Judge Ball

[FunnyBear]

In the RI Regionals, in the Junior Division, if a player mulliganed 3 times, a judge was to be called. The Judge would then play "Judge Ball" and scan through the deck from the top until a basic would be found. That basic would be the player's starter. No mulligan cards beyond three were allowed to be drawn.

Now, I realize we have "house rules" at local events, but in a premier event, a Regional Championship no less, can you mess with the game mechanics and rules like this? I've never heard of this sort of thing being done before. My son was the other player, the one's whose deck set up correctly and did what it was supposed to, and his opponent's didn't. He lost that game, which he might have won if he had drawn another card or two.

 

[ssjoddish]

yeah the same thing happened to my sister at mo regionals

---------- Post added 11/14/2011 at 07:08 PM ----------

i thought it was illegal because i never heard of it

 

[vaporeon]

First time I've heard of this as well. If they can change rules like this, what else can they change.

 

[evil psyduck]

Doesn't sound right. But perhaps they had permission to do this. Report it and see what response you get.

 

[ColdCoates90]

I had a judge ball at Nats '08. I was playing Blissey and only played 4 basics. I mulliganed for ten minutes and a nearby judge intervened and issued a judge ball.

Seems fine to me if it is holding up the tournament.

 

[kwisdumb]

It's a real thing, and completely legal.

Weird that it was only after three mulligans, usually I've heard that the idea behind the Judge Ball is to allow for both players to be able to play a complete game and to prevent weird issues where eating up time/having your opponent draw extra cards could be an advantage. I've heard the point where a judge ball would be played is about five minutes into the match.

 

[z-man]

As I recall, the rules on a judge ball were fairly ambiguous on when to execute them. They went something along the lines of "when applicable (the mulligans are causing a delay to the event), use a judge ball". If three is the arbitrary thresh-hold, so be it. Can we get any confirmation from some higher-up judges? I have never seen a judge ball used, but I feel it was correct in this situation. The worst thing to make a junior do is to shuffle and draw repeatedly... they love playing the game and hate the other stuff (typically). Just advance them to the game and they'll enjoy themselves.

 

[AyameHikaru]

Decks in my area seem to love the whole 4 basic idea. -_-; I've judge balled multiple times, but I've never had a for-sure cutoff. I have heard the five minutes that kwis said, too. It's a pretty good rule of thumb, I think. Generally I watch the opponent. First couple of mulligans, they're generally pretty happy. When they start to get not so happy, or when they stop drawing for mulligans, it's probably been long enough.

 

[ShuckleLVX]

The way I have always understood the Judge Ball (Having never had to use it myself, mind you), was that if a player was still getting mulligans five minutes after the start of the match, that's when you step in and ball up a basic. As far as I know, the technique isn't written anywhere, but I haven't gone through the tournament guidelines word for word since Nationals, and may be forgetting it.

It is, however, a recognized technique. I spent some time at Nationals discussing it with some of the top Judges around the nation. Since it was something I had never used myself, I wanted to pick their brains about it ^_^

 

[losjackal]

21.1. Pre-gameTimeLimit
Prior to each game, players have two minutes to shuffle their decks and present them to their opponents for further shuffling or cutting. This two-minute limit includes resolving mulligans. The round should not begin until this two-minute period has expired.

You can imagine Juniors are slower than Masters at resolving mulligans, so at some point (3 minutes into the match?) the process is simply chewing up too much actual game time and thus the Judge finds a Basic pokemon for them to just get the real game started.

In other words, relating it back to the original post, Pokemon does not intend the drawing player to gain too much of an advantage by the opponent's repeated bad luck in finding a Basic.

 

[Diaz]

I've never heard of this before and I'd be irate if this happened to me.

 

[PokePop]

I've never heard of this before and I'd be irate if this happened to me.

The alternative to coming up with Judge Ball was to declare the person who had failed to set up in a reasonable amount of time "late to the match" and so they would not be able to win an incomplete game.

Would you prefer that?

Or, on the other hand, if you had set up timely, but your opponent was eating up a third of the match or more in setting up, and you played a set up deck, would you be happy about the clock ticking down on you?

What is the proper time to intervene with a Judge Ball?
That's up to discretion of the judge staff at a given event and is certainly worth discussing.

However, the concept of using a Judge Ball is very much worth having available in a HJ's tool kit.

 

[Diaz]

The alternative to coming up with Judge Ball was to declare the person who had failed to set up in a reasonable amount of time "late to the match" and so they would not be able to win an incomplete game.

Would you prefer that?

Or, on the other hand, if you had set up timely, but your opponent was eating up a third of the match or more in setting up, and you played a set up deck, would you be happy about the clock ticking down on you?

What is the proper time to intervene with a Judge Ball?
That's up to discretion of the judge staff at a given event and is certainly worth discussing.

However, the concept of using a Judge Ball is very much worth having available in a HJ's tool kit.

The first "late to match" thing is probably preferable to "judge ball".

I feel like the best way to address the second point about the "third of the match", is to offer it to the opponent (like a prize penalty). Let it go as long as the opponent of the mulligan-ing player wants. Once that player says enough is enough, then allow it.

EDIT: It feels like "judge ball" is rewarding a player for playing a deck with too few basics, rather than a punishment (what is supposed to happen by the mulligan rules)

 

[dtrain]

This is the first time I'm hearing about this too. I've judged events in the past and have never heard of this before. When was this implemented?
Posted with Mobile style...

 

[losjackal]

What is the proper time to intervene with a Judge Ball?
That's up to discretion of the judge staff at a given event and is certainly worth discussing.

However, the concept of using a Judge Ball is very much worth having available in a HJ's tool kit.

The way I see it, the tournament is the larger picture, and this type of Judge tool is necessary to start each round of the tournament in a fair fashion. Again, the authors of the Pokemon Tournament Rules suggest two minutes is sufficient to find a Basic, and the round should not start until this two minutes has transpired.

Therefore we are in the territory of "what if?" they didn't find a Basic in that amount of time. Clearly the mulligan process continues for a few minutes, then something has to be done about it. In other words, repeated mulligans is NOT part of the intended 30 minute game.

Re: the original post, the drawing deck didn't gain enough of an advantage after drawing 3 extra cards? Insisting going beyond this feels more like rules lawyering and less about Spirit of the Game.

The Judge is there to make sure the tournament is fair for both players. The Judge Ball is intended to keep it fair enough to play a real game of Pokemon....not let one player get overwhelmed due to bad luck shuffling and cutting.

As for the argument of too few basics, if that is someone's deck strategy, then of course it's a double-edged sword mid-game that they might not even draw into them to get them into play. That would seem to be a type of "punishment" too.

 

[Prof Clay]

Couldn't have said it better ...

Judge ball get rarely ever used. I am sure it was done to get the match moving forward.

As the opponent of the person who is having trouble getting mulligans, would you want to sit thru pile shuffling while the time is running?

How can you penalize a player for inability to draw a basic pokemon in a timely fashion if they have a deck that is legal.

I fully support the use of this to get a match going...we want to have the players PLAY...not shuffle for 15 minutes

The number of mulligans before it is implemented may simply be dependent on the age group and observed shuffling skill of the player. Masters could probably get 5 or 6 mulligans in 5 minutes.

 

[PokePop]

The first "late to match" thing is probably preferable to "judge ball".

I feel like the best way to address the second point about the "third of the match", is to offer it to the opponent (like a prize penalty). Let it go as long as the opponent of the mulligan-ing player wants. Once that player says enough is enough, then allow it.

EDIT: It feels like "judge ball" is rewarding a player for playing a deck with too few basics, rather than a punishment (what is supposed to happen by the mulligan rules)

As I noted, when to implement Judge Ball is a different question than should it exist.
The way you describe it, as an option given to the set up player, is pretty much how I use it. If the set up player wishes to keep drawing cards on mulligans, I allow it. Of course, round time is being eaten up. But if both players are OK with it, I don't step in. Where I use Judge Ball is when the set up player is getting frustrated.

 

[PokePop]

This is the first time I'm hearing about this too. I've judged events in the past and have never heard of this before. When was this implemented?
Posted with Mobile style...

It's an "unwritten rule" that was discussed and allowed a couple of years ago.
I forget the exact time of introduction, but there was a deck or two that was popular at the time that had a very low Basic count and extended mulligans were happening often.

Note: A proper judge ball is performed exactly the same way a Quick Ball is played.
The judge placed the players deck on the playing field and reveals card after card from the top of the deck (both players get to see the cards being revealed) until a Basic is revealed. That Basic becomes the players Active Pokemon.
The deck is then shuffled and that player draws 6 cards (their normal 7th is already in play!). From those 6 cards, they may bench any other Basics they may have drawn. They them place prizes and begin the game.

 

[bullados]

The name came from the underutilized but potentially powerful Quick Ball Trainer card.

 

[meganium45]

This was used in Missouri?

Can someone please clue me in on this via PM.

I want to know details.

Vince