Level Two - Lesson 10
Tournament Regulations - Communication (Part 2)
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Hello there!
Welcome back to the level two lessons for the Star Wars™: Unlimited Judge Program!
As always, I’m your host Jonah, and today we’re going to continue our lessons on the Tournament Regulations and related concepts. We have more to talk about on the nature of communication, particularly as it pertains to three elements of policy that aren’t currently covered in the documents - out of order sequencing, shortcuts, and reversing decisions.
The first two are relatively straightforward and intuitive - so much so that most players are already probably following these policies without being aware of them. Reversing deicsions get’s a bit trickier, so we’ll spend a bit more time with that.
As always with policy, this is an area that is continually being refined, and will grow and evolve as play also continues to evolve. This does make it a bit of a challenge to both learn and teach, so this is likely a lesson that will similarly evolve over time.
Out of Order Sequencing
Out-of-order-sequencing also known as “OOOS” is when a player takes a series of actions in a technically incorrect order, but gains no advantage from doing so and results in a legal and correct gamestate.
One of the examples that will come up the most frequently is a player who resources a card before drawing for the round. Technically, they’re supposed to draw first, but they’re not gaining an advantage by resourcing early - they’re only giving their opponent more information to work with and limiting their choices, but sometimes, you know that you want to resource that Hotshot Blaster no matter what you draw.
Another classic example is a player resolve an effect that says “Draw a card, then discard a card.” If the player discards then draws, this also falls under OOS, because the player isn’t gaining any advantage or information in the process, and ends up in a legal state.
However, the inverse, where an effect says “Discard a card, then draw a card” if the player does that backwards, and draws first, it is not out-of-order-sequencing. The player now has an extra card to work with when trying to figure out what card to discard.
Other examples of out-of-order-sequencing involve moving cards between zones incorrectly, or resolving triggers later than they should.
For example, resolving a when defeated trigger, and then moving the unit from the arena to discard is technically incorrect, but generally harmless. Likewise, resolving an on-attack trigger like Restore after the attack has been completed and units appropriately defeated (and even potentially When Defeated triggers resolved), is generally not going to impact the game and so can be resolved out of order.
However, there are always exceptions - if there’s a card with “When Defeated, shuffle each players discard into it’s owner’s deck” then you would have to put the unit into the Discard before resolving the trigger. As the game grows, there will both be more things that can be handled slightly out of order, but also more things that will limit player’s flexibility.
All in all though, most of the time players won’t even realize that they’re acting out of sequence, and neither will their opponent. As long as the game ends in a legal state, you don’t have to intervene in these situations.
Shortcuts
Shortcuts take a step further into complexity of communication. Shortcuts are when a player takes an action or batch of actions, but doesn’t lay them all out and just jumps to the end of the sequence.
There aren’t many inherent shortcuts, but readying your resources and units frequently communicates “I have resourced and am ready to proceed to the next aaction phase.” If you’re still thinking about your resourcing decision, you should vocalize that you’re not moving forward. Normally, you need to actively communicate to your opponent that you’re moving forward, but this end-of-regroup action can wordlessly communicate “I’m ready to move on” and if you want to deviate from that, you have to voice it.
This game has fewer shortcuts, both inherent and player-generated, due to the structure of the game - when one player is not able to monopolize the game actions, it’s less likely that they need to do a bunch of actions at once.
However, if one player claims, then the other player has free reign, and may take some actions that include shortcuts.
A common player suggested shortcut (although not explicitly voiced this way) is “I’m going to attack your base with all of these units”. This is several actions, and while the damage isn’t technically dealt simultaneously, you can mark one change of six, instead of three changes of two each - it’s just a little bit more efficient than saying “attack your base for two. Attack your base for two. Attack your base for two.” you just say “attack your base for six.”
Loops
There can also be more complicated shortcuts that involve loops. A player with a San HIll - Chairman of the Banking Clan, Admiral Motti - Brazen and Scornful, and two Admiral Trench - Holding the Line, along with some number of ready resources, can play Admiral Trench, exploiting Motti and defeating the in-play trench to the Uniqueness rule, then use the When Played ability to return them to hand, and Motti’s when defeated to ready San Hill. San then attacks, readies two resources, and the player can then play Motti and be back to the game state where they started (with a few more resources exhausted). The second time they attack with San Hill, they’ll be able to ready up to four resources, then six, then eight, and eventually that number becomes meaningless.
In this rather rare scenario, the player takes a sequence of actions with the game ending up in a gamestate that can be predicted - their opponent is down three life, they have six fewer resources to work with, but the next time they’ll have four, then two, and then they’ll be resource positive (unless they possible defeated more friendly units that phase already).
When a player can engineer a gamestate where they return to a specific gamestate through a set of deterministic actions like this example, they can shortcut to the endstate of that sequence, presuming their opponent understands and accepts. It’s entirely reasonable for a player to say “can you demonstrate the loop to me a couple of times, to make sure I understand what’s happening?”
While the other player (assuming they’ve claimed initiative) can’t meaningfully interact with the sequence, it’s important that the player understands what’s happening in their game, and for the player comboing off to demonstrate that they actually know how the mechanics of their synergies work.
However, if both players accept that the loop functions, the player can propose a shortcut of “I’ll do this ten times and attack your base for thirty”, without having to go through the multi-step process each time.
Loops generally have to be vocalized more than out-of-order-sequencing or shortcuts, but that’s because they’re more complicated creatures.
Reversing Decisions
That brings us to the most complicated and highest profile portion of this lesson - Reversing Decisions, colloquially known sometimes as “takebacks”.
Reversing decisions applies when a player takes an action, then realizes that they don’t want to do it, and so wants to take it back, or reverse their decision.
Notably, if a player does something illegal, like attacking a non-sentinel and then realizing that there is a sentinel in play, that does not fall under reversing decisions, and falls under gameplay disruptions and can be potentially handled by a backup or rewind. There’s often some confusion between the two, and so I want to take a moment to dispel some confusion.
Reversing Decisions vs. Rewinds
When we’re reversing a decision, it’s because a player has done something legal, but realized that they don’t want to make that play. There is no infraction.
When we’re performing a rewind, it’s because a player has done something illegal, and we need to remedy the situation, either by resolving now, or rewinding. There is an infraction issued.
Whether or not we allow a player to reverse their decision is dependent on whether or not they gained information.
Whether or not we rewind during a gameplay disruption is dependent on what fix best remedies the game. Either player gaining information is a factor, but is not the sole determining factor. We’ll talk more about rewinds and backups in a later level two lesson as we dive in the Master Event Document.
What is Reversing Decisions?
Reversing decisions is when a player begins or takes an action, and then wants to undo that action.
Why do we have policy for this?
Well, let’s say a player says “Vanquish, no wait, takedown your Battlefield Marine.” - are we going to hold them to playing Vanquish, even if they haven’t revealed any cards or exhausted any resources?
If we do, what happens when we learn that the player wasn’t used to the art on their cards and doesn’t actually have a Vanquish, only a takedown? Do we issue a gameplay disruption for this even though they didn’t actually reveal a card?
What if, again, a player says “I’ll play Sabine, no wait, Red Three” - again, all in one breath, without revealing any cards?
Most judges and players would allow the player to take the revised action, because they haven’t yet taken any physical action - they haven’t revealed a card, they haven’t exhausted any resources etc...
If you agree with these, then you agree that there is a line where it’s reasonable to allow players to do something other than what they said they were going to do. Now it’s a matter of determining where the line is.
One line that could be used is physical action - maybe revealing the card you’re playing or exhausting resources, but how does that apply to units in play? If a player says “I’ll attack with Sabine, no wait, you have a sentinel, I’ll attack with Red Three.” is it when they touch the card? When damage is marked?
Because of the difference in how various actions are actually played out and because players often perform actions out-of-order (see OOOS above), having a chess-like rule of “once your hand leaves the game piece” isn’t very practical.
Gaining Information
The line to allow a player to reverse their decision is whether or not they’ve “gained information” since declaring their intent.
That phrase of “gained information” can be frustratingly vague, so we’re going to go over a couple examples and discuss it a bit more.
If a player plays a card, or takes an action, and then their opponent takes an action, even something as mundane as saying “pass” - that’s new information to the player, and they can’t change their mind.
If their opponent points to an in-play effect that makes their decision a bad play (but not an illegal one), such as “killing K2-SO will defeat your base”, that’s information. Notably, if the player points out that there is an in-play effect that makes their action an illegal action (such as attacking a base when there’s a sentinel in play), that’s a gameplay disruption and should be handled accordingly (and again, we’ll get to those in due course).
If the opponent makes a comment along the lines of “I wasn’t expecting that...” that’s information. An exception to this is if the opponent is constantly making these sorts of comments on every play - that very quickly becomes meaningless.
If the opponent even reached for a card in play or in their discard, or maybe begins to exhaust resources in reaction to the player’s action, those can all constitute information.
If the player saw any new card faces or cards changed zones in such a way that the opponent can’t verify their identities (such as cards moving to hand or the resource zone), while that’s not necessarily new information, it can’t be undone, and so it’s not eligible for reversing decisions.
If, however, the player realizes that there’s an effect that makes their play bad (but not illegal) on their own, such as they realize Obi-Wan Kenobi - Following Fate has a powerful When Defeated, and their opponent hasn’t pointed it out, they can reverse their decision.
Reversing decisions will very often be a judgment call. Sometimes it will be very clear cut. Their opponent has already played another card or taken an action, or the player has drawn a card or something else has happened that makes it obvious that information has been gained.
The guiding philosophy of this policy is “did the player make this realization and decision on their own, in the window where it was originally made”. Part of the reason for this policy is to help encourage players to play just a little bit faster. If we played by very restrained rules, where as soon as player named a play or began to take action, they were locked into it, players would take even longer to make critical decisions, which would slow down the pace of the match, and thus the tournament.
This policy is the same at both casual-tier and competitive-tier.
Some people would prefer that competitive was more restrictive, that players at that level should be closer to ideal players. However, we want to make sure that entry level competitive events, such as the various Qualifiers are welcoming to players who are making their first foray into a more competitive atmosphere.
Furthermore, the player is still making the decision in the appropriate timeframe, they just maybe said some additional words and showed their opponent some cards that they didn’t have to - the only player who should be disadvantaged from reversing decisions is the player who’s decision was reversed.
Notably, if the opponent of the player who is asking to reverse decisions gained information, that’s okay. If a player reveals one card, and then wants to take that action back, their opponent get’s to keep that information, and that’s okay and does not prevent the reversal of decisions.
Also note, you should absolutely never undo an opponent’s action to reverse decisions. This is different from rewinds to fix gameplay disruptions, and it’s only a single player’s action or actions.
Reversing Multiple Actions
You may have noticed I’ve said “actions” a few times. If your opponent claims initiative, you can say “attack, attack, play General Dodonna - wait, I want to play the General first.”
Because your opponent can only take the automatic action of passing, if they don’t say anything or otherwise provide information, you can take back multiple sequential actions. This will happen less frequently than other forms of reversing decisions, because when players have the rest of the phase to themselves, they usually take a moment to compose their actions, or they batch them together in a shortcut.
Contentious Rulings
I also want to take a moment to discuss why this is such a contentious and complicated subject. Reversing decisions policy is something that exists in many other competitive TCGs, with somewhat similar policy - and it’s contentious and complicated there.
In some, it’s recommended that an L3 or higher judge is consulted on all reversing decisions. In others, when available, it’s an L4 or higher.
A huge reason as to why it’s contentious is that we simply don’t get called to the straightforward and obvious situations.
The first few examples, where a player says “I play this card, no wait, this card...” the vast majority of the time their opponent won’t even comment on it, and if they do, they’ll say “That’s fine.”
Similarly, when it’s obvious that a player shouldn’t be allowed to take back a play, like “Wait, now that I know you’re playing Superlaser Blast, I wish I hadn’t played my U-Wing Reinforcements”, their opponent will say “no” and the player will accept it.
It’s the situations that are on the line, and depend on exactly what happened, the wording of policy, that’s where judges get called.
If the players were able to resolve it on their own, they would have, but the players want different outcomes in a reversing decision call, because if they agreed, it would have happened. This is different from other calls because most of the time even if their is some tension between the players “I think they may have an extra card in hand” or “Did I play a resource this phase?” or “how does Krayt dragon work?” both players want the same thing - a resolution.
Here, one player wants a “no” answer and the other wants a “yes” answer.
Furthermore, until education improves, “information” can feel like a bit of a nebulous concept, and so players can feel blindsided by these rulings. Reversing decisions, in any TCG, are the most frequently appealed rulings, and so you have contention with other judges is unsurprising, and players being concerned with it is also par for the course.
In time, as the game matures, this policy (and others) will become known to players, and they’ll begin to understand the reasoning behind the decisions - but they’ll still appeal you.
In any case, that’s all for now. Our next lesson will be our first step into the Master Event Document for Level Two - we’re going to take some time exploring the general philosophy of the whole document, but not quite dive into specifics just yet. If you’re watching this on YouTube, and you want more level two lessons in your feed, go ahead and subscribe. Join us Tuesdays and Fridays on twitch.tv/swu_judges for live broadcasts covering the content of these lessons as they are released, and join the Star Wars: Unlimited Judge Program Discord to join the community in discussion of this and much, much more.
As always, good luck, and have fun.