I was called over by a spectator to a match.
(Modern) Active player casts Primeval Titan and with its trigger and got a Vesuva and a Radiant Fountain. He had Vesuva copy the Radiant Fountain. (The only other lands the player had in play was a Simic Growth Chamber and a Forest) The players resolve the triggers and AP gains 4 life total.
At end of turn, NAP casts Snapcaster Mage, and AP responds with a Pact of Negation. The pact resolves and the Snapcaster mage goes to the graveyard. At this point, the game is paused and Judge is called.

I ruled GRV for AP and FTMGS for NAP. I think too much information has been shown to back up. I left the game state as is. When discussing with other judges, an argument emerged whether or not a Partial Fix should be applied here.

If a player made an illegal choice (including no choice where required) for a static ability generating a
continuous effect still on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.

I asked several persons including multiple L3s and got various answers. Also, if the Partial Fix is applied, I assume the AP gets to choose any legal choice, including the Simic Growth Chamber, which will not trigger the ability to return a land.

I heard the following answers:
Partial Fix does not apply
Partial Fix does apply, but leave game state as is
Partial Fix does apply, Player can make a choice
Partail Fix does apply, Vesuva is now a Vesuva copying nothing.

I think that the partial fix does not apply

The example of an “illegal choice for a static ability generating a continuous effect” is Voice of All, which has two abilities–including one that is actually generating a continuous effect.

However, Vasuva does not have a static ability that creates a continuous ability. It has a static ability that creates a *replacement effect*, and that replacement effect creates a continuous effect. It remains a copy of the chosen card even if it later loses all abilities (for instance, to Blood Moon).

I'm not sure I understand the distinction between Vesuva and Voice of All. Both have static abilities (abilities that are true, rather than being activated or triggered, CR 604.1). Both use the word “as”, which indicate that they are replacement effects (CR 614.1c). Both generate continuous effects; in the case of Voice of All it modifies the characteristics of Voice of All by granting it a “named color”, in the case of Vesuva it modifies Vesuva by making it a copy of something (CR 611.1). Therefore they should be treated the same, I think.

Unless you are referring to the fact that Voice of All's ability is separated into 2 lines and hence 2 abilities, and therefore referring to the second of the 2 abilities. However, that ability is not an ability which requires a choice; it simply states something which is true: “<as long as a color is chosen for CARDNAME> CARDNAME has protection from the chosen color”. No part of this ability requires a choice, and is hence not applicable to this discussion.

Consequently, I would apply the same fix in this situation as I would apply in the case of Voice of All, which is to have the player make a legal choice now (apply the partial fix). AP gets to make any legal choice (anything but the Radiant Fountain). AP also consequently loses the 2 life he should not have gained from the not-a-Radiant-Fountain Vesuva.

Now the question becomes what to do if he chooses the Simic Growth Chamber. As I feel like the possibility of abuse in this case is high if we simply leave the game state alone (AP simply gets an extra mana he's not entitled to), I would be inclined to treat this as a missed trigger and ask NAP if he would like to put AP's trigger on the stack. I realize this may be a deviation, but I feel as though the possibility of abuse is high enough that the deviation is justified.

This is why partial fixes are dangerous, kids, because they lead to situations like this one.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Dec. 3, 2015 01:18:51 AM)

As Eli pointed out, the partial fix does not apply here, because Vesuva does not create a static ability. This is not just a technicality, it's an extremely important distinction! A Voice of All naming nothing or “artifact” is clearly illegal, this can never happen in a game, and hence the game can't continue like this. However, a Vesuva pretending to be a Radiant Fountain is perfectly fine; in this case, the game could not have reached this situation in a legal way, but the current situation is perfectly legal and does not need addressing.
Trying to apply the partial fix here leads to huge problems, as we have seen… because it's never intended to apply here.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

I would be inclined to treat this as a missed trigger and ask NAP if he would like to put AP's trigger on the stack. I realize this may be a deviation, but I feel as though the possibility of abuse is high enough that the deviation is justified.

Please, don't do this. If you think policy is broken, send Toby an email. If you encounter rare and exceptional circumstances, deviate. Please don't mix in potential for abuse in applying policy, that's already taken account for in the penalty and fix. If it's not cheating, don't worry about the potential for abuse.

Originally posted by Dustin De Leeuw:

If it's not cheating, don't worry about the potential for abuse.

As Dustin explained, potential for abuse isn't a factor when I decide to deviate (rarely); it's really only a factor in the investigation.

Always remember that phrase “significant & exceptional” - those are the criteria required of the circumstances that lead us to deviate.

A few examples of S&E that justify a deviation come to mind:

• A judge drops a card during a deck check, the player shuffles and presents 59 cards
  
• Players discover they're at the wrong tables when slips arrive, 4 minutes after the start of the round … because someone rearranged and mixed up the table numbers
  
• A spectator leans on a table and it collapses
  

d:^D

Originally posted by Dustin De Leeuw:

A Voice of All naming nothing or “artifact” is clearly illegal, this can never happen in a game, and hence the game can't continue like this

Slight nitpick here, but Voice of All naming nothing can happen a number of ways–for instance, Mastery of the Unseen. Artifact is definitely illegal though! :)

Originally posted by Dustin De Leeuw:

As Eli pointed out, the partial fix does not apply here, because Vesuva does not create a static ability. This is not just a technicality, it's an extremely important distinction! A Voice of All naming nothing or “artifact” is clearly illegal, this can never happen in a game, and hence the game can't continue like this. However, a Vesuva pretending to be a Radiant Fountain is perfectly fine; in this case, the game could not have reached this situation in a legal way, but the current situation is perfectly legal and does not need addressing.

I apologize, but I appear to be having difficulty determining the difference between Vesuva's effect and Voice of All's effect. Both are replacement effects, as they both begin with the word “as”, and both create a continuous ability (i.e. an ability that has a duration and is not triggered or activated). So where is the difference? I'm not sure I see in the text of the cards where the distinction is.

I'm also confused as to the seeming assertion in this comment that whether or not to fix the situation should be determined by how “clearly” legal or illegal the game state is. As an example, Eli posted above about how easy it is to get a Voice of All naming nothing. As another example, I can present to you a reasonable game state in a Limited match in which a Vesuva is copying a creature (the cards involved are not Constructed-playable, hence it would be Limited-only, but it's nevertheless possible to do in a “reasonable” tournament match of Magic). It's admittedly quite corner case so I'm not going to get into the specifics, but rest assured I can do it. In any case, the point is, and the question I'm trying to get at is, is it actually the case that whether or not to apply the backup should depend on how “clearly” legal or illegal the game state is?

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

I apologize, but I appear to be having difficulty determining the difference between Vesuva's effect and Voice of All's effect. Both are replacement effects, as they both begin with the word “as”, and both create a continuous ability (i.e. an ability that has a duration and is not triggered or activated). So where is the difference? I'm not sure I see in the text of the cards where the distinction is.

I personally don't think a meaningful distinction has yet been made in this thread, nor do I think this is a useful way of trying to look at things. I also see the difference between a replacement effect and a continuous effect as a bit of a red herring; CR 614.1 describes replacement effects as being types of CEs, after all. Any rules-specific argument you could use to try to disqualify Vesuva's ability I could also use to disqualify Meddling Mage's. And Meddling Mage is clearly supposed to be covered.

I suspect that what people in this thread are reacting to is that Vesuva requires a choice of objects as the land enters the battlefield, and so it depends on the snapshot of the game at that point. This just doesn't quite “feel” like the same kind of thing as Meddling Mage, or say, True-Name Nemesis, where the set of possible choices doesn't depend on the rest of the game state. Still, I think if Vesuva/Clone/etc. isn't supposed to be covered by this partial fix, then the MIPG could stand to be made more clear on this point.

Regardless of any of the above, I do still see one argument for not allowing the re-choice of the Vesuva in Minh's scenario that I haven't yet seen raised. First of all, the MIPG says:

If a player made an illegal choice (including no choice where required) for a static ability generating a continuous effect still on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.

If Vesuva has already copied a Radiant Fountain (albeit illegally), then it no longer has any of it's originally abilities due to the nature of copy effects. Therefore, it could not really be said that this is a static ability still on the battlefield. So, you could argue that the partial fix still doesn't apply for this reason.

Edited Abraham Corson (Dec. 3, 2015 10:01:18 PM)

Originally posted by Abraham Corson:

If Vesuva has already copied a Radiant Fountain (albeit illegally), then it no longer has any of it's originally abilities due to the nature of copy effects. Therefore, it could not really be said that this is a static ability still on the battlefield. So, you could argue that the partial fix still doesn't apply for this reason.

This is more or less what I was going for; sorry if it wasn't clear enough!. Essentially, my point was that Vesuva generated a copy effect which happens to be continuous and indefinite, whereas Meddling Mage and Voice of All both have linked abilities that are continuously generating their continuous effect.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

Abraham Corson
If Vesuva has already copied a Radiant Fountain (albeit illegally), then it no longer has any of it's originally abilities due to the nature of copy effects. Therefore, it could not really be said that this is a static ability still on the battlefield. So, you could argue that the partial fix still doesn't apply for this reason.

This is more or less what I was going for; sorry if it wasn't clear enough!. Essentially, my point was that Vesuva generated a copy effect which happens to be continuous and indefinite, whereas Meddling Mage and Voice of All both have linked abilities that are continuously generating their continuous effect.

I feel like that difference is both semantic in nature and also technically incorrect (the best kind of incorrect! /Futurama). The reason being: Let's say for a moment that you are correct and that Vesuva's effect is past tense and is no longer generating the copy effect. Then why is Vesuva still a copy of the land it is copying? If the copy effect is no longer being generated, then it should cease to be a copy and revert back to being a Vesuva.

Noteworthy is that the ability which requires the choice on Voice of All and Meddling Mage is actually not generating any visible effect on the game state. This is quite easily spelled out if you look at the way these cards work on Magic Online. If you play a Meddling Mage or Voice of All on MODO, you choose a <thing> (color, card name, etc) and you get the annotation “The named <thing> is <named value>” on your card. The card then continues to have the text “This card has protection from the chosen color” (for Voice of All, or whatever); the text is not changed (for example, to “Protection from Black”, in the case of Voice of All).

Therefore the abilities are linked, in the sense that the choice made for the first ability affects the functionality of the second ability, but the existence of the second ability is not dependent on the first ability having resolved. If there is no named color for Voice of All, as you can also see on MODO (if you generate a game state where such a thing happens), Voice of All still has “Protection from the named color”, but that ability ceases to do anything without a named color from the first ability.

Anyway I feel as though Abraham is correct in his statement above: MIPG probably ought to be clearer on exactly what this means, because I, for one, am confused by this.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

I feel like that difference is both semantic in nature and also technically incorrect (the best kind of incorrect! /Futurama). The reason being: Let's say for a moment that you are correct and that Vesuva's effect is past tense and is no longer generating the copy effect. Then why is Vesuva still a copy of the land it is copying? If the copy effect is no longer being generated, then it should cease to be a copy and revert back to being a Vesuva.

If Vesuva loses all abilities (Blood Moon, Humility if Vesuva happens to be copying Dryad Arbor), Vesuva remains a copy of whatever it copied. If Voice of All loses all abilities (Humility, Sudden Spoiling) it no longer has protection.

I'm not sure why if it would lose it's ability it remaining a copy is considered relevant here.

The partial fix says if an illegal choice was made got a continuous effect still on the battlefield, continuous effects are specifically attached to abilities. Turning Vesuva into a copy of something is a continuous effect otherwise why would Copy be the first layer?

As an extra monkey wrench in the situation: applying the partial fix does not mean we are resetting life totals. After all, the Radiant Fountain trigger is long since resolved, and it did so legally. The partial fix guidelines do not give us the option to correct game state changes that arose as a result of the illegal choice. Of course, a full backup would, but we need to eliminate the partial fix as an option before we can explore that.

That in mind, I also do not believe that applying the partial fix would cause the Vesuva-Simic Growth Chamber to trigger. The Vesuva is not entering the battlefield anew, and applying the trigger anyway would be a deviation. Just a few things to consider.

As to the main question at hand, i have to admit my reading of the CR and the IPG leads me to believe that the partial fix should apply, even though doing so is a tremendous advantage for the player who caused the infraction to occur. Nothing I see in the rules for continuous effects suggest that Vesuva's ability should be treated differently, and the IPG's language seems clear, if imperfect, to me.

Sent from my iPad

I think the issue here comes down to what we mean by an illegal choice. If an illegal choice is a choice that was illegal at the time of choosing (copying a land that wasn't on the battlefield) it is different from a choice which is currently illegal “Vesuva copying a non-land creature”. Vesuva copying a non-land creature is an illegal game state. Vesuva copying a land that shouldn't have been on the battlefield (like the Radiant Fountain) can create a legal game state.

Because Radiant Fountain is a legal choice for Vesuva to be copying, I wouldn't consider it an illegal choice at this time. The annotated IPG says the following on this specific partial fix, “The reasoning for this is similar to why we apply state-based actions — it is impossible for these cards to exist on the battlefield without a choice being made for them, so we correct that immediately.”

I don't understand why the current game state is being reviewed to check the legality of the choice, the IPG states if the choice was illegal so we check if it was legal when it was made not when we look at the game state now. I don't see any opinions here but to apply the partial fix now and make the player make a choice that would have been legal. Yes this creates quite an advantage for A but N is partly responsible for it so that isn't a reason (assuming no cheating) to work so hard for a reason not to apply the fix