Judge Ball
- Thread starter FunnyBear
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Well, I am glad that someone decided to ask the head judge of the event - me. Yea, I've not been on some boards in a while due to personal issues but if you have a concern, comment, or question about any event I judge, HJ, or TO at - send me a message or pick up the phone. No mystery here.
To the original poster, I was not aware and did not declare at all that after three mulligans a judge ball would be used. That is wrong. I find it moderately concerning that you would post this when it is wrong. If one of my floor judges did this, then I am unaware BUT I take full accountability and responsibility because I am the HJ and I am responsible for all rulings.
The method, after five minutes, then the floor judge, in conjunction with the HJ, will reveal the top card of the deck until a basic is revealed. Then, that basic is put aside and "normal" set up begins. It's not in the rules since it is incredibly rare. This came around in 2008 when turbo blissey was popular. We worked as a Judge Team to determine this after a battle road match went 19 minutes of mulliganing.
A lot of you folks know me. You also know that I would not do something that I basically worked with POP to formulate. Come on folks.
If you have any questions, post them up or use the feedback to to POP. They are very, very good at working things out like this with their volunteers.
To the original poster, I was not aware and did not declare at all that after three mulligans a judge ball would be used. That is wrong. I find it moderately concerning that you would post this when it is wrong. If one of my floor judges did this, then I am unaware BUT I take full accountability and responsibility because I am the HJ and I am responsible for all rulings.
The method, after five minutes, then the floor judge, in conjunction with the HJ, will reveal the top card of the deck until a basic is revealed. Then, that basic is put aside and "normal" set up begins. It's not in the rules since it is incredibly rare. This came around in 2008 when turbo blissey was popular. We worked as a Judge Team to determine this after a battle road match went 19 minutes of mulliganing.
A lot of you folks know me. You also know that I would not do something that I basically worked with POP to formulate. Come on folks.
If you have any questions, post them up or use the feedback to to POP. They are very, very good at working things out like this with their volunteers.
^ I did not say the HJ made this statement, I said it was made. I was busy in Masters and did not hear it myself, but I believe what my son told me. It was announced to the Juniors that they were to call a judge after 3 mulligans and the judge would play a Judge Ball. It happened in my son's game exactly so. Neither of us had ever heard of Judge Ball before this.
I did not hear about this until Sunday evening when reviewing the tournament with my son. The Juniors are very accepting of floor rules as they view the judges as the same status as their teachers. If this had happened in Masters, I'm certain you would have heard about it then and there.
I did not hear about this until Sunday evening when reviewing the tournament with my son. The Juniors are very accepting of floor rules as they view the judges as the same status as their teachers. If this had happened in Masters, I'm certain you would have heard about it then and there.
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Kind of like penalty GUIDELINES? You know, they part of the RULE book that doesn't have RULES...just guidelines.
See above. Of course discretion should be left to the judges.
Discretion is a weird concept. For example, by virtue of having a drivers license, I have been deemed by my state as a competent driver and thus given a certain amount of "discretion." Running yellow/barely red lights, speeding to pass, and "reckless" driving are all at the discretion of the driver, one could argue, whom the state has issued competency.
Judging is kind of the same, especially at bigger tournaments. The vast majority of judges in these situations are generally competent, and even deemed so not only by the organizer picking the staff, but by P!P by way of Professor testing. The judges volunteering their time aren't out to "get" the players (even though it may seem so at times). If think it fair to assume (most) their decisions are for the best of the game. This is the difference between a judge and a referee. A ref enforces rules, a judge interprets them, thus is given discretion by virtue of being a judge.
And, to the OP, I think its unfair to even assume your son "might" have won on the premise that his opponent had horrible luck and the judge wouldn't let your son continue to get an advantage that isn't really part of the mechanics of making the game equal (in the sense that, it doesn't play into a preparable strategy of the game, meaning your son's deck shouldn't only be able to win when his opponent mulligans multiple times, that should never come into the strategy of the deck). In fact, I think it was a great "teachable moment" (God, how I hate that phrase) to help your son understand sportsmanship and competition.
I don't get how/why funnybear or anyone else who is upset at this???? If this happens to your opponent, YOU get to draw the mulligan, YOU get to see card for card what's in your opponents deck, YOU get the upper hand in that match. Just because you've never heard of the rule doesn't give you a reason to think it's dumb or bad. It works fine. I've known about judge ball since the 1st year I started playing, I've played for about four years now. I imagine if you're son had won the game, you'd be saying how you've never heard of judge ball and how you think it's a cool way of moving the game along. There is slim to nill advantage for the player who gets the judge ball performed on their deck.
The reason that I and others in this thread were upset over this is that we had never heard of it and saw it as an event specific modification of the game mechanics. This has turned out not to be the case, has been thought through, and is institutionalized so as to be consistent across events. Whether or not 3 and done is enough or not is a minor point and certainly the non-mulliganing player is gaining more than enough advantage anyway. I'm still glad I made this thread as a good part of the player base did not know of this judging tool at all.
See the last line of my post you quoted. Why should it be left to discretion when it would be so simple to make a standardized ruling on it? Like I said, there's only one way a Judge Ball can play out -- it's not a situation with tons of different variables that would likely be different for each and every situation. You're driving illustration is correct, however, something like Judge Ball wouldn't need to fall into those discretion categories... it's as simple as making it a general rule as stopping at a stop sign.
arMILO said:
Umm... how is this fair at all? If Judge Balls are given out liberally, I don't want my entire deck revealed all of the time.
Then play more basics, you're getting penalized in a sort of way for playing a deck with an inconsistent start. It's not given out liberally but only when the pace of the game is broken by it or hasn't even been established because you can't pull a basic. If you believe it's given whenever the judge feels like, ask them why are you doing this? Judges are supposed to make the ruling and give you a reason as to why. The fact that funny bears son only drew three is probably chalked up to the opponent taking lengthy shuffles and it ate up enough time to get to the five minute mark(2 minutes for setup+3 more once the round has started). The fact that he only drew three has nothing to do with anything.
Prof Clay
New Member
Since when have judge balls been given out liberally....This post was the 1st most of you had ever heard of it.
@Pop: Hmm.. Didn't think that one through >.>
@Prof Clay: Perhaps my examples were a bit extreme, by "liberally" I meant to convey that a Judge was supposedly giving them out in the Juniors division as said by the OP, without consent of the HJ and without any sort of guidelines within the rulings. Seems like a liberal decision on his part.
Anyways, my point remains: If there is not standard set for a Judge Ball, what's to say that it'd be issued after 3 mulligans instead of 5? If I'm playing against someone who is being Judge Balled, I want every possible chance of drawing my mulligan card. Discretion plays so little a role without a proper standard. Sure, if the mulligans are taking up to 20 minutes to complete, then the Judge made a proper decision is issuing the Judge Ball. However, if I'm playing an opponent who is just slow instead of actually having a hard time drawing a basic, then I feel like I'm being cheated out of mulligan cards. One player may have gotten a mulligan 3 times by then, another perhaps 8, depending on how fast they are going.
If we can get a standardized ruling of a Judge Ball being issued after X amount of mulligans, this wouldn't be a problem. Could it still take longer than 20 minutes? Sure, but IMO it's just fair. Even 1 extra card could drastically change the outcome of an event. Even having X amount of mulligans, but no longer than Y amount of time seems fair to me (which would prevent someone who is a fast shuffler from giving their opponent much higher number of mulligans than a slower shuffler, but still keep things timely).
If you read my posts above, you would see that getting a mulligan even 3 times in a match is very realistic even in a 12 basic deck at least in one game in a decently sized tournament. The OP posted that a Judge Ball was issued after 3 mulligans, so I based the scenario around this.
It has nothing to do with running a deck with so little basics, I find examples given in this thread such as Durant to be extreme. They're not accurate at all for a realistic expectancy of a Judge Ball, even a deck with 3 times the basics can expect it.
@Prof Clay: Perhaps my examples were a bit extreme, by "liberally" I meant to convey that a Judge was supposedly giving them out in the Juniors division as said by the OP, without consent of the HJ and without any sort of guidelines within the rulings. Seems like a liberal decision on his part.
Anyways, my point remains: If there is not standard set for a Judge Ball, what's to say that it'd be issued after 3 mulligans instead of 5? If I'm playing against someone who is being Judge Balled, I want every possible chance of drawing my mulligan card. Discretion plays so little a role without a proper standard. Sure, if the mulligans are taking up to 20 minutes to complete, then the Judge made a proper decision is issuing the Judge Ball. However, if I'm playing an opponent who is just slow instead of actually having a hard time drawing a basic, then I feel like I'm being cheated out of mulligan cards. One player may have gotten a mulligan 3 times by then, another perhaps 8, depending on how fast they are going.
If we can get a standardized ruling of a Judge Ball being issued after X amount of mulligans, this wouldn't be a problem. Could it still take longer than 20 minutes? Sure, but IMO it's just fair. Even 1 extra card could drastically change the outcome of an event. Even having X amount of mulligans, but no longer than Y amount of time seems fair to me (which would prevent someone who is a fast shuffler from giving their opponent much higher number of mulligans than a slower shuffler, but still keep things timely).
If you read my posts above, you would see that getting a mulligan even 3 times in a match is very realistic even in a 12 basic deck at least in one game in a decently sized tournament. The OP posted that a Judge Ball was issued after 3 mulligans, so I based the scenario around this.
shen said:
It has nothing to do with running a deck with so little basics, I find examples given in this thread such as Durant to be extreme. They're not accurate at all for a realistic expectancy of a Judge Ball, even a deck with 3 times the basics can expect it.
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