#key post

Absolutely!

All Magic tournaments are governed by the Magic Tournament Rules (MTR). Section 1.10 of the MTR lays out the responsibility of players at tournaments. The first point in that list of responsibilities is this: “[Players are responsible for] behaving in a respectful manner toward tournament officials, other tournament participants, and spectators and refraining from unsporting conduct at all times.”

Regular REL events are further run under the Judging at Regular REL document (JAR). The most serious issues addressed in the JAR are called Serious Problems, which are described as follows: “Certain actions will not be tolerated under any circumstances. Every effort should be made to educate players before and during events; however, ignorance is not an acceptable defence of these actions. Any player engaging in the following must be removed from your event and, at the Organizer’s discretion, removed from the venue entirely.” The first item on the list of serious problems is this: “Aggressive, violent, harassing or abusive behavior (physical or verbal).”

Competitive and Professional REL events are run under the MTR and the Magic Infraction Procedure Guide (IPG). Section 4 of the IPG covers Unsporting Conduct, which it defines as “disruptive behavior that may affect the safety, competitiveness, enjoyment, or integrity of a tournament in a significantly negative fashion.” 

Here’s what the IPG has to say about what should happen when an Unsporting Conduct penalty is issued: “Judges should inform the player how his or her conduct is disruptive. The player is expected to correct the situation and behavior immediately. However, while making sure that the player understands the severity of his or her actions is important, judges should focus first on calming a situation, and deal with infractions and penalties afterwards.”

There are eight different Unsporting Conduct infractions, but five of them cover things like Cheating and other things that don’t enter into our current conversation. The three we care about right now are the Minor, Major, and Aggressive Behavior infractions.

Unsporting Conduct - Minor happens when “a player takes action that is disruptive to the tournament or its participants.” While this covers a lot of general bad behaviour, the example we most care about here is “a player uses excessively vulgar and profane language.” This is the infraction that covers cases where players are cursing or using slurs that aren’t directed at a particular person. The penalty for this infraction is only a warning, but a second UC - Minor infraction would have its penalty upgraded to a game loss.

Unsporting Conduct - Major happens when “a player takes action towards one or more individuals that could reasonably be expected to create a feeling of being harassed, threatened, bullied, or stalked. ” This infraction covers the bulk of direct harassment and threats, as well as “insults based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.” Importantly, the IPG clarifies that “it is possible for an offender to commit this infraction without intending malice or harm to the subject of the harassment.” 

The philosophy section of UC - Major says the following: “A safe environment is a basic expectation of any tournament attendee. Harassment undermines the safety and integrity of a tournament. Players who purposefully create harmful or unwelcoming situations in a tournament are expected to immediately correct the behavior and demonstrate remorse or be removed.” These sentences speak for themselves.

The penalty for UC - Major is a Match Loss, as the players involved in such a toxic situation need to be removed from it as soon as possible. A player that’s given a UC - Major penalty must immediately correct their offending behaviour. “If the offense was committed with malicious intent, the player displays no remorse, or the offense is repeated at a later time, the penalty is Disqualification and removal from the venue.” To be clear, this sort of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable and won’t be tolerated.

Unsporting Conduct - Aggressive Behavior happens when “a player acts in a threatening way towards others or their property.” This is very clear cut. Direct or implied threats of violence, actual violence, damage and threats to another player’s property all fall under this category. There is zero tolerance for this behaviour. An offending player is immediately disqualified from the event and should be removed from the venue. If that’s not possible because of a need to involve the police or the like, then the offender should absolutely be separated from the victim as much as possible.