Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool!

As a reminder, Silver scenarios are designed for those who are working up to an L2 level of IPG understanding. As such, if you are L2 or higher please refrain from responding or guiding others until Friday. This gives those who are still growing in their IPG knowledge ample time to learn from each other and have a conversation.

With that being said, Level 1s feel free to answer it straight away.

The blog post for this scenario can be found here:
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1136

Andy and Norbert are playing a Standard GPT. Nobert is tapped out.Andy plays Pithing Needle, and when it resolves, he names Ajani Goldmane and writes the name down on a piece of paper and ends his turn. During Norbert's turn, Norbert plays Ajani Steadfast. Andy realizes that it is the Ajani that he meant to name and calls for a judge.


What do you do?

Because this is a standard tournament, Ajani Goldmane is not a legal choice for Pithing Needle.

This is a GPE-GRV for Andy, and a GPE-FTMGS for Norbert. Both players get Warnings.

As an additional remedy, Andy must make a legal choice for Pithing Needle.

If a player is required to name a card, it has to be a card name that exists and ist legal in the format the player is playing (CR 201.3). Since Ajani Goldmane isn't standard legal, Andy named a invalid card. Therefore he commited a GPE-GRV resulting in a Warning for him. Norbert didn't point out the error immediately, therefore GPE-FtMGS for him which will also get him a Warning.

Now for the fix: Pithing Needle can't exist without naming a legal card. The IPG has a partial fix for that error: the player has to name a legal card. This fix doesnt expire, therefore Andy needs to name a card right now which will likely be Ajani Steadfast.

Remind both players to play more carefully and thats it. It might be necessary to explain Norbert why Andy is able to change the name of the card which is affected by Pithing Needle.

Although I know KP scenarios are supposed to be cheating-free, I'd investigate this one, for sure. If Norbert knew that Ajani Goldmane can't be named, and allows that so Pithing Needle is useless and gain an advantage, we probably have a serious problem here, with USC-Cheating involved.

Apart from that, GRV and FtMGS, we can decide to make a rollback (assuming we're HJ). In fact, in that case I'd surely go with that. Nothing really relevant has happened. Ajani Steadfast to Norbert's hand, untap mana, random card to top of library, tap mana accordingly to game state before, APs turn, we're resolving Pithing Needle and AP needs to choose a legal name. Surely, he can now name Ajani Steadfast since he knows it's in NAPs hand. But NAP can choose a different course of action.

If we decide not to rewind, as a partial fix, Robert and René are completely correct :)

Edited Joaquín Pérez (Aug. 20, 2014 10:11:58 PM)

Originally posted by Joaquín Pérez:

If Norbert knew that Ajani Goldmane can't be named…

Just a quick note on this: Most players seem to be aware that a legal card must be named, but nobody I asked knew for certain if it had to be legal in the current format. Norbert would have to go out of his way to convince me he was cheating for me to ever come to that conclusion.

As a side note: One of the players at my FNM runs UR Control with a maindeck Pithing Needle. I've overheard him name Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII on a number of occasions, and gotten a good chuckle out of it. I guess I should tell him that's illegal. :-P

Andy would get a GPE-GRV for naming an invalid card on Pithing Needle, and Norbert would get a GPE-FTMGS for not calling a judge as soon as the GRV was made. Both of the players would receive warnings and be told to play more carefully.

Since there hasn't been too much to rewind, Norbert would be asked to put Ajani Steadfast back in his hand and untap his lands he used to cast Ajani Steadfast. Andy would then be told to select a valid card to name with Pithing Needle. Norbert would then be able to resume his turn as if he hadn't cast Ajani Steadfast. A time extension would be issued for the minute or two it took to correct the issue.

Before reading other responses:

Ajani Goldmane is not a Standard-Legal card, and is thus not a legal choice of a card to name for Pithing Needle. Andy has committed a GPE - GRV. Norbert had a chance to catch this error, but did not, and so committed GPE - FtMGS. Both receive a warning.

The IPG gives us a specific partial fix for this scenario. Andy has made an illegal choice, so we'll have him make a legal choice now. He'll likely pick Ajani Steadfast.

For what it's worth, while knowledge pool scenarios assume no cheating, it would be worth investigating Andy's actions in this case. There are currently 3 (yes, 3) Standard-legal planeswalkers with the Ajani subtype. There's room here for Andy to name an illegal Ajani, with the intention of calling a judge and correcting his choice after he sees which Ajani Norbert is playing.

After reading other responses:

General consensus on this one. Certainly less contentious than last week's :).

Joshua Havener:

In IPG 2.5, under additional remedy, there's 3 explicit exceptions to the “no partial fix” rule. one of them is:

If a player made an illegal choice or failed to make a required choice for a permanent on the battlefield, that
player makes a legal choice

I like response without read, but this time i cannot (i click when i see that Joaquin response and read him before the question :( )

I'm agree with GRV to Andy and FtMGS to Norbert. Then we can back up to the point when enters the battlefield the Pithing Needle (its enough easy) or only make a partial fix because is one of the scenarios that is possible make it:
“If a player made an illegal choice or failed to make a required choice for a permanent on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.”

I make the complete back up if only Norbert untap draw and cast, in others scenarios (like creatures dies, more spell casts, additional cards draws…) the partial fix is the only solution, but is better do a complete back uf if we can. Remember that the IPG say:
“If not caught within a reasonable time frame, or backing up is impossible or sufficiently complex that it could affect the course of the game, the judge should leave the game state as it is after applying state-based actions and not attempt any form of partial ‘fix’ – either reverse all actions or none, with the following exceptions:(…)”

I agree with the GRV/FtMGS warnings.

The bigger question here is if a partial fix precludes the need for a backup or if it should only be used in place of a situation that can not be backed up. The IPG clearly gives us the option of a partial fix “If a player made an illegal choice or failed to make a required choice for a permanent on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.” However, the wording of the IPG could be interpreted to point in two different directions. It states:

“If not caught within a reasonable time frame, or backing up is impossible or sufficiently complex that it could affect the course of the game, the judge should leave the game state as it is after applying state-based actions and not attempt any form of partial ‘fix’ - either reverse all actions or none, with the following exceptions:”

As an English teacher, I'm unclear if it is intended that you “either reverse all actions” or “none, with the following exceptions:” or if you should “reverse all actions or none, with the following exceptions:”.
I believe the grammar indicates that you would use the exceptions all the time instead of backing up. If the sentence read “either reverse all actions, or none with the following exceptions:” it would indicate that backing up is the preferred method to be used regardless of the exceptions.

So I'm going with the partial fix. Because the grammar told me to.

When a player is asked to name a card, they must name a card that is legal in whatever format that player is currently playing in. Since this is a Standard tournament, Ajani Goldmane is not a legal choice for Pithing Needle.

PN is naming an illegal card, and it needs to name a legal card (in Standard). Under MTR 2.5, in the partial fixes section: “If a player made an illegal choice or failed to make a required choice for a permanent on the battlefield, that player make a legal choice.” Thus, I would allow A to choose a new name for PN.

I feel that a partial rewind is a better choice here because a full rewind sounds disruptive to the game. While A may have committed USC - Cheating, if we do not assume cheating, I would give GPE-GRV to A, and GPE-FtMGS to N. Then I would do a partial rewind (mentioned above), and then add time to their match equal to the time taken to investigate this situation if more than a minute was taken up.

Quick edit: I was going mad trying to remember where the “you must name a legal card in that format” rule was from. Finally found it!

CR 201.3: If an effect instructs a player to name a card, the player must choose the name of a card that exists in the Oracle card reference and is legal in the format of the game that player is playing.

Edited Oscar Chan (Aug. 22, 2014 12:13:01 AM)

“If the error was discovered within a time frame in which a player could reasonably be expected to notice the error and the situation is simple enough to safely back up without too much disruption to the course of the game, the judge may get permission from the Head Judge to back up the game to the point of the error.”

I would rewind the situation to the moment Pithing Needle requires to choose a card, this seems like the best solution to me, it´s easy to apply and will repair the game state as good as possible.

My interpretion of the partial fix is, that we only apply it to the error, “If not caught within a reasonable time frame, or backing up is impossible or sufficiently complex that it could affect the course of the game..”. This does not disable the option of a full rewind. I think the part “either reverse all or none, with the following exceptions” is just an extra note that we don´t use partial fixes, besides these exceptions. We do not need to apply the partial fix from the exceptions if we already were able to back up the game.

Edited Thomas Ludwig (Aug. 22, 2014 04:05:29 PM)

I agree with a full rewind. The partial fix given for illegal choices is just there for when a complete fix is impractical. If a complete fix is possible and not disruptive then that's the way to go. By the description, all that happened between Pithing Needle and Ajani is that Norbert untapped some permanents and drew a card.

I agree with the GRV-GPE for Andy and the FtMGS for Nobert.

I agree with the fix, too. Go ahead and rewind to the casting of Pithing Needle and have Andy name a card. The game would proceed from there.

Thank you all for participating in this week's scenario! Let's jump right into the solution:

As Ajani Goldmane isn't a legal card in standard right now, Andy has committed a Game Rule Violation (and, consequently, Norbert has Failed to Maintain the Game State).
CR 201.3. If an effect instructs a player to name a card, the player must choose the name of a card that exists in the Oracle card reference (see rule 108.1) and is legal in the format of the game the player is playing.
Both players will receive warnings, and now we have to consider the fix. If little enough has happened between when Andy resolved the Pithing Needle and Norbert cast Ajani Steadfast, the Head Judge may authorize a rewind of the entire situation, to the point when Pithing Needle was entering the battlefield. If a rewind is not deemed possible, we turn to the first partial fix available for GRVs,
If a player made an illegal choice or failed to make a required choice for a permanent on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.
Andy will make this choice immediately, and the players should be instructed to play more carefully in the future.

Congratulations to everybody who got this one right, and we'll see you later with our next scenario!