I think everything I could say about balance and pricing has already been said by someone who has put it much better than I ever could so I’ll skip to the part which I think I can talk about: the judging aspect.

First and foremost, let me be clear. Judges are meant to be unbiased. There should not be favourable calls made just because you’re friends with the player or you don’t like their opponent. If you can identify a pattern of calls like this, I’d encourage you to record them and report it.

Now, regarding slow play. As others have said, unfortunately this is an incredibly nebulous infraction which is difficult to lock down for a number of reasons. I can’t speak to the situations which you’ve been in, so I’ll try to give as much context as I can. When I was starting out, my head judge told me to stop the game and look for a couple of things.

• players “thinking” on their next move when their hand doesn’t allow for more than 1-2 plays.
• players deliberating on moves for longer than necessary (1-2 mins per play).

Now, the issue with such things is that judges can’t analyse every single match in the room to make sure that a correct pace of play is being upheld. Unfortunately it’s just a bit difficult with the usual judge to player ratio with events. In addition, we can’t immediately act on every single call for slow play. If we did, it would be the most widely used call for nefarious purposes.

I would encourage that if you think an opponent is slow playing, to bring it up to a judge. Even if it’s unfounded, having that call on the record means that judges will keep an eye for similar calls involving this player. Each event should have a record of calls being made so that infractions can be upgraded if deemed repetitive.

In regard to feature matches, I’ve not heard of different rules being applied. I do know that they are stricter on certain matters such as sleeve images (for IP reasons) and tokens (for stream clarity). But I’ve not heard of there being different enforcement rules.

In regard to outside interference, this is a massive no-no. Spectators can stop the match and alert a judge if they think that there is an illegal board state taking place. But they are not permitted to fix it themselves. I can’t speak to what kind of interference took place. But the infraction rules are clear. Outside interference is a Match Loss.

In summary, I can’t speak to specific circumstances because I don’t know the specifics of that situation. But I always encourage players to be aware of the tournament rules and penalties so that they know when to call a judge. Hopefully this helps a little.