Passive cheating with Brian Kibler

If you haven't watched the Pro Tour coverage, Brian Kibler won Game 5 of his Quarterfinals thanks to his opponent forgetting to destroy a permanent with his Angel of Despair after Hypergenesis. (You can watch Kibler's Game 5 on YouTube, starting at 3:50.)

The issue is that Angel of Despairs comes-into-play ability is not a may, so under the Tournament Rules, Brian is obligated to make sure the trigger is played. A local ringer who played in Austin had a similar situation happen to him when his opponent forgot to draw a card after an Ancestral Vision. In his tournament report, he mentions that he knows it's cheating, but then questions what you would do in his situation. As an extension, what would you do if thousands of dollars were riding on the match?

To be fair, it is entirely possible that Brian forgot just as his opponent forgot. Since it's a trigger, you don't name targets until someone has priority, not in the middle of resolving Hypergenesis. Or he could have known, and under the rules, if that was the case then he cheated for intentionally failing to maintain the game state.

I respect the game like you'd respect the game of golf: if you mess up, you own up to it and the penalty. It's the only way I can justify holding my opponent's to the same standard when they mess up and expect them to play the game honestly the way it is designed to be played. However, if my opponent messes up or is sloppy , the only punishment he can get, as an honest tournament player (and if he hasn't accumulated warnings), is usually a warning. I don't know anything about Kibler's opponent, but I'd trade a warning for a few thousand dollars.

If my opponent forgets to draw a card, he'll get a warning if I decide to call my opponent on it. He's either being careless or was going to try the how-can-you-have-that-many-cards-if-I-have-this-many cheat. And he'd get a warning if you have the heart to call a judge for forgetting to draw a card. Calling a judge for such sloppy play is so tedious and has little reward for you: what are the chances you accumulate three warnings in a match?

Could you modify the tournament rules for Magic to give opponent some incentive for your opponent's failing to maintain the game state? If you forget to draw a card, what if your opponent can call you on it and decide whether you get that card or not? If you forget a trigger, what if your opponent gets to play the trigger for you and Mindslaver-Time Stop you for the rest of the turn? It may require a lot more thought and language to create these kind of rules in the general case, but I don't entirely like to think of what Brian Kibler did in the top 8 (if he was aware of the trigger) as cheating.

P.S. Brian Kibler has ridden the Batmobile before.