Level Two - Lesson 15

Master Event Document - Card Manipulation Error

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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 this lesson is going to be taking a deeper look at the Card Manipulation Error policy. This includes any errors where players see the faces of cards they shouldn’t - whether by mis-resolving game abilities or dexterity errors.

This is a very tricky corner of policy, because, by its very nature, it involves hidden information, and consequently, can be difficult or impossible for the opponent to verify knowledge, which makes remedying these errors challenging.

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.

Identifying Information

With any card manipulation error, there are two key components about how you handle the situation.

The first is determining which cards a player incorrectly manipulated. Manipulation, in this case, can refer to a variety of things

There are many other situations where cards can accidentally move between hidden zones, or be looked at when they should remain hidden.

Sometimes it will be easy to identify what card is the problematic one. For dexterity errors, you’ll frequently see a single face up card, or a card that both players can agree doesn’t belong in play.

However, sometimes a dexterity error can result in less clarity, for example, if a card is face down and among poorly organized resources.

If the opponent of the player can clearly identify which card is the problematic card, we can use that information in the fix.

An example of this happening is a player attacking with R2-D2 - Full of Solutions, and picking up the top card of their deck, then calling a judge and saying that they thought it was R2-D2 - Ignoring Protocol.

The card that they have accessed has not been mingled with any other zone, and while the active player is the only one who can confirm any attributes of the card, the non-active player can confirm that it is the same physical card.

Similarly, there are some cases where a card is flipped over where the opponent can easily and clearly identify a specific card as the erroneous card.

Damaging Information

However, once the active player has manipulated the erroneous card into a set of other hidden cards, it becomes much more difficult to remedy. For example, if an extra card is accidentally added to the resources, and it’s clear that the player has not manipulated the card, we can remedy the situation with that card.

However, once the player moves cards around - even if they’re trying to clarify the situation to their opponent, if the cards remain hidden, it becomes much more probable that the opponent can no longer identify the erroneous card specifically.

Similarly, if a card gets shuffled into the deck or added to the hand while a player is holding those cards, it can be difficult for the opponent to confirm the identity of the card, because the player could very easily move cards around.

It is important to ask the opponent if they are able to identify the card that needs to be addressed. We don’t ask the player who committed the error, because, while we don’t assume that a player is malicious, allowing them to make that decision makes it so that the error can result in significant advantage for malicious players. Mitigating that advantage disincentivizes players from making errors.

Selecting a Card

If you’re unable to identify which card or cards are the ones that must be remedied easily, there are a few more steps we can take.

First, we can ask to see both players’ notes. If a player played Spark of Rebellion and wrote down their opponent’s hand, we can use that information to preserve some of the cards that are still in that player’s hand, as we can know that they are supposed to be there. However, when utilizing this information, it’s important to account for the fact that players are allowed to resource cards, and that information is private.

If the opponent says “I know they have an Alliance X-Wing and a Battlefield Marine” and you indicate that only one card can be preserved, that gives the opponent information that they didn’t necessarily have - now they know that one of those cards has been resourced. However, a minor advantage for the player who did not commit the error is an acceptable outcome of the remedy, as long as it results in a more natural fix.

However, even ruling out cards this way, there is still likely a chance that there are unknown cards, and it’s important to remove the excess cards and return them to the proper zone. There are two other ways to determine which card is the excess card.

First is randomly. Simply have the player lay the affected zone face down on the table and have the opponent select a card by rolling a die or other random method. We don’t have the judge select the card, because that can lead to accusations of bias and favoritism. The downside of this fix is that it doesn’t always negate the advantage. For example, if the player should have four cards in hand, but now has five, taking a card at random only has a 20% chance of selecting the erroneous card. If the player needed that specific card to win or to take a significant advantage, it is very possible that the outcome of the game changes because of this remedy.

The other approach is more complex. After explaining the fix to both players, have the player lay the affected zone face up on the table, and have the opponent select a card by strategic choice. This method removes the card that the most invested player (the opponent) believes is the most impactful. This has the upside of mitigating any potential advantage the player could have gained from accessing the card. The player’s opponent will pick the best card in the player’s hand to remove. If the player needed that one specific card to win, and just drew that card - they definitely won’t be gaining an advantage after this fix. However, if the player authentically and legally had that card, but had been waiting to play it until they had enough resources or for better strategic timing, this fix can result in a very non-organic outcome. While this fix isn’t laid out in policy, it has been a verified clarification for some time now.

If the player was the one who identified the issue and it’s their first time committing the infraction, I would recommend the former selection process. We want to give the players some grace, but we don’t want to create scenarios where the fix doesn’t actually address the advantage gained. If it’s not the first time or if the opponent is the one who recognized the issue, I would recommend the second, more complex process.

However, more importantly than those recommendations is remaining consistent with your event. If your head judge requests a specific approach to fixing these issues, or if you’re running the event, pick an approach and stick to it. That way, players know what to expect as a result of their errors and their opponents.

Addressing the Issue

Once you’ve identified the erroneous card, whether it was a simple process where there is certainty which card was manipulated or there is uncertainty, we need to fix the issue.

If the error involved a card erroneously leaving the hand - the fix is simple. Return that card to the player's hand and then proceed.

If the error involved a card leaving the resource zone, you must reconstruct how many resources were ready and exhausted. Check with both players about which cards were played this round and which abilities were activated. Because players can freely swap which resources are ready and which are exhausted, as long as they keep quantities consistent, you don’t need to have the status of the specific card accurate, just the counts. Once you have that information, return the card to the resource zone in the correct state.

Returning Cards to the Deck

If the error involved a card leaving the deck, you must reconstruct which cards were known within the deck. For example, if a player had resolved Darth Vader - Commanding the First Legion once, and put eight cards on the bottom of the deck, those cards are in a known location. While the specific order within those eight cards should be random, it’s important to preserve that information. Similarly, if the card was a known card from the top of the deck (for example, because the player had resolved R2-D2 - Ignoring Protocol, that card is preserved. If the card was known, it is returned to that location.

If the card was unknown, it is shuffled into the unknown portion of the deck. Asking players if they know the location of any cards in their deck is key to these remedies - take a moment to go through each player’s in-play cards and discard piles, and ask how relevant abilities were resolved. This can sometimes get tricky - if a player is playing Yoda - Sensing Darkness, and are unsure how many times they’ve activated his ability, or how many times they’ve put a card on the bottom of their deck, do your best to work with them through previous turns to reconstruct the information as best you can. You can also ask the opponent to step away from the table, so the player can talk about their strategic decisions more freely - they might be able to say “last turn I needed a Takedown, so I definitely activated Yoda, and the card was garbage so I put it on the bottom” - that’s not something that they would want to say in front of their opponent, but helps you resolve this situation.

However, you’re not always going to have full information about the order of the deck - and that’s okay. This is where your judgment comes in again. If the deck still has a lot of cards in it, shuffling a card that should be on the bottom of the deck into the rest of the deck is more disruptive than leaving one random card near the bottom of the deck. However, if the unknown portion of the deck is very small, leaving a card that should be randomized can be slightly disruptive - however these disruptions are very minor, and being off by one or maybe two isn’t significant.

Investigating and Wrapping Up

Players adding cards to their hand or resources, or taking cards from their resources that they had played early can result in a significant advantage. It is always important to investigate players when you have a potential concern. This investigation should occur even if the player called the error on themselves.

Of course, we’re going to talk about investigations in depth in future lessons, but you can quickly look at the cards that they accessed or have in their hand now. If they have multiple answers, the likelihood of malicious behavior drops dramatically - they already had an out before the error.

With these errors, particularly when cards are being revealed, you want to take the remedy in multiple steps - you want to explain the process to the players but not have them take action - if they start to shuffle cards into a deck or reveal cards, and then realize they want to appeal or they misunderstood you, it’s hard to undo those things.

Then, after you’ve explained it to both players and gotten their acknowledgement, go over it one more time and have them perform the fix. They should be the ones manipulating the cards, not you. It’s important to stick around to make sure they do it properly and you can catch them if they’re going to go off the rails.

Card Manipulation Error does come with a warning, but it’s nothing to worry about unless players make a habit out of it.

With our next lesson, we’ll be stepping out of gameplay errors, where players make mistakes per the comprehensive rules and switch to tournament disruptions, which are errors in tournament regulations. We’ll be starting with decks and decklist policies, errors and remedies, and following it up with the next lesson covering deck checks and marked cards. 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.

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