Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool! This week we have another Silver scenario, so L2s wait until after your FNM to respond.

Arborea is playing in Modern 5k run at Competitive REL. She casts Ancient Stirrings and grabs top the few cards of her deck. She counts them, realizes there are only 4, and reaches for a fifth. When she does so, the top two cards of her library stick together, and she picks up both of them. She immediately realizes her error and calls for a judge. The two stuck cards have remained separate from the other cards she had picked up, and are still stuck together in her hand when you reach the table. What do you do?

My first instinct was HCE but in rereading that section of the IPG, I'm going to have to give this L@EC.

GPE - L@EC - W - shuffle the set of 2 cards from the end back into the unknown portion of the library

Since these last two cards were drawn separately from the rest of the group and are therefore their own set, we can treat this as L@EC. Additionally, the IPG entry for HCE says:

This infraction does not apply to simple dexterity errors, such as when a card being pulled off the library sticks to another card and is seen…

This scenario pretty clearly falls into that category to me so I switch from my initial instinct to L@EC.

I'm going to say that this will be GPE: LEC. Since the cards that we're stuck together never touched the other set of four it won't be considered HCE. My assumption for the remedy would be to remove the two cards that are stuck together take the card that would have been on top with the set of five and then after making sure that the player has no knowledge of the placement of cards in their library, such as a previous ancient stirrings, then we will shuffle the sixth card back into the random portion of the library and continue on. Issue active player GPE:LEC

Edit: after further consulting with the IPG and other peers, I'm going to say that both of the cards that were stuck together will be reshuffled into the library and then draw a new fifth card. “Shuffle any previously unknown cards…”

Edited Peter Calomeris (Feb. 8, 2017 10:55:42 AM)

Whoops, minor correction on myself:
after shuffling the 2 cards in, AP needs to pull a new 5th card for their Ancient Stirings

I'm really interested in this KP because you seem to be putting us right at the edge of policy. However, I want to argue for this being HCE.

In my experience floor juding, the HJ would likely want to be brought in on this one for this reason.

I assume others are suggesting it is simple dexterity error; however, I believe in this case we have an extra card in a set. Per the aIPG "This line does require a bit of common sense, as defining an exact technical line between Hidden Card Error and Looking at Extra Cards is problematic.“

In this case, there is an extra card in the 2 card set (or subset if you prefer).

WE are allowed when applying the fix to use the ”smallest set" that is unambiguous. The situation makes it clear the 2 cards were NOT brought together with the previous 4.

As such, I would tell the player my proposed fix, ask Arborea not to do it until I've fully explained it and we all agree on the next steps. The fix would be to reveal the two cards to the opponent who will then pick one. That one will be shuffled into the random part of the library… (as such I would ask if there is any known part at the bottom of the library from scrys or other cast spells, etc.). Then provided my decision was appealed, I would ask her to proceed with revealing the two cards.

There would also be a Warning for HCE

This one has me torn. As long as the cards haven't joined a new set, this appears to be L@EC. The annotated IPG confirms this under Hidden Card Error and defines cards sticking together in this manner as an issue of dexterity. At first, I would think that we only perform the “fix” - shuffling away the unknown cards - to the last two that were picked up when attempting to resolve Ancient Stirrings, but this is laid out in the last line of IPG 2.3 for Hidden Card Error :

Originally posted by IPG 2-3:

Always operate on the smallest set possible to remedy the error. This may mean applying the remedy to only part of a set defined by an instruction. For example, if a player resolves Collected Company, picks up three cards with one hand and then four cards with the other, the last drawn set of four cards should be used for the remedy, instead of the full set of seven cards.

Annotated IPG goes into philosophy of trying to fix the game state without too much disruption though, and I believe that what I would do is the following:

1) Confirm that it's GRV: L@EC, and ask the players to wait while I check with the head judge to confirm the fix.
2) Explain the scenario to the head judge and explain why I believe deviation from what is considered the normal fix is warranted (shuffling back all six cards, since they were previously unknown) is more disruptive to the game state than the fix laid out in HCE.
3) Based off of the Head Judge's response, return to the table and apply the fix laid out. Ideally, that would be the following:

Explain the penalty (GRV: L@EC for Arborea - a warning), and fix the game state as follows:
Set aside the first four cards from Ancient Stirrings, as well as any other cards whose location is known (bottom of library - previous Stirrings?)
Shuffle the two cards into the random part of the deck.
Return known cards to the library - this includes the first four cards from Ancient Stirrings.
Resolve Ancient Stirrings (look at the top five).

Edited Bernie Hoelschen (Feb. 8, 2017 02:07:18 PM)

This all happened at once, so obviously no penalty for NAP

because of the line counting cards. it sounds like she may have not actually SEEN the cards just taken them off, if thats the case then no error, put bottom of cards that stuck on top.

otherwise, and more likely given scenario:
this is not HCE as it involves two cards sticking together which puts this into L@EC territory.
the simple solution i would suggest taking the smallest subset possibly (the two separate cards) shuffle them into random portion of deck and re add the single card required to finish the set of cards that need to be looked at for stirrings and then continue gameplay.

Yes, I'm persuaded as well.

The key is the “stickiness” has lead to a “dexterity” issue. As such, it cannot be HCE and the L@EC fix is better because it doesn't give an opponent information for a simple dexterity issue.

I would rule GPE - HCE, since the error that has occured(took/drew one card too many) cannot be fixed using public information.

you have one card too many in the set of 2. You reveal the set of 2 to the opponent, he or she chooses the exces card and it is shuffled back into the random portion of the library. After this has been done, we can continue resolving the Ancient stirrings.

Thanks for all of the discussion this week. This scenario does fall on a couple of fine lines in policy. As Daniel Woolson first pointed out, this can't be Hidden Card Error because the root cause was a dexterity error, so this is Looking at Extra Cards. It also cannot be HCE, as Arborea clearly intended to draw one card, and accidentally drew two cards, which is explicitly excluded from that infraction.

Take the bottom card (the 6th card) of the two stuck together and shuffle it into the random portion of Arborea's library. The other card becomes the 5th card she is looking at for Ancient Stirrings, and she can finish resolving the spell. Arborea receives a Warning for Looking at Extra Cards.

Yes, LEC does instruct us to “Shuffle any previously unknown cards…“ In this case, the 5th card is part of the Ancient Stirrings set of 5, and the 6th card is the only ”unknown card." This is identical to a player drawing for turn and accidentally seeing the 2nd card of their library.

I must have some objection to that:

this can't be Hidden Card Error because the root cause was a dexterity error, so this is Looking at Extra Cards. It also cannot be HCE, as Arborea clearly intended to draw one card, and accidentally drew two cards, which is explicitly excluded from that infraction.

Can't we apply this reasoning for almost any HCE situation?I If I cast Stirings, grab top 3 then grap another top 3 because of card “sticking” I could also say that my intention was to get only 2.

The cards themselves must be part of a distinct set intended by the player.

In original situation our player want to create distinct set of 1 card but by mistake that set contains 2 card.

This infraction does not apply to simple dexterity errors, such as when a card being pulled off the library sticks to another card and is seen or knocked off the library

For me “sticks to another card and is seen” apply to situations, when while drawing 1 card top card of library “flips” for a second enough for me to notice what that card is but stays on top. If I drew that card, then I created set of cards with excess cards.

Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

Can't we apply this reasoning for almost any HCE situation?I If I cast Stirings, grab top 3 then grap another top 3 because of card “sticking” I could also say that my intention was to get only 2.

No, you can't apply that reasoning to almost any situation.

Back in the days of DEC, I was standing behind a player who cast Sphinx's Revelation for X=7, and proceeded to draw cards one at a time, counting aloud, until he drew 8. That was not a dexterity error. When a player casts Ponder and resolves it as Brainstorm, that is not a dexterity error. When a player casts Traverse the Ulvenwald and does not reveal the card, that is not a dexterity error. If a player picks up 6 cards with Stirring because they “just thought it said top 6 cards,” that is not a dexterity error.

There are still many situations covered by HCE. However, the definition of the infraction excludes dexterity errors as specific circumstances that are not covered.

So when I am called over to the table, if the player says he drew a card too many because they stick together, its L@EC. If he does not its HCE?

Originally posted by Michiel Van den Bussche:

So when I am called over to the table, if the player says he drew a card too many because they stick together, its L@EC. If he does not its HCE?

Depends on what they mean by “draw.” If the extra card has been added to the set (the hand), then it's HCE. If they picked up the card from the library, saw that it was stuck together with another card, and didn't change the position of those two cards, it's LEC.

Thans for clearing that up. I sometimes have difficulties with keeping certain penalties apart.