MTG's Most Awkward Judge Interaction Caught on Camera

#MTG #MTGO #HarryMTG

[HarryMTG]

Due to a dispute with my internet provider this video was almost completely made in a coffee shop. Gameplay content will be back soon.
(Hot spotting with my phone has not been strong enough to record)

[rainbowcoloredsoapdispenser]

The most insane I've eve heard happened to a friend of mine judging a legacy event:
"Judge! We don't know whose turn it is."

[thanhavictus]

Actually the most awkward one was thien Nguyen calling a judge over in this same scenario, except that time the judge ruled in favor of the opponent missing their beginning of combat trigger even though it was remembered by that opponent. It's known as the combat shortcut, and it created a fundamental change in the magic rules because of it. Pretty scummy.

[kingginger]

I hate sore losers. I had a game in commander recently where my opponent declared his blockers, marks the damage immediately, and I cast Hunters Insight on a creature he didn't block before damage. But he argued that I couldn't do that because damage had already happened. I said "no I'm casting the Insight right before damage." He said, "Well, I already marked the damage, so it's too late. You have to wait til next turn." I said thats not how that works but he complained and complained until i said fuck it i wont draw 3 freaking cards, dude. Its not that deep. It wasn't even for money. I can't stand scummy players. Even when it's for a lot of money.

[MotionlessPotato]

I countered someone's spell with an ETB and he called the judge over to say that the trigger still happens. Never saw that one before.

[ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWX-fkux]

Isn't the trigger mandatory? The pause was a split second, and even judges would come in to say the trigger anyhow. Stupid Judge call to try to shark opponent when he himself made the mistake. Should've accepted it.

[slipperybogle]

Win and in for day 2 at a GP. It's turn 3 and my opponent taps out for a Thing in the Ice and doesn't play a 3rd land. They pass the turn. I untap, draw, play a land, attack, and cast 2 creatures post combat. In my end step my opponent calls a judge and says they forgot to play their land for turn and despite everything that's happened the judge allows them to flash into play a scalding tarn. I appealed to the head judge but they also allowed it. I only played out my creatures because I strongly believed they wouldn't be able to flip thing the next turn. I could've played my turn differently or cast a removal spell. Instead they used tarn on my end step to cast a spell then untapped and ended up having just enough mana to flip it. I still won the match but cmon.

[masterofpibness]

I had an experience with judge calling at a Grand Prix final round of day 1. I was X-2 and extremely excited/nervous as it my first big event. Opponent seemed super cool and nice before the round started. I was on abzan coco and cast a catacomb sifter and pass to my opponent, as soon as I say “pass” I reach for my deck box to get a token and my opponent draws his card for turn and stops me saying it’s too late. I say it’s a mandatory effect and was just trying to speed up the match. He immediately calls a judge and says I missed it then the judge asks for my side and asks my opponent “do you want him to have the token?” he said “no” and the judge replied “then he doesn’t have the token” I asked for an appeal and as I waited I hear them talking like buddies. Judge A explains to judge B but made it seem like I had cast my card, waited until some time into my opponents main phase and only said anything when my opponent motioned he was going to play a card.

I lost that game two turns later(that mana would’ve been enough for a collected company that would’ve landed a reflector mage I couldn’t cast and won be the game)

I then smashed him game 2 and we end up going to time. Turns get announced and he asks me to concede the match, stating that his deck was better suited for the field and an X-2-1 record would server both of us no use in day 2. I just said, “ with that logic why don’t you concede then? I’m in a winning position “ he declined so I grabbed the match slip and wrote in the draw and handed it to him to sign. Heard him mutter some words as I walked away with the slip and turned it in.

I then proceeded to lose the opening rounds of 2 day 😂 in hindsight I should’ve tried appealing further

[muffinman]

Kinda scummy to try that to be honest guess it's for 30k though so you can't really blame him.

[Lucretzia]

Most of my judge calls end with me saying "oh, thats how it works."

[IanJCullinan]

I think this one is definitely a good choice, but I would have to give it to the Patrick Chapin one at PT Dragons of Tarkir. You should do a video on that one!

[covetouscat]

I'm not a judge but working at a gamestore and having to run drafts made me the defacto judge for the event, which led to some interesting interactions.

One such interaction was being called over by somebody to explain how double strike worked to a guy that just dropped 2k on basically all of the modern horizons product we had in stock, which just... Baffled me...

[jeremykeyes]

Are we serious? He tried calling a judge for literally that short of a pause? Literally scummy tbh. Take your L with pride not salt

[stormcountmtg]

One time at a tournament the judge said I couldn’t target a tapped creature.

[BuddhaDisciple]

After time was called I was turn 5, went to shake my opponents hand as it was only game 2 and i had won game 1 but before i could the judge tells me to resolve the kataki triggers that would be on my upkeep and finish the rest of the game actions of the turn or i would get a game loss and it would end the match as a draw very confused i resolved the kataki triggers and said end my turn the judge then said good dont do that again

[alexandersepa]

I have the craziet judge story that just recently happened to me. I was playing at a facetoface tour qualifier tournament with the format being modern round 7 i was up 5-2 playing living end going againt jeskai breach. The deck i was using was borrowed and the deck list i submitted was missing a card. After winning game 1 we were both deck checked and my mistake was caught and i was given a game loss making is 1-1. The judge said that we can play the deck as is and that we dont have to re-sideboard. We both opted to do that and in the middle of game 3 i cast my cascade spell only to find out the judge that did my deck check TOOK OUT all my living ends as well as some other cards from my main deck and places it with my sideboard cards. The same judges were called over and all hell broke loose. We had one of them start to panic as they relised they fucked up and proceesed to have a 30min conversation with the other judges and head judge. In the end since there was no official rule to fix this situation the made up there own rule and allowed me to put back my living ends and any other sideboard cards I wanted then resumed with the cascade trigger back in the stack. Whats funny is my opponent then topped decked what he thought was the win, tried to short cut it. I made him play it out and it turns out he was one artifact short of casting emry for 1 blue. He then tanked for like 5mins then conceded. I proceeded to make top8 and then subsequently came in 2nd losing to rakdos scam.

[jamesedwards]

I used to be an L2 and the worst judge call I ever received was at an LGS during a Modern PTQ. I can't remember the decks exactly, but I remember the interaction.

Player A was at 3 life and had an Ornithopter with another creature. Player B cast Smash to Smithereens and told A that they won. B just looked down and used a sack outlet to kill the Ornithopter in response and said the spell fizzled. A was confused and called me over. After explaining, A screamed in my face, grabbed their stuff, yelled at the owner, and left. They claimed for months that I was "paid off" and "made the wrong call".

[ContextG]

That was Gincalo just trying to shark the win away from Wyatt. Kari Zev is a mandatory trigger, not a may ability. You cannot miss the trigger because there is still time to resolve it before he passes priority to Goncalo. On top of the fact that there were multiple triggers that happened on declaration of attack. I hate scumbags like that. I bet you that Goncalo got to the top table doing similar shit to his other opponents when he was about to lose those matches. Unsportsmanlike behaviour is what that shit is.

[zanon]

There was a local tournament that was for qualifier points or something to a grand prix, so there was official judges and stuff there. I was in round like 3. Already 1-1, with a self brew that you wouldn't exactly say was meta, or even really good, where I played the red/blue God with a bunch of weird artifacts and other things.

Anyways, we got one of the random deck list checks at the start of the round. I was playing against a regular at the shop, and we both were pretty decent at magic and he could only laugh at the jank I was brining to such a high level tournament. During the deck checking, the judges perceived that I had "marked cards", and could pull a red/blue dual land out basically at will. I perceived them as magicians! As this was not my primary deck, I just threw these in some very second-hand sleeves as I didn't care enough to buy new sleeves. Turns out they were too old and warped and I guess this was looked at as a marked card/cheating situation, even if unintentional. It was an automatic 1 game loss while I resleeved the deck, and both he and I really couldn't believe what was going on. I swiftly lost that match, dropped from the tournament, and pretty much stopped playing magic since then. This was around the time devotion was released.

TLDR: my cheap-skate nature was mistaken for "marked" cards, when everyone else in the room was like "wtf?" and pretty well put me off MTG since.

[Lianh]

Well we all agree that Darby wins, and Gonçalo is a prick trying to steal the win with that judge call, but...
The judge's explanation is wrong. They are not triggers that go "at the beginning of combat", they trigger during the attack phase