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."

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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???

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.

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)

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

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

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.

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.

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

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?

Strategy Gamer (Derogatory)

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.

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."

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.

2 HOUR POWERPOINT FROM JORBS LETS GOOOOOO

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".

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.

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.

"all of these judges should be disbarred and you should get an invite" Yeah, we definitely need people who have violent outbursts over accurate rulings. Totally.

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

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.

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.

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)

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 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.

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.

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.

"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.

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

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.

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 hate for judges is so ridiculous.

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.

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

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Some people say "you're not listening to me" to mean "you're not agreeing with me".

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 ❤

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.

Jorbs power points are my favorite genre

Level of entitlement is insane

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

35:33 If the opponent had said "If I don't draw a land on my next turn, I'm going to scoop." That would be the proper way to phrase this. Gently encouraging your opponent to play faster in this way seems fine.

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.

One thing that is really relevant here in my eyes is that Brad clearly knows (at least subconsciously) that the top card of Jessica’s deck is extremely relevant to the match outcome- her drawing an untapped black source for Cut Down/Go For the Throat/Long Goodbye (cards quite in her range in a one-land keep game 3 against an aggro deck on the draw) or any untapped land to cast a Rona to block or chump block with gives Jessica at least some potential path to not dying if Brad’s hand is weak. I was in attendance at this event, and Brad’s shout was fairly loud. I was around 50~ feet away at the time it happened and could hear it.

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.

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.

I don't want to armchair diagnose anyone, so I'm just going to speak for myself -- I have Borderline Personality Disorder, and while you stated you yourself are very different from him, I personally *can* relate to Brad, and have acted similarly to him in the past (not in the context of MTG though) prior to receiving treatment. The way that you calmly went through everything wrong with what he did was very illuminating. People who suffer from extreme emotional instability are often either unaware or only partially aware of how their actions manipulate or harm others. I feel that your video could be helpful to these people even if they know nothing about competitive card games.

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

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).

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

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.

Brad would backseat and complain when he gets banned.

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

I think people are missing the point t that it was a tournament to get a spot in the pro tour, you should know the rules to make it to the pro tour. More then that though I think people are misunderstanding that by granting the request, they has gained knowledge that they should not have by doing something not legal in the game and now has a a advantage over anyone else in the same game state following the rules. What if she flipped a settle the wreckage and knew if she hit a few more land drops she could wipe the board, what if she flipped a ramp spell, what if she flipped any card that gave her a reason to continue playing, wins or draws, moves on a takes a seat feom someone who didn't get the same advantage. That is the reason for the rule, now, I think warnings can be used in situations where it's determined to be a genuine mistake, 1 warning because now you know or are reminded of the rule but I still think the rule should be enforced.

One important factor is that a tournament is not about competitive integrity, fairness, or acceptability to merey the two players in any single game or match. The tournament and the rules are to ensure competitive integrity and fairness for ALL competitors. Allowing IDW might seem fair to two players who agree to it, but not to a third party player in the tournament who's qualification or placing or seeding or whatever depends on the result of that match

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.

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.

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.

when i was tutoring under a judge to become one myself the general rule of thumb was deck list's. if its fnm or a casual event you can use discretion and make learning experiences. if its anything more major (something you would have to submit a pre event deck list in is a great rule of thumb) theres a very strict guideline for violations and it is there for a reason

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

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.

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

I can't seem to find online how old "Brad" is. Your thesis (presented in the first half) is that the IDW rule has good reason to exist, that its enforcement at this tournament was correct and expected, and that those people siding with "Brad" on social media are wrong in doing so. Full agree. But the the last half seems to exist just to tear down "Brad" as much as possible... and it seems like a bit much to me (especially if Brad is young). We already agree with you that "Brad" is in the wrong; that he (rightfully) got removed from the venue for his conduct. That he acted like an entitled asshole. Spending a full additional hour denouncing every line of his post while laughing and smirking is your version of "shouting into the abyss." I mean, come on.

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.

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.

I really want to applaud your style of presentation for a line of thinking I don't think is necessarily natural to me. Sometimes when you discuss a strategy gamer and how they might even unconsciously manipulate the way they present reality, I feel like it'd be easy for a lesser discussion to flounder and sound extreme. When you mention things like the fact that he was clearly processing hand information from his opponent's land drop, and you tied it back to your first question about land drops, it all comes together in a very beautiful way. Obviously I don't enjoy the scenarios that bring us to these "type" of videos, but I do think the way you navigate the subjects is honestly very interesting and worth reflecting on my own train of thought!

It's weird to talk about emotional manipulation when the way you do it is writing up the cringiest, most fedora-tipping, most shadow the hedgehog fanfiction-y thing ever written. Fella manipulated me into laughing my ass off. Should have settled it with a katana duel with the judge.

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.

havent started the vid yet but this is a topic that has fascinated me for the past few years

Hi jorbs! Thanks as always for the well thought out video. This incident and the insane 5-page writeup is a great starting point to discuss emotional manipulation, and I very much appreciate the breakdown of how different parts of the document were emotionally manipulative. My main gripe, really, is that this incident has too much going on for it to effectively serve as the focus for a discussion of IDW which aims to be objective. In other words, it is hard to think about IDW objectively when the context we have involves the player losing the game, throwing a tantrum, getting kicked out of the magic hall, and then trying to rewrite the events through an emotionally manipulative document. The effect of this is that I think we are a little bit less critical of the rule itself than perhaps we ought to be. I really appreciated that you had a whole section (13:57 - "Why?") about the rationale behind IDW - it made it clear that there is a good reason for a rule like this to exist, and even for the ruling to be severe. What's missing, however, is a reminder that just because there is a good reason for a rule to *exist* , does *not* mean that the current iteration of the rule is good! Responding to a complaint that a judgement is too harsh with "You should have read the rules" is still an "appeal to law" fallacy, but I think it's one that is extremely palatable when the person who broke the rule is being a total dickweed. All that being said, I don't personally have a strong opinion on whether or not the rule is fine as is. I simply wonder, what would the discussion look like if 'Brad' had collected himself, not thrown a tantrum, then went home and wrote a document calmly and accurately explaining the situation, accepting the judging while arguing that the punishment was probably a bit too harsh, and maybe offering up some alternatives for the future? It might have led us all to consider some more significant questions, such as "would Magic actually be at risk of being classified as gambling if IDW gave judges jurisdiction to issue one-time warnings?". I don't know the answer to that question, but I'd probably watch a two hour video about it!

*SO MANY* of Magic’s rules are unintuitive, poorly designed, and outright frustrating. It’s mind boggling that the game is as popular as it is given how hard the spaghetti ruleset makes the game for new players. You would need to be absolutely *insane* to invest any time, effort, or money into “competitive” Magic given how poorly designed the game has become.

Its insane how much traction Jorbs longform spreadsheet visddeos get, it shows just how interesting his thought process is. I love these types of videos the most.

I clicked on this video expecting some kind of essay about a facet of mtg strategy. The judges were right to issue a match loss and expel that person from the hall. No question here, sucks for them, but players are expected to know and abide by the rules at competitive REL (and obviously, people are expected to not be violent and to respect people who are just doing their jobs). The discussion about IDW and why the rule exists, or why it's so strict was also interesting. Still, that long and meticulous dissection of their post and mocking them for every single line was very distateful. I understand mentioning that the post was biased and emotionally manipulative (it was) and showing one or two paragraphs to prove your point, but that was too much. The first part was enough, no need to beat a dead horse, especially that way.

This rule does seem to be enforced unevenly. In round 15 at the win-and-in tables of the most recent PT, "show me the Thassa's Oracle in your deck", and Carlos picks up his deck and looks through it to show the oracle. Being able to draw the entire deck was extremely likely from that position, but not guaranteed. This also flies in the face of 4-horsemen combo. Link: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Z82Id7mLy7Tcm2g.html

What i dont understand is, what is the big upside of this offer from the opponent? How much time are they saving then? Like maximum 5 minutes, no more?? I only ever played a friday night magic tournament back in the day so i am not accustomed to these kind of tournament settings.

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

As a society, we recognize the right to get angry and disruptive over (perceived) injustice. There are specific laws protecting disruptive public protest, and anger in general falls under free speech as something you can only forbid conditionally and in private. Morally, most people even have violent protesters they sympathize with (antifa black blocs, BLM, gilets jaunes, farmers, the recent english race riots). A principled stance against temper tantrums would be hypocritical - there's only a matter of how much injustice, how much harm from the outburst, and how much gain from expressing your anger in this way. The purpose of showing your anger is to draw attention to an issue, draw people to your cause, and ultimately effect change. In that regard, the guy succeeded. With the attention drawn by the controversy, lots of players and even judges are reviewing the rule, arguing its details, and looking for ways to improve it. Even if he is wrong about the unfairness, we don't call witnesses bad people if they report a crime in good faith and it turns out the person they accused is innocent. So the real question is whether he really could have done better if he had stayed quiet. So if you want players to not get angry, you need to get them to trust either the rulings or the appeals process more than their anger. The best way to achieve that (beyond having rulings that are just) is to give people who complain quietly more influence than those who throw a big stink, and have ways for judges to quickly demonstrate that quiet people have more influence. For example, if there was a union for MTG players that actually influenced rules text (similar to the Commander Advisory Group for the Commander Rules Committee) and helped players sue in cases of unjust rulings (that possibly lead to lost earnings), then you could give judges fliers for those unions to hand to players who get upset at their rulings. You could even construct it in a way that the union will only look at rules complaints if there are no associated social conduct infractions. (Unless those infractions have been overturned). In the absence of something that helps quiet people succeed, loudness is inevitable. Who is right or wrong doesn't really help answer the real question of how we get people to have a good time.

The example around 38 minutes isn't about a match loss penalty though, it's about getting somebody kicked out of the tournament and probably banned from future tournaments, potentially even involving a gang of heavily armed killers to enforce a criminal trespass. Remember the rule also says that if the player knew the rule that it's "cheating" and results in a full disqualification.

I could smell the fedora tipping when he writes “incredibly kind young woman” to describe the opponent.

So, when In the “Rhystic studies” video about lantern control, the one guy asks the other “can I beat you?” And the other says “no” which prompted a scoop. Did they end a game of magic by deciding on the genuine faith of the player saying “no”? As it seems they did press a kind of “eject button”. Or it’s fine because asking is not technically a “illegal game action”?

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

This video really showed me how far I am on the 'strict' side of the spectrum, because I wouldn't even call the case study here a false positive. One guy offered to break the rules and the other accepted it. To me, this is the IDW rule working as intended. I was unsympathetic to Mr. Red Green even before he threw a fit. Follow the rules.

I'm confused, when does he get to why Deathtouch shouldn't be able to kill a number of blockers up to the power of a Trampling Creature when determining the outcome of a battle phase?

While I completely agree with what you said and it makes sense in context of tournament play, this is one of the reasons I've never wanted to play in tournaments. The pressure and feeling I need to watch everything I do made them completely unappealing. Kitchen table FTW

I think where baseball fails as an analogy, the "we'll just send Babe Ruth up there whenever we want and if he doesn't hit an HR, we'll quit," is that baseball doesn't have shortcutting. Magic does. We short cut so many things, skipping announcement of steps and phases, we don't follow strict procedure on spells. Players do stuff like double fetch to save time. And some short cuts are even built into the rules, like not having to shuffle your library between copies of Mind's Desire if you haven't done anything. Baseball doesn't have these. There's no "the pitcher is up to bat, so record an out and skip the pitches." Players just see things as shortcuts because these things are encouraged by the rules.

One thing I didn't like, as a former judge, is the assumption that judges DON'T understand. Yes, it is a trained deescalation technique, but almost every judge has played Magic, many of them have played competitively, and we understand that it sucks to get a game or match loss! We understand being upset and angry about these things. That's why there's the mentioned ability to deviate if the player shows ownership and understanding of their mistakes. Brad is treating disagreement as a lack of understanding. The judges are following the rules, and they disagree that those rules are wrong or ridiculous, and therefore they cannot possibly understand? Very frustrating.