What I am thinking about WotC's statement regarding Yuuya Watanabe.

Preface

First, I am quite new to MtG, started playing the game with MtG Arena. My understanding in rules and penalty provisions of MtG is based on what I could research on the web, and I only know Yuuya Watanabe (Watanabe) as no more than "really famous, master player"--I do not know much about his past records and his personality so I would not defend him based on those.

I clearly state here that this article is not intended to cause any damages and/or benefit to any individual and/or groups. I'd like to express and share my question and opinion about validity of punishment and reactions of some MtG judges regarding Watanabe's DQ in MC London. Please see references at the end of article for publications I referred to.

Translator's note
The author's references to the "judges" in this articles are mostly individual Japanese judges, but not limited to Japanese. Players referred are both Japanese and non-Japanese, and WotC is the US corporation Wizards of the Coast, not Japanese division of Wizards of the Coast or any of its local divisions.

Questions regarding validity of the penalty

1. General philosophy of the penalties

Yesterday (5/10), we received an official statement regarding Yuuya Watanabe's DQ on MC London. (https://www.mtgesports.com/news/statement-regarding-yuuya-watanabe) Please read original text by yourself. I would not summarize it because it can be biased by my viewpoint.

Let's make it clear that which rulings dictate this punishment, and think about validity of it.

General philosophy section in MAGIC INFRACTION PROCEDURE GUIDE, (the guidelines) the main purpose of the penalty is "to educate the player not to make similar mistakes in the future". The same section clearly states that this would be done through both an explanation of rules and policies where they violated. Head judges of the event have authority to make decision that deviate from the guidelines but it is limited to quite exceptional occasions such as table collapses or booster packs contain cards from other sets, etc, or the case where applicable philosophies and guidelines are nonexistent. The guidelines also states that such special decisions must not be made based on number of rounds in the event or age and experience-level of the player. Because of the above, I believe the case regarding Watanabe must follow the general guidelines and its philosophy and any decisions deviate from them should not be allowed.

2. Penalty for marked cards

Section 3.8, Tournament Error — Marked Cards explains guides regarding the marked cards. The penalty for the player who own a deck with marked cards is "Warning", and if the player noticing the pattern of markings would be able to gain substantial advantage from this knowledge head judge can upgrade the penalty to "Game Loss". In Watanabe's case, sleeves of the specific sets of land cards have unique scratches/marks. If he has recognized it he, would be able to gain substantial benefit from it (I see some counterarguments about the "benefit", but it may benefit him in the game in my opinion). So, I believe "Game Loss" is a quite valid penalty here, if it is only about marked cards.

3. Penalty for Cheating

Section 4.8, Unsporting Conduct — Cheating explains how judges deal with intentional cheating. Watanabe received DQ in MC London, which is obviously a severer penalty than what Sec. 3.8 indicates, so I believe this section is applied. To differentiate cheating from mistakes in a game and/or an event, it "must be investigated by the judge to make a determination of intent and awareness". To apply this guidelines, two conditions must be met.

1. The player must be attempting to gain advantage from their action
2. The player must be aware that they are doing something illegal.

However, section 1.1, Definition of Penalties, a head judge is able to give DQ without such determination if he/she believes the tournament's integrity may have been compromised. I'm not sure which guidelines have priority over another, but in either case, it seems like the player must be investigated thoroughly and evidences and testimony must be collected.

From the above, I believe that Watanabe's DQ on the MC London is dictated by the section 4.8 and the head judge made a decision to do so based on information, he had on the day.

4. Intentional or not intentional

I would not discuss much about Watanabe's intention here because I don't know what the head judge knew about the case except condition of the sleeve markings revealed to the public by Cygames, the sponsor company of Watanabe.

However, I would like to state that if the guidelines and penalties assume that the suspect is intentional about his mistakes, the suspect is not obligated to prove but people who believe the suspect is guilty are obligated to prove the suspect's intention. This is not just my opinion--it is a common socially-accepted idea widely followed in modern laws. Of course, in a general civil court case a defendant is required to provide counterevidence against claim made by a plaintiff in the most of the time, and it may be true if any cases regarding prosecutions for cheating and its penalties to a cheater goes to a real court. However, as long as it is within the scope of MtG and its community, I strongly believe any cases that goes beyond the event site must refer to the criminal procedure to secure the fairness of the judgment and to protect the rights of the suspect. It is because the difference in the authority and power between WotC and judges, especially the high ranked judges like rules committee and players. It has similarity in the power difference between the governmental authority (prosecutors) and its general citizens, or even worse, as WotC and the judges may take similar role as all of prosecutors, judges, as well as juries at once in such situation. It is worth considering that the investigation and the judgment are made in the closed room without a supervision of a third party with no conflict in interest, even if one of the judges could be involved in the case.

Some people argue that the markings were not intentional because;
a. multiple deck checks before the DQ and all of them but last one assured there were no problem
b. there was almost no reason to cheat because his chance to be in Top 8 was quite high
c. the deck check once before the last one assured no problem, and he did not played any games before the last deck check.

Sadly, none of them are decisive enough to prove that the markings were not intentional.

Some other people argue that the statement from Team Cygames and Watanabe is not enough to prove that Watanabe was not intentional. I will discuss this later, but I would say this argument is clearly against social justice in a modern society.

5. Validity of additional penalty

Sadly, guidelines for additional penalties such as suspension are not open to public, or I could not find it. So, I assume it follows same philosophy stated on MAGIC INFRACTION PROCEDURE GUIDE. Please let me know if it doesn't follow the philosophy. If it doesn't, I believe it is another big problem because it indicates there is inconsistency in general philosophy between the base guideline and the guidelines that supposed to be derived from it, and the fact should be addressed and disclosed.

Additional penalties imposed on Watanabe is 30 months of suspension and removal from MPL as well as Hall of Fame. I could not gather enough past cases regarding marked cards, so I would use the cases of David Williams, who was penalized for marked cards and cheating as well, and other Japanese recently penalized players.

David Williams; after investigation, it was confirmed that the marked cards placed on top on his deck the most of the time he shuffled his deck. 12 months of suspension.
Tomoharu Saito: DQ for delaying of game, and it is the second DQ. 18 months of suspension and revocation of induction to Hall of Fame.
Ren Ishikawa: lied to tournament chairperson and repeated cheating. 24 months of suspension.

Obviously, penalty imposed on Watanabe is quite severe compared to above three cases. I saw even some judges mention it is too much on SNS. People make assumptions that the severe penalty was imposed because;
A. it is clearly confirmed that Watanabe has been conducted cheating so many times in MC London and previous tournaments
B. he is one of the Hall of Fame players, and WotC takes possible aftermath on other players really seriously, or
C. Watanabe and Team Cygames's statement gave WotC a really bad impression.

However, no official, clear explanation has been given as of 5/11/2019 and all of above are no more than simple guesses. The harsh penalty likely suggests and easily misguides the readers the assumption A is the case, but the statement almost explains nothing and it is quite unusual even compared to the past case like Jared Boettcher's (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/2013-2014-rookie-year-title-revoked-2014-10-30). As far as I could observe, many MtG community members are not happy about the statement regarding Watanabe which lacks explanations and is quite ambiguous.

To consider the assumption B, we need to discuss about the following statement on the general philosophy; "knowledge of a player’s history or skill does not alter an infraction, but it may be taken into account during an investigation". The phrase "but it may be taken into account during an investigation" holds some ambiguity and therefore following two interpretations can be lead;

1. an option to impose exceptional penalties is available for the case if the player has records and histories that may affect other players vastly, and/or
2. the player's records and behavior may have positive or negative effect when determining the amount of additional penalties.

I'm not sure how MtG judges regularly interpret this part in their operations, but the above two interpretations are clearly not appropriate in this case. It is because the philosophy of the guidelines states that "The purpose of a penalty is to educate the player not to make similar mistakes in the future" and experience-level of the player cannot be an exceptional circumstance. Such exceptional circumstance is required to issue decision which is deviated from the philosophy, assuming the philosophy is still true when determining the additional penalties. Therefore, it is quite difficult to conclude that Watanabe's status as MPL member and Hall-of-Fame player is the reason for the severe penalties.

If the harsh penalty is imposed because of the Team Cygames's statement, as the assumption C suggests, I believe it is clearly against the general philosophy of the penalties. The general philosophy explains the purpose of the penalty is to "educate the player not to make similar mistakes in the future", and requires "a penalty to reinforce the education" so it can also take a role "for the deterrence and education of every other player in the event and are also used to track player behavior over time". Please someone logically explain me how to interpret this concept to make penalties severer for the fact that Team Cygames and Watanabe giving public statement about the case? You would say "publishing a statement saying Watanabe is innocent strongly indicates Watanabe does not regret his cheating. Therefore, severer punishment is required to educate him lying is a bad thing, and hopefully other cheating players would not express their 'innocence' in public in future" Well, the same general philosophy mentions "Judges are human and make mistakes". If ones cannot safely protest and claim their innocence in the public, how communities would be able to know, think, and discuss about mistakes of the judges?

6. In my honest opinion

All of above my ideas are based on my assumption that the judges and investigators involved in this case thoroughly followed the guidelines and made no mistakes. If I think in favor of the judges, I would assume the DQ for Watanabe was valid because his cheating was clearly intentional and it was actively proven by evidences the head judge had or the head judge had enough information to at least passively support his decision. However, the WotC has only published that his card sleeves are marked and is the only evidence for this DQ and the penalties. No explanation is given about his previous multiple deck checks which assured no problems. No explanation is given for the extraordinary severe penalties. No clear justification is given.

...DO WE REALLY NEED TO GET CONVINCED BY "THIS" ?

From WotC's statement about Watanabe's DQ, I really cannot see that they followed their own disclosed guidelines about penalties thoroughly and honestly. We just saw a player who got penalized so harshly without decisive proof (not a proof for the sleeve marks, but proof for the markings are done by him intentionally to gain advantage), without clear explanation to public, and possibly extraordinarily penalized for just publicly pleaded his innocence. I wouldn't be surprised if players got frightened by the fact that they can be subjected to such nonsense in their next tournament.

I'm not saying the judges framed him. I believe it is rather stupid to follow such idea without valid evidences. However, I really cannot consider that WotC and judges followed their own guidelines thoroughly and honestly based on what they have published about this case. If you believe the judges and WotC are doing perfectly fine in this case, I would call it brain-dead blind faith rather than confidence in them.

7. Judges

I have played other TCGs. Based on the experience, I just consider judges as regular people--I follow their rulings as a player, but I would not trust them until they prove their trustworthiness by their behavior. However, MtG was the only exception here. Because of the history of the game and rules polished by experience and time, I somehow believed the MtG community would have more goodhearted, mature judges and players compared to other TCGs. It was truth in me until the day I have started seeing what other judges think about this case. I am completely disappointed by many of them, and as far as I know I am not the only person who got disappointed.

In this kind of situation, I believe people who are licensed as a judge, who supposed to have more understanding with rules and guidelines than ordinary players, has obligation to keep community's confidence in the judges and WotC. To do so, I believe they have only two options;

1. give detailed explanation about the statement, based on the guidelines, rulings, and past cases, or
2. stay silent to not give unconfirmed information, to avoid possible distortion.

I encountered not a few judges comments about the case based on quite strange concepts. I would not discuss who said what to protect them, but I would like to discuss about some arguments such judges made, which got (quite surprisingly) some good amount of support but contradicts with disclosed philosophies, guidelines, and player's understandings.

"It is not possible to run any games and events if you do not trust rules and judges"
The general philosophy clearly mentions that judges are human and make mistakes. All of MtG's guidelines I could find suggest all players and judges must try to be as just and fair as possible. The guidelines and publications never secure judges' credibility, at all.
It is worth noting that misjudges and dishonest behavior done by judges and organizers have been a huge problem throughout the history, not only in TCG but also in any kind of competitive games and sports. All of players, organizers, and judges in those industry have been trying hard to eliminate such injustice and mistakes, and they keep trying hard to be trustworthy. How can the judge believe his credibility is so nicely secured? Does he believe the game he judges is so different from other competitive games and sports? I really cannot understand their ignorance. Players trust their judges for the most of the time, but that does not mean the players cannot be skeptical to the judges' behavior and decisions. Trust cannot be earned, it can only be given, and people can stop giving it to you so easily.

"Team Cygames and Watanabe's statement is too weak to prove their innocence"
The guidelines clearly suggests the judges have obligation to explain and prove the player's intention of cheat. As far as I could find, the guidelines never states that suspect have obligation to prove their innocence. I believe in the concept that as long as it is within the scope of MtG and its community, this kind of case must refer to the criminal procedure in terms of proving intent of cheating. If he ask suspect to prove their innocence, it means he is clearly disrespecting not only MtG's guidelines but also modern law and common sense in civilized society. I wouldn't stop him if he want to go back middle-age witch trial, but educated public would not agree with him.

"It is common to receive multiple deck checks. He just got DQ at the end"
Well, I do not see any problem with the practice of multiple deck check. However, Watanabe received DQ from the final deck check, which investigated a deck that passed previous deck check AND never used in a game. So I could imagine following scenarios.

A: judges noticed minor irregularity (marks) in previous rounds deck checks, and each checks noticed the markings become clearer and clearer on every deck checks and the final deck check finally got him.
B: judges who conducted previous (multiple) deck checks did not notice the markings because of their lack of experience or ability.
C: judges found suspicious markings in the previous deck checks and possible evidence of intention of cheat. However, to strengthen the evidence, let Watanabe keep playing..
D: Third person intervention
E: Watanabe marked his sleeves for just in case he could not ID in next round. However, he successfully ID and started chatting with his friends for 20 min, leaving his marked sleeves. He should have known another deck check was coming based on his experience as tournament player.
F: Watanabe cannot stop himself from marking his sleeves after ID for some crazy reason.

Well, I assume one of the A, B, or C is the most probable scenarios. In case of A, it suggests that the markings on the sleeves are more likely a result of shuffles and searches during the game than intentional one (the scenario says markings were so minor at the first notice), so his intention to mark the sleeves and use the information as an advantage would be mostly denied. In case of B, it means there were misjudges (possibly multiple times) and there should be some explanation and possible apologies for the misjudges, as stated in the guidelines. The case E may be possible assuming Watanabe is a cunning and clever guy, but it is quite unreasonable to assume such cunning and clever experienced cheater forgot he would have another deck check which he has seen so many times in the past. And for Case C...

"Judges sometimes do not catch possible cheaters when they find them. They let the cheater stay in the event and observe for a few more rounds to gather evidences"
Well, section 1.8, Floor Judges, of Magic: The Gathering Tournament Rules , mentions "Judges do not intervene in a game to prevent illegal actions but do intervene as soon as a rule has been broken or to prevent a situation from escalating." (We may need to discuss about definition of "illegal actions", but not for now) Judges must have acted as soon as they find a problem with Watanabe's sleeves before R15. The judges who conducted the deck check could penalize him by simply saying Watanabe's deck had clearly marked sleeves, gives him a warning to let him change the sleeves and/or give him a game loss.

If the judges knew Watanabe was playing with marked sleeves AND let him keep playing, that indicates they intentionally ignored their obligation of preventing "a situation from escalating", which may lead "the tournament’s integrity may have been compromised", to give Watanabe severer penalties.

Surprisingly, I saw this kind of arguments from more than one who had experience in MtG judge. So... I can safely assume that it is judges' common practice to endanger integrity of tournament to give (possible) cheaters severer penalties? I think that is an equally dire problem as cheaters--judges do not consider the fairness and integrity of the tournament as the first thing they care? Are they voluntarily ignore their own guidelines to hunt the possible cheaters, rather than protecting the other contestants' experience in the event?

"if you post objection and/or complains about judging in your blogs or SNS, it makes them feel bad and affect their final decisions about penalties. It is not disclosed, but hey, its a common sense"
Please teach me the validity of penalties assessed with undisclosed concepts, guidelines, and philosophies. Does he really believe it is fine to say "your penalty get worse now. I won't let you know why or how, and we will not disclose our concepts behind it, but its just worse. No questions allowed"? I don't think it is anywhere close to standard in modern competitive games and sports. Player Investigations (https://blogs.magicjudges.org/o/spheres/investigations-committee/) do not mention about such hidden concepts.
If he is seriously saying this in public as a judge, he is loudly advertising that the basement of his decision making is quite ambiguous and emotional to the public.

"The official statement regarding Yuuya Watanabe was clear and enough. If WotC explain in detail, especially how Watanabe cheated, people would know how they can cheat"
In comparison to other statements (such as Jared Boettcher's case), clearly it lacks explanations and justification. Also, the general philosophy and other publications express importance of explanation. Cygames and Watanabe demanded for full explanation for the case and they deserve it, as long as WotC and judges are willing to honor their own philosophies behind the guidelines..

7.1 So what I think about those judges

Overall, these judges' "Common sense" (at least the ideas not shared commonly with majority of playerbase) means completely nothing to us ordinary players. If such undisclosed practices become so common in many events, I would never be able to accept MtG as just and fair competitive game. These judges' arguments I presented above strongly indicates they are abusing their power. They believe their decisions can overwrite the facts, they can make rules outside of disclosed guidelines, and they are justified to deceive players if it is to give possible cheaters severer penalties.
What kind of benefit it brings to MtG? My limited imagination tells me it only satisfies their conceitedness as almighty judges and brings MtG community nothing good. I am quite surprised that there are so many judges do not understand that their roles exist for communities and smooth running of tournaments, not for themselves. I am quite disappointed that noble ethics and philosophies of judges that publications from WotC tell everyone are so severely compromised by many.
Still, I believe (I want to believe) those many other judges who kept their silence are just, humble, and have good common sense. Please take self-correction action for community of judges. Please do not let our confidence in MtG judges collapse further.

8. Conclusion

Based on the information provided to public by WotC, I do not think Watanabe intentionally conducted cheating in MC London, 2019. I do not think the judges framed him neither. However, because any reason to believe in innocence or guilt of either side have not been provided, I cannot believe in either side.
In such situation, I want to let everyone know that it is an extremely foolish thing to express their assumption like a known facts. It is especially unacceptable if the expressions are made by any participants who leads the communities and obligated to create fair competitive environment--pro players and judges.
This is just an opinion from newbie who researched rules and publications a bit. It may contain misunderstanding and may missed other important statements in the publications. However, please note that it is true that not only me but also many players questioned the statement regarding Yuuya Watanabe, as well as how MtG judges behave and rules. I just hope these kind of bad situations resolved as soon as possible, MtG lives long as a fun content, and the competitive tournament scenes keep trying hard to improve their just and fairness like any other competitions.

Reference:
Magic: the Gathering Tournament Rules
https://wpn.wizards.com/sites/wpn/files/attachements/mtg_mtr_3may19_en.pdf

MAGIC INFRACTION PROCEDURE GUIDE
https://wpn.wizards.com/sites/wpn/files/attachements/mtg_ipg_3may19_en.pdf

Official Resources: Disqualification process
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/o/disqualification-process/

Official Resources: Player investigations
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/o/spheres/investigations-committee/

2013-2014 ROOKIE OF THE YEAR TITLE REVOKED
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/2013-2014-rookie-year-title-revoked-2014-10-30

David Williams-wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Williams_(card_game_player)

MTG wiki (Japanese)
http://mtgwiki.com/wiki/

Statement regarding Yuuya Watanabe
https://www.mtgesports.com/news/statement-regarding-yuuya-watanabe

Round 16 Disqualification (about Yuuya Watanabe)
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/2019MC2/round-16-disqualification-2019-04-27

Translator's footnote;
This translation is made and may be revised appropriately in accordance with the original author's guidance and instruction. The translated article have a few differences in its structure and phrasing compared to the original. The author is fully aware of this, and agrees with the differences as they may be necessary to express his opinion and nuances in a foreign language of different culture.

Disclaimer:
This article is translated from original article written in Japanese, by non-licensed translator. The translator does not hold nor demand for any rights and obligations regarding the translated and the original article and anything directly related to, and all of such rights and obligations are solely reserved by the original author, いた (twitter: @svkumao)