Dawn DeLozier · @dawn_delozier
6th Feb 2023 from TwitLonger
Judge Call at SCG Indy
I was told by friends to post something about this to increase awareness about exactly what happened, so here goes.
I was playing uW Hammer in the Sunday $10k at SCG Indy. I'm undefeated round 3 and am paired against a Grixis Shadow player. He wins game 1, and we move to the postboard games. At some point, he passes the turn after Baubling me. The board state at this point is his 3 tapped lands, my 2 copies of Sigarda's Aid, 4 colored lands, and an Inkmoth Nexus. Notably, he's tapped out with no blockers.
I flash him the Hammer— which he already should have known about from a Stoneforge Mystic a few turns prior— point to my Inkmoth, and say "kill you with infect." He scoops up his cards and starts deboarding. I don't remember any details of our game 2, but at this point in the weekend matches are starting to blend into each other and I assume because I had just won a postboard game and my opponent was packing up that I had won the match.
After this, we talk about sideboarding decisions for a bit, and I submit the match. He's about to leave, but then looks at his phone and tells me the result I had submitted was wrong, showing me I had put in it as 2-0. I agree, thinking that it should have been 2-1 and that I made a mistake, and call a judge to change the result. This is where things get messy.
My opponent claimed that he had won game 2 (the game we had just played) and that the match was a win for him. The only justification he provides for why he had won game 2 is that I conceded to him casting Dress Down and Bolting my Sanctifier during my main phase. I still don't understand what basis he had for his claim.
Because of the fact that I don't remember any details about a game between this one and game 1 and that his paper life pad only showed 2 games, I believe that the game we had just played was game 2, so I claimed that the mistake is that I had assumed the match was over when it wasn't, and that we needed to play a game 3. He asserted that he had already won the match.
The floor judge begins an investigation, and during conversations involving myself, my opponent, and the judge, my opponent denied me having said "kill you with infect." Because of this and the fact that I didn't actually take the game actions to end the game, that who actually conceded was unknown and that the match would be ruled as a draw, and that we'd play out the match to completion after this ruling. I appeal, more to know about the more exact explanation of this, and my opponent appeals as well.
After asking us a few questions, the head judge, having already been conferred with to decide the earlier ruling, upholds said ruling, and gives a similar explanation for what I said above as to why.
At this point, I'm still trying to understand why my opponent didn't think he was dead, explaining more fully my line to him, and the only response before he moves to a different topic is that "Sigarda's Aid dosen't equip immediately," a statement that still confuses me, but I never got an opportunity to press further before he changed topics and the judge began asking further questions.
At this point, he's very loudly calling me a liar as I say what I remember happening, and the judge wants to take a step away to confer with a few other judges. We sit at the table, and as the floor judge here to watch our table begins trying to make friendly conversation, the pressure from the situation and the accusations from my opponent cause me to have an anxiety attack. The head judge comes back and helps me breathe, and my opponent is taken away from the table and asked further questions.
After I'm relatively stable, the head judge steps away from the table, and eventually comes back saying that she understands the situation differently now, and had decided to rule that my opponent had won the match 2-0. Her explanation, which she delivered much better than I can summarize here, was that because we agreed that he won game one and that the match had just ended, the only logical conclusion based on the evidence she had in front of her was that he had won both games and therefore the match. I accept the ruling, but still am shaken, so I go to the bathroom before the match to recover, and end up playing out the tournament.
I'm not upset about the judge ruling at all. In fact, I think they absolutely did everything correctly given the evidence and information they had. I am extremely upset with my opponent and somewhat with myself for how we handled this match. I feel that it's reasonable to conclude that I had won the match after my opponent began deboarding face up and talking about their sideboarding decisions after I won a postboard match. What I don't think is reasonable is that either that my opponent didn't think he was dead or that I was conceding because I was too far behind. I also am very concerned that he denied me having said "kill you with infect,' blatantly calling me a liar for claiming that I said this. I don't know exactly what's going on here— he could not have heard me and truly misunderstood how Aid works— but there seems to be some amount of malicious intent here. I'm very saddened if that is the case.
Obviously, there is more I could have done here. I've already talked recently about my problems with outside of the game tournament prep and endurance, and I should have gotten more sleep or eaten something before playing Magic, which would have let me remember more clearly exactly what had happened earlier in the match. I also should have more explicitly confirmed more about what was going on.
Still, I'm very upset by this situation. I hate that this happens in our community and to do what I can to help stop it from happening to others. I hope by sharing this I've helped towards that to some extent.