If it wasn't left to a judge's discretion, we'd have constant requests for it from both ends.
If it wasn't left to a judge's discretion, we'd have people decide that they don't want their opponent drawing any cards and call Judges over on the first Mulligan to perform a Judge Ball. Or, they would take it upon themselves to do it.
I believe you missed my first post:
I, personally, would prefer a certain number of mulligans to Judge Ball than an amount of time. For example, I would much rather have the "If you mulligan 3 times, you get a Judge Ball" than "If you mulligan for 5 minutes, you get a Judge Ball." The latter could be abused by slow shuffling, and would also be inconsistent. Like I said, this needs to be discussed for a tournament setting if it's gonna be used. It's concerning to me that we have a rule that's not found within any official document without any real guidelines, but is being used a high tier event like Regionals. It's basically up to the TO's or HJ's or whatever's discretion =/
Still, 3 mulligans seems really low >.> I do that even with 12+ basics. Maybe 5? I dunno, I've never timed myself when I mulligan several times, lol.
In other words, Judge Ball is only available after a certain amount of mulligans. Maybe one of the math heads around here can figure out an appropriate number. It needs to be high enough where Judge Balls aren't constantly demanded, but low enough where it still progresses the tournament in a timely fashion. But anyways, what I'm saying is that there needs to be one single time when a judge ball is issued, after X number of mulligans or X number of minutes. As outlined in my previous post, I prefer the number of mulligans to the number of times to avoid abuse... but whatever keeps the tourney going.
We (at my shop) use Judge Ball VERY infrequently, but justified- We have all of the matches pair up and set-up, keeping the active face-down until we announce time to begin (So nobody has extra or less time than others). If we see a table still setting up, we monitor the shuffling and ask about any mulligans. If they have done it their 3rd time, the Judge shuffles the deck and then does Judge Ball. We don't do it sooner, and we ask if anybody is still setting up when it looks like about 75% of the room is ready to start. Once they are all set, we announce start, and all matches flip over their active at the same time.
IMO, that's very appropriate. It sounds to me like you do it after the 2 minute preparation time has expired and only if there has been 3 or more mulligans. This is both timely and difficult to abuse... more likely to be abused than a system that did not implement a time factor, but more timely nonetheless.
But then you also obviously see that not everyone at every tournament does this. As I've been saying, at a high tier event, I would like to know that I have the same chance of being issued a Judge Ball than anyone else at any other tournament.
Pokemon should have standard, consistent rulings, but remember that the toughest part about being a judge is the spare occasion where you have to...Y'know...Use your judgment. When time (another distortion of the ideal way to play the game) is on the line, this is a valuable option to have.
The judge ball is a fine solution to an extremely uncommon problem, and is probably a one-in-every-ten-thousand-games type of occasion.
I agree, use judgement when the situation calls for it. Obviously, the rules can't cover every situation like "I played two supporters in one turn, and I searched my deck for a Raichu and put in a Pidgey, then I KO'd my opponent's Pokemon. Now what?" or "I used Copycat and I got 12 cards when my opponent only had 11, and I didn't notice until I used an effect that caused an irreversible effect. Now what?" and so forth. But the odds of having 3 consecutive mulligans compared to
that are relatively high.
Maybe a math head can help me out, but in a 12 basic deck it seems like you would have a 19% chance of a mulligan, and thus a 0.7% chance for 3 consecutive mulligans. That's about a 1 in 143 chance. of In a high tier event, playing so many rounds, you're bound to hit that. Heck, 60 players and after 3 rounds you should have had this happen already. After 6 rounds, twice. Definitely not a 1/10,000 problem >.> If I go to a different Regionals, and we don't have consistent rulings on stuff like that, say I only get Judge Balled after 5 mulligans. My chances of getting Judge Balled are substantially lower. If I'm playing against a deck that frequently mulligans, my chances of winning that match-up will differ between the two tournaments, then. Does that mean I'll definitely lose or definitely win if we make a ruling on this? No. But what's fair is fair.
