Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

The lack of communication between Japan and the rest of the World

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badganondorf

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I don't usually do this, but...

This time I just can't sit and watch when things aren't being fixed.

In this year World's Championships, I was watching my Japanese friend to play in the Grinders. He used a Random Receiver and the first card he revealed was a Supporter. (I think you already know where this is going). Suddenly, he shuffles his deck. The judge beside him says that he isn't allowed to shuffle his deck if he doesn't reveal any other cards before a Supporter. At that point I thought that it was just a simple mistake, because I often do that also in my practice games. The judge gave him a prize loss. Fortunately, he still won the game even though he got the prize loss.

Why fortunately?

Since in Japan you have always had to shuffle after using the Random Receiver! Even if the first card is a supporter. Just like all over the world nowadays. And the only reason he got a prize loss was, because of the lack of communication with the officials of Japan and the TPCi. He played exactly by the rules and for that he was awarded a prize loss. Sounds fair?

It's a small thing and doesn't really matter to most of us, but as the lack of communication between Japan's and the TPCi officials has always been slow (just how many last-minute rulings we have had before Worlds) - this is in my opinion unbelievable. Give a player a prize loss since he plays as the card should be played - in the World Championships!

I think something should be done about this, because the slow communication doesn't just affect the prize losses of Japanese players in the Worlds, but every single of us since from time to time we play with the "wrong rules".

Thoughts, opinions?
 
The thing is that the non-Japan judges would need to realise that there was an issue with how they were ruling the card.

They saw that Receiver says 'shuffle the other cards back into your deck' and took that to mean that there wasn't an instruction to shuffle if there were no other cards. Bit of a weird one, but I doubt anyone knew they were playing it differently from Japan, so neither side would have felt there was any need for communication.

But yes, some kind of FAQ with each set that covers these things would be very helpful.
 
This isn't unique to Pokemon. I can't think of a single game company based out of Japan that doesn't have this problem. That judge seems to have made a weird move though. Had there been a ruling that you were not allowed to shuffle if that was your first supporter?
 
If you watch the finals, there are points in it where the players shuffle their decks after getting a supporter from the first card, and no incident was caused. I remember this because I was watching the stream.
 
PidgeyCornerFTW said:
If you watch the finals, there are points in it where the players shuffle their decks after getting a supporter from the first card, and no incident was caused. I remember this because I was watching the stream.
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The ruling changed (quietly) before the main event I believe, but a member of staff that could elaborate would be nice.
 
A 1 prize penalty for shuffling the deck is really harsh (unless he had used Pokedex or some other method to know that shuffling would put him at an advantage), particularly when there's a cultural factor to take into account.
 
Tash said:
A 1 prize penalty for shuffling the deck is really harsh (unless he had used Pokedex or some other method to know that shuffling would put him at an advantage), particularly when there's a cultural factor to take into account.
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It's the correct penalty at an event such as the LCQ nevertheless.
 
According to the Penalty Guidelines, it's a GPE-Major, which carries a Prize Loss penalty at Tier 2 events. I think that the LCQ qualifies as Tier 2, wouldn't you?
 
baby mario said:
The thing is that the non-Japan judges would need to realise that there was an issue with how they were ruling the card.
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I thought "the thing" was that the language barriers and apparent slow pace/amount of communication between Japan and the rest of the world for the Pokémon TCG?

The symptom of this problem is players being penalized for what was actually a correct play; either Random Receiver was translated poorly or the mechanic has long been misapplied in English or an older decision was reversed with Random Receiver but this change was inadequately communicated outside of Japan.
 
The text of the Japanese card basically ends with the sentence "Shuffle your deck."
 
I almost choked on my hot coco when reading the title! After reading the post; it needs to be said that horrendous communication exists if at all, truly, between the two. On more than just this 1 ruling. I'm sure I need not run thru the laundry list as most who've played for at least a couple years have seen this time and time again. It begs the question: WHY?! How hard is it to circulate information in our digital age? As Seth would say, "REALLY?"
 
PokePop said:
The text of the Japanese card basically ends with the sentence "Shuffle your deck."
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If this is true, then what is your explanation for NA judges getting the Random Receiver issue wrong? I find it hard to believe that no one asked the question on the forums here. In fact: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=164288&highlight=random+receiver on May 14th.

Also, that Japanese player needed to appeal to the Head Judge. When you know you are right (and since he is Japanese, I'd expect him to understand how the cards work a bit better than an American judge since the cards are actually written in his native language) and the judge makes a mistake that costs you a prize, you appeal.
 
Yako said:
If this is true, then what is your explanation for NA judges getting the Random Receiver issue wrong? I find it hard to believe that no one asked the question on the forums here. In fact: http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=164288&highlight=random+receiver on May 14th.

Also, that Japanese player needed to appeal to the Head Judge. When you know you are right (and since he is Japanese, I'd expect him to understand how the cards work a bit better than an American judge since the cards are actually written in his native language) and the judge makes a mistake that costs you a prize, you appeal.
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I doubt he really understood exactly WHY he got a penalty for that, unless he's extremely familiar with the exact wording on the English card, which would have made it difficult to contest.
 
Things happen like this - Blastoise Ex, Articuno Ex, stuff like that and I am sure he could have called over a Japanese judge/ translator to clear stuff up.

Pretty pro he still won.
 
Tash said:
I doubt he really understood exactly WHY he got a penalty for that, unless he's extremely familiar with the exact wording on the English card, which would have made it difficult to contest.
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I'm pretty sure the conversation must have gone as follows:

Judge: You shuffled when you weren't supposed to. Prize penalty.
Japanese Player: Please explain.
Judge: You played Random Receiver, revealed 1 supporter and nothing else, and shuffled. You are not supposed to do this, therefore your opponent gets a prize.
Japanese Player: Appeal. Please fetch the head judge. Thank you.

You guys have to understand that communication between players and judges is VERY IMPORTANT. As a player, you need to communicate your point of view as best you can. Likewise as a judge. If a judge issues a penalty to a player and the player doesn't understand why he received it, then there isn't much point to the penalty. The player needs to understand exactly what he did wrong so he doesn't make the same mistake, and the judge needs to explain why the player got the penalty for the same reasons, as well as to make sure that the player doesn't feel ripped off by the judging staff.

I just want to raise another point here, on a related note. If it took NA judges 2 months to figure out that their Random Receiver ruling was wrong, then how much faith can we have in the Terrakion EX ruling?
 
This clarification was made I believe directly after this unfortunate incident.

Once it was realized that we were playing a card differently, representatives (higher than my pay grade) got together, and a decision was made. All of the HJs were informed (myself included) and we passed it on to our judges, and it was included in the announcements.

Given the highly complex nature of this game, I am frankly surprised we do not see this type of confusion occur more with translations.

The good news here is (other than the prize penalty) once the problem was acknowledged and addressed, it was made consistent for all players.

Having judged Worlds multiple times, it does not always mean that we go with the Japanese ruling, there are times when the Japanese conform to how the game is played in the rest of the World for Worlds.

For what it is worth, the Japanese Players HATE the fact that they have to discard their supporter after play too. They wish that could be changed back to next to the active for the turn, then discarded at the end of turn.

Just an aside...

Vince
 
That reminds me of a BRUTAL industry editorial written about Pokemon TCG in March 2011. There's no consistency, and it was even worse back then, because serious penalties could be handed out to people playing by the "real rules". The problem is, nobody, even judges, had a consistent view of what the rules of the game were.

It's getting a little better now, but the responses from Play have actually been very mixed towards an improved, complete rulebook that provides meta-rules for how to handle every situation in the game. We don't need the giant brick of an M:TG rulebook, but right now we have a logically incomplete ruleset. In the game development industry this kind of rules issue is referred to as "calvinball" for a reason...
 
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