I could easily see myself doing something like this by mistake. I wonder what the judges heard when they interviewed the players that convinced them it was intentional.
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
7 points (100.0% liked)
MTG
1835 readers
17 users here now
Magic: the Gathering discussion
General discussion, questions, and media related to Magic: the Gathering that doesn't fit within a more specific community. Our equivalent of /r/magicTCG!
Type [[Card name]] in your posts and comments and CardBot will reply with a link to the card! More info here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Yeah this seems like an easy mistake to make. In fact, they were on coverage, which means they would have had a judge sitting there at the table with them, so the judge even missed it when it happened.
It's not like they don't know they're on camera, and on top of that, Van Etten was up a game already. Who would intentionally cheat in a situation where you're pretty much guaranteed to get caught, and you don't even need the advantage that badly anyway? The only thing I can think of is that Van Etten told the judges "Yeah, I realized it a couple of turns later but didn't say anything."
By the way, speaking as someone who's played my share of paper Magic and made more than my share of judge calls: call the judges when this happens. Their top priority is to fix the game state, not to punish you. Sometimes if the game has progressed too far to fix, they'll let the mistake stand. I don't know offhand how enforcement differs at a high-level event like this, but I think there's a real chance that Van Etten could have salvaged a match win out of this if he'd called the judges on himself in time.
Well, if he's cheated so much in the past that he can't get the benefit of the doubt from the judges now, he won't get a ton of sympathy from me either.
I thought so too but apparently the player in question has a history of cheating so I think they didn't want to cut him any slack
That's valuable context, thanks.
The announcement says turn 3 of game 3, but it means game 2. Their game 2 starts at about 5:30:15 of the official coverage, and the play in question happens at around 5:34:00. Twitch chatters catch the mistake immediately, and the commentators bring it up around 5:35:35.