Contested cards

Reading contesting rules:
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4. Unlock Phase
For each card and title you are contesting, you must choose to yield or to pay to contest it (see below).

4.1 Contested Cards
The cost to contest a card is one pool, which you pay during each of your unlock phases.
Instead of paying the cost to contest the card, you may choose to yield the card.
A yielded card is burned. Any cards or counters stacked on the yielded card are also burned.
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In the first paragraph there is a "must":
For each card and title you are contesting, you must choose to yield or to pay to contest it (see below).

In the second paragraph there is a "may":
Instead of paying the cost to contest the card, you may choose to yield the card.


In different places of Spain, players play with "must" and other players with "may".

(4 - must)
This is important, because
If you forget to pay or not, you can rewind because it´s a must.
Then you can decide the option to yield or not, after playing other cards in your master phase.

(4.1 - may)
But if you forget to pay and you play a master card, so you have skipped your unlock phase,
you have decided not to pay, then you have yielded the card.
Besides, if you have played a master card, you are playing with advantage because
you know if other players are or aren´t going to play a sudden/wash, or maybe play a trifle master,
draw next card and you have a top deck, so later rewind because is a must, playing with advantage.

I would like to know an unifiqued criteria to do everyone the same.
In other parts/phases of the game, you have made a decision when you skip a phase and forget to play something.
For example:
I´m discarding and forgot to use my transfers, now I lose my influence phase.
I pass my turn to other player, and later I want to discard, it´s late, I have skipped my discard phase.


Examples with must:
My prey plays master card and no pay the contested card, I notice it and call the judge.
The judge comes and ...
A. The judge is a friend of my prey, or a player in his/her group:
so the player can choose and keep played the master card and go on playing (with advantage or cheating)
B. The judge is a friend of mine:
so the player have to draw back and shuffle library, and he can choose to play or not, and maybe
no playing this master card, because the judge has decided to draw back too and suffle,
and a warning to avoid more cheats in the future

So it sucks, it isn´t a coherent system or ruling.

Ohter example:
One player is playing for 3 turns no playing contested card, the judge is called:
A. (Friend) Judge give a favor to choose or not to pay (advantage again or cheating)
B. (no friend) Judge guess this player is playing with advantage during 3 turns, so have to yield the card

So it sucks again.


Damnans tells in the spanish Whatsapp forum about it´s a must and rewind always.
I don´t see it, because my logic says that if you don´t pay, you have already made a decision.
The must is only to pay pool/blood if you want to keep contesting.
Some player can cheat doing this, and later rewind, playing with advantage.
It is easier play with a clear and easy rule, than depending the judge decision in each case, issue or place.

I think you must pay to keep contesting, but if you don´t pay you make a decision and yield the card as in other examples in this game (see above)

Interesting contradiction in the rules. Also, I think your interpretation is quite interesting. Section 4.1 says "Instead of paying the cost to contest the card, you may choose to yield the card". If we only had this part of the rules without the earlier part of having to choose, my interpretation would be, that the default option is to contest the card, not the option to yield. Therefore I'd say, if you are following that part of the rules, you have to pay if you moved out of your untap phase without yielding the card.

If something like the first example happens in our playgroup, we simply leave everything as it is and choose at that point if a contest is kept or yielded. But that is a friendly environment, where we don't suspect a mistake to be cheating. In a tournament this might be different, so a rewind would seem the best option if not too much has happened.

In your second example, where play has progressed over 3 turns, a rewind is allmost impossible. Also, the option to be able to choose if you want to pay or not at that point leaves the other contesting player at a huge disadvantage. Even if that player would get back the payed pool, not being able to use that card for 3 turns is huge. Therefore I'd guess the least disruptive option in most cases would be that the pool for the contest is payed. If that would oust the player in question, this would be hard to judge, I think.

This is something the players on a table must be really sensitive about, as this little thing can have a huge impact on the game.

Thanks for your answer, it´s clear.

Notice the paradox:
- "Always" is probably a guideline, (talking about rewind)
- if you say that you must always rewind, players will take knowingly advantage from it.

this is the problem, players using this kind of advantage. Hard to be sanctioned for a judge in my experience. After doing it several times, it will be only a warning but the advantage was done, I don´t think I could see a loss game about this.

you are the chief

Chester wrote:

this is the problem, players using this kind of advantage. Hard to be sanctioned for a judge in my experience. After doing it several times, it will be only a warning

Why? You have players who are, in your view, deliberately doing this to gain an advantage. That's deliberate cheating.

Chester wrote:

I don´t think I could see a loss game about this.

If you won't force a game loss on players who are deliberately cheating, find a better judge.

No amount of mithering about whether rules say "may" or "must" will do anything to fix anything at all if your judges won't punish cheaters for deliberately cheating. The tournament rules are very, very clear about how to handle cheating. Why are you so intent on picking out wholly misguided fine-grained distinctions about "must" vs "may" in the contesting rules, while ignoring the extremely explicit rules on how to handle cheating?

Deliberately cheating in order to gain information you're not entitled to is cheating. Your players are cheaters. No amount of hand wringing about "Oh, well, this should just be a warning after they do it several times" is supported by the tournament rules - your players are deliberately cheating.