I've had a situation in a tournament, and I'd like to know how you would deal with the question.
One player called the judge.
That player asked:
- Can I play this card (pointing to Teammates in his hand, the other player doesn't see it), if my Pokémon dies of Poison?
Is it ok to answer "No", or should the judge answer something different?
How do you interact with the players; only if they call you about a situation, or can you "pop-up" in a match when you see a misplay? And obviously, the question I've started with, when a player is asking if a card can be used in a specific situation, like my example earlier?
This is my approach:
Judges are present to enforce rules and answer questions for all players in a tournament, within the scope of one match answers to questions should be given to both players so there is no advantage/disadvantage in the form of knowledge gained by either side and to disallude any thought of coaching. If getting a lot of the same questions from many matches talk to your TO or HJ about making an announcement in between rounds to educate the entire tournament about how a card works.
When approaching a table, I try to gage who is about to ask the question. Good clues to figure out who is asking include: who calls for the judge, who looks like they are about to point to a card in hand, facial expression and body position. Approaching the match from the other side of the table from the player who potentially asking is a great way to disallude any thought of coaching. Ideally, the player will be more inclined to ask the question openly even though the card is in their hand. If approaching the player from their side of the table, they might be inclined to ask the question in private.
If a question is asked, both players should clearly hear the question and the answer so they know what cards are involved and how they interact with the rulebook and other cards in play.
Traps to Avoid:
- Approaching from the other side of the table is a good practice, but some players may want to show you cards that that are in their hand to ask their question in private. They may try to get you to come around to the other side of the table. Hold your ground, stay where you are, instruct the player to ask their question and inform them that both players must hear questions and answer given
- If asked about multiple cards that are not in play, ask them if it is relevant to this match, if it is not inform the player that you don’t do hypothetical ruling scenarios mid-match and have them ask in-between rounds.
- If asked about multiple cards that are not in play, ask them if it is relevant to this match, if it is and the cards are not in play yet (current format example opponent has Zubats in play and questions about Golbat/Crobat are asked), inform them that you cannot answer questions without reading the card first. Odds are if we are at this point, the player wants to know about how certain evolution pokemon that the opponent may have works in a given scenario, as the cards are nowhere in play yet, this is another hypothetical ruling that can wait until between round or until the cards actually come into play. In this case the player might be fishing for some idea of what a card does, they should have playtested better and became better familiar with the cards legal in the given format.
About “misplays”. Note, there are “misplays” and “mistakes”:
“Misplays” are LEGAL plays that are not strategically sound. In this case the “play” is legal, as judges we do nothing… except in the case where the player realizes the play is a mistake and wants to take it back, in this case, our answer is it is up to the opponent.
“Mistakes” are:
- ILLEGAL plays (2nd supporter, playing items when item locked, 2nd energy for turn).
- Forgotten game actions (drawing to start turn, poison, draw prizes for KO etc…).
- Usual screw ups (Hand into deck w/o card effect, drew extra card from deck, drew extra prizes.
If you see a “Mistake”, tell the players to STOP playing, and verify the error before fixing with appropriate fix/penalty, ideally if you see it happen just has it happen, you should be able to fix the gamestate to both players satisfaction without issuing a severe penalty (the exception being hand into deck w/o card effect, you would have to be really fast to stop this).