Hello my Judge Friends! Welcome back to Knowledge Pool! We apologize for the delays in getting started, but we're locked and loaded and ready to roll! This weeks scenario brings us a tricky situation with some fast Bolts (Usain Bolt, get it?) and a Jeskai Ascendency and is a Gold scenario. Gold Scenarios are open to all judges from candidates up to Level 2 to freely discuss and debate. We look forward to a lively response on this scenario!

The blog post for this scenario can be found here: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/2015/03/11/usain-ascendancy/

Usain Ascendency - GOLD

You are the head and only judge of a Modern format Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier when two players call you to their table and explain what has happened. Nathan drew his card for turn. With just a Jeskai Ascendancy and lands on the battlefield, Nathan said “Bolt you twice” and put two Lightning Bolts on the table. He then says “Ascendancy”, draws two cards, plays a land from his hand and passes turn while putting the Lightning Bolts into the graveyard. Alice then untapped and drew her card for the turn when she realized that Nathan was supposed to discard for the Jeskai Ascendancy triggers. They then called you over. Nathan currently has one card in his hand. You believe that the mistake was unintentional and Nathan was rushing due to the time left in the round. What do you do?

Well, I'm not entirely sure but my go to saying is “you miss 100% of the shots you don't take” so here I go

Let's start with the simple, penalties. Nathen gets a GPE-GRV for failing to correctly resolve the ascendancy trigger. Alice gets a GRV-FtMGS for not noticing it until her turn and after she had already drawn a card no less.

Then we have the fix . Per the IPG we have three options. Partial, backup, leave as is.
A partial fix does apply here as we can have Nathen discard his one card but then what do we do with the land that was played?
We also have the backup where we would return a card at random to Alice's library, tap all previously tapped permanents bring it back to the first main phase of Nathen's turn return the land to his hand, then randomly put the two cards back on top and correct Alice's life total as the spells are now on the stack. While this may seem fairly simple and in the end the same game state is reached the ascendancy has a May clause and we can not force Nathen to use it, so he now has a large advantage in he may now choose if he wants to mill those 2 cards or keep them to draw naturally. For this reason I would not back up.
Finally we have the easiest leave as is.

My ruling would be to apply the partial fix we can, and have Nathen discard his card. As there is no remedy to the land leave it in play. Give penalties, Remind both players to play more carefully, and carry on.

Edit: grammar

Edited Walker Metyko (March 12, 2015 08:33:20 AM)

Nathan said “Bolt you twice” and put two Lightning Bolts on the table. He then says “Ascendancy”, draws

At this point, everything is fine. Maybe it's not the most precise sequencing or communication, but it's fine.

two cards

There's your problem. Nathan has drawn an extra card. There was no previous violation, Nathan's hand was not empty before he drew the extra card, no other downgrade provisions are met. He has also committed a GRV or two for not discarding at all to the triggers, but we only issue the harsher penalty. Issue a game loss for GPE-DEC.

Originally posted by David Incorvati:

There's your problem. Nathan has drawn an extra card. There was no previous violation, Nathan's hand was not empty before he drew the extra card, no other downgrade provisions are met. He has also committed a GRV or two for not discarding at all to the triggers, but we only issue the harsher penalty. Issue a game loss for GPE-DEC.

No previous violation? There was no violation for the first draw, that is resolving the trigger from Jeskai Ascendancy. But the full resolution of the trigger would have been “If you do, discard a card.” Which IS a GPE-GRV.

From the IPG, 3.4 Game Play Error-Drawing Extra Cards:
“This infraction is committed when a player illegally puts one or more cards into their hand and, at the moment before he or she did so, no other Game Play Error or Player Communication Violation had been committed.”

(edited to show actual quote)

Edited Ben Quasnitschka (March 12, 2015 09:23:30 AM)

(Got ninja'd here) David, he was entitled to draw two cards because he had two Ascension triggers. The first thing that went wrong was that he didn't discard for his first trigger.

I also think that it is important to note, that Nathan had zero cards when all Ascension triggers were on the stack (He currently has one in hand, played a land and drew those two cards from his triggers). Sadly we don't know which one was the first te bo drawn. My fix would be a backup with undoing Alice's beginning of the turn (putting a random card back on her library, tapping all previously tapped lands), returning the land to his hands, the bolts on the stack and Alice's life + 6. However, now I only would put one of his both cards on the hand back on top of the library. We're now at the point where the first mistake happened: While resolving the first trigger for the Ascendancy.
I think this is okay to do because the information of one card known at the top of the deck is a less bad game state than having one more card in play.

Edited Markus Dietrich (March 12, 2015 09:28:12 AM)

This seems a pretty clear GPE-GRV for Nathan for failing to properly resolve the Ascendancy trigger and a GPE-FtMGS for Alice for failing to catch this.

As this is one of the situations with a specified fix in the IPG for GRV Nathan will now discard two cards (though he will only discard 1) and I am not offered the choice to backup. If I was allowed to backup I wouldn't given the chance for Nathan to take advantage of the ‘may’ clause to choose not to draw and discard a card he wanted off the Ascendancy.

I would GPE GRV for the missed discards and GRV FTMGS for the opponent. I am not 100% on the fix but i think in this circumstance i would back up to the original infraction. (The first asendency discard shuffle the current card in hand assuming it was unknown before hand in to the deck along with the land assuming it was unknown before hand. Stack reads bolt asendency trigger bolt asendency trigger)

GPE-GRV for Nathan, GPE Ftmgs for Alice.

Rewind by putting a random card from Alice's hand back on her library, put the land back in Nathan's hand, bolts back on the stack, +6 to Alice's life total. Now Nathan has partially completed the triggers that he is resolving using OOOS by doing both at the same time. Nathan is now required to discard 2 cards, leaving his hand empty. Priority then passes to Alice, and barring any actions by her, the bolts resolve and we move to her turn.

No reason to back up to before Nathan drew his 2 cards, because if he'd merely said "draw 2 discard 2, and milled 2 cards, I would have ruled OOOS and no penalty.

GPE-GRV for Nathan and GPE-FtMGS for Alice.

I would think a rewind would be the best fix here. I would return a random card to the top of Alice's library, put the land back in Nathan's hand, return the Lightning Bolts to stack and fix Alice's life total. Then Nathan would be required to resolve the trigger correctly (drawing two cards and discarding two cards) which would make it so he has no cards in hand. Then the spells would resolve and Alice's life total would be adjusted. The game should proceed from that point.

Rewind or partial fix aside. The rules have us issue a penalty for failing to discard. However in terms of the game the player is drawing extra cards. I remember the first time I saw someone play brainstorm for 1 mana with a Thalia on the board and became concerned about how these situations are penalized.
The “no other Game Play Error” clause of DEC has potential for abuse in my eyes.

Before reading other responses:

GPE:GRV to Nathan, GPE:FTMGS to his opponent.

The sequencing of Nathan's spells and triggers is unclear, but it seems that the game state was clear to both players. I am curious as to why Nathan chose to loot twice while he was hellbent, but we'll blame that on a failure to read his cards.

We can partial fix by having him discard one card, or rewind. Rewinding may significantly alter the course of the last turn, as Nathan may choose not to loot at all. We must ask which is more disruptive to the game: letting Nathan potentially decide not to mill 2, or leaving Nathan's land in play. I would likely choose to rewind. This entails undoing Alice's draw and untap, returning Nathan's land to his hand, returning both cards to Nathan's library in a random order, and allowing Nathan to resolve his triggers and Bolts correctly.

The rest of the board state may affect the decision to rewind, including for example the presence of shuffle effects that Alice could activate before drawing for turn.

Edited Dan Collins (March 12, 2015 10:24:41 AM)

I have a question for all of the judges that think the first thing went wrong was “failing to discard from the first ascendancy trigger”. How do we know that Nathan didn't finish resolving that trigger?

I've gotta admit, I'm not highly inclined to back up here. I'm surely not going to give a DEC because what we have here is a pretty clear GRV. Partial fixes are always preferable to backups but in this case the partial fix doesn't work perfectly. Comparing it to a backup, Nathan gets an additional island.

Backing up would require
1) Alice puts a random card from her hand on top of her library and retaps.
2) Nathan pickups the played island.
3) Nathan places one random card face down on his library.
4) Nathan places another random card face down on his library.
5) Move forward with two bolts on the stack for Nathan to respond to his triggers.

Considering how easily a single fetch land can totally mess up this backup and the fact that Nathan can decide which of the top three cards he wants to draw next turn with full knowledge of two of them, I'm not happy backing up. I'm ok with making Nathan discard the single card in his hand as a partial fix, GRV-Warning and FtMGS-Warning.

CJ: Nathan displayed awareness of his trigger at an appropriate time. It can be assumed he cast the second Lightning Bolt with the first trigger on the stack.

Dan: Is a backup even a consideration here? We have an eligible partial fix and the IPG states “otherwise a backup may be considered.”

My fix: GRV for Nathan, FtMGS for Alice, and apply our partial fix of having Nathan discard two (one) cards.

Originally posted by Craig Stambaugh:

I have a question for all of the judges that think the first thing went wrong was “failing to discard from the first ascendancy trigger”. How do we know that Nathan didn't finish resolving that trigger?

In order for the trigger to properly resolve, Nathan has to draw and discard. At the point Nathan plays a land, the stack would need to be empty. This is not OoOS because playing a land means the entire group of Ascendancy triggers needed to resolve first.

I would rule GPE-GRV for Nathan and GPE-FTMGS for Alice. The first illegal action was failing to properly resolve the first Ascendancy trigger, so it is not GPE-DEC.

Now for the remedy. If there are any fetch lands OR shuffle effects in play on either side, I am not rewinding. Since we would rewind through card draws, this presents a free pseudo-scry that could significantly change the cards people end up with.

I'm inclined to use the partial fix here, since I believe it is the least damaging to the game. This means Nathan discards a card.