Welcome to another week of the Knowledge Pool. This week we have a Silver level scenario, which means that uncertified judges and L1s are encouraged to answer right away, but others should wait until Friday.

Here are the blog post and scenario:

Arjun and Nadia are playing in a Modern GPT. Arjun controls Spirit of the Labyrinth. Nadia has a single card in her hand: Quicken.

During Arjun's end step, Nadia casts Quicken, then draws and casts Electrolyze targeting the Spirit and Arjun. Arjun says, “Sure, still done,” then notes his life total change and puts Spirit in his graveyard.

Nadia draws a card and untaps her lands. Then she looks at her new card and draws again. Arjun stops her at this point and calls a judge.

Nadia tells you she thought the Spirit was dead before she was supposed to draw for Electrolyze because it deals the damage first. Arjun tells you he thought Nadia's first draw was just shortcutting her draw for the turn, rather than trying to draw from the Electrolyze.

What do you do?

I believe Nadia has committed a Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation infraction by not applying the static ability of Spirit of the Labyrinth to the resolution of her Electrolyze. It seems painless enough to backup the game to the resolution of Electrolyze on Arjun's End Step, save that we have to deal with two cards being in Nadia's hand when there should be zero. I would propose returning them to the top of Nadia's library in a random order to facilitate a rewind of the game to that point, resolve Electrolyze correctly, then proceed with the game as normal with Nadia drawing a single card for her draw step on her turn. Nadia should receive a Warning.

If no tournament shortcut was proposed by Nadia prior to this point to take her draw before her untap step on her turn, it is not reasonable to assume that the draw action was taken in this manner as this is not a standard Tournament shortcut. A non-standard shortcut cannot be proposed implicitly simply by the actions of the player, but has to be declared at least the first time it is used, as this would have been a shortcut involving one or more priority passes (passing completely through Nadia's upkeep to her draw step). As such, I do not believe this falls under a Tournament Error - Communication Policy Violation infraction.

By this same reasoning, it does appear as though Arjun has committed a Game Play Error - Faliure to Maintain Game State as, while he called a judge over as soon as it was clear that a Game Play Error had been committed, it was not done immediately after said error; other game actions had been taken before the error was caught. Arjun should also receive a Warning.

It would seem prudent to also remind the players that they need to ensure they communicate clearly to each other when taking game actions, as this situation could have been avoided if Nadia announced that her first (incorrect) card draw was from Electrolyze and not her draw for the turn. Similarly, Arjun could have clarified if that card was being drawn as Nadia's card for the turn before she drew another card.

Edit: Cleaned up the second paragraph, where my punctuation failed me. Also, starting to wonder if the resolution of Electrolyze when drawing a card is normally part of what that spell does is actually analogous to drawing four cards off of Ancestral Recall as referenced as an example of DEC in the IPG. Spirit of the Labyrinth does not modify the text of Electrolyze but rather prohibits one of its effects in this case. Hmmm…

Edited Jacob Milicic (Oct. 1, 2014 02:33:47 PM)

This seems like a relatively straightforward case of GPE - Drawing Extra Cards, Game Loss for Nadia. It's not a generic GRV because until she drew the card, no other error had occurred (it seems analogous to the example in the IPG of a player drawing an additional card forgetting that Howling Mine was no longer in play). There also wasn't any confirmation from Arjun that she was allowed to draw the card.

As for Arjun, I don't think I would issue a warning for FtMGS here, as drawing before untapping with an empty hand seems like it could reasonably be considered a valid Out-of-Order Sequencing operation, so he did point out the error as soon as he became aware that it was an error.

I certainly would advise the players that, especially when it comes to drawing cards, communication is key to catching problems before they become bigger issues the way this one did.

If we go with Drawing Extra Cards, the penalty can be downgraded to a warning because the card was uniquely identifiable at one point. I can see a scenario where Nadia thought that her spell killed Spirit, and that allowed her to draw the card. I'd consider (and consult the head judge) downgrading to a warning in that case. If she simply forgot about Spirit's ability, the game loss probably sticks.

But I'm not sure DEC is actually the penalty here. I think the penalty is a GRV, because she violated the static ability of a card. The hidden information leads to a possible upgrade to game loss, but again, because the card was uniquely identifiable, I would say the fix is returning the two cards to the top of the library in a random order, rewinding to Electrolyze killing the spirit, and going from there. Warning for Nadia.

Edit: Just want to note that the “rewind” is effectively just putting one random card back on top of the library, so I feel it is unobtrusive enough to the game state to be a good fix.

No failure to maintain for Arjun, because the reality is draw, untap, draw, probably happened so fast he didn't have a chance to call the judge immediately. Even if he did, drawing before you untap is an extremely common mistake, and unless there is something on the board that cares about lands not untapping, usually not worth calling a judge over.

Edited Nathan Lisko (Oct. 1, 2014 02:35:58 PM)

Before reading other responses:

First, a bit of rules education for Nadia - “lightning bolt doesn't kill creatures, state-based actions kill creatures”. During the resolution of Electrolyze, Spirit of the Labryinth was still on the battlefield, and Nadia had already drawn a card, and so she could not draw any more cards.

Nadia put a card in her hand when she was not supposed to, and that was the first visible error that happened. Nadia has committed GPE - DEC, which carries a game loss. We have the option to downgrade to a warning, if the card was drawn into an empty hand (it was), and the card can be returned to the correct zone with minimal disruption (this is more debatable).

Because there's a second card in hand now, I think it's a bit more disruptive to just return a random card from hand to top of library. I would choose not to apply the downgrade.

Arjun's statement makes sense, and he called a judge the moment a problem was definitely apparent. No Infraction.


After reading other responses:

It's worth pointing out that while the card was uniquely available at one point, the full text of the IPG is .

If the identity of the card was known to all players before being placed into the hand, or was
placed into an empty hand, and the card can be returned to the correct zone with minimal disruption, do so and
downgrade the penalty to a Warning.

normally (and under previous versions of the IPG) reversing card draws is a sticky business - the identity of the card is known to only one player, so we have to pick a card at random. This could lead to some free filtering for a player with a bad hand. This version of the IPG recognizes that this is not always the case - sometimes the card was known, or it's uniquely identifiable by virtue of being the only card in hand. In these cases, the fix is deterministic and simple - take the known (or known unknown) card and put it back where it came from.

With a second card now in Nadia's hand, this is no longer the case.


In terms of GRV vs DEC - almost every extra card draw will certainly be due to some rule misunderstanding. The question to ask is, before the card actually moved to hand, had a GRV been committed? i.e., before a card touches the hand, could you give a penalty to Nadia, or a FtMGS to Arjun? In this case, you couldn't. the first indication that anything was amiss was a card going in hand before untap. (at which point it's DEC, with possibility to downgrade, until the second card is drawn).

Originally posted by Jacob Milicic:

Also, starting to wonder if the resolution of Electrolyze when drawing a card is normally part of what that spell does is actually analogous to drawing four cards off of Ancestral Recall as referenced as an example of DEC in the IPG. Spirit of the Labyrinth does not modify the text of Electrolyze but rather prohibits one of its effects in this case. Hmmm…

Here is where an important distinction needs to be made that actually determines what the infraction is. First, was Electrolyze resolved properly? Yes. Damage was dealt and Nadia drew a card per Electrolyze's effect. The fact that the draw is forbidden by Spirit must be treated separately.

Also, from the IPG definition of DEC: A player illegally puts one or more cards into his or her hand and, at the moment before he or she began the instruction or action that put a card into his or her hand, no other Game Play Error or Communication Policy Violation had been committed.

I would argue that drawing a second card in the same turn with Spirit of the Labyrinth still in play is a Game Play Error occurring the moment before a card is put in hand- turning this infraction into a GRV.

I would issue Nadia a Warning and urge her to confirm all draws outside the 1 draw per turn with her opponent. No penalty for Arjun as he called a judge as soon as he understood an error had occurred.

That leaves only the question of whether or not to backup. If we leave the game as is, Nadia has 1 more card in hand that she really should. If we backup through drawing the card off Electrolize, Nadia will have the correct number of cards in hand and know what the next two cards she will draw will be. Neither of these solutions returns the game to an ideal state, but in this situation I believe a backup brings the game closer to where it should be than not backing up would.

I believe this is a case of DEC for Nadia. As Heidi pointed out, the Electrolyze was resolved properly. The only issue we have here is the draw of a card that was illegal because of the Spirit of the Labrynth. As we now have two cards in hand this is not a possible downgrade, and the penalty will be a game loss.

I also agree that there should be no Failure to Maintain for Arjun, he had a good explanation of why he waited until the draw in his opponent's next turn to call a judge.

Without having looked at the other answers:

It's clear that there's a GPE: DEC penalty. Nadia has an extra card in her hand, which she should never have drawn.

The good news for Nadia is, I believe that she gets a downgrade. The card she drew was at the end of Arjun's turn (his confusion over an unstated shortcut notwithstanding), which means she gets a warning and puts a card from her hand on top of her library. Even though she's since (legally) drawn a card on her draw step, the downgrade still applies. I'd put one of the cards at random on top of the library, then have her shuffle the unknown section (I think? Do we shuffle here?).

I don't think I give Arjun FTMGS in this case. From his perspective, he called a judge as soon as there was an error–drawing a second card for the turn.

Edited to follow up with my fellow judges:

Originally posted by Talin Salway:

This version of the IPG recognizes that this is not always the case - sometimes the card was known, or it's uniquely identifiable by virtue of being the only card in hand. In these cases, the fix is deterministic and simple - take the known (or known unknown) card and put it back where it came from.

With a second card now in Nadia's hand, this is no longer the case.

I think I disagree here. Nadia didn't even look at the card she drew EoT until after she'd untapped for her next turn. she hadn't made any meaningful decisions at the end of the last turn–it's not explicitly stated, but I'm assuming she's tapped out. Unless she knew the top card somehow (Serum Visions, maybe?), randomly putting one card back and leaving the other in her hand doesn't change the odds or the game state at all. She still has a random card in hand from her draw for turn.

Of course, this presupposes we shuffle, which I'm not sure is allowed in the IPG. If we don't, she knows the top card of her library, which could disrupt the game state.

Edited Eli Meyer (Oct. 2, 2014 08:20:18 PM)

GPE - DEC for Nadia. Uniquely identifiable at one point, so it's downgraded. I'd probably ask Nadia to randomly place one card on top of her deck as an additional remedy.

Well, unfortunately, she according to the scenario didn't indicate that she was intending to draw for the electrolyze, and there was no game-play error before that point. I think regardless of how you view it (OOOS, or something else), you can't avoid the fact that it's still Drawing Extra Cards, as you can look at it as OOOS of her untap/upkeep/draw steps, then she draws a random card for no reason, or as a DEC from the electrolyze. The other player called a judge as soon as problems occurred, I think the only thing to do is assign a DEC penalty. The only issue is whether to consider a downgrade. We can argue that the card drawn first was the extra card drawn and that she was following the proper turn order sequence, and therefore consider it at one point uniquely identifiable. However, the identity was not known to both players, so we can't really downgrade this, and it'd be a game loss.

Edited Michael Warme (Oct. 3, 2014 11:19:33 PM)

Originally posted by Olivier Jansen:

GPE - DEC for Nadia. Uniquely identifiable at one point, so it's downgraded. I'd probably ask Nadia to randomly place one card on top of her deck as an additional remedy.

Olivier, what do you mean by uniquely identifiable, and how does it apply to GPE - DEC?

Since it was, at one point, the only card in hand. After the most recent IPG change it is now an acceptable downgrade if they draw into an empty hand. However I think the intent of the change is if there is only a single card in hand when we arrive, which is not the case here.

Edited Chris Wendelboe (Oct. 3, 2014 11:04:42 AM)

As Electrolyze resolves, Spirit is a 1-tougness creature with 1 damage on it. It does not die until SBEs are checked after Electrolyze finishes resolving, which means Nadia is still under Spirit's restriction. Meaning that she has drawn an extra card (it can be argued that the first draw was OOS and the second draw was extra, or the second draw was proper and the first draw was extra, it doesn't really matter. This is GPE - DEC.

Since Nadia has no other cards in her hand, the normal GL for DEC can be downgraded to a Warning.

GPE - GRV to Nadia, no* Penalty to Arjun.

Nadia did not resolve Electrolyze correctly. Dealing lethal damage to a creature with Electrolyze does not destroy the creature instantly, so here we got a GPE - GRV, because that´s what Nadia actually was working with and “what really happened”.

*Technically Ahrun could recieve a GPE - FTMGS, because what actually happened was Nadia drawing a card of electrolyze after resolving it incorrectly. Still I would not punish him, because it seems like a misscommunication here and he called the judge as soon as he noticed the problem.

Oh and for the remedy, explain Nadia how exactly lethal damage /SBA works and rewind the game to the Point when Electrolyze is resolving.

Edited Thomas Ludwig (Oct. 4, 2014 04:10:27 PM)

Thomas, which part of Electrolyze was not resolved correctly?
El oct 4, 2014 8:00 PM, “Thomas Ludwig” <