Answered: DQ in Qualifying Match?

[vxrobomentor]

I’m an Event Partner, and I have a couple of upcoming events. I’m looking for some guidance to pass along to my field officials concerning Disqualifications. I’ve discussed this with a few knowledgeable people, and I still have some questions.

It is made clear many place in the game rules that a single team can be DQ’d in Qualifying Matches. This can happen for things that are not match affecting like repeated warnings for various rules violations–tearing up the field, damaging game elements, repeated independent pinning, continuing possession of 2 cones, etc. A NON Match affecting DQ is simple to handle; mark the offending team as DQ’ed in TM and go on. But just to clarify, the alliance partner of the DQ’ed team could still win the match if their alliance scored higher, correct? While scoring this scenario in TM, that’s how it worked, and it seems consistent with all the rules.

My bigger question involves a DQ for a match affecting rules violation, for instance of <SG5>:

<SG5> Robots may not intentionally or accidentally, indirectly or directly, remove Cones from an opponent’s Stack (i.e. Cones that are fully nested on an opponent’s upright Goal).
a. A Robot that accidentally knocks over an opponent’s Goal, causing Cones to be removed, would be in violation of this rule. Teams should exercise extreme caution when interacting with or around opponent Goals.
Minor violations of this rule that do not affect the match will result in a warning. Match Affecting offenses will result in a Disqualification. Teams that receive multiple warnings may also receive a Disqualification at the Head Referee’s discretion.

So what if (still in a Qualification Match) one team of Red Alliance knocks down enough of Blue’s cones to make it is match affecting, and draws a DQ. It’s clear what happens to the offending team: DQ means no WP, AP, or SP. But can Red Alliance (now just the non-offending team) still win the match with the actual score on on the field? That is, without counting the score for Blue’s knocked-over cones?

Here are the ways I see it could be determined:

1. Do you go ahead and score what actually happened at the end of the match and let the remaining Red Alliance partner (the non-DQed team) WIN? Blue Alliance would then lose, even though the officials determined they would have won if not for the rules violation.
2. Do referees ADD IN the Blue Alliance points that would have been scored theoretically if the knocked over cones had stayed upright, and use that as the official score, entering it into TM and uploading it? This allows Blue, the aggrieved Alliance the win. Then you would still DQ the Red Alliance team who knocked over the cones so NO WP, AP, or SP for them, but their alliance partner who committed no DQ offense keeps the AP and SP points?
3. Both teams in the Red Alliance get marked DQ in TM because it’s a match affecting offense by one robot - Score 0-0-0 to whatever the other team had? The non involved team would loose AP and SP points in this scenario as well as lose the match in the qualifier based on what a random partner did in the match.

None of these answers are completely satisfactory. Number one is the easiest to implement, since your referees don’t have to add up theoretical points, or DQ non-offending teams. However, It has the disadvantage of being a bit hypocritical. On the one hand, the referee determined that without the violation, Blue would win. At the same time, the win is awarded to Red.

Interpretation number two seemingly corrects the problems of number one. However, it has problems of its own. Most importantly, that of recording as official a score that never actually occurred. Since a match is only scored after expiration of time, the referees will be asked to imagine what the score might have been, and then to record that as the official score. While that may seem simple in the case of toppled cones, it isn’t. Once the stack is toppled and scattered across the field, how are the referees supposed to determine how many cones were involved? And what if the rules violation was for <SG6>:

<SG6> Robots may not intentionally grasp, grapple or attach to any Field Elements or the opposing Mobile Goals.

How many theoretical points does the referee add to the score for a DQ involving the Red Alliance grasping Blue’s mobile goal so much that it drew a DQ? The minimum number of points that would have caused the win/loss to flip sides? The maximum the mobile goal could have been worth? What is the officially recorded score in that case?

For a field official, interpretation number three seems neater. DQing both Red Alliance teams doesn’t require either awarding the win against the referee’s “match affecting” determination like number one, or counting theoretical points like number two. It has two problems, though. It would punish the innocent Red Alliance member for the misdeeds of a randomly assigned alliance partner. Most importantly, the rules don’t seem to support disqualifying both, so it’s unlikely to be the official way to handle such a situation.

[VEX_GDC]

It is made clear many place in the game rules that a single team can be DQ’d in Qualifying Matches.

This is correct; in fact, single-team DQs tend to be much more common in Qualifying Matches than full-alliance DQs.

A NON Match affecting DQ is simple to handle; mark the offending team as DQ’ed in TM and go on

Before answering your main question, we need to make sure to clarify this verbiage. If by “non match affecting DQ” you mean a DQ for something like an egregious G12 or S1 violation, then yes, this is correct. However, if you are referring to a non Match Affecting violation, such as accidentally dropping a single Scoring Object outside of the field (SG8), then it’s important to remember that these violations should only result in a warning, not a Disqualification.

Now, for the primary question. The definition of Disqualification is as follows, with a portion bolded for emphasis:

Disqualification – A penalty applied to a team for a rules violation. When a team is disqualified in a Qualifying Match they receive zero (0) WP, AP, and SP. When a team is disqualified in an Elimination Match the entire alliance is disqualified and they receive a loss for the match.

In the event of a Qualifying Match DQ, the only modification to the match is that the disqualified team receives zero WP / AP / SP. There are no other modifications, to the score or to the WP of any other team. Thus, your following interpretations are correct:

the alliance partner of the DQ’ed team could still win the match if their alliance scored higher, correct?

can Red Alliance (now just the non-offending team) still win the match with the actual score on on the field?

1. Do you go ahead and score what actually happened at the end of the match and let the remaining Red Alliance partner (the non-DQed team) WIN?

Your interpretations 2 and 3 are not used for precisely the reasons that you theorized - it is not reasonable to ask a referee to manually extrapolate a hypothetical match score beyond winning/losing, and it is not fair to penalize an innocent team for the illegal actions of their randomly assigned partner.