TTC - GP Portland Report
Posted: 26 Aug 2014, 00:43
Team LRR (Graham, James, and Jeremy) share their experiences from the whole weekend of GPPDX.
"Casual REL" isn't a thing, it's just "Regular REL". At Regular, there are (almost) no Game Losses for anything - it's either a "please stop that" or a disqualification. This is because it's intended to be for newer players and players who would rather have fun than play at strict rules enforcement - if we can fix the situation, we will, but we feel that penalizing bad behavior isn't going to be terribly helpful at this environment. The disqualification comes in if the event has actually been compromised - cheating, bribery, fisticuffs, that sort of thing. For chronic problems where it's clear that Warnings aren't doing the trick, we can warn the player that the next offence will be a Game Loss, and then we can issue a Game Loss, but that's the only situation. Tardiness isn't even really a penalty at Regular REL, it's really just a matter of "hey, your opponent isn't here, I guess you win by default".
The difference between Regular REL and Competitive REL is that Competitive REL has a huge set of standard penalties called the IPG which we apply to ensure consistency. This is where we get a Game Loss for drawing extra cards but just a Warning for accidentally looking at an extra card. Multiple warnings for the same infraction at the same event can upgrade to a game loss, but that rarely happens.
The difference between Competitive REL and Professional REL isn't very significant. One fact is that at Competitive or Professional REL, if a spectator notices an error in a match, they should never try to fix it on their own. At Competitive, they may ask the players to stop play while they call a judge, but at Professional, they aren't allowed to interfere in the match at all. The idea being that Professional REL means players are less likely to make a mistake. The spectator can still call a judge, but we don't break the player's concentration until the judge confirms that there's an actual problem. One other difference is that Professional REL Constructed events require that players have access to opponent's decklists in the elimination rounds, which is optional but rare at Competitive REL, and usually used only when there is video coverage.
MORE NOTES:
Don't call Lifelink a "trigger" - it isn't one. Normally, judges don't intervene if they notice a missed trigger. They only do if they think you're missing it on purpose or if it's a detrimental trigger. Lifelink, however, isn't a trigger, it's a game rule. Rules say you gain life, you have to do it and your opponent has to make sure it happens.
Warning upgrades go as follows: Game Play errors (like Game Rule Violations, Missed (detrimental) Triggers, Looking at Extra Cards) will upgrade upon the 3rd warning in that category. It doesn't have to be the same exact error, it can be any three Game Rule Violations. Tournament Errors (Limited Procedure Violation, Slow Play, Insufficient Shuffling, Marked Cards) and Unsporting Conduct - Minor are supposed to be harder to "accidentally" make - generally, once you've been warned about it, you're supposed to fix it right away and not do it again, so these upgrade upon the 2nd warning in that category. Warnings upgrade to Game Losses, but don't upgrade further than that.