Judge's Den: Chapin at the Pro Tour

Ariel at Wizardden.com weighing in today on the Pro Tour feature match of Patrick Chapin vs. Michele Ancona. While I tend to avoid the over discussed topics, I have been asked my opinion on the scenario so many times that I thought it best to write this article. As a reminder I am level 2 judge, tournament organizer at a local level, and still a very active player in standard and modern events both locally and regionally. I am also a huge fan Chapin and all he has done to help other players bridge the gap from semi-casual play to highly competitive play.

If you missed the coverage, Chapin made two game play errors. The first was missed by all parties present and can not be truly determined as intentional or not. Chapin played a scry land, put the card on the bottom of his library, then cast Read the Bones, put the top two cards of his library on to the table, modified his life total accordingly, then placed the cards in his hand. This is the first place I'll stop. At this point he makes a visible reaction to his misplay of immediately drawing the cards without scrying first, while legal it was a play mistake. As a player what I notice here is a visibly flustered player that is now likely to make more mistakes going forward. At this point Chapin activates his Ugin, the Spirit Dragon to remove some soldier tokens, then plays his second land for the turn to cast an Elspeth, Sun's Champion. This is against the rules beyond a doubt, but I can not determine from the coverage if this was intentional foul play or not. An argument has been raised that he increased his pace of play afterward indicating that he may have realized it after the fact and wanted to get as much play between him and his mistake. While this could be true, it is in no way definitive.

The second was the big one that drew everyone's attention. Chapin used his Ajani, Mentor of Heroes to look at his top four cards, chose one and put it in his hand. This has been an extremely polarizing topic for the community. On one side thanks to coverage we can beyond a doubt prove he made a legal choice in which card he picked. On the other side adding a card to your hand is considered a game rule violation that is to be upgraded when it is dealing with hidden information that can not be confirmed by all players. My first thought on this seems to be one that is missing from most arguments I have heard. This is the Pro Tour, it is not competitive level of rule enforcement, this is at professional rule enforcement.

From the Infraction Procedure Guide:
Competitive events are usually those with significant cash prizes or invitations awarded to Professional events. Players are expected to know the game’s rules—but not to a technically detailed level—and be familiar with the policies and procedures, but unintentional errors are not punished severely. These are events that protect the interests of all players by providing event integrity while also recognizing that not all players are intimately familiar with Professional-level event structure, proper procedures, and rules.

Professional level events offer large cash awards, prestige, and other benefits that draw players from great distances. These events hold players to a higher standard of behavior and technically correct play than Competitive events.

In professional rule enforcement there are not often downgrades. In this scenario there was no way short of coverage to confirm the identity of the card beyond a doubt. I add the beyond a doubt, because Chapin argued that his cards were known anyways and he could just reveal his hand. Unfortunately this would not definitively confirm that he did not put a land or something else into his hand via the ability unless the opponent confirmed knowing all the contents of his hand.

From the IPG:
An error that an opponent has no opportunity to verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded. These errors involve misplaying hidden information, such as the morph ability or failing to reveal a card to prove that a choice made was a legal one. If the information was ever in a position where opponents had the opportunity to verify the legality (such as on top of the library, as the only card in hand, or on the battlefield), do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.

So our last point of contention is should coverage be a tool for judges. Simply put, no. This would be unfair to other players. Why should one match have this tool that the rest of the matches in the room are not granted. On top of this time is a concern. This is a publicized event via live stream, delays in coverage are extremely detrimental to their objectives. The other players in the event would also be forced to wait an additional period of time for this tool granted to certain players. Keep in mind coverage is generally granted to players by preference. If Channel Fire Ball is running an event they are more likely to put someone from their team on the screen than two random unknowns with high seeds. We as judges must be fair to all players, so no advantage or disadvantage should be given unless it can be granted to the room as a whole. It is my personal belief that we should be allowed to use this tool if all players are on coverage (i.e. the top 8). That however is a discussion for far more experienced judges than myself to have.

Those are my thoughts on the Chapin Pro Tour incident. I hope that this doesn't haunt him too much, and more so that he doesn't make any more mistakes like this. Pros and the Pro Tour are looked to by the semi-competitive player base on what to strive to, this is not the kind of thing that a Pro Tour should remembered for. This has been Ariel with Wizardden.com, thank your for reading.