DQ Investigation

0minsHJ has decided to DQ a player

5mins- HJ gives his final ruling to both players (be sure to explain to the opponent what is happening!)- IMPORTANT: Get the sanctioning number of the tournament from the TO or scorekeeper,

especially if you are not entering your report in the judge center on the spot.- Take statement from DQed player with player's name, DCI number, and email address (or get

the first 2 from the SK)o Statement is only tool for DQed player He should be asked to write what HE believes

happened. This statement should be all his and you will write it in the DQ report word for word.

- As the head-judge of the tournament, you are the voice of your judgeso you don't need to ask each of them for a separate statemento Include the names of these people in your own statement (we can contact them if

needed)o Your own statement is supposed to include all facts that lead to the DQ. A statement

from the opponent is generally quite redundant and not very useful for us.o If witnesses / other judges / Opponent Important we get contact data for these

people, too, names and email addresses especially.

Don't forget that most players will be upset and frustrated when they are supposed to write the statement. If they do not trust you enough with their statement, give them the address of customer support (wizards.custhelp.com) and the sanctioning number of the event. Alternative: Eric Shukan, Lead of the Investigation Team: eshukan@gmail.com

1-2 DaysWrite the DQ Report in the Judge Center

- Go to the "Investigations" section, and then to the "Create" tab. o "Tournament Role" refers to your role, not the disqualified player's role. o "Subject of Investigation" field has an auto-complete feature, or type the DCI number of

the DQed player and then click the "Search" button. o The "City" and "Country" fields refer to the tournament from which the subject was

disqualified, not his or your hometown. o Some of those fields can't be changed once you've clicked on the "Next" button.

- Specify one or more infractions that lead to the DQ

o You don't have to add "Lying" when the only lie the subject made was to deny having done the infraction you've DQed him for.

o Some infractions listed don't match the IPG categories use the Judge Center's most appropriate infraction.

- Write your statemento This may or may not be obvious but: your statement has to be in English. If you don’t

know enough English, do it in German but we’d prefer it in English o Start with some when the incident happened (which round, Time in the round, etc)o Use punctuation, spaces, and skip lines. If your statement is a huge block of text, it's

very hard for us to read it. DON’T USE ALL CAPSo Go straight to the point. We don't really need to know all the details about the hours

before the incident, all the cards in play, how many cards they had in hands, etc. Just mention the details that are relevant to your decision to disqualify the player.

o Don't get lost in details. It is sufficient to state that "his deck was almost perfectly sorted as 1 land/2 spells" rather than stating "his deck was: LSSLSSLSLSLSSLSSLLSLSSLSSLSSL"

o Include names of staff members who were a party to your investigation instead of writing separate statements. It's much better to state "judge X heard him offer a bribe" rather than having judge X make his own statement which is going to be redundant with some parts of yours.

o If you are willing to provide some extra data (pictures for instance), store it somewhere online and provide a link.

o It is fine to include any piece of background about the player's experience, behavior, previous DQs, reputation, etc. Also, if you believe that the player's statement includes some gross alteration of the facts, feel free to mention it (although we somehow tend to give more credit to the judge's statement when stories are conflicting anyway...).

o Tell us if you are sure! There is no fault in DQing someone you think might have cheated but his story was believable and you might be mistaken.

o It is okay to provide a recommendation for a suspension length, but, do not tell the player about what you are suggesting, and be aware that generally for consistency purposes we can't follow recommendations made by the judge who made the disqualification, so don't take anything personally.

- Write the statement of the player (if given)o Whatever the player has written, regardless of how spiteful, angry, or insulting the

player was when he wrote it, you must keep the higher standard of integrity at this point and accurately enter that statement in the Judge Center. Again, this has to be entered in English, so if you have to translate it from another language, please do your best.

o Once you have entered a paper statement from a player, please keep it until the investigation is closed. If the player gets suspended as a result of the investigation, please keep the statement for an extra month after the suspension is announced.

- Once you have entered all statements, don't forget to submit the investigation by clicking the "Submit" button at the bottom of the page.

End of the MonthThe investigation Committee reviews all the cases from the past month. Following a set of rules, they decide what case warrants a suspension. The verdict can range from NA for a DQ that shouldn’t have been one to 24 month or higher. They have 3 weeks for all the cases. Sometimes, more information is needed and the player/judge/spectators will be contacted via email to answer questions.

The investigation Committee goes over the cases that haven’t received a consensus in the last week of the month.

First week of the next Month- The investigation results are handed to Wizards of the Coast- The results are published on the web page- The player database is updated- Judge center investigations are updated (status resolved)