- Player A draws his initial hand, realizes he left two cards outside the deck, and calls a judge.
- Player B draws his initial hand, plays a land, realizes he left two cards outside the deck, and calls a judge.

Applying strictly (and I mean “strictly”) current IPG:

- with consent of HJ, player A fixes his deck and takes a mulligan
- with consent of HJ, player B fixes his deck but preserves his hand

Knowing this, if I were player A, I would first play a land, and then call a judge.

Does that make sense?
Am I missing something?
What do you think?

“The game is considered to have begun once all players have completed taking mulligans”

“Downgrade:
If a deck is discovered to be missing cards after the game has begun and the missing cards can be located, the Head Judge may downgrade the penalty to a Warning and shuffle those cards back into the deck.

Downgrade:
If a player, before taking any game actions, discovers a deck (not decklist) problem and calls attention to it at that point,
the Head Judge may issue a Warning, fix the deck, and, if the player has drawn their opening hand,
instruct the player to mulligan. The player may continue to take further mulligans if he or she desires.”

The way the first downgrade was explained to me was to use it only when it is unclear where the card has come from and/or if it is unclear if it was in the deck when it was presented. So if the cards was set to the side and it is 100% clear that it was not in the deck when the deck was presented to the opponent to shuffle, I would not use this downgrade.

So in you cases, player A would fix his deck, mulligan and get a downgrade, but player B would receive a Game Loss for presenting a 58 card deck.

Let's have a look at the Annotated IPG:
"Downgrade

If a deck is discovered to be missing cards after the game has begun and the missing cards can be located, the Head Judge may downgrade the penalty to a Warning and shuffle those cards back into the deck.

This covers the times when a player either drops a card and it’s only noticed once a game has started or has set aside some cards to indicate exiled but then forgets to shuffle them back into their library when the game ends. Normally both of these instances would result in a Game Loss because the player has presented a deck that doesn’t match their list. This downgrade allows the Head Judge to have the player shuffle the cards back into the library and only issue a warning instead."

This does not clearly say to use the downgrade only when it is unclear whether the card was in the deck while presenting or not, but it does leave the decision to the Head Judge. I would also like a more fficial answer but until then I will stick to the advice given to me by Riccardo Tessitori. :)

John, that used to be true, but is no longer. In the past, when a card was found on the floor or off to the side during the game, we investigated to determine whether we think a legal deck was presented or not. However, a lot of people didn't know that and automatically issued D/DLP and even when we did investigate, oftentimes you simply couldn't be sure.

So now we have this new downgrade that applies regardless of how and when the card became separated from the deck. This new policy takes away the step of investigating and replaces it with a consistent solution in lieu of a penalty. The downgrade is not conditional on when the card became separated from from the deck. If it was exiled in game 1, and now it's game 2, and everyone is sure you presented 59, it is still downgraded. This is an easy error to make, which I suspect is a big part of the reason why it is no longer a Game Loss.

In response to your last point - that the IPG says the HJ “may” downgrade - I would expect HJs to apply the downgrade as written unless they have a compelling reason not to do so. The purpose of the IPG is to create consistent policy so that a player receives the same treatment regardless of whether they're at my PPTQ or yours. If you have a compelling reason, then sure, but don't decline to downgrade because you dislike the policy.

My understanding (from reading but cannot remember where exactly on these forums) is that one of the few times you wouldn't downgrade is in the case of offsetting game losses.

For example: Dan and I move to game 2 and I still have one of his cards in my deck thanks to my Oblivion Sower. Dan would get a downgrade, but I am not eligible with my illegal deck. At this point a cleaner solution is issue offsetting DDLP game losses.

At least that's what I've been led to believe, please correct me if wrong.

I'm worried about players gaming the IPG here, as presented by Francesco.

Let's say a player draws their initial 7, announce a keep, and before any game actions are taken, they realize a card was left out. A few seconds pass and their opponent plays their first land. Then they call a judge.

Are we to expect players acting consciously about this? It looks like cheating (in this very narrow window) is low risk/high reward.

For what it's worth, I would endorse changing the new downgrade so that it
can apply to errors detected before the game began. That seems like it was
just careless wording that didn't anticipate this corner case.

That being said, I don't think it's a big deal. For this to matter, a
player would need to:
* Make this error
* Not notice it while shuffling
* Notice it before the first player plays their land
* Be familiar with both downgrade paths, which are themselves corner cases
* Be willing to cheat

It could happen, but it's not something I'm willing to expend any more
energy thinking about.

I'm a little confused as to what the problem is.

If a player discovers at any time that there are some cards missing, as is usually the case they are cards exiled and set aside which were forgotten to be shuffled back in or 1 or more cards were dropped while shuffling or collecting cards. These instances will be - “Oh I've just seen those cards, they should be in my deck”. This used to be a game loss for D/DL Problem, we now have an option to downgrade because really, the cards are right there, we can shuffle them back into the deck. They player is slightly disadvantaged in that none of those cards have been drawn yet, problem is resolved.

The other downgrade option is usually when a player has forgotten to de-sideboard. In this instance it's important they notice before they take any game actions and call a judge. The Head Judge can choose to downgrade this to a warning and force a mulligan.

I'm wondering if I've missed what the issue is that this thread is discussing.

The “issue” is that the first downgrade requires that the game have already
begun. If a judge wishes to apply a strict reading of “after the game has
begun”, and a player discovers the error while resolving mulligans, the
player would be forced to mulligan.

I suggest a less strict reading of that then, I don't think that is the intention.

Originally posted by John Eriksson:

The way the first downgrade was explained to me was to use it only when it is unclear where the card has come from and/or if it is unclear if it was in the deck when it was presented. So if the cards was set to the side and it is 100% clear that it was not in the deck when the deck was presented to the opponent to shuffle, I would not use this downgrade.

Mark Brown
If a player discovers at any time that there are some cards missing, as is usually the case they are cards exiled and set aside which were forgotten to be shuffled back in or 1 or more cards were dropped while shuffling or collecting cards. These instances will be - “Oh I've just seen those cards, they should be in my deck”. This used to be a game loss for D/DL Problem, we now have an option to downgrade because really, the cards are right there, we can shuffle them back into the deck. They player is slightly disadvantaged in that none of those cards have been drawn yet, problem is resolved.

Once upon a time, penalty for Insufficient Shuffling was a Game Loss. Then cascade ability was born, no one was remembering to shuffle revealed cards before putting them on the bottom, and the penalty became a Warning.

Nowadays, we have a bunch of popular and widely played delve spells, and a fair share of players forgetting to reshuffle exiled cards between games.
I suspect the rationale for the “missing cards” downgrade is the same of cascade.

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

I suggest a less strict reading of that then, I don't think that is the intention.

If this is not the intention, maybe it is wiser to write IPG more clearly, rather than relying on the common sense of the HJ.
Not intended to be a criticism, of course. Intended to be a suggestion.

For anyone who wasn't at GP DC this past weekend, it was brought to our attention by the L4+ that this downgrade in fact is only meant to be used in cases where we can't determine that the cards were missing at the time the deck was presented. If cards are still exiled from a previous game, or in an opponent's deck from last round, it's still a GL for presenting an illegal deck. If instead we're finding cards mysteriously somewhere near a player's current play area, and we can't be sure when it was lost, that's when we downgrade.

I'm not sure that's meant to be for all events. It was certainly applied that way this weekend though.