People get together for a casual LCG tournament – no prize support whatsoever. Some of them come from a distance that takes them two or more hours to get to the place where the tourney is held. During the first game a player reveals a card from the latest chapter pack that is not yet tournament-legal because it has not been two weeks available. How would you solve this issue? He may still play but afterwards the match is counted as if he had lost? The thing is you can't change your deck during a tourney...

Even more tricky: During his third game a player reveals a plot that is not part of the LCG environment. How would you handle this? Because of the effort everyone made to come to the place you maybe do not want to be to harsh...

And of course playing mistakes... e.g. after a search plot a player new to the game maybe forgets to draw his cards in the draw phase and realizes his mistake in the marshalling phase as the second player or even later in the challenge phase because his hand seems so empty...

How do you handle these issues in a friendly, still a little bit competitive environment? And how would you change your judgement when people paid some money because prize support is involved? Another example: Two rather new to the game player play a match. One attaches icy catapult on a direwolf and uses it to kill an important character of the other player. Two rounds later the other player realises "Hey you couldn't have done this to my dragon because now I see you cannot use attachments on direwolfs..."

In the end, it comes down to sportsmanship. As the TO, you are free to rule as you see fit, even in casual. To me, the biggest difference between casual (nothing on the line) and supported (usually characterized by prize support and/or entry fees) is that those TO sportsmanship rulings are accepted a little easier.

The following is all my own opinion.

First, I find it a good idea to remind people of the format, and some of the particulars, before the event actually begins. It has saved me from having to make uncomfortable rulings a number of times. I specifically remember reminding people that TGS and Outmaneuver were banned in Melee before the 2007 Multiplayer event and 5 people scrambling into their plot collections. The American idiom is "an ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure."

mischraum.de said:

I would agree with this idea: let the game finish, but the person with the illegal deck loses the match. After that match, I would ask the player to remove the illegal cards from the deck (as TO, I can over-rule the "cannot modify your deck during the event" rule when the situation demands) and continue to play normally, unless this would take them below the 60 card minimum. If it takes them below the 60 card minimum, they could continue to play, but would receive losses in all the games - unless the field was small enough that all the other players could agree to play against the "handicap" of the new cards.

mischraum.de said:

First, the results of games 1 and 2 do not change because it's too hard to go back. The plot may not even have been used in those games. Then, I'd suggest the automatic loss for the 3rd game, then replacement of the illegal plot for subsequent games. You can either do this through random selection by the TO, or allow the player to use the illegal plot for stats only, but with a blank text box.

In both situations, you are just trying to work with a bad situation. And they are probably good excuses to do a complete deck check. As the TO, you do have the authority do these kind of deck modifications rather than throw the player out of the event entirely.

mischraum.de said:

Play mistakes can be a big thing. In my experience, left to their own devices, the players will usually come up with a compromise or their own solution without calling in a TO. If the DO ask for a ruling, I usually say this:

- In general, if the mistake is realized before anything directly affected by the mistake has happened, just fix it. For example, if the new player forgot to draw his cards in the Draw phase, let him draw in the Marshaling Phase, but not the Challenge Phase. Similarly, if you forget Renown on a character during your first challenge and remember halfway through your second, just take the power. But if you remember after revealing plots the next round, oh well.

- If a mistake is realized after something significant has happened, you're out of luck and the mistake just stands. For example, If you realize 2 rounds later that the Icy Catapult was illegal on a "No Attachments" character, you're out of luck - you cannot go backwards two whole rounds to fix the mistake and it is unfair to give the Stark player an auto-loss because YOU didn't see it until 2 rounds later, either. But if you recognize immediately that Direwolves cannot take attachments when the Stark player tries to play Icy Catapult, I'd say you either let him take it back or at the very least, choose a new character to attach it to rather than forcing the discard.

Honest mistakes happen, so I try to be cool about it. When the mistakes seem less honest, I would probably take a much harder line. For example, in the sort of casual environment you're talking about, I would assume all mistakes are honest and be as accommodating as possible - without being completely unfair to the other players. Often, if a deck cannot be made legal by removing illegal cards, I will tell the player with the illegal deck that they must reveal the illegal cards to their paired opponent before the game and let the opponent decide if they want an auto-win (then play it out), or if they are willing to "forgive" the disadvantage. In a monthly, supported local event, I will still assume that mistakes are honest, but I'd probably be a little heavier handed, assuming that it is the player's responsibility to check the format (and build accordingly) before coming to the event. This is more in deference to being fair to the other players who did NOT break the format rules (accidentally or otherwise). At high-stakes supported events like Regionals or Gencon, I usually announce before the event that there are no take-backs unless both players agree to them.

Sportsmanship can be a sticky topic, and a heck of a balancing act.

Just to add support, what ktom describes is virtually how we play it here too. In fact, in a casual game we even allow takebacks i.e. kneeling a reducer after you've played a card to hold onto a gold. Our hope is that by being able to correct your mistakes you will be able to spot them before they happen in a competitive game (where you better kneel that reducer before you spend all your gold)