The Most Controversial Rule In Magic: the Gathering | Or: How to be a Better Person. 

"IS THERE SOMEWHERE I CAN BREAK SOMETHING" - Dumbledore asked calmly.

I think I understand baseball better now. Thanks for the rule explanation jorbs.

Across many competitive games I enjoy I have noticed that strong players often demonstrate a remarkable level of emotional control. In MTG I watch pros get draws that would leave me fuming and their response is just a simple "Oh well / bad beats / go next." Of course exceptions exist but I'm personally convinced that the higher levels of these games strongly select for emotional discipline. If Brad is serious about a professional commitment to the game being his "dream," the community should encourage him to view this as a growth opportunity and a nudge towards a more professional attitude, rather than doubling down on an ill-conceived desire for outbursts to be accommodated.

Brad: "...as I shouted into the abyss" Jorbs: this is a lot LMAO

Strategy Gamer (Derogatory)

The reddit thread (now locked) I saw on this had a more balanced take than Twitter overall. One comment that resonated for me was when they were 14 years old and playing in events, it made them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome when adults had angry outbursts. I thought that was a good point.

Brad and his opponent L Simpson. Wait, that's too identifying.... Lisa S.

If your opponent asks, "I'd like to improperly determine the winner of this match, can you call over a judge and give me a match loss?" can you call them on it without getting a match loss yourself? :3

1:07:47 I feel so validated by that part, I had people angry at me for saying that the whole document, even IF made in good faith, was emotionally manipulative. You don't write like that if you're not trying to rile up people.

This whole thing is weird to me because as a Magic player there are basically 2 tournament rules not in the rulebook that have been drilled into me by the community 1 shower 2 judges are to be respected

I've been in nearly the exact situation at 35:00 . It was a prerelease draft and my opponent mulliganed to 5 then said "Can I check the top card of my library? If it's not a land I'll just concede." I said no. He kept the 5 card hand and lost. It turns out he only put like 12-13 lands in his 40 card draft deck. I wasn't aware of the IDW rules at the time but I wouldn't have called a judge even if I knew about it. EDIT: I know the guy had a 12-13 land deck because after the game we chatted, it turned out he was fairly new to Magic and had only been to one draft before. I gave him some friendly advice about his deck's construction; he added a few lands, swapped out a few cards, and won his next two matches. He's a super nice guy.

Finished the video now. Another manipulative thing that stuck out to me when reading this document that you didn't mention-- there are a LOT of moments where Brad can't remember (or doesn't explain) what people said to him if it's not convenient to the narrative, but he's also very mad that people aren't listening to him (by which he actually means, "doing what I want you to do and not penalizing me for breaking the rules"). This leads to this amazing moment when a second judge comes over to Brad and explains the situation with "Some soup of words including IDW and “I understand” as I plead for my tournment life. We try to appeal again. Isn’t there anyone? Please. Someone must actually hear us." Brad's complaining that the judges aren't listening to him while simultaneously admitting he's not listening to them, or at least pretending that he can't remember so he doesn't have to relay the actual explanation to his audience.

2 HOUR POWERPOINT FROM JORBS LETS GOOOOOO

One of the main reasons the "Improperly Determining a Winner" rule is in place, to my understanding at least, is to prevent people from bribing their way through tournaments, or otherwise cutting deals with their opponents by offering things outside the game. This actually leads to really stilted and bizzare conversations, given the intersection of this rule with one that allows a player to concede the game at any time and for any reason. Saying, "I'll give you the win if you give me that card in your trade binder" is not allowed, but people often hint at the exchange without being explocit, like, "I like that card in your binder; I'm considering conceding the game so we have more time to trade."

Something that sticks out to me about Brad's story is that he doesn't go into ANY detail about what an IDW is, simply that he and Jessica accidentally broke some kind of rule called an IDW. On one hand, I assume that the audience of this post is supposed to be other people that play MTG on a tournament setting, so knowledge of the rules could be implied. That being said, he and Jessica are somehow exempt from this assumption, and both of them are entirely blindsided by this rule that the author is now assuming to be common information. Not only that, but he could have used this post as a way to inform others to not make the same mistake that he made, as it was a truly honest mistake from both parties. Rather than doing that, though, the author just uses this wall of text to complain about his own "unavoidable" misfortune, and decries the judges that acted reasonably throughout the incident. Edit: Also, he literally says that the second judge says "some soup of words including 'IDW' and 'I understand' ". So even as he's writing this, he still has no idea how the rule works???

Friendly reminder to NOT go after "Brad" in any way. The internet doesn't need more lynch-mobs and that is not behavior to condone

Is it bad that my first thought was "play island first to play around Wasteland"?

I think it's so important to consider that emotional responses are meant to be considered as generically emotional FIRST, and any sense of pathology or otherwise is meant to be a more specialized and specific consideration AFTER disproving that they were simply having a fairly expect-able emotional response.

Among all the other things that are wrong with this guys actions, here is an underrated angle I think people are underestimating. What if his opponent had looked at the top card of the library and it WAS a land. Is it cool to keep playing then? Like what if she, without asking about conceding had said "hey before you cast anything can I just look at the top card of my library? I want to know if I'm going to draw a land. I'll tell you if its a land." Like would THAT not be a really weird thing to ask someone in the middle of their 3rd turn. My gut says he'd have either said no, or even have actively called a judge in that scenario. It's all of a sudden ok if there is some hope that you'll be able to get out of the rest of the game without needing to play it out?

I feel like a piece of this story is missing. When this all happened a lot of people went to Reddit before the players in the game wrote anything online and told a similar story to the this, these posts were met with compassion but most people said “but the rules are the rules”. Then someone claiming to be the head judge of the event got the posts taken down by saying “actually this all happened on turn 5 of turns” which makes all of these stories look even worse because this is a card no one would have ever seen. But ~48 hours later everything came out for real and the person who claimed to be the head judge obviously lied. I think that is the biggest reason so many people were upset about this and backed up the player. Since it all went down I haven’t seen anyone verify that person was actually the head judge or not.

As someone who has spent half of my 20-year customer service career dealing with escalated cases; this whole document is incredibly familiar behaviour. Any result not in Brad's favour is "unfair". People enforcing that result "aren't treating him as human". "Kindness" equals telling him he's right. Stereotypical "Karen" shit. For the record, "I understand" is a terrible phrase if you want to de-escalate. It's literally day 1 in corporate de-escalation training. An angry person who sees you as an obstacle to getting their way is almost never going to believe you, no matter how convincing you say it (and most people - even with training - aren't very convincing). It nearly always makes things worse. If Judge Academy (or whoever's training judges now) is encouraging people to say it, they should stop.

At 37:50 you start discussing that you don't have to call for a judge, and I agree that that should be mentioned. One thing you did not mention that I think is important, is an argument for why you SHOULD call a judge, regardless: it creates a paper trail. It can establish patterns of behavior or rules infractions that allow judges to catch people deliberately angle shooting or cheating. If you call a judge and your opponent made an innocent mistake they take the associated penalty and hopefully learn from the encounter, and are a better tournament player for it. It can suck in the moment, particularly when you run afoul a TOURNAMENT rule, rather than a GAME rule. But also, this is a Competitive REL event, and it's each player's responsibility to understand the rules of the event they're playing in. If you call a judge and your opponent was deliberately trying to cheat, it establishes a history that can be referenced for future judge calls. If you don't call a judge and your opponent made an innocent mistake then the tournament carries on and your opponent may make that mistake again in the future because they never learned. If you don't call a judge and your opponent was deliberately trying to cheat, then they're free to continue their tactics against future opponents. I think we can all agree it is important, and one of judges' jobs, to catch cheaters and remove them from competition. Having an established track record of behavior is an important tool for executing that responsibility.

There is actually an established “correct” way to name players in stories about Magic. When you are taking a test to become a judge, most questions will describe a game state. Of the two players one will have a masculine name, and the other a feminine name. The active players name will start with A and the non-active players name will start with N. So Nate vs Amy or Alex vs Nicole.

I love you taking the time to make a detailed video about your stance, and after reading people’s responses to your tweets on this, it’s clear to see why you did. I thought I was taking crazy pills seeing the mental gymnastics people were doing. If I was in this tournament and witnessed this, I would have expected a match loss for both players. “Brad’s” argument is that this ruling is unfair to him, but he fails to see that bending the rules for him is unfair to everyone else in the tournament who stays within bounds (or even those who don’t but may not get the same leniency). So many people were so quick to say it did not change the result of the game, but don’t care that it *could have* changed the result of the game, and that is what is really important. You don’t get to break the rules and determine based on the result whether that was okay when there are real stakes (prize money) on the line for everyone playing.

I think a huge thing people seem to miss is that something that's acceptable in a casual game is absolutely NOT acceptable during structured play. I'd still not allow it during casual play, but the stakes are different.

My local baseball team does not consist of fools, they play indoors and never get rained out at home. With that out of the way, I simply think that if you want to play official MTG games for prizes you need to be a bit of rules stickler and play more robotically than one does in casual games and to understand that what you say at the table can have in game consequences. I'm kinda surprised that people got upset with the judges as the ruling was cut and dry. I suppose it's people empathizing and sympathizing with the upset match loss receiver, which is fine, but to escalate to anger at the judges is a bit much. I guess if one of the judges involved made a 5 page reply about how rattled and upset they are they'd get some sympathy posts too. It kind of boils down to that quote from that Conservative nerd of "facts don't care about your feelings". I'll catch the 2nd half of this video later :P

Jorbs, I don't ever comment and just lurk/watch your videos. Your brain works in a magnificent way that gives me so much insight on a completely different perspective that is so thoughtful. You touch on so many different ideas that resonate with me and are just so damn interesting. Thank you. Sorry to gush but this was wonderful.

I wonder how many people who released comments/tweets/replies supporting the player were influenced by initial comments doing so, and also how many of them have been in tournaments at the level of this player. Like just with the context of youre essentially in a satellite tournament for a spot to compete for $130k should make people realize that rules are written in stone for a reason and it's on players to know the rules. Intent being the determining factor for whether or not a total DQ takes place and having no effect on the loss just makes this an incredibly clear-cut decision. Competition for over a hundred thousand dollars is never and will never be about fun, people who actually compete at these stakes (and honestly, even way lower stakes) know this.

The Twitter responses to this incident are very upsetting, thank you for taking the time to break down the situation with the necessary context and nuance. I don't know how persuasive this will be for people who already disagree, but I can only hope they can take the time to understand the rule, why it exists, why it matters, and why it was applied here.

That backpack scene is just chef's kiss. The first time you showed it, I was like "This is what you're being charged with, isn't it". Huge tonal whiplash.

I'm only an hour 13 into the video atm, but I found the point about a social agreement to try to win a game carrying over to broader social interactions and thus violating social norms and being manipulative quite interesting. I'm autistic and often struggle with social norms, have a high competitive drive, play a lot of strategy and optimization games, and yet I don't think that that leaks to general life in the same way. I find my attitude of "I want to win this" tends to get pushed into wanting to improve the world in some way, or making myself a nice fish dinner, or spending time with my friends in a way we all enjoy. Granted, that's something I've had to train myself at, because I know in middle school I would've reacted very differently (and often did) to perceived wrongs (which happened a lot because kids are cruel). It wasn't easy or anything, and definitely involved some unlearning of seeing myself as superior for being a smart kid (maybe we shouldn't constantly tell kids how smart they are and put pressure on them for it, but I digress), but the real thing that made it possible was just realizing that I wanted to make the world a better place for everyone, not just myself, and that my current "optimization strategy" wasn't doing that. Hopefully this video serves as a nudge in the right direction for someone in a similar situation. Great first half of the video jorbs and I look forward to watching the second half :)

JUST ONE PROBLEM BRAD APPEAL TO WHO, BRAD? I'm dying, this video is brilliant.

I agree with the vast majority of what was said here with one BIG caveat: appealing to other judges should ALWAYS be accommodated if it is possible. This option allows players to verify that it is not the lone judge interpreting the rules, but the rules being enforced in general. Even the head judge can get things wrong, and it helps everyone involved to get more eyes on a situation. This is particularly true for competitive REL. (Disclaimer: I am not a judge, but I have passed all the tests, I just haven't had the experience running events to get a judge to sign off on my judgeship)

Courtesy of Jon Bois: BALK RULES! IMPORTANT! 1. You can’t just be up there and just doin’ a balk like that. 1a. A balk is when you 1b. Okay well listen. A balk is when you balk the 1c. Let me start over 1c-a. The pitcher is not allowed to do a motion to the, uh, batter, that prohibits the batter from doing, you know, just trying to hit the ball. You can’t do that. 1c-b. Once the pitcher is in the stretch, he can’t be over here and say to the runner, like, “I’m gonna get ya! I’m gonna tag you out! You better watch your butt!” and then just be like he didn’t even do that. 1c-b(1). Like, if you’re about to pitch and then don’t pitch, you have to still pitch. You cannot not pitch. Does that make any sense? 1c-b(2). You gotta be, throwing motion of the ball, and then, until you just throw it. 1c-b(2)-a. Okay, well, you can have the ball up here, like this, but then there’s the balk you gotta think about. 1c-b(2)-b. Fairuza Balk hasn’t been in any movies in forever. I hope she wasn’t typecast as that racist lady in American History X. 1c-b(2)-b(i). Oh wait, she was in The Waterboy too! That would be even worse. 1c-b(2)-b(ii). “get in mah bellah” - Adam Water, “The Waterboy.” Haha, classic… 1c-b(3). Okay seriously though. A balk is when the pitcher makes a movement that, as determined by, when you do a move involving the baseball and field of 2. Do not do a balk please.

As a teacher, I regularly have to deal with people (students) who think that if they are pityable enough the rules should not apply to them. It's a very toxic mindset that you can't really get people out of. But you have to still apply the rules. Otherwise people will never even start to think about taking responsibility for their own actions.

This is really good! I was definitely on the player's side after the initial reddit post and reading his post, but didn't really think critically about the situation from the perspective of the judges and the other players at the event. You're absolutely right, it sounds like they did basically everything right in an unfortunate situation.

A balk is the perfect metaphor. Even the biggest mlb nerds don't understand what's happening when it's called. I've seen players/managers tossed for arguing a correct balk call. And there's absolutely no chance you could explain it to a casual fan. So when you check Twitter afterwards, it's a cesspool.

It is insane how easily this could have been avoided simply by saying, "If you believe you will not be able to win after your next draw phase, you are free to concede."

There's actually a few IDW promo cards that they gave you for getting a match loss this way. A lot of them have Dack Fayden on them.

As a women in MTG, the way he wrote about the woman he played with was frightening. This analysis was very enlightening. Thank you!

As a woman who enjoys strategy games but often does not enjoy dealing with certain strategy gamers, everything in Brad's essay about Jessica made my skin crawl

I felt myself emotionally swayed by this in the first reading. I was putting myself in his place for a moment. On the second reading, among other things, it's interesting how immature it is that he keeps saying anyone that does something he doesn't like is "not treating him as a human".

the hate for judges is so ridiculous.

At first glance, its super easy to feel like Brad got cheated. On the social media takes, the rule is the issue not the judges (possibly). We shouldn't ban or shame judges for doing their job. I think its worth evaluating the rule, and I would propose that the only one who is forced to take an L is the one proposing the IDW. Knowing this, you could fathom someone maliciously weaponizing this rule. It is unfortunate that Brad acted the way he did, was ejected and so forth. I see that as a secondary issue though. Being a former nascar fan, I urge tournaments to stick to the rules.

Its funny to see this as a jorbs video topic. There is practically a ritual chant you have to do if you want to arrange a mutually agreeable prize split with your opponent without tripping over this rule and back in the day there were definitely angleshooters who would try and use it to their advantage (which is itself probably a rules violation)

As someone who has been a tournament organiser for the past decade and is looking to step away from it almost entirely at the end of this year, thank you for validating not only my decision, but validating my feelings that the people who did shitty things at my events were in the wrong.

"Why do we have to have all these like, rules, man" is a pretty funny attitude to have regarding a game tournament you voluntarily take part in.

Level of entitlement is insane

The rule where the player lost the game because of how specifically to call out steps and the foreign language barrier drove me up the wall. This? Nah. Just a weird edge case. People take emotional outbursts too seriously. Dude should be embarrassed and I think he knows that.

At the heart of this story is a real dispute about jurisprudence. It's hidden in the ramblings of an irresponsible man playing a children's card game and a second man talking about a children's card game on the internet. (And a third man sweatily typing a comment about the first and second man) The central dispute comes from two different interpretations of what is the purpose of law -and in the context of sports or children's card games, the rules. The first is that law is that which the sovereign provides a sanction for its violation. By doing so law holds everyone to the same standards equally. Law largely does not need to address context because that invites argument and argument obscures certainty. An adherent to this first approach sees a violation and metes out the sanction. The intent is only a factor insomuch as the law may provide a different, harsher sanction for knowing violations. The law must be absolute because any further analysis stratifies circumstances and provides a breeding pool for ambiguity. Bad faith actors can use that uncertainty to grab an advantage. With the second approach, law's purpose is to facilitate... something. Law in general is to provide safe guidelines for people to interact with each other fairly. In this context it is so two human beings can play a children's card game. When attempting to bring a sanction the arbiter must examine more than the base violation but also the parties. Why did this happen? How did the people act? There is a real focus on the equity of the situation. Under this reading, what is gained by punishing someone who violated a rule but had no intention to so *and* reached the exact same result? Brad, that poor naive fool, thought that the rules existed to facilitate humans playing magic fairly. Most notably, Brad, in his mind believed, quite honestly even if wrongly, that the deal he made did not meaningfully change the outcome of the game. In a world where the rules exist to facilitate people playing magic this outcome *is* disproportionate. No advantage was gained. Neither side engaged in any deceit or fraud in reaching the result. They acted honorably. Had Ms. Famousperson waited 20 seconds to see the card on her turn and then conceded *or* had she conceded without looking there would have been no infraction under the rules. See Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules R 104.3a. That this haphazard ordering results in so harsh a sanction *is* absurd. Brad also thought that the role of the judge was to entertain nuance and grant compassion. This mistaken understanding of the purpose of law colors all of his interactions with the judges. They aren't granting the mercy that any reasonable person could see. (Well, everyone but cynics and readers of jurisprudence). Every consequence that stems from the heartless application of the law is a compounding injustice. But in the end, the judges at competitive events apply laws strictly. And they were properly applied to him. To be clear, I don't agree with Brad's rather self righteous characterization of the events. I think that Brad acted poorly by demanding appeal after appeal. I think that the judges interpreted the rules as written fairly. He was even in his own generous account stressed and at least a potential danger to others. "Judge 3" was absolutely correct in not letting Brad return. But all that aside, I think there is a kernel of bad faith in calling the post "emotional manipulation". Brad had a life experience, which even if *had* handled it gracefully, would have been stressful. He is telling the narrative in a way that makes him look good because he is staking a position. He uses rhetoric to varying degrees of effectiveness. In staking the opposite position in this video, you also used rhetoric, which is fine. This is how people communicate. The extended examination into the ordering of land drops is used rhetorically to prime us, the viewers, to appreciate that strategy gamers are all angle shooting rat bastards. Those rules must be construed as strictly and harshly as possible lest those low lifes, those scoundrels, the strategy gamers exploit our good faith. But simply because there exists the possibility of a line that could give an advantage does not automatically make it dispositive. In this particular narrative Brad didn't suggest the rule breaking. He wasn't seeking the advantage. Could a rattier bastard have been doing that? Possibly, but in the context of the story I feel confident giving both Brad and Ms. Famousperson the benefit of the doubt on *this* point. Brad was certainly reading cues about what his opponent was playing. But he was right that his opponent was off her land and not trying to goad him into misplaying. This *doesn't* change the analysis of whether he broke the rules. He did, and in doing so faced the wrath and the majesty of the law.

Knowing that real adult men behave like this, and then publicly rant about how right they are to do so, is not good for my Mental Health, not good at all.

I'm about halfway through the video and just want to say that I'm glad someone made a comprehensive breakdown of the interesting or unique elements of this situation (both ruleswise and as an example of social manipulation). A couple of things I've seen in the discourse that are worth noting to me (which may or may not be addressed later in your video): *A lot of people have made a big deal out of the fact that the IDW offer example on the magic judge blog features a "nonland I lose, land I win" component where the offer in this tournament only featured a "nonland I lose" component. I think the significance people are finding here is that there's very little potential advantage to taking this deal if your opponent already thought a nonland put them out of contention for the game-- you'd be winning the game anyways if the card on top was a nonland, and if it was a land all that's happened is that information has been revealed a bit early, since your opponent would draw and play it M1. I get that the combination of the negligible advantage to taking the deal combined with the ignorance of the ruling makes some people feel that the punishment should be less harsh, since the player both didn't know that this behavior ran afoul of the rule and also didn't stand to gain any of the unfair advantages that the rule was designed to guard against described in the "philosophy" section of the blog post. But I still think this is a fairly clear IDW, and as you say-- judges are not prone to mess around with that stuff. *Another argument I've seen made is that by giving their opponent permission to flip the top card, the player on the receiving end of this situation was actually executing a tournament shortcut, essentially forgoing combat and M2 without formally announcing that. I don't think this is a tenable argument-- a highly competitive player on tournament life in an event that potentially could qualify them for a 6-figure prize pool is not going to forgo a turn of combat to let their control player find their footing. For instance, imagine if this same offer is made and the top card that's revealed IS a land. Do you really thing the player on gruul aggro would just let the control player draw that card and continue their turn as if the aggro player had shipped the turn? I don't find this persuasive at all. Even in the very selective version of events we got from the twitter recap, there's no indication that this was the underlying meaning that the gruul player was trying to convey with their acceptance of the deal. *Finally, one last argument I've seen here is that the judge essentially entrapped the gruul player by waiting for them to respond to their opponent's offer rather than immediately issuing the opponent a game loss. For those who haven't read the MTR, one thing it lays out is the time and manner that a judge should respond to a rules violation. According to the document, "judges do not intervene in a game to prevent illegal actions, but do intervene as soon as a rule has been broken or to prevent a situation from escalating." Since even the offer to forefit the game with a topdecked nonland was itself a rules violation, you can argue that there shouldn't have been any opportunity for the recipient of the offer to get themselves in trouble by accepting the deal if a judge was watching the whole thing. This is maybe the most persuasive argument of them all, but I don't find it compelling enough to change my view of the whole situation. For one thing, we don't actually know if the aggro player paused for a full 10 seconds to consider this deal or if this is just how it felt to them while looking back at the moment in retrospect. For another thing, it might be that the judge was ALSO trying to process the offer, focusing on the boardstate, focusing on another game, interpreting the comment as a joke until both players followed through with it, etc etc., and didn't notice the IDW until both players had followed through with it. There is enough ambiguity in the situation that it sounds like entrapment is likely if you take the aggro player's twitter recap at face value, but there are enough suspicious/manipulative details in that document that I'm not sure it's a reliable account of the situation.

I think Shivan Reef into Island makes sense, you're bluffing that you wanted to leave 1 mana open for a burn or counter spell, where tapped Steam Vents leaves you "shields down"

In a tourney, if the rules state you get a loss, and the judges allow you to draw or win by ignoring the rules, then you are affecting other players. Your record affects the cutoff for prizes and advancement, so an artificially high placement unfairly demotes everyone that you jump. In this case, there is a PT spot on the line, apparently. If the judges ignore OP's infraction and OP then bumps someone else who didn't break the rules, how is that fair? Sports and gaming tourneys are rife with rules decisions that cost one team/player a game, ranking or playoff spot- enforcing that is part and parcel of organized competition with real consequences on the line. As to him getting kicked, if he had hypothetically come back to that judge and put a chair across his face or took it out on some other attendee, then there would be a cry of "why didn't they take action after he was visibly angry and shouting?" I don't think OP would do that, but if I get it that wrong, it has no impact on anyone's safety. If the judges and tourney organizers get it wrong, they have one or more injured attendees and potential lawsuits on their hands. The judges only knew OP had been frustrated and expressed it with striking something and shouting. They don't know what escalation could happen and have to act with everyone's safety in mind. (edited- conclusion was a little too judgmental against Brad given this post is literally the only thing I've ever seen from him)

It is genuinely painful how clear it is, even with this player casting them in the worst possible light, that the judges were going out of their way to accommodate this person, and that the comments (at least those shown in the video) about this largely focus on bashing those same very helpful and polite judges.

I don't like how we have to be extra vigilant when we're playing against inexperienced opponents, lest they do something that gets us both in trouble. Making sure opponents don't get one over on you is necessary and understood. Making sure opponents don't get one over on themselves doesn't feel right. An opponent of mine this year got DQ'd because I resolved a card incorrectly (to my detriment), despite the fact that my opponent was the one to call a judge to fix it. I respect people's opinions to follow a strict interpretation of the rules, but I believe there should be leeway given based on context.

The heavily emotive "keep up the beating/suffering." is just... It's a card game, mate. Your opponent may be somewhat emotionally distraught about losing in a pretty shite way - not mtg but I'm familiar with the taste of losing because your deck said no - and of course there's the money too, but she's an adult competing at a professional(?) level. She can handle the game going on for another ~minute. She's lost before, she'll lose again. Your opponents are not harming you in some personal way when they win (which is obviously something Brad believes, given how he wrote about the previous two games). It definitely feeds into the sus vibe about how he writes about Jessica. Like just not sure if he'd have viewed it all the same if his opponent wasn't a "brilliantly kind young woman the community had fallen in love with." I don't know the author so no real aspersions being cast, just feels a bit off.

Jorbs power points are my favorite genre

It's worth noting for idws that you are usually allowed to reveal information that you can see. (With a notable exception of draft, which you can't reveal cards that have the normal card back. Or even look at them in the highest enforcement) For multiplayer formats, note its /reveal/, you can't just show one person. (MTR 3.13) E.g. you are allowed to show everyone in the table a card in your hand. So i don't think it's an idw if you say "I'll resign if you show me a piece of removal" or flashing your opponent a counterspell from your hand and saying "should be go to game 3?". These might not be optimal plays but im pretty sure they are both legal, and things i see done a bunch at the fnm level. Also, was he born in the show yugioh?Why is he writing like he's morally torn and was being asked to beat her within an inch of her life, and not reduce her score to 0 in a card game?

Pointing out the game state being Forest, Mountain, Mountain(T), Questing Druid, Monastery Swiftspear versus Otawara is utterly hilarious tbh. He had me believing he was going into a 5 minute turn, about to storm/combo off, when he was literally casting a Play with Fire (2 damage instant + scry 1), leaving just a Forest untapped, allowing for 0 additional spells unless (looking at his friend's event-winning list, which I assume is identical, and assuming you don't board in Pick Your Poison against 4c Legends) he had EXACTLY Snakeskin Veil, before attacking with a 2/3 (or 4/5 with Veil) Swiftspear and a 3/3 Druid (buffed by Swiftspear and by Play with Fire but not by Veil [or by Pick Your Poison]). Best case, with Snakeskin Veil in hand, he would have cast two more spells and dealt a total of 9 damage before passing the turn - without Veil, he would have cast one more spell and dealt a total of 7 damage before passing the turn. Hardly inhumane to make your opponent wait until their draw step in either case.

This guy is treating a 130k tournament like its a local fnm with his buddies. I understand that he likely puts a lot of emotional weight on his personal prowess as a magic player, but he clearly isnt all that if his mindset doesn't even distinguish between the varying standards of play at different levels of competition. At a casual event, we let things like IDW's slide because we are not playing for large sums of money and it is more important to both players and organizers that everyone is enjoying themselves in an environment that is safe, welcoming, and accessible for new players and veterans alike. When you have life changing amounts of money on the line, the priority is to make sure that the sum of money is awarded to the winner fairly. If you were to let rules slide with this much on the line, you would be creating an unfair competitive environment where people can bend the rules to get ahead. As judges, we have different standards that we are supposed to follow given the context of the tournament we are judging, and an RC should have the strictest possible level of rules enforcement. Given the vitriol that this player has directed towards the event staff who, by this players own account, enforced the rules in a fair and professional matter, he should feel lucky that the penalties ended at being expelled from the event area.

The way this guy charactarizes his opponent makes part of me really wonder if he would have worked himself into such an emotional frenzy had his opponent been male.

One of the reasons people do the coin flip example: you have 50min to do 3 games of draft. Draft games can take a long time, especially if its the first time you've seen the set and you need to read a lot of cards. So maybe you only get through 1 or 2 games. So at that point, if you're 1-1 and time is at 5min or less, it might be more fair to flip for the winner of game 3.

Fantastic video, I sadly doubt that the people who most need to see it never will, and the ones watching likely need it the least, but this was a masterclass in every aspect of the situation. Also, very sweet of you to sneak an hbomberguy reference into the last 5 minutes as a treat for devoted viewers ❤

man some people really aren't self-aware of their gamer rage

Every time he describes something bad he did, I think it's kinda funny that he's even mentioning it, much less trying to portray himself as calm and precise in these situations. Like who held a gun to his head and forced him to tell us about how he calmly and cleanly threw his backpack at his friend in the middle of his fit of rage? Why is this an important detail? Well the reason it's an important detail is because he knows he hurt his friend with the backpack and is trying to convince himself that he is innocent. These details, like his "apology," are for himself and his own feelings, not for anyone else.

The really baffling rule is the bribery one, the following statement is legal in a tournament, and is in fact common at all levels of play from regular to professional: "Hey, let's split the prizes so we both get the same." (wait for agreement) "I concede" The following statement is illegal, and will get you a match loss, or quite likely a disqualification: "Hey, I'll concede if we split the prizes so we both get the same." Both players know that the exact same things will happen in both cases, but because one is an "if" statement, you're technically bribing your opponent. And much like the IDW rule, judges have no wiggle room on this one. If they hear you offer this, you've broken the rule and penalty must be applied. If your opponent appears to accept it, so have they. It doesn't matter if you intended to say the legal statement, and messed up the exact wording. Nor does it matter if you thought your opponent said the legal statement, and were incorrect. Also, the rule used to be that if you didn't immediately call a judge if your opponent messed up this rule, you both got DQ'd. It was toned down slightly.

There are two things here that I think are a bit muddy. One with the actual rule and one with some of your critique which felt unfair to me. 1. There is a brief moment of time where his incredibly kind and beloved opponent has committed an IDW and he hasn’t agreed to it yet. It’s sort of weird that if a judge was really on the ball they could have dove in at that moment and declared the match a loss by IDW and he would have won. Is there any understanding in the rules that they should be applied in chronological order? So that she receives the IDW and the match ends before he can even agree? I feel that would be a pretty good addition to the rule. It would reduce false positives like this case as whoever mentions it first takes a loss, and if that order isn’t agreed by the players then they both take it. 2. He says a lot that they played a fair game of magic. Jorbs then says this isn’t the case. I fully see why, to you, this is magic, in a tournament, the tournament rules are part of the game. It was not a fair game, as the tournament rules were broken. However, I can see an alternate interpretation that fits Brad’s comments. Brad is (maybe) drawing a distinction between the rules of the game, and the rules of the tournament. There’s no IDW rule when you’re at the kitchen table, but there are the rules of magic the gathering which everyone follows. It seems like Brad is trying to say that no Magic rules have been broken, only tournament rules. This is a pointless distinction given the context is, yep, a tournament. Obviously it doesn’t change the outcome, it just seemed a little unfair to comment on his statement(s) as untrue, as they’re arguably sort of true. Anyway, point 1 was interesting, point 2 was probably just pedantry! This was an interesting video that accompanied me on a long drive (audio only! Don’t worry), thanks PowerPoint jorbs.

Brad would backseat and complain when he gets banned.

Only 30 minutes in, but the 2 things that come to my mind for why the IDW rule exists are 1. Cheating 2. Preventing unenforceable actions. You're leading somewhere with this presentation, so my bad if this is addressed later. 1: Allowing only game actions prevents an unscrupulous player from gaining a win that they would not have gotten otherwise. Say I am behind my opponent, but time has run out; based on my game knowledge and deduction, I have a 25% chance of winning. If I can get my opponent to agree to a coin flip, however, my odds now of winning to go 50. Have read about/seen this in person many times, and not just in MTG. This almost always involves manipulation or lying to the other player (aka "That Guy" at your local hobby game store). 2. Say we allow a coin flip to decide the winner of a match; this has many downhill consequences for our tournament rules. Whose coin do we use? How many times must the coin turn over? When does the call happen? What happens if the coin rolls off the table? Another example: Say 2 players call a judge, both saying that the other has conceded. How does the judge resolve this situation (rhetorical, there are rules for this iirc) ? Say that happens, but as the result of an "out of game action". The rules must now account for any number of actions: coin flip, break dance competition, scrabble game, or make more rules that determine what is "valid". If they don't, the judges do not have a rule to enforce, and must make a judgment call, with all the consequences that brings. Edit: 53 minutes in, and this video should be over? Unsportsmanlike and unprofessional conduct resulting in being told to leave a venue. You are allowed to feel your emotions: this person who received the Match Loss seems to believe that they can act on them in any way they wish, and with no consequences as well. I hope (but doubt) they will learn.

Thank you for the detailed breakdown. Lots of red flags, security would've also been on to Brad as soon as he mentioned breaking things. Even not at a card game event. That second: Are you OK is security following and taking notice before taking action.

Other reasons Shivan Reef -> Steam Vents is not “strictly better”: You were holding out for a card that cares about mountains in hand, but failed to draw it. Your opponent is known to play island walking creatures sometimes and you wanted to avoid opening yourself up for as long as possible, failing to draw a mountain. Extremely niche, sub-optimal plays, but possibly better than a basic island. It’s the better option after a failed (very) risky play.

Not that far into the video but one of my first thoughts for land order was playing Shivan Reef to project the threat of lightning bolt or some cheap blue counterspell/bounce. Hadn’t even considered the other false/bluff information that could imply. Although I do only play magic casually and don’t really keep up with tournaments.

1:59:50 F*CKING AQUAMAN!?!?

Actually, in response (heh) to the land question at the start: I would almost always play Shivan Reef first. With it, I have the potential to have 1 blue or red mana. This might mean my opponent doesn't want to play a small creature, in fear of Lightning Bolt, or an important spell in fear of Spell Pierce. Then, depending on whether or not I will likely have a 3 mana spell to play, I would play either untapped Steam Vents or Island. My next most likely line would be paying 2 for an untapped Steam Vents turn one. Even if I don't have a 1 mana instant, the fact that I played the Steam Vents untapped tells my opponent I almost certainly do have something to use with that mana. This might intimidate them into leading with an unimportant spell, then assume I have no forms of interaction if I do not interact with that spell. Of course, this depends heavily on the format, my deck, my opponent's deck, and so on. If I know that my deck has many one mana spells, then I will almost always lead with a way to generate 1 mana on turn one. If I know that my deck doesn't have many one mana spells, and most decks also do not have one mana spells, then I would play Steam Vents tapped. However, given the lands in question, that would be an extremely weird format to be in.

I can understand being upset by getting blindsided by a rule you didn't realize existed that ruined your chance at a tournament. Generally when playing friendly magic, it's not uncommon to do things like they did because it's no fun playing a game where one player doesn't have a realistic chance of competing. However, his reaction went definitely overboard, and he placed the blame and demonized the wrong people. The judges are just there to enforce the rules, which clearly state what they did was wrong. It's fine to complain to Wizards/Harbro about the rule (though good luck getting them to change it), but the judges have their hands tied- they need to enforce the rules fairly, and can't just make exceptions because you didn't mean to do something wrong. The rule is not ambiguous, and what "Brad" and "Jessica" did clearly broke the rule- the Judges didn't really have any options here. The DQ and ban from the magic area was completely justified as well from his overreaction and violent behavior. Sorry, if you can't keep your emotions in check in public to where you're hitting things loudly, shouting, and asking if you can break things, you're not someone that should be allowed in shared public spaces.

"It's at this point that I allow my emotions to overtake me" wait so when you called for another ruling three different times it's _not_ because you were being emotional??

This is a great video. I think one thing that would make the reason why this ruling is good for the game and good for the players is missing though. This rule is not in place to prevent this situation. It’s in place to prevent the inverse. Player B looks at their top deck, finds a land, does not concede. Now imagine they come back to win. Which is more likely than you think for the control deck in the match up. If they have no land, by definition their hand is full of action. They start hitting lands, they are in the game. Winning a game where player A let them cheat, thinking they were getting a concession. That is a big part of why this rule needs to be enforced.

I think the biggest issue is that in the CORE RULES of Magic: The Gathering, the official way to determine who goes first (Rule 103.2) (how to determine who goes first: 'the players may use any mutually agreeable method (flipping a coin, rolling dice, etc.) ') I've seen 50 yard dashes, arm wrestling, some weird stuff over the years, but it is in the SPIRIT of the CORE game. The rule you cite comes from their 'INFRACTION PROCEDURE GUIDE' which is an appendix and not part of the CORE rules. They should merge the 'Improperly Determining a Winner' rule into the CORE rules, or consider acceptable workarounds. No one wants a Draw due to time. There should be a 'SUDDEN DEATH' rule that players can 'summon' when approaching time.

Idk how anyone read that blogpost and thought this dude was normal

I thought there was something off about this whole thing! I leaned towards the side of "yeah, that sounds like a niche ruling, and you were "trying to help"... but if them's the rules then them's the breaks", but actually seeing it spelled out like this really clarified the situation a bunch.

Of course he was disqualified, he casted violent outburst at a standard tournament.

As someone who refs for competitive robotics, i can tell you that rules like this suck. There are far more DQ rules for very specific situations and its never fun to deal with. Never thought musch about it in competive magic. Fascinating video

I came out the other end of the video never wanting to play an organized magic event

NEW POWERPOINT FROM JORBS! TWO HOURS! ON MTG! This was a joy, especially the read-through of the document.

49:10 This is the first time I've ever heard Jorbs raise his voice. scary...

Nice of the bots to finally appreciate the clear visibility and the anti-aliasing features of the Office Suite

Once during a game in an RCQ, me and my opponent went to time and past the first 5 turns (which either leads to a draw or a concession from one player) and my opponent wanted us to flip the top card of our libraries to see who would’ve been able to win first and I had to tell him we can’t decide that way since it’s technically knowledge we’ll never have, he was mad because he thought I was asking him to concede so I called our judge to let him know what was going on, we ended up in a draw, never feel afraid to call a judge, even if your opponent is upset

If you play tournament magic. And ANYTHING happens you might think could pottentially not be legal. Call judge. Alwaaaaaaaays. Lol

I think the video is a great breakdown of the situation and 99% agree with you altho i'm a LITTLE more sympathetic to "brad" than you are: did want to add that I think specifically the fact that the initial judge WATCHED the entire exchange go down, allowed it to happen, and then handed out the match losses is kind of crazy. Like, watching a player break a rule and then letting them drag a second player down with them, then LET THEM take the time to actually look at the top card and move on for a bit before stepping in seems pretty sketchy to me

Getting a match loss for trying to determine a game improperly when you were about to lose anyway is a much different punishment in game 1 than it would be in game 3.

I'm glad you mentioned the time draw situation. In Pokémon we have similar issues with Bo3 50+3 rounds, and thats very rarely enough for three full games unless both players are playing extremely quickly and also playing fast decks. While top tables might ID the final 1-2 rounds, mid tables can be completely screwed by a draw when theyre already 4-0-2 or a similar record, and it's unfortunate that the goal of the game (winning) is not always in agreement with the goal of the setting (winning a tournament).

Another thing to consider here is that... for some reason, the judges for MtG are generally construed as "the bad guys". Always. For some reason, they're just assumed to be the fun killers, the "out to getcha", the ones that make BS rulings. Their rulings always get appealed and then upon second opinion from a higher up judge, like, 95% the ruling is upheld because these judges know what they're talking about when it comes to serious rulings that involve game/match losses. Judges are just volunteers and SOMETIMES low-paid people who are giving up their entire damned day for a tournament. It's not like a passion job for them, it's just necessary for the tournament to run. They're not having fun and playing Magic. They're wandering about and de-escalating or solving issues. Cut them a break. They don't want to ruin your day. They're just trying to do their job. But still, they're forever going to be considered as a big bad evil boss.

i definitely agree that that guy is in the wrong, but i think that stuff about his writing being "emotional manipulation" and "how is he judging her character after 1 interaction" is like... going too hard on trying to find character flaws in his writing, at least in my opinion; i dont think its that deep. still, interesting video! i did not know about IDW rules, and while i think they are silly, i now know how to not break them, so thanks :)

I personally think the biggest difference between something like BlackJack or poker compared to magic is that in the casino games, everyone plays with the same cards from the same deck. You don't build your own deck, there's no "sequencing" in blackjack, there's some basic strategy, sure, but magic is a a skill based game with a luck of the draw element (did you sequence your cards correctly, did you build a good deck with a decent curve etc etc), and casino games are Luck based games with some skill based elements. Edit: Commenting as I'm listening, wotc may not publicly talk about the secondary market, but they know about it and influences things. There's a reason masters sets are 250-350 dollars a box, it isn't like the product itself costs more for them print, its all cardboard and ink. Or for example, ever notice how when a secret lair has one or more chase cards in it, the cost of the secret lair is about the same price as the secondary market value of said chase cards at the time of announcement?

A somewhat similar event happened in the chess world a while back. I remember because it also had a similar emotional response on social media where I saw it, though it didn't have the same emotional manipulation. For context: unlike in magic, a draw in a chess tournament is preferable to a loss. Two players before a match talked about moving around their knights a bunch and then agreeing to a draw. They then did this and a judge nulled their match giving them both a game loss. People in the comments assumed that they were both basically out of contention of the tournament and just having fun, but they were actually vying for first place. The rule that chess has against match fixing is actually worded like "Don't make a mockery of the game of chess" so many people didn't understand that they were disqualified for match-fixing and that instead the problem was that they moved their knights around in a silly way. They also spoke Russian, so even if they had seen the video of them playing with sound, it was very unlikely they would understand they had fixed the match beforehand. And this was with no emotional manipulation by the competitors, this was just a fairly unbiased explanation of events from a third party and the majority of people still talked about how the judges hate fun, they have something personally against the two competitors, or how they are biased because Magnus Carlson (a well known chess player) did the same thing (he didn't) and nothing happened to him. I think there's an issue overall with people who aren't used to a competitive space like that, and not understanding how things can be used to someone's advantage, being given a story about a time when a player wasn't trying to gain an advantage but still broke the rules.

Pre-viewing: I'm SO GLAD you're talking about this because it was one of the most bizarre things I learned about when I started learning about MTG rules, especially when it goes against one of the most important implicit understandings in structured, competitive games: a player may concede at any time, for any reason. Implicitly or explicitly, so many aspects of a game stop functioning without that understanding-- it's probably only second to "players will make a good faith attempt to achieve their objective". It also is very brand to hear about from you specifically, as you've always had good things to say about proper respect and consent in gaming.

Great analysis. I hadn't considered overly emotional speech and behavior could actually indicate emotional manipulation is happening. Patterns in the verbiage suggest Brad was being at least somewhat intentional about it too, as you pointed out. Before hearing about the context, I was bracing myself for possibly a player wielding this rule to trick the other into IDW'ing with them. That would be an example where saying "no" and refusing any gray area behavior from a more experienced opponent is wise. I have a hard time faulting a beginner who unknowingly accepts an IDW, but verifying and enforcing that nuance would be impossible, and it certainly doesn't excuse Brad in this case.

Absolutely, booster boxes ARE lottery tickets. With or without box toppers. Because the product is so costly, you want to see the cardboard as an asset class and thus talk about a set's EV when opening up a case of Magic. Plus how WotC weights different uncommons, rares and mythics to further create scarcity, players are looking to limit the variance by ‘buying all of the lottery tickets’. (Imagine if the lottery ticket system, there was track printing to evenly distribute the few secondary and tertiary rewards. Then you would incentivised to buy tickets by their printing to hit these lower tier rewards. Which is how Magic kind of works; by the case.)

I don't really see much of a point to allow the opponent to look at their top card to determine if they concede or not in this case. It's like turn 3? And I'd be playing agro if I was Brad here, how much time was left of my turn? Declare attacks, no blocks, cast a spell or two, pass turn... That's like 5 minutes at most, more likely 30 seconds.