Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

What to do when one forgets his/her prizes

beatlerat

Member
We just finished our Houston City Championships and some good questions arose during the tourney. I will be listing these as soon as I complete my list.
One problem arose consistently and what to do at first was a dillemma. After our ruling, we were consistent. We looked in the Compendium and also at the Cleffa rule to make our decision.
Here is a ruling from the Compendium:

Q. At the store I play at, if the game has already begun and you forgot to draw your prizes you automatically lose, is that correct?
A. That is up to that store. (August 17, 2000 WotC Chat Q252)

What do you do in Tourney play? It should not matter if the player is drawing his/her first card, or goes to get a prize after knoocking out his/her first Pokemon. The start of the game should be exactly that and should be adhered to strictly. A loss is NOT what we decided on but there should be something concrete for the judges to adhere to.
Thanks
 
The POP TO Handbook says:

Cheating
Players found cheating will be removed from the event to preserve the integrity of the tournament. The head judge may decide to reduce the penalty for lesser offenses and is the final arbiter of any penalty assigned during the tournament. Cheating is generally defined as any intentional act to gain advantage during a match through deceit or unfair play.

Examples of cheating:
  • Drawing extra cards
  • Manipulating any player's deck; such as viewing cards that a player should not see, or alter the order of cards being drawn
  • Misrepresenting match or in-game information to any player or tournament staff

So, in the case of forgetting to put down prizes, I think that the head judge has to make a determination as to whether or not the player was cheating. In my opinion issuing the offending player a warning the first time and then installing a penalty on the second offense should do this. I think that everyone has forgotten to put down prizes at one time or another. However, in a tournament, while forgetting once should be forgiven, forgetting again, after being warned, should be penalized.
 
Judges always have discression as to penalties.

If it wasn't intentional then place the correct number of prizes from the bottom of the deck. Mark the infraction on the players record sheet and give a warning. If the player knows what is on the bottom of the deck then there is a case for upgrading the penalty.

A prize penalty is appropriate if any searching has taken place that might have failed if the cards could be in the prizes. But remember judges have discression.
 
I thought if the game started, it the player had drawn at least 1 card from deck without realizing prizes not set, it was an atuomatic Prize Loss... Thats the way, for tourney purposes we used to always play it. For fun play, it was just an 'eh, whatever' and they would set them out.
 
I would rule it in that way:
As long, as the player, who forgot to lay prizes have neither played a card-drawer, which would shuffle the deck nor played a search-card, I give a caution.
When a card-drawer was player, which shuffled the deck, it´s upgraded to a warning (cause you then had more possibility to abuse the situation).
When the player performed a search for a card, which is at most 6 times in the deck, the possibility to not find the card was completely circumvented, so this is a game/prize loss for me
In the first two cases, the opponent may draw a card (as he would do when a mulligan occured).

I apply this rule at our tournaments, and our players haven´t complained yet.

@Spectreon: I would never give an automatic prize loss. IMO this encourages the players to be so unfair to wait until someone draws the first card and then call the judge.
 
Glumanda said:
@Spectreon: I would never give an automatic prize loss. IMO this encourages the players to be so unfair to wait until someone draws the first card and then call the judge.

You make a great point here Glumanda. I wonder if it would be appropriate, when the situation arises, to give both players a warning for starting the game without making sure that each had laid out the prizes? Certainly they both have a responsibility to do so.
 
Again, more inaqdequacies in the Floor Rules. We HAVE NO PENALTY GUIDELINES. Under the old WotC guidelines, I used to assign a Warning to the player who did not lay out their prizes and a Caution to the player who didn't advise that their opponent that they didn't lay out their prizes. Then have the prizes drawn from the BOTTOM of the deck. Both players are responsbiel for ensuring a correct game state. It took me a couple of events to get to this point. Why should one player lie in wait for the free prize because THEY failed to point out to their opponent that he/she forgot to lay out their prizes?
 
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Venusaur said:
I have a similar question. What if one person lays down his prizes then it turns out the opposing player had a mulligan? What happens?

I've seen that ruled that the person who laid down the prizes (and would normally be allowed to draw one card for the other player's mulligan) is not allowed to draw the card for the mulligan.
 
I usually try to adjust the strictness of the penalty to how far it can be rewound and the player who made the error. In one game a very experienced player, one who'd one many tournaments, had forgotten to lay is prizes. It was several turns into the game before this was realized and I issued a prize penalty. I think it might have been a bit harsh but at the time it was what I thought best. There should be a detailed penalty guideline because I still feel bad about issuing such a harsh ruling, although the guy went on to win that game and the tournament.
 
Putting prizes out is the responsibility of both players. I cannot see penalizing one/rewarding the other when both are technically at fault.
"Oh, look my opponent forgot to put out prizes. Think i'll draw my card, play some, and the minute s/he searches her/his deck, call a judge over for a nice penalty on her/him."
 
BJJ763 said:
Putting prizes out is the responsibility of both players. I cannot see penalizing one/rewarding the other when both are technically at fault.
"Oh, look my opponent forgot to put out prizes. Think i'll draw my card, play some, and the minute s/he searches her/his deck, call a judge over for a nice penalty on her/him."
Yes indeed. When I played at the Professor Championship, one of my opponent's forgot his or her prizes, when I noticed it. The judge penalized with a Prize Penalty to my opponent, however I had to receive a warning because I failed to realize my opponent forgot his prizes. This method discourages players taking every possible dirty advantage in the game.

Another thing I should mention is that, in the event something like this happens the player will have to draw from the bottom of the deck to place out prizes. This way effects like Pokedex, won't influence this problem.
 
The way we've played recently is if its noticed before the players 3rd turn, they recieve a warning. If its after the 3rd turn, they get a warning and a 1 prize penalty
 
If I thought that a player was deliberately trying to exploit a game play mistake by their opponent then I'd take a very dim view of that attempt at 'gamesmanship'... its borderline cheating and certainly unsporting.

Its highly likely that I'd award a prize penalty (game loss) against the player attempting to gain advantage, and maybe even a full match loss.

This is definately a case where judges discression needs to be applied rather than a rigid penalty.
 
There are a million-and-one ways to resolve this, ranging from nothing to game-loss. It all comes down to "rewind-ability." How far "outta wack" has the game progressed. I NEVER make a "blanket" call when someone has disrupted game play. If you can completely rewind the game, then no penality is applied other than maybe a warning. If you can rewind a reasonable amount to your satisfaction (regardless of whether the players think it's reasonable), you can penalize cautions and/or prize-swaps. Finally, if an extreme advantage was achieved, you penalize a game-loss.

So, it all depends. However, I don't believe that card drawing is unreasonably disruptive in this situation. Card drawing is a random event, just like placing the prizes. Only if "massive" drawing occured, and the player drew a 1-of-a-kind (or maybe 2-of-a-kind) vital card, would that be disruptive in my book, and subject to severe penalty.

However, deck searching is a different story. If you only did one or maybe two searchs and those searchs retrieved a 4-of-a-kind (or maybe 3-of-a-kind) card, I'd say the penalty would be harsh, but not as harsh if those searchs retrieved less-common cards.

Finally, the fact that you may have looked at your deck doesn't impact my decision. You already know what's in your deck anyway. And you'll randomly place 6 prizes down, so you STILL won't know what they are.

So, it all depends.
 
The key, like with all tourney situations, is announce your ruling at the beginning of the day, with your general rules...

The way we are handling it for cities, is that the first time a player forgets their prizes, it is a warning. The second time the player does it, it is a prize penalty (prize given to the other player), and a prize penalty for every time thereafter.

This is for swiss rounds only, and mark warnings on the player's sheets.

For top 8 or top 4 rounds, infractions such as this are an automatic prize penalty, which all players are warned about up front. Just like moving from REL1 to REL2 in the old WOTC days...

Remember, you are going to have players of all skill levels and experience levels...do not make the game unfair for the new player. Even issue a reminder at the beginning of every round that players should put out their prizes....I hate cheap penalties.

Just how I handle things...

Meganium45
 
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