The rules, regulations, and guidelines of Grand Archive TCG serve players to promote an environment where game enjoyment can be maximized and every person is treated fairly and respectfully. Judges are trusted members of the community who showcase both in-depth understandings of these documents, the philosophy behind them, and the desire to create a positive environment for players in competitive settings. We create this document to serve as a resource for judges to mete out just penalties to players who violate the rules and to educate players on avoiding future errors. Judges hold the position of a neutral party that can enforce and interpret the policy and rules documents to resolve player mistakes. Ordinarily, judges can only directly intervene when a policy or rules violation has occurred or to prevent the escalation of a situation in the competitive environment. Otherwise, judges act as a resource for players and other tournament attendees.
While not exhaustive, this document provides standard procedures for many game and policy infractions and violations. If a significant and extraordinary event happens that goes beyond the scope of this document, Head Judges are permitted to act and issue penalties in ways that might deviate from the procedures outlined in this document. This extends to situations where an entire play area is disrupted, such as by a spilled drink, complete disruption of game pieces/cards/decks, error product being opened, etc. Any questions on whether a situation qualifies as “significant and extraordinary” can be posed to the Head Judge if a judge believes procedure deviation is in order.
Mistakes in issuing penalties or actions taken to correct a prior error may happen. If these mistakes happen, judges should identify the mistake, offer an apology regarding the mistake, and correct any necessary actions or issued violations, if possible. Penalties may sometimes be retracted or downgraded in these circumstances. If any further violations happen as a result of a judge’s attempt to correct a prior mistake or from offering incorrect information to a player, the player should not be penalized for such secondary violations. Judges are encouraged to ask players to maintain proper and clear play areas to minimize the risk that a game rules violation takes place.
Players cannot use any rules, policy documents, or this infraction guide in an attempt to gain advantages in games and tournament settings, also known as “rule-sharking.” This is part of Unsporting Conduct and can be penalized. Seeking loopholes in either policy documents, rules documents, or clarifications offered on the Index to gain an unfair advantage is considered cheating. Attempting to leverage issued penalties from a judge or issuing Judge Calls with the intention to penalize another player is considered Unsporting Conduct.
Judge Calls are appropriate for rules concerns, questions, or any questions regarding policies or regulations. Any calls should be made with the expectation that any results from the call will continue to promote fair tournament play consistent with the philosophy behind rules and regulations documents.
For the different Rules Enforcement Tiers detailed in the Tournament Rules and Regulations document, judges should apply penalties suitable to that tournament tier. E.g, Play mistakes at Casual events should most often be met with warnings and education regarding the violation and avoidance of future violations rather than as stringent applications. At these kinds of events, upgrades to violations in this category (i.e. Gameplay Errors) should seldom be upgraded.
The Head Judge of a tournament always has the final say on issued penalties and interpretations of rulings and policy decisions. If they feel necessary, Head Judges may request counsel and make decisions as a congress with other experienced judges. If there is only one judge at an event, they are the acting Head Judge for that event.
Tournament attendees are recommended and encouraged to be familiar with regulation and policy documents as well as any relevant FAQs regarding a tournament setting or general tournament protocol.
Warnings are the least severe penalty a judge can apply to a player. These penalties are typically used for small infractions or for when the correction for an infraction does not take significant time to correct. Warnings primarily exist as a point of identifying that a (usually) minor infraction took place and to bring attention to the players to avoid performing the same or similar violations. Warnings typically do not take more than a minute to resolve and should not require judges to add time to the round.
A Game Loss issued to a player immediately causes that player to lose the current game or a game that is yet to be played. An issued Game Loss penalty will be reported as a loss during round reporting and determining a match winner. Players losing a game via this penalty do get to choose whether they go first or second in the next game of the current match. Neither player may sideboard if this penalty is issued before the first match game.
Multiple simultaneous Game Loss penalties result in a single issued Game Loss. If each player were to receive a Game Loss penalty, the match score will not be affected but the losses are still recorded.
Match Loss penalties are severe and should be reserved only for when the integrity of the match has been compromised. Match losses can be applied both to a current match or a match that is yet to be played. A match loss issued during a match applies to the ongoing match, otherwise, if no match is currently being played, the match loss is applied to that player’s next match.
Disqualifications (or DQs) are the most severe penalties judges can issue to a player for a tournament. These penalties should be reserved for any actions a player takes that constitute severe unsporting conduct and/or conduct compromises the integrity of a tournament. It is recommended that the Head Judge be notified by an attending judge if there are grounds for disqualification. Attending judges should not issue Disqualification penalties; this should be reserved for the Head Judge and/or Tournament Organizer (TO)
At the time this penalty is applied, the player receiving the penalty loses their current match and is dropped from the tournament. They may keep any prizes they may have been awarded but cannot be awarded any further prizing or awards, even those pending. During a tournament, a disqualified player is removed and does not take any standing in the tournament. All players below that player’s standing will move up one place in the standing and are entitled to any prizes from the new standing. While standings in the case of a top-cut will change if a disqualification is issued after a cut, the players playing a top-cut elimination portion of a tournament will not change, i.e., a former 9th place that moved into 8th place will remain 8th place in standing while not participating in the elimination portion of a tournament.
Head Judges are expected to record and report an account of events, evidence, or information that led to the issued disqualification. Judges may issue disqualifications without proof of action, but the report and account must reflect this.
After a Judge Call, the first judge to appear at the call is considered the attending judge. Players cannot ask for a different judge other than the attending judge. Players or any other tournament attendees that made the Judge Call should explain the situation and the reason for the Judge Call to the attending judge. All information should be presented truthfully; attendees may not lie to judges during Judge Calls or investigations. Then, the judge should determine whether an infraction occurred. If an infraction occurred, the judge should explain the infraction, the recommended corrective steps, and then perform those steps.
Some situations rely on private information that might harm match integrity if shared publicly. In these situations, judges should be discreet and investigate the matter with each player privately, if necessary. Players can always request to speak with a judge away from the table. The severity of the infraction can also be the cause of why a judge may speak to a player discretely or in private.
Investigations for Judge Calls may not be recorded by any of the tournament attendees.
After any penalty is issued, the attending judge should explain the infraction to the players in the match, the recommended procedure for resolving the infraction, and the penalty applied. During any deviations from recommended procedures, the Head Judge is expected to explain the typically recommended penalty and procedures, the intended course of action, and the reason for deviating from the presented guidelines.
If multiple infractions related to an error are made and multiple penalties might be applied, only the most severe penalty should be applied.
Penalties should only be applied to the root cause of an infraction. As an example, if an error based on private knowledge occurred or originated from a game rule violation based on public information, the error would not be a Private Card Error but would instead be treated as a Game Rule Violation and penalized accordingly.
Judges may investigate whether players have received penalties for the same infraction over the course of the tournament and upgrade the penalty if deemed to be a fair punishment. Players may not lie to judges about previously received penalties during that tournament.
These procedures and recommended guidelines for managing infractions will offer corrective steps for the initial violation. It is recommended that judges do not deviate from these procedures and that Head Judges only deviate if absolutely necessary and in exceptional circumstances. This is to ensure that any corrective actions taken are standardized and fair for all players regardless of game state or other extenuating factors.
Some corrective steps will ask that the random section of a deck (which excludes any known cards or card orders on the top, bottom, or any other non-random sections of the deck) be shuffled. In this case, judges are tasked with finding out which parts of the deck that must be manipulated remain random, setting those cards apart from the non-random subsets of cards, shuffling the random portion, and then recombining the non-random portions with the random portion of the deck. Judges should consider any deck manipulation cards or cards with the glimpse mechanic that might have been played before manipulating a deck. As noted in our other rules and regulations documents, a 60-card deck is considered sufficiently randomly shuffled after 7 shuffles.
“Game State” is a term that refers to the current state of a game, including all cards and their locations and properties, tokens, dice, concurrent ongoing effects, turns, and any other trackable or knowable characteristics in a game.
Maintenance of the Game State is a shared responsibility among players in a game to ensure accurate representation of all actions taken and the possible decisions players may make in the future. Failing to maintain the Game State can compromise a game to the point where information that shouldn't have been known is revealed or mistakes resulting from a misrepresented Game State can cascade, making it irreparable. For the sake of tournament integrity, the Game State should be tracked as accurately and consistently as possible.
Communication between players is key to maintaining the Game State end and clear communication about actions and intentions between players is paramount.
Players can’t misrepresent or be untruthful about the Game State to other players or judges. Players must always answer questions about public information of the Game State truthfully. Players can’t lie about the Game State or any rules in the game. Any lies or deceit fabricated in this aspect is considered Unsporting Conduct. Players cannot place any objects or game elements in a way to intentionally mislead an opponent as to the Game State. Players may not obscure or conceal any aspects of the Game State from judges or other tournament officials.
The Game State can be affected by illegal actions, missed triggers, or other infractions that might occur in a game. The Game State is often reversible in the sense that if an illegal play or action took place to create an errored Game State, actions can be retraced with any applied effects reverted to go back in the game to a point where the Game State was correct. If the errored Game State cannot be easily reverted or if the new Game State resulted in a significant change in the information available to either player, corrective procedures should be applied.
Reverting game states should only be used when the errored Game State did not result in a significant change of information available to either player and is optimal when there is no change in any such information. Often this is when there were few resolved effects or player actions taken. Simple reversals will just require the last action taken or the current action to be reversed to the point before that action was taken. Game State errors involving random or unknown elements are not considered simple and should rarely be opted for. Game States should be reverted (if possible) if the present Game State was caused by illegal action, even if an opponent gains knowledge of previously private or private information.
Head Judges or any judges authorized by a Head Judge may allow reverting game states. When a game state is reverted, every action taken and resolved effect is reversed in time order from most recent to the oldest. Everything that is reversed is to be reversed as it had originally resolved or was performed without any derivation or deviation. If a reversal involved a card unknown to a player but not the other (such as a card drawn), a random card out of possible cards is chosen for that step.
E.g. Reversing a single card drawn would require the owner of those cards to randomly select a card from whichever zone that card was drawn into and place it back to where it was drawn from. If knowledge is gained as to the order of cards in a section of the Main Deck, that section is shuffled into the randomized part of the deck if those cards were not drawn. If known-ordered cards were drawn, they would be returned to the Main Deck in the order they originally were.
If an errored Game State can be reverted to repair the integrity of the game, a warning for Failure to Maintain Game State suffices. The infraction penalty should only be a Game Loss if being upgraded from prior Failure to Maintain Game State infractions.
When too many actions, effects, or turns have passed from when the Game State originally became errored, a judge may determine that it is too late to revert all actions and events that have led up to the present game state. If the integrity of a game or match has been affected to grant the player most at fault a significant advantage over their opponent, an infraction that led to an irreversible errored Game State may be penalized with a game loss.
In times where it is determined to be too late to reverse an errored Game State, but the error and present Game State have not generated a significant advantage for the player most at fault for the error or infraction, a judge may rule that the Game State is acceptable and the game can continue without reversal or significant corrective procedure.
Irreversible errored Game States happen if not every action and effect can be reverted to repair the Game State to its previously maintained state or if far too many actions dependent upon prior information have been taken. Irreversible errored Game States should never lead to restarting a match or game.
Players of Grand Archive do not have the same goals in terms of engaging with the game in tournament settings. Some seek to compete at the highest level while some wish to enjoy the game in a more casual setting. For this reason, tournaments in Grand Archive can be hosted at multiple competitive levels.
This document informs decisions for rules enforcement in the strictest sense to ensure that tournament integrity is preserved over all else. However, we recognize that players that may seek to engage with the game more casually prioritize a good experience and fun. Many violations and mistakes that are "easy" to make and avoid might appear more frequently at lower tiered events, but over-enforcement and policing of these mistakes may detract from the experience.
For these settings (namely, events below the Store Championship and Regional tiers), we have added "Variable Enforcement" suggestions for certain infractions that inform judges and tournament staff in how to more leniently apply infractions and penalties apart from the typical penalties and corrective procedures. This section will be found at the bottom of each infraction type offer an alternative penalty or serve to put a limit on the severity of penalty applied.
For those that familiarize themselves with this document, please keep in mind that this serves as a guide rather a strict end-all-be-all for violation cases and corrective procedures. Tournament staff and judges are expected to use their best judgement in cases where this document is insufficient to maintain tournament integrity. This may result in corrective procedures and escalation or deescalation of penalties that are not described within this document. If such deviations exist, players deserve proper explanations as to the transpired events and what led to deviations and documentation for posterity may help set precedent and inform both future event staff, judges, and future versions of this document.
As with the other documents, we reserve the right to modify this document as needed and without notice. The most current version of the document will always have the most updated changelog to inform what content has been significantly changed, if any.