Hi everyone!

You're judging at the Side Event of a GP. Andrew is playing against Nathan. They both call you because during last turn's combat, Andrew cast a removal targetting Nathan's only creature. After that, a bunch of things happend involving counterspells and card drawing. They call you because they just noticed that Andrew was missing the color he needed to cast the removal. As too many things happened, your ruling is that we can't backup so we leave the board state as it is. After the corresponding warnings, you go check on other tables.
When you pass by a couple of minutes later, you notice that that same exact creature is no longer in the graveyard but on the battlefield. As you ask the players, they tell you they agreed to put return the creature to the battlefield and the removal to Andrew's hand.
What do you do?

Even though this is at a GP side event, they are still under Regular REL. We should be treating this event the same way as you would at FNM.

Talk with the players tell them its not ok to do that and fix the game state if you can. Remind them that not following the judges rules may result in a different action if they continue to ignore the judges.

Even though this is at a GP side event, they are still under Regular REL. We should be treating this event the same way as you would at FNM.

I would hope that we're not at Regular in the Competitive forum…

I think a lot of this scenario is a “had to be there”, so I'm going to do a little investigation to try to figure what's up. It's difficult for me to say without any more information what my resolution is.

(Assuming Comp REL side event, like Sunday Super Series…)
Just as it was difficult to back up in the first place, it's difficult to back up now. Let them both know that's not acceptable, and leave things as they now are - creature in play, removal in hand. (There's no infraction that matches this, so no new Warnings.)

d:^D

I believe this might fit into USC - Minor.

4.1. Unsporting Conduct — Minor
Examples
F. A player fails to follow the request of a tournament official, such as being asked to leave the play area.

It also warrants a brief talk about appeals.

That's what I'd do, but I'm not too sure.

Well, 3 wild posts suddenly appeared! Why is this not USC - Minor?

This feels a bit odd. Aren't the players blatlantly ignoring policy and rules? Do we really want to encourage players to apply their own fix if they don't like what the judges say? I would've thought that a player intentionally ignoring something like this would've fallen into USC - Cheating.

This would not fall into Cheating because the players have not taken this action to gain an advantage. They simply agreed the game state was something that it was not based on the ruling of the judge. This would not be USC - Minor based on that example because no direct instruction was given to those players for them not to change the state of their game in the manner they did. I realize that may sound nit-pickey; however, the players were acting in what they felt, in all likelihood was in the best interest of preserving the integrity of their match. The fact that that did not mesh with the judges ruling is a problem yes, but it does not match a current infraction in our policy as Scott has mentioned.

Thanks for the clear explanation, Nicola. I still like talking about appeals, though.

Let's first assume there was no judge call following the initial error, and you (somehow?) discover the players applied their own mutually agreed-upon fix. Would you do anything? If so, what and why?

Now, going back to our original situation, the players have called a judge and received Warnings. Then they did something that without this intervention would not have been an infraction. Does it make sense that the players should now receive a harsher penalty because they talked to the judge?

Just like the hypothetical players who didn't call a judge, those who did have been naughty by fixing things themselves. Give them a stern finger-wagging, and move along.

I'm confused on why it's not another GPE-GRV. returning cards to the battlefield and hand from the graveyard is illegal. I agree that you leave the board state as is if caught too late, but confused why you wouldn't issue warnings for illegal actions. I'd be very appreciative to hear your reasoning.

At competitive REL, though, wouldn't it be DEC? The definition is “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 the card into his or her hand, no other Game Play Error or Communication Policy Violation had occurred, and the error was not the result of resolving objects on the stack in an incorrect order.” Andrew has clearly put a card (the removal spell) into his hand, and there was no GPE or CPV beforehand and nothing on the stack. I would give Andrew DEC and Nathan GRV (for illegally returning the creature to the battlefield).

I think there is too much focus in this thread on making an infraction fit the root problem of “they didn't listen to us and did their own thing.” That's penalty engineering, and please don't do that.

If it continues to be a problem, be extra direct and consider USC from there.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

and leave things as they now are - creature in play, removal in hand. (There's no infraction that matches this, so no new Warnings.)

Isn't that exactly the new infractions? We resolved the intial problemby leaving things as they were.
At some point in time after that, A put the removal into his hand and N the creature onto the battlefield. Which, by the comprehensive rules, they clearly were not entitled to do. Which makes them Game Play Errors, even if both players agreed on doing this, does it not?
And since they are GPEs, if nothing else, they would be GRVs. Or where is the flaw in that logic?

Going at this from another angle: If you were called to a table where players have put cards from their graveyards into play for any reason that is not because they reanimated that creature, you would give out a GRV, too, right? So why not here?

Originally posted by Nicola DiPasquale:

This would not be USC - Minor based on that example because no direct instruction was given to those players for them not to change the state of their game in the manner they did.

These examples are not a be all and end all what the infractions are. Ignoring a Judges ruling and doing whatever you want is disruptive to the tournament, thereby meeting the requirements for UC-Minor. By ignoring the Judge's ruling, the players are undermining the authority of the Judge. By not issuing some penalty here, we are essentially saying “unless we tell you otherwise, our rulings are just suggestions that you can ignore without repercussion.”