small to be missed, like a conditional trigger that the programmers forgot to put in the right order? There are no drawbacks in MODO, no judges to complain to, not even observers in most games. What if a player discovers a bug like this and builds a deck to abuse it?
In PT:A the problem is obvious — you have two good players, under pressure and having just played two days of grueling Magic, someone misses a non-optional trigger and one player wins as a (near)-direct result. The judges have seen Hypergenesis and AoD in play but for some reason (heat of the moment) miss the non-optional trigger.
The DCI policy here is clear — if you can’t rewind the game (say, from after a Warp World) or the error is discovered after a turn cycle (here after Kibler’s combat phase) you just go on, ignoring the trigger completely. It may be that some judge noticed, but Papatsarouchas (got to love that name) just went ‘go’, then Kibler slammed his Baneslayer and said ‘go’ before they could react, and that would be that.
Sure, you could give Papatsarouchas a Warning, then decide that Kibler got a distinct advantage from the issue and give him a Warning, too, and possibly get one of the players a Game Loss (if they had existing warnings prior to this incident), but either the judges decided not to, or they, too, simply missed the trigger. It happens, they’re just human, etc. Or you can go the conspiracy way and start wondering _why_ the judges missed the triggers
MH says: October 20, 2009 @ 2:02 am
Apologies for previous post, apparently stuff inside angle brackets is ignored. Here is the missing part from “I lost a PT because I accidentally .”
pressed F6/activated an ability when I was trying to block/Tapped one too many lands and couldn’t undo after doing something silly/GOT DISCONNECTED/etc.
Josh S. says: October 20, 2009 @ 2:15 am
Sure, but as I stated, if for whatever reason this occurs you could play the matches out irl normally. The bug thing is silly considering they already have multi-thousand dollar tournaments played out on there and it hasn’t come up.
Misclicks are rare to anyone who has played MODO for any real period of time and bugs are almost a non-factor at this point. Essentially what your saying is the usual worst-case possible, which almost never comes up anymore. There’s a lot of things wrong with V3, but for the most part nearly all of the relevant in-game issues have been fixed.
And really if we want to split hairs, how different is a misclick from missing a trigger or something similar? Fact is it’s the same thing, but people like bitching about the misclick more because they couldn’t slow down for more than 2 seconds.
loth says: October 20, 2009 @ 3:08 am
There are no table judges anymore – just floor judges with less tables to cover. As for judges missing the error – this happens in all kinds of sport events, also in high-level ones.
The penalty for Kibler would have been Warning for Game Play Error – Failure to Maintain Game State (which is not upgraded from earlier incidents). The penalty for his opponent would have been Warning for Game Play Error – Missed Trigger (upgrade path: Warning-Warning-Game Loss).
IJS says: October 20, 2009 @ 3:44 am
@Panimu: The question is not how severe the penalty for missing a trigger ought to be; the question is whether this is a Game Play Error (which in this case carries a warning) or Cheating (which always carries a DQ w/o prize). Missing a trigger accidentally falls in the former, but knowingly missing a mandatory trigger or allowing such a trigger to be missed is cheating, according to the rules. Given that Kibler pointed out that he’d been afraid to drop his baneslayer because of the angel of despair, it seems unlikely that he failed to notice the missed trigger, which would imply that he was in fact cheating.
Summa says: October 20, 2009 @ 3:59 am
I don’t know about Kibler, who’s played for a whole lot longer than me, but personally I could’ve totally have missed the mandatory part of the angel’s trigger. Simply because I haven’t played with the card – and if I had during testing, it would’ve been in a “friendly” enviorement.
What I think was going on in Kibler’s head was either :
“I can’t loose to a guy who doesn’t know to blow things up with his angel”
or just as likely he put up some situations in his head such as
“When he targets this I scoop them up, when he targets this I hope to topdeck a land and play my baneslayer”. Van never triggered either of those when-then situations, thus Kibler never realized something had gone wrong.
TheSIN says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:20 am
So multiple people missed a “must” trigger….it happens. I’m not going to speak for those judges…but something tells me since Kibler’s opponent didn’t blow anything up, they thought it was a “may” ability. It doesn’t seem likely that all of those people just magically ignored AoD’s ability….just the wording on it.
Suggesting a totally different system for T8′s and the PT in general is way extreme for this situation. Being a judge doesn’t make you perfect.
Someguy says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:57 am
Congratz to Kibler for his win and luck… I remember hearing alot of rumours during the VS pro circuit of Kibler “rules lawyering” some of the younger less experienced kids. In any case, its in the past.
What was the Star Wars Kid / Billy Moreno fiasco? I don’t remember it. Link plz!
i am not racist says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:58 am
did any one else notice that for every PT top 8, there has been the same black guy with a head set watching the match?? I didn’t see him this time. That was the most likely reason for the missed trigger goof.
I could totally buy a conspiracy here, randy even commented on the trigger in the wrap up like nothing bad had happened. makes you wonder….
LulThyme says: October 20, 2009 @ 6:18 am
@IJS
you argue that Kibler probably didn’t miss the trigger and conclude that he was probably cheating.
The hole in the argument is that, EVEN if he didn’t miss the trigger, he could have not noticed that it was mandatory in which case it is not cheating.
This is probably what the judges were also thinking so I don’t see why you fail to assign the same doubt to Kibler.
hdhrant says: October 20, 2009 @ 6:37 am
While Kibler knew about the Angel’s trigger, is it clear that he knew it was a mandatory trigger and not a ‘may’ trigger?
TheSIN says: October 20, 2009 @ 7:04 am
“While Kibler knew about the Angel's trigger, is it clear that he knew it was a mandatory trigger and not a ‘may' trigger?”
It was clear after the fact…when it was clear to everyone (Buehler and BDM talked about it when they came back from the break)…but not clear during the game.
A strong case can be made that Kibler thought it was a may ability since he didn’t point it out. Also, he isn’t going to ask to read the card since, if it is a may ability, it would have tipped his opponent off that he is missing it. That’s what the judges are there for…but they missed it, too. Again, it happens.
karxarias says: October 20, 2009 @ 7:08 am
It is surely without a doubt that kibler was cheating.He knew the ability of the AoD and choose to remain silent,how convinient!Nothing can change right now but Mr.Kibler should not be so proud for his accompishment.The right thing to do and all about fair play would be, to point that out but all those dollars made his judgement a liitle bit blurry.After all, all that publicity would have gone down the drain and an unknown player would have won the big star.
Smdster says: October 20, 2009 @ 7:47 am
MTGO really still does get a lot of rules interactions wrong and would not be a viable solution until those errors were completely hammered out. Some recent examples include Mirroweave on Sower to return the creature, wrath with a sowered ‘lark giving the player with the original lark the triggers, and Djinn of Wishes allowing you to play lands on the opponent’s turn.
I agree with the possibility that Kibler thought that it was a may trigger, because really thing like that SHOULD be may triggers. I think that the same situation occurred several times with Hedron Crab (who also has a mandatory trigger) where the dredge player didn’t want to mill themselves although it was slightly hard to tell from the coverage.
GyantSpyder says: October 20, 2009 @ 8:09 am
The Pro Tour is first and foremost a marketing event for Magic Cards. There are other events that market Magic Online. The money made in paper magic dwarfs the money made in Magic Online.
Going to the trouble of running a tournament to market your #1 product and then having the most important, high-profile matches be the only ones to use like your #12 product instead is really dumb marketing.
It’d be like if you made teams not wear their jerseys in the world series or super bowl, but instead wear special top competition jerseys of less distracting colors. If you’re trying to sell jerseys, that’s when you want people to see them _more than any other time_.
It would make more sense to do the swiss rounds of a pro tour on magic online and do the top 8 with paper cards, because then at least your product is at center stage when it matters.
But, outside of a special promotion they may run as a change of pace at some point, regardless of whether they’re good ideas for the competition, both are terrible marketing ideas that should not and will not be adopted by WotC.
dowjonzechemical says: October 20, 2009 @ 8:26 am
Silvestri, you rock. You represent (mostly) truth in magic media.
Jumbotron says: October 20, 2009 @ 8:34 am
“What was the Star Wars Kid / Billy Moreno fiasco? I don't remember it. Link plz!”
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Events.aspx?x=mtgevent/ptla05/sf2
DRjester says: October 20, 2009 @ 9:05 am
loth makes an interesting comparison to high-level sporting events. I think some sort of clarity can be found by comparing this to blown calls in baseball playoffs, for example. For example, this is similar to the situation a few weeks ago when the ump missed the ball hitting Brandon Inge’s shirt (which would have walked in the go-ahead run in the 12th inning of the Tigers-Twins playoff game to determine the AL Central winner). Replay clearly showed that it SHOULD have been a beanball, but instead the call went the other way and the Tigers ended up losing. This and the reams of other similar situations like it are one of the strongest arguments for instituing replay in baseball, and I think a similar idea could be applied to Magic.
The question then is how do you institute replay in Magic? I think one option would be to do someting similar to using MTGO, but having the players play it out IRL, with other people in the background simply simulating the game simultaneously in MTGO. This would allow for any missed triggers to be caught almost instantaneously. Of course, it does raise the issue of getting the MTGO decks to line up with the IRL decks before the games start, but its a possibility…
How else could you institute Magic Replays?
Metalman says: October 20, 2009 @ 9:12 am
I remember Kiblers ban from magic at GP Boston for an illegal sealed deck. I know that he uses opponents errors to win as much as any other high level pro. Use of the sit there forever when youre in a losing position so that your opponent forgets about an upkeep effect, etc.
You want to tell me that he didnt know the trigger had been missed in the final game of a Top 8 Match when he commented on making a specific play based on his opponent holding the card whose trigger was missed?
I got a bridge to sell ya buddy…
-M
Paul Quinby says: October 20, 2009 @ 9:15 am
First, there is little to no way that you’re going to prove Keibler knew the trigger was mandatory or not.
Secondly, I don’t like the idea that a player must let their opponent know of an ability if they completely space it. Yes, it’s a high pressure situation, but they are pro’s after all and need to step it up. How would it make you feel to have to tell your opponent how to play their cards only to lose 30 grand because you were paying more attention that your high level opponent.
The fault here really goes to the judges whose true job is to catch mistakes like this in the first place. That being said, misjudging happens in all levels of Pro sports and Magic is no exception.
Learn from the mistake and make sure your judges are rotated more often so they are paying better attention to the game. Optionally you can slow down play and make the judges approve every step but that would take forever.
Will says: October 20, 2009 @ 9:36 am
I doubt Kibler was trying to cheat so openly in the top eight. It seems pretty reasonable that he thought the angel’s trigger was optional and didn’t want to draw attention to it. Even if he knew it was mandatory, it’s still not out of the question that he could have missed the trigger. He certainly was aware that the angel was going to trigger, but Hypergenesis messes with the usual sense of timing (everything comes into play before any of the triggers stack). Since Kibler was put three Meddling Mages into play and had to think of something to name for each one while also paying attention to what Papatsarouchas was putting into play, there were clearly other things going on to distract him from the trigger (given that Papatsarouchas missed it as well).
Also, I thought the fallout from the Moreno-Starswarskid thing was that table judges were done away with and the “failure to maintain game state” penalty was added. So can the judges really be blamed here?
Realik says: October 20, 2009 @ 10:04 am
Certainly it wasn't as big a cock-up?
Metalman says: October 20, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
I guess my point is that nice guys, who would point out the fact that the trigger was missed, would lose this match. Yet we celebrate Kibler winning.
Just seems a little wrong to me on some level…
-M
xiko says: October 20, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
kibler was banned? arent you talking about nick eisel?
xiko says: October 20, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
btw make sure to get his comments here when replying to his article
http://forums.starcitygames.com/viewtopic.php?t=16570&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=828b9b120ca3f0c1d4eee052d56c3d91
Josh says: October 20, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
its pretty dumb that the rules are setup so that you have to correct your opponent’s mistake that would have cost him the game, but that’s how it is
his interview is pretty damning about him being aware of the angel, now the only defense against cheating he has is that he thought it was optional, I’d say its far more likely he knew it was manditory but was aware he chances are very slim if the angel hits something(he doesn’t know the guy had both putrefy and firespout)
wizards seems to be moving away from forced positive triggers which is long overdue and a good thing
Ertai says: October 20, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
How can you state that Kibler was cheating, when even all those judges failed to realize the fact about the trigger? Were those judges cheating as well? Most definitely not. And neither was Brian.
Amarsir says: October 20, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
Wasn’t there another article about this sort of thing not long ago? Some GP controversy I think. You don’t have to inform your opponent of a “may”, but you do have to inform him of a “must”. So now the judge has to read the player’s mind to determine how well he has memorized the card’s exact text. It’s an impossible call, and therefore a foolish rule. On the other hand it shouldn’t be ok for a player to knowingly let impossible things happen if the opponent overlooks it. A catch-22.
Bugs and misclicks on MTGO used to bother me years ago, but after more experience with it (and hearing enough of these stories) I’ll take that controversy over this one. I also think MTGO games would be MUCH better for spectators, especially if they wised up to allow hand viewing in replays.
Regarding the Starwarskid/Moreno match, I don’t think that writeup shows the real controversy. (I just rewatched that video last week.) With the Coliseum, the judge should have caught it just before but it’s hard to be that fast, and it was corrected (with a warning) quickly enough.
The real controversy was regarding the floating mana and the Naturalize. Moreno didn’t just “realize” he had mana floating, the judge told him. Now on MTGO they tell you, but as I understand it floor rules didn’t allow for going back. However, the judge allowed him to use the mana instead of emptying the pool and burning, and that Naturalize made the difference.
So that’s the opposite problem – a judge providing too much information instead of letting a mistake happen.
Amarsir says: October 20, 2009 @ 2:49 pm
Found the story I was looking for. Not high-profile, but an interestingly similar case at a GP:
http://www.thestarkingtonpost.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=251#p1406
(Though the story is worth a read, I do think it changes things being top 8 and thus having judges standing there.)
LM says: October 20, 2009 @ 3:05 pm
Kibler had a meaty grip as well, putting down Meddling Mage naming Firespout, another naming Putrefy, and a third just in case. Naturally, Papatsarouchas was holding both.
Why would he name the same thing twice with a meddling mage if he wasn’t worried about AoD trigger?
Can someone clarify this? I’m trying to make up my mind but I just see this as evidence that he was expecting the trigger.
Leigh McCombs says: October 20, 2009 @ 3:18 pm
I think it sounds like a lot of sour grapes to me. I agree that the rule that you have to maintain your opponents board state for him is redic! I think that is why you find so many more “may” triggers in Zen. It forces you to up your game and not your opponent to up it for you. If anybody is at fault it is the judges. In a basketball game do we expect the players to politely inform the opponent, “Oh hey, by the way, that was a foul. Let’s get the ref to call that so you can get your free throws buddy.” No, the ref missed it it’s his fault and they move on. It sucks that the guy blew his trigger in such a high profile match with so much on the line but he for sure learned something from it. Any bets on how many Angel triggers he is going to miss in the future? Exactly. I think it is an issue the DCI should address but to slander a guy who played so well and fought so hard for his Pro Tour victory by calling him a cheater is just a low blow and without class. I think Josh addressed it in the best way possible and it is something to note and learn from not mud to be slung at Kibler.
Brian says: October 20, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
I had a similar situation come up at a sealed event I went to during GP: Seattle. My opponent played a Dragon Broodmother, and missed the triggers on my turn. I knew he was missing the triggers (and strongly suspected that it was a must trigger), but did not check the card, or remind him of the missed triggers. I won because of the missed triggers, and we went on to tie to match. After the match, I told him that he had missed the triggers, and he went to the head judge with the whole story.
I was disqualified from the tourney because of failing to maintain the game state.
Kibler wasn’t. He wasn’t even given a warning. I got hammered because I’m a nobody. Kibler was let off without much incident because it was in the top 8 of a Pro Tour.
In the end, it pays to be important and noteworthy. If you are nobody, you *will* get the book thrown at you.
solebush1 says: October 20, 2009 @ 4:35 pm
after rewatching the coverage, I think its quite likely it wouldnt have even changed the outcome of the match. The angel was played out after the first meddling mage, so had he targeted the mage (which is somewhat likely since he revealed later on he was holding putrify) one of the enxt two mages wouldve have name putrefy anyways. Am I missing something?
frank says: October 20, 2009 @ 4:46 pm
He could have Firespouted away the Hierarchs and ended up winning the race.
Chris Young says: October 20, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
Kill a Hierarch game over.
Josh S. says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:05 pm
If the Angel kills a Hierarch or land, Kibler is on a 0-outer due to Progenitus killing him before he has five mana + attack step. If he kills the Mage naming Putrefy, he has the putrefy for angel and it’s a 0 outer based on what we know his draws are. Same if he kills the one naming Firespout, he Spouts, clears the board, putrefys baneslayer.
Like people said afterwards, Kibler loses if the Angel destroys just about anything.
Josh S. says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
Also I considered the ‘May’ trigger excuse and that’s definitely the one I’d use. I kind of sluffed it over when writing the article because it just feels so much like a ‘realllllllllllllllly?’ kind of concept.
Alex says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:12 pm
@Why would he name the same thing twice with a meddling mage if he wasn't worried about AoD trigger?
What else would you name? The only thing that’s going to stop the Baneslayer-to-victory play is removal, so you might as well double up on blocking one of the removal options with Meddling Mage. Independent of recalling the Angel trigger, there’s nothing else worth Meddling.
I think it’s entirely reasonable to lose track of the other guy’s triggers, even if you were afraid of them before the Hypergenesis started, in the hubbub of playing out a bunch of permanents and having to decide relatively quickly what your three Mages have to name (while, perhaps, you are considering whether you’re going to make an additional $10K or so by making it to the semis).
Chris Young says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:42 pm
I dont think Kibler was cheating neccissarily but probably taking advantage of the system for sure. All he needed to do was get to a game state past the trigger that couldnt be rewound and the rules would net him his angel and both players a warning. In this situation its definitely in his interest to play for the warning. I think the rules do need to be fixed in this case as it should definitely be the responsibility of the owner to check triggers and penalizing an opponent (non owner) for not recognizing an interaction on a card they did not play/own is a bit much.
The judges failed to catch it for sure and that is where the real blame should lay.Regardless if Brian was ducking the missed trigger or not the responsibility should have been first on the Angels owner and then on the judges. Yes Brian should have recognized the missed trigger but no player can bef faulted for failing to inform his opponent on the play of his own cards.
Even if Brian was taking advantage of the loophole to get by the trigger its stil something that his opponent and the judges could have caught lets not make Brian responsible for others performance. While we can monday morning quarterback all we like about what was in Brians head he could have easily noticed the trigger and moved on to other concerns and only realized after he had drawn and played the angel that the trigger was completely missed. If it had been any of us we would probably been thinking more about how to get around the Progenitis than trying to maintain the gamestate. He had already gleened the info that the angel was there and his thinking probably only extended to not blowing up the angel should he put it out not to the math on how he loses should he destroy any other permanent.
If you watch the resolution of the spell it was handled fairly rapidly and I think any recognition of the trigger being missed happened after the gamestate had passed them all by,
Brian Kibler says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
re: Metalman – I was unaware that I was banned from Magic for something that happened at GP Boston years ago. Perhaps I was Nick Eisel in a previous life, except also myself at the same time, because I’m fairly certain that I won that Grand Prix rather than being DQ’d from it.
I knew that Van missed the Angel of Despair trigger. I held my Baneslayer Angel in my hand when he cast Hypergenesis because I didn’t want it to get destroyed by his angel. I did not, however, know that it was a mandatory effect and assumed that he was missing a “may” trigger, and I wasn’t about to ask to read the card or anything that would remind him to use it. It wasn’t until the reporter Josh Bennett asked after the game what the Angel had destroyed and we all looked at the card that we realized it was a mandatory trigger.
I certainly didn’t intentionally cheat, but I do feel bad that the match was decided the way it was. Given the circumstances, I’m not really sure how else I could have handled the situation, though – if I had looked closely at the Angel to be sure whether it was a mandatory trigger or not, and it was a may effect, I would have given my opponent information that he was missing the trigger and give away the game.
Brian Kibler says: October 20, 2009 @ 5:53 pm
Oh, and that link to Nick Eisel’s article let me read my replies ripping him to shreds for cheating. Sweet, thanks
Josh S. says: October 20, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
Well there you go, Kibler responded and nobody else can whine now.
p.s. I mostly wrote this article to bash on mandatory trigger rules, since most people seem to be ignoring that part. They are atrocious.
Toby says: October 20, 2009 @ 7:53 pm
Contrary to various statements above, there was not a judge directly watching the match. The man in black visible on camera was a spotter, responsible for relaying information to the coverage as they requested it. Doing that job is pretty close to schizophrenia, and they aren’t watching the game directly.
There is also a judge on hand (sometimes seen at the edge of the field), available should the players need it. They are not necessarily watching the game, and are unlikely to intervene unless the players request assistance.
We do not table judge, as it leads to situations such as Los Angeles, where the judge becomes a crutch for the play of the players. Approximately 2100 matches were played at the Pro Tour, and we attempt to handle them all the same way.
Lucas Siow says: October 20, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
I will reserve my opinion on whether or not I think he knew, but I do think it takes away from a win. Its kind of like winning the superbowl, when the only reason you got past the quarters was because you went for pass interference, and the ref misses it.
My solution would to be gameloss him in the next game (if that occurs in the next match so be it). In the top 8 of a PT I feel its perfectly acceptable to expect the tightest technical play possible. If something that would normally lead to a warning would result in an advantage for player, that player would immediately get a game loss in his next game (without rewinding the current one).
bertu says: October 20, 2009 @ 9:27 pm
I am taking form Kiblers response that a) he was unsure but “assumed it was a may trigger”; b) but did not want or knew how to do anything to confirm it as not give his opponent “information that he was missing the trigger and give away the game”.
Rules state that both players are responsible for maintaining game state. Unintentional failure to do so is punishible by warning, while deliberate intention to use it to gain illegal advatange is Fraud.
A more restrict interpretation of the rules would be that if a player knows about the trigger but is unsure if it is a “may” or a “must”, he HAS to read the card to make sure the game state is being maintened – damned if it means giving information away, since obeying the rule to maintan game state is the obvious clear choice when confronted with the option of potentially having an illegal game state (since you are not sure what is happeinig) as a mean to gain strategical advatange by withholding information from your opponent.
However, I think that most people would take that interpretation as unfair and that such high burden of responsability given to players to maintain game state would be prejudicial to the game. After all, if you are telling your opponent even when to make his decisions, the game become less interesting.
So I take it is a legit point when Kibler said that he didn’t want to read the card because he was afraid that, by doing so, his opponent would certainly choose to use the “may” trigger, giving the game away.
However, there was another option to be made.
Kibler could have waited to read the card until Van had regained priority and the trigger, if optional, would no longer be on the stack.
By doing so, if the trigger was a “may” Van would not have the opportunity to use it. However, if the trigger was a “must”, it would go on the stack and the game state would be reinstated.
So I ask: why didn’t he do that?
arogers907 says: October 20, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
All the throwing Kibler under the bus drama aside, I think the articles main point of having PT Top 8 on MTGO is a radically abysmal idea.
It’s equally as flawed as saying a wide receiver (intentionally or not) might line up ahead of the line of scrimmage and not be called for it by the refs or called out by opposing players. Therefore NFL coaches should probably play for the superbowl title on Madden.
I love MTGO. That’s were I play 90%+ of my Magic. Come on though…
Paper Magic is it’s own beast. Just like poker, it’s a different game in person and online. It should be treated and respected as such. Warts and all.
-Andy
PS: It WOULD be nice to have PTs online, too. Coverage certainly wouldn’t be nearly as interesting, but you would see an incredible caliber of performance from talented players not able to travel enough to qualify for (let alone attend) a PT.
Know Your Rank says: October 20, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
ballsy to give slops to a deck played by so many great players without hearing an explanation on it, especially if they think it is still good.
I’m sorry, but i do happen to trust nassif and chapin a tad higher than you.
Numdiar says: October 21, 2009 @ 12:07 am
@Lucas Siow
It’s not possible to determine what is an advantage and what is not since some cards have mandatory triggers that could be good or bad depending on how you view them. For example, if for whatever reason someone had 3-4 cards with threshhold out and 6 cards in their gy, the opponent killing one of their cards could win them the game or lose the game. If they “accidently” miss the trigger and the guy with the threshhold cards wins, it would be unfair to give him a match loss when he may have been put at a disadvantage by that play.
Panimu says: October 21, 2009 @ 12:47 am
@IJS, you missed my point.
wescoe says: October 21, 2009 @ 1:05 am
This Kibler fellow is a savage cheater. I beat him in a money draft one time and he wouldn’t pay me because he thought it was a ‘may’ ability. :/
roar says: October 21, 2009 @ 1:31 am
@brian kibler and his play
“you thought it was a may trigger?” pretty weak argument if you ask me, because you could have just went on to the end of turn phase and then check the card (AoD) without giving him the chance to rewind it and destory something if it would have been a may one, but also with you not taking advantage of the situation if beeing a mandatory one. i think you could have at least checked the card before drawing for the next turn but you just slipped through. not the most elegant play to win a match but not many people seem to care. I also think only a few would have played it differently than you so yes, they should change the rules because its really terrible to lose due to your own fair-mindedness.
Sorry if it sounds too harsh but if the rules say “both players are responsible for the game state” it’s like that. Good to hear you feel bad about it.
Cripplefight says: October 21, 2009 @ 2:45 am
Nothing but love for Kibler. To all the haters, talk shit get hit!
Trackback MTGBattlefield says: October 21, 2009 @ 3:28 am
Silvestri Says – Judging Pro Tour Austin…
Your story has been summoned to the battlefield – Trackback from MTGBattlefield…
Chris Young says: October 21, 2009 @ 6:36 am
We couldnt watch players card fidget it would drive people nuts to watch a bunch of click fidgeting.
a says: October 21, 2009 @ 7:04 am
“So multiple people missed a "must" trigger"¦.it happens. I'm not going to speak for those judges"¦but something tells me since Kibler's opponent didn't blow anything up, they thought it was a "may" ability. It doesn't seem likely that all of those people just magically ignored AoD's ability"¦.just the wording on it.”
It doesn’t happen. This is the disconnect between judges and players, and the reason we want judges to play more. Cube draft 5 times and you know AoD is mandatory.
As for the last guy to comment, he clearly doesn’t know how hypergenesis works. If Angel targets any mana source BK cannot play the baneslayer. Meddling mage doesn’t trigger, but still resolves after hypergenesis, and naming things already on the table won’t do much.
Will says: October 21, 2009 @ 7:06 am
It’s too bad Bennett didn’t ask about the Angel before the match ended. One of my favorite PT moments was 2005 Worlds, when they break the match for Sheldon to review an instant replay to figure out exactly what happened (and they managed to move a camera out of the play area over to the coverage booth where Sheldon was looking at the monitor). I would have loved to see something like that again.
Minor tangential rant: I thought the top eight coverage for this PT was pretty poor from a clarity perspective compared to past ones. There were long segments of time with the camera on the players’ faces while play was progressing. Randy and BDM seemed more distracted than usual from the actual play of the games. I just wonder if the coverage had been more clear if someone watching it would have noticed the missed trigger before it was too late. The spectator stopping a match thing still works on the top eight right? If someone noticed the mistake, they probably could have run to the coverage booth or wherever the access point to the top eight is and told them that there was an error in the game play.
Glad to see that based on Toby’s post, I was right about the PT:LA fallout.
The checking the card after the trigger is missed is an interesting counterpoint — but keep in mind it’s not inconceivable that Van could play Hypergenesis again before the match ends so Kibler doesn’t want to draw any more attention than necessary to the angel’s trigger (you could counter that, if he’s uncertain about whether the trigger is optional or not, he’s actively cheating by not looking at the card and making sure, but Kibler could always counter by saying that he thought for sure that the trigger was optional — you can’t penalize him for missing a subtlety on a card that’s not even in his deck).
Jonas says: October 21, 2009 @ 8:43 am
Is there a rule in football that says that if one guy fumbles the ball, and someone from the other team picks it up, he has to give it back? Of course not, that’s bloody stupid. Maybe it technically was cheating, but I don’t think what Kibler did was in any way immoral (assuming he knew what was going on). It’s the rules themselves that is the problem. Frankly, if I had won a match in a Pro Tour top8 because my opponent corrected my mistakes, I would have considered him an idiot. A nice idiot, sure, but still an idiot.
Chris Young says: October 21, 2009 @ 8:45 am
Here is a rules question with regard to this can the angel trigger choose a target that is not yet on the battlefield when it enters the battlefield.
In the example of Brians match would he be able to target the meddling mages that had not yet entered the battlefield?
Since these creatures are entering sequentially but still as part of a single effect I think the answer is yes it can target a later entry when its ability is put on the stack even though the target wasnt a legal target when the angel entered the battlefield.
But can anyone clarify why this would would be so. Is it because the target is chosen when either stacked or resolved not when the trigger occurs. I know the trigger is suspended till after the resolution of the Hypergenisis but does it have to take into account gamestate memory or anything like that.
Phil Y says: October 21, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
“We do not table judge, as it leads to situations such as Los Angeles, where the judge becomes a crutch for the play of the players. Approximately 2100 matches were played at the Pro Tour, and we attempt to handle them all the same way.”
What level was the table judge in LA? The Naturalize flub seems like an isolated incident that only happened because the judge specifically made the wrong call (though I’ll have to watch the video again). Missed triggers happen all the time, and affect the game just as much.
I don’t see why all 2100 matches have to be handled the same way. The top-8 matches are undeniably more important, and I think it’s reasonable to expect a higher level of supervision there. Kind of like how postseason baseball should utilize the best umpires.
Josh S. says: October 21, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
“ballsy to give slops to a deck played by so many great players without hearing an explanation on it, especially if they think it is still good.”
they went a clear awful and awful with their Gifts deck. Chapin wouldn’t of even won a match except for a lucky topdeck. None of them broke 3 wins and Nassif + herbie are masters. Just because they say they came up with something good doesn’t make it true, there’s a reason none of those guys will be talking about their performances w/ the deck.
Meanwhile the Naya shell based around the same concepts had a combined record of 30-6. I’d say there was a clear winner in that exchange.
grannyspayback says: October 21, 2009 @ 1:58 pm
More info on the Star Was Fiasco. Not only did the judge tell Billy after he passed the turn that he had to use his mana up, I am pretty sure that the mana tapped contained no green, and that he would have been unable to play naturalize anyways.
I bring this up again because this story illustrates how horrible it is when judges get too actively involved and influence a match. So when Pap… misses the trigger, why should he get to lean on a judge to remind him?
I think it is unfair to try to decide if Brian cheated or not. How can you realistically expect to enforce a rule that says "you must give your opponent $30,000? Even if he was 99.99999% certain that it was not a may, why does he have to risk the 0.00000001% chance that he just threw the game?
Another example, I scoop to let my friend into the top 8 when I can not make it. Later that night he buys me dinner with his $40,000 check. Guess what, that is a two year ban for bribery. Or is that only if I ask him to buy me supper? Or if I ask before I scoop? Or if I ask in the car on the way down? Talk about unenforceable rules.
Phil Y says: October 21, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
“More info on the Star Was Fiasco. Not only did the judge tell Billy after he passed the turn that he had to use his mana up, I am pretty sure that the mana tapped contained no green, and that he would have been unable to play naturalize anyways.”
How many table judges watching this at the time? I feel like if the judge just said “you mana burn for 3″, everything would have been fine. The judge being there was only an issue because of the bad ruling, followed by missing the colored mana. Multiple things had to go wrong to really screw up that situation.
Wobbles says: October 21, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
Brian Kibler is a great player, but he could have been the Bobby Jones of Magic. For those that don’t know, (wikipedia:) “Jones was in the final playoff of the 1925 U.S. Open. During the match, his ball ended up in the rough just off the fairway, and as he was setting up to play his shot, his iron caused a slight movement of the ball. He immediately got angry with himself, turned to the marshals, and called a penalty on himself. The marshals discussed among themselves and questioned some of the gallery if anyone had seen Jones’ ball move. Their decision was that neither they nor anyone else had witnessed any incident, so the decision was left to Jones. Bobby Jones called the two-stroke penalty on himself, not knowing that he would lose the tournament by one stroke. When he was praised for his gesture, Jones replied, “You may as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.” The USGA’s sportsmanship award is named the Bob Jones Award in his honor.” Strategically, the best play was to not draw attention to it. But the sportsmanlike, honest play is to figure out what is going on when it happens. Kibler will likely be installed into the HoF this year, but his win in Austin will always have an asterisk. That said, had he pointed out the angel to his opponent or at least checked it at the end of the turn, he would have lost but been an even greater legend. As it is, he’s just another good, cutthroat player among many.
wescoe says: October 21, 2009 @ 10:33 pm
@Wobbles: No, I’m pretty sure the matter would have been completely forgotten about within a week and all that would be remembered is “Kibler T8′d back to back PTs but is still looking for a win to make a serious case for HoF consideration.” If it had happened in game 5 of the finals, then perhaps, but not in the quarterfinals. He still had his work cut out for him.
Wobbles says: October 21, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
@wescoe Not to belabor the point, but this is pretty funny point considering you are talking about Brian Kibler. His major claim to magic fame was a quarterfinals match in a Pro Tour he didn’t win that is still talked about 8 years later. I mean, putting an armadillo cloak on a Rith in the top 8 of a pro tour is a great story, but sacrificing your semifinal chances out of good sportsmanship and the integrity of the game is HoF worthy.
Will says: October 22, 2009 @ 5:45 am
@Phil Y — you’re unhappy with what happened in LA (when there was a table judge) and unhappy with the lack of a table judge now — it has to be one way or the other!
Phil Y says: October 22, 2009 @ 11:50 am
@Will – I made it clear that table judges are a good thing, and moreover there should be multiple overlooking the game to prevent incorrect calls. The Moreno situation could have been fixed on the spot. An umpire making a bad call is one thing, but a policy to not have umpires at all really looks unprofessional.
Will says: November 19, 2009 @ 1:25 pm
No matter how many table judges you have, there will still be some calls missed. Magic is not a physical activity where different participants have more advantageous positions from which to assess the legality of play than others. There is no reason that players should need outside assistance in maintaining a legal game state (though an outside enforcer is needed to protect from physical game subversion like stacking a deck or collusion amongst players to ensure a certain outcome).
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