Stalling

Penalty: Disqualification

Definitions and Philosophy: When a player intentionally plays slowly to gain an advantage due to the time limits in a round. The key difference between Stalling and Slow Play is intentionality; if a player playing slowly is doing so unintentionally, a Slow Play infraction is more appropriate. Stalling typically presents when a player changes their pace of play without justifiable in-game factors to account for such stalling and, typically, with the context of being advantaged in a match due to time constraints. This can also present when a player delays finalizing their sideboard to get their opponent to declare whether they are going first or second in the following game to gain an advantage during sideboarding procedures.

Players are only expected to explicitly declare when they are going first or second, at the latest, when all decks are presented for final cuts/shuffling without any further sideboard. Players may still state if they intend to play first or second before this time, as they are actively moving cards for the sideboard. In this instance, they are expected to abide by this decision. In more competitively relaxed/casual environments, it may be acceptable for players to change their decision as long as both players have sufficient time to amend their sideboards accordingly.

Examples:

• A player is winning in the match record and plays significantly more slowly to disadvantage the opponent regarding available time to play in the round, detracting from a fair competitive setting

• A player who is losing a game/match plays more slowly to take advantage of the round timer.

• A player takes any repetitive actions or performs actions more slowly than reasonably expected to slow the pace of the game to gain an advantage (shuffling slowly, picking up and reading cards with no apparent purpose, etc., with the intent to slow down the game).

• A player spends an unusually long time shuffling and moving cards during sideboarding while their opponent has not yet stated their play intention but is ready to present their deck for a final cut/shuffle.

• A player has no cards, resources, or options available to affect the game but spends more than a reasonable amount of time contemplating/planning the current turn/following turn given current information.