Shortcuts in VtES Official Games

@Kevin: What if, instead of "2 seconds", I had written "1 minute" or "5 minutes"? Would A still have been the biggest cheater in the world?
We each have our own perception of how long it should take to determine whether or not to play a card.

Regarding Homunculus: It is the player controlling Homunculus's duty to inform the acting player that he wants to use an effect during that untap phase. He could say "Are you done with your untap effects ?" for instance.
Of course, that player cannot be denied the option to use an untap phase effect.

There are some shortcuts that we use quite a lot, but the:

"Nothing until strike."

Is the real winner.

Or after the minion phase the "Pass" meaning non influences and no discard...

Of course there are some effects/minions that make a difference to the game play, like Anneke, Sascha Vikos, Leandro, madness network, Enkil cog, etc, etc.

Snip

AaronC wrote:

Anyway, technically, for example, if you do not verbally declare that your Govern the Unaligned costs 1 blood, you can roll it back after several other steps have occurred, according to the LSJ ruling and the implication of the rulebook. It's one of those cute cheats that exist in VTES that nobody's exploiting.

Minor correction and perhaps this isn't 100% obvious from the current tournament rules but LSJ was very clear that rollbacks shouldn't take place to jsut benefit the player making the error (e.g. don't change game state to facilitate cheating or poor play).

This isn't very helpful in the case of the Aaron Feeding Razor example, which i've not heard before, the more common one that is quoted was the announced bleed of 1 when it was actually 0 due to Aranthebes (Swedish EC in Goteborg).

An example I would give you would be player A has a Heart of Nizchetus in play whilst player B has a vampire with fame in torpor. Player A untaps his minions etc and then plays a master card, B points out must re-wind to take pool damage (mandatory). Under the guidelines I had from LSJ I wouldn't allow A to use the HoN as i'm only letting him return to a phase he has passed through [by untapping] (bearing in mind you can never skip a phase) to complete his mandatory actions.

In Aaron's Govern example it would make a significant difference which bit the player did or didn't declare, for instance the cost and stealth at superior - there's unlikely to be any game impact so need to rollback, declasring superior when he has no legal targets and only noted after blocks a rollback seems sensible etc.

Pagan wrote:

200:Correction of Game State

Philosophy:

It is important that the player committing the infraction receive no benefit in the game for doing so.

spot on - thanks David for the correct quote

Doesn't rolling back always fulfill this condition? If you come roll back before the error and cancel it, then the player committing the error got no benefit from it. I thought that guideline was more aimed at cases when an exact rollback is impractical/impossible and the judge has to fudge things.

well see rolling back to untap phase a full rollback would get them to their untap phase to do stuff again, normal sense is for Methuselah to burn a pool for the fame or force a contest choice in whatever phase they are in (often minion phase at this stage) rather than actually rewinding with benefit of hindsight