Paying costs & Play to win rule and Punishment - LSJ

First one is easy.

If I play Power of All, or any card that has a "Tap to...generate effect X" and that card is canceled by any means (direct intervention or others), do I still Tap my minion?




Second one is not so.

I was on the final round of a tourneament yesterday. Game seating was just this:
Tzimisce bleeds
Lasombra that bleeds
Setites that bleeds
Me(harbingers) that bleeds
Malkavian Antitribu.

All players knew Lasombra's deck, it was a bleed with stealth with some nasty pentex subversions. But we have a problem. Setite player was lasombra brother. At game start, lasombra don't give any bleed on Setite, just bloating with governs the unaligned and holding the bleeds from his predator.

Then, when setite had about 16 pool and 3 mid-cap vampires in game, lasombra player started deflectioning bleeds from Tzimisce player to me (harbingers). At first, I was surprised, and don't know how to react. I threatened him, but without sucess. He deflected to me twice, and I was just blocking and taking bleeds from setite. Then, he (lasombra) threw a pentex subversion on my minion with +1 intercept inerent, to benefit his prey. I warned him, i would call a judge, and he said there was nothing in the rules that would prevent him playing like this, and he told me he was playing to oust me.

All right, i think, i would try to hold a bit more, i didn't want fighting. Then, he talked with his brother, threw a obtenebration master on his prey minion, who becomes 9-capacity, then bleed with gratiano with govern. Setite, with his new 9-cap minion, used lost in traslation and redirectioned to me. I told him i would block and strike for combat ends, but he give stealths and then conditioning. I told him I would no more tolerate his reckless playing, and I called the judge.

Judge asked him how he could win the game by playing like this. He told judge he could play wherever he liked, and told us he was playing so his brother could win the prize.

The Judge gave him a disqualifier without prize penalty, a warning, and ejected him from the game.

Is by the rules this correct? I think so. Plus, I want to know what you guys think about this. I didn't like that game, it ruined all tourneament, and I gone home sad. I hate fighting.

Charles_Bronson:

If I play Power of All, or any card that has a "Tap to...generate effect X" and that card is canceled by any means (direct intervention or others), do I still Tap my minion?

None of the effects of the card take place, so you do not tap the minion.

Charles_Bronson:

The Judge gave him a disqualifier without prize penalty, a warning, and ejected him from the game.
Is by the rules this correct?

I don't see any point in the warning, the simple ejection is the prize removal is sufficient.

If sufficient time remained at the event location, I would want to restart the finals with the 6th place player in place of the ejected player.  If insufficient time remained to restart, the game would simply have to continue from its existing point, but the last action's effects could be rewound.

Players are required to play to win, and if he had simply said that he couldn't oust you if you were his prey, and that he intended to oust his prey after you died, he could have played the game exactly as you said he did.

Sportsmanship has value, clearly that player didn't exhibit that day.

Where was this tournament? Who are the offending players? I'll know to avoid them if it comes up....

So, if any player plays reckless and give any reason, even if that reason is absurde, improbable and stupid, he can play whatever he likes?

Perhaps you missed what Adonai said:

Adonai:

Players are required to play to win, and if he had simply said that he couldn't oust you if you were his prey, and that he intended to oust his prey after you died, he could have played the game exactly as you said he did.

The reason for the "reckless" play can't be "absurde, improbable and stupid".  The reason must be that it furthers his/her chances at winning.

But in the tourneament I played, the player made a choice of not bleeding his prey, of bouncing the bleeds to me (his prey's prey) and throwing costly cards on me, like the pentex subversion.

That choice remained even when his prey had 18 pool and 3 vampires full, he had about 6 pool, lots of bleeds and stealth on hand and yet he was trying to kill me first? Vesseling my blood doll? Pentexing me? With his blood costly obtenebration bleed deck, how could he expect to kill his prey when it ousted me, with 24 pool?

That was a imbecile, and a obviously deliberately suicide course of action.

And I was no different methuselah by the others players. He even ousted me in another table, early at the same tourneament, punching bleeding through everyone until he god 5vp and 1 game win.

Yet, adonai wrote "and if he had simply said that he couldn't oust you if you were his prey, and that he intended to oust his prey after you died, he could have played the game exactly as you said he did.".

Of course, if his game is ruined, he can play whatever he likes. just right when I called the judge, he was in no more condition of winning. But he made his choice just before the game started.

Your opponent was cheating by trying to help his friend win the tournament, but was too stupid to have a good excuse when the judge was called over.

Charles_Bronson:

Yet, adonai wrote "and if he had simply said that he couldn't oust you if you were his prey, and that he intended to oust his prey after you died, he could have played the game exactly as you said he did.".

Adonai is slightly over-stating this. 

It is certainly true that some decks will decide to oust cross-table because it's in their interests.  For example, a politics deck with limited stealth (e.g. Ventrue Law Firm) may not want to sit next to the Auspex wall (which is currently the politics deck's grand-prey).  So it uses its not-dead-yet prey as a buffer and kills the wall deck with cross-table Kine Resources Contested and Parity Shift, or something similar.  There can be lots of similar reasons for wanting a deck off the table, even though it isn't your prey - it's contesting a vampire with you, it's a Turbo deck that's about to roll the table, it has votes and you want vote lock, it has many allies and you're using a lot of Daring the Dawn as "stealth", and so on. 

These are all perfectly ordinary plays, and a player is allowed to make them. 

In the situation you posit - a player playing to lose so that another player can win, and violating the play-to-win rule - the judge is empowered to make a judgment call, as they are with all other situations in the game. The judge may well ask the player to explain what they're doing. 

• If the judge believes that the player is playing to win, the judge shouldn't intervene and should let the player continue.
• This includes the possibility that the player is playing badly - making many strategic mistakes, for example - but is still honestly trying to win. The judge's role isn't to correct bad play, it's to correct illegal play.
• The judge can certainly bear the player's explanation in mind, but they don't have to believe it just because the player says it. Similarly, a player may not be able to explain their motivation well, but that shouldn't immediately invalidate their actions. (e.g. the player isn't fluent in the language, the player is just bad at explaining things)
• Other things that the judge may well want to take into account include: earlier similar plays by the same player, the game state, the contents of that player's hand, the contents of that player's deck, any deals that have been struck on the table (making this player's life harder or easier), and so on.

After all that, it's just a judgment call. The judge should be trying to be fair and accurate, but might get it wrong. If they reasonably think a player is lying and is playing to lose, they can penalize them appropriately / correct game state appropriately (probably both).

Charles_Bronson:

So, if any player plays reckless and give any reason, even if that reason is absurde, improbable and stupid, he can play whatever he likes?

Remember that if he had used the excuse Adonai gave as an example, if he had then not started trying hard to oust his prey after you were ousted, then his excuse would obviously be a lie and it would become clear that he did not play to win. Perhaps that was why he said like he did, because he knew it would become obvious later on that he wanted his prey to win and didn't want to be caught lying. Of course, if he had used that excuse you would be ousted at the time he got thrown out, but there's not much to do about that I'm afraid.

It's a huge grey zone when it comes to working against another player than your prey. I've had my cross-table "buddy", my grandpredator, oust me when I had an Alastored Alexandra with an Assault Rifle and had proven able to defeat any anti-combat strategy on the table. His decision turned out to be the right one and he won eventually as he could handle the other decks much easier.

Thank you all for your answers.