Originally posted by Milan Majerčík:

I agree with the point that the backup may change the outcome of the situation. Still, this is not important, because IPG tells us to first look if any partial fixes are possible and only after that check for possible backups.

I'm pretty sure the IPG states you first check if you can back up, then consider if partial fixes apply. The way round you're suggesting would mean partial fix (if appropriate), then try to back up which would be very odd.

Originally posted by Marc Shotter:

the IPG states you first check if you can back up, then consider if partial fixes apply.

That was true until the version of the IPG on September 26th last year (the latest version is here by the way). Check the changes from previous versions. Toby Elliot wrote some explanations about this change on his blog there.

Thank you Loïc! I seem to have been referencing the wrong version. I'm still in the same position on this question though, as I consider the partial fix disruptive and so would not apply it.

“but, if the players have been making decisions based on the card being where it is, that’s the kind of situation where you should leave the game state alone.”

That's the final line from Toby's blog. Isn't that exactly the situation here? We don't know, and shouldn't speculate, whether the second Magma Jet was only cast because the Swan Song was in the graveyard. However, we should at least acknowledge that it's a possibility, and that should rule out the partial fix.

After reading the blog post I have definitely be swayed to the NO partial fix here. So now the question is would a back be warranted, and I dont think the game is so inherently broken that it is needed. So I say no, leave the game state as is.

Good points…
After reading Toby's blog, I see your points for not applying the fix.
Someone could argue every decision is made based on the present game state. So every GRV not caught on time would make every decision made after that based on that mistake. It is then very hard to say if Ned's decision was based on the fact that Swan Song went to the graveyard.

Maybe Ned didn't see where Anne putted Swan Song and thought she returned it to her hand. In that case he would'nt be taking a decision based on Swan Song being in the graveyard. He would, after all, get a 2/2 flyer, get Swan Song out of Anne's hand and prevent Anne from going Swan Song Infinite (assuming she doesn't have 5 untapped mana). Maybe Ned need's to be asked a few questions?

I would still apply the fix in this particular situation.

Edited Nicolas Mihajlovic-Gendron (Feb. 20, 2015 10:49:14 AM)

You should definitely investigate this possibility.

Knowledge Pool are cheater-free.
All error are honest error.

Originally posted by Pascal Gemis:

You should definitely investigate this possibility.

Knowledge Pool are cheater-free.
All error are honest error.

If we assume no cheating (or nothing approaching cheating) then we must assume that Ned did not make his decision based on the Swan Song being in the graveyard. Therefore the partial fix brings the game into alignment with both Ned's conception of the game, and how it should be.

I say approaching cheating because Ned might have noticed that the Swan Song is in the graveyard, intentionally not called attention to it, and still not be cheating. He may think that Soulfire Grandmaster's ability is like a trigger, and can be missed. Or he may not know that allowing your opponent to commit a GRV and not calling attention to it (to gain advantage) is illegal. The IPG has two conditions that must be satisfied for a penalty to be cheating. That the player was attempting to gain an advantage, and that they knew that what they were doing is illegal. That said, I don't think they are throwing something like that at us with this scenario.

To restate: if we rule out cheating and almost (but not quite) cheating then the partial fix seems both appropriate and non-disruptive.

edited for spelling/clarity

Edited Grant Fowler (Feb. 22, 2015 07:32:54 PM)

Originally posted by Grant Fowler:

If we assume no cheating (or nothing approaching cheating) then we must assume that Ned did not make his decision based on the Swan Song being in the graveyard. Therefore the partial fix brings the game into alignment with both Ned's conception of the game, and how it should be.

I say approaching cheating because Ned might have noticed that the Swan Song is in the graveyard, intentionally not called attention to it, and still not be cheating. He may think that Soulfire Grandmaster's ability is like a trigger, and can be missed. Or he may not know that allowing your opponent to commit a GRV and not calling attention to it (to gain advantage) is illegal.

We don´t have to assume that Ned made his decission based on Swan Song in the graveyard just because we assume he is not cheating. What we do know is that he did take his decission based on a game state where he saw, let´s say, 2 cards in hand, both unknown to him. He cast his spell. With it on the stack, Anna taps an Island, calls a judge, and then gets a third card to her hand, which is a counter.
What we must agree is that if Soulfire´s ability had ressolved properly, Anna would have one more card in her hand, and Ned would know what card it was. Maybe Ned forgot completely about Soulfire´s ability even though it was activated seconds before it´s bad resolution; maybe even Anna had a small lapse and just remembered when she needed it. Maybe no one “remembered and was slippery with her hands” or “saw something illegal and let it happen”. We don´t know the truth and I don´t think it´s safe to assume so much.
I say we just subscribe to what we DO know for sure: a card was wrongly put on the graveyard, and a player took an important game action based on that contamined game state (all of it and objectively; we should not believe that his decision was solely defined by him actively remembering a misplayed card).
Maybe Ned would have casted the spell the same, but that´s not what he had the chance to do, and that is not what would be happening if we apply the partial fix.
Things went awry in the game, but all fixes we are thinking just twist the game more… We should just let them take responsability of the error they made together and tell them to keep playing.

In other news (and assuming that “no-fix” is the correct answer just to discuss this topic): Anna tapped her last Island to cast a non-existing Swan Song. That mana-activation isn´t illegal… so we shouldn´t even let her untap that land? It don´t seem to be all that important, but man, do it seems harsh :P

I'm for doing a partial fix here. Either Ned did all his choices based on the Swan Song being in Anna's hand, or on it being in the graveyard. We're not rewinding, so a partial fix won't affect those decisions. The time since the GPE is also short, so fixing this will all in all not affect the Game State enough to warrant not doing a partial fix. Anna's clearly been counting on the Swan Song being in her hand when doing choices, and assuming Ned's not cheating (as we always do in knowledge pool scenarios), he should have been counting on her having it in her hand.

GPE - GRV, GPE - FtMG and a partial fix.

Originally posted by Espen Skarsbø Olsen:

… Assuming Ned's not cheating…he should have been counting on her having it in her hand

There seem to be a couple of comments of this type, phrased as ‘Ned can’t have considered the Swan Song in his decisions because if he considered it he would have been cheating.' We're giving him a FtMGS because he's missed the fact that the Swan Song should have gone back to Anna's hand. Looking at it afterwards doesn't mean he must have have known it should have returned to her hand.

Originally posted by Pascal Gemis:

Knowledge Pool are cheater-free.
All error are honest error.

While that's true for most scenarios, including this one, I don't think we (KP) ever promised that would always be true… ;)

I would give Annie a warning GPE-GRV and Ned a GRE- FTMGS.

I would return the Swan song to Annie's hand using the established fix.

Would Ned have played differently when he knew Anne has that Swan Song in hand? The scenario does not offer enough information to decide this for sure I believe.
Given the information there is I tend to believe that Ned had cast Magma Spray anyways, getting rid of Swan Song and recieving another flyer, so casting Magma Spray was not affected by Swan Song being in the yard, therefor I apply the partial fix and return the Swan Song to Anne´s Hand. GRV and FtmGS.

I like to look at the problem in general and not only at the special case in the knowledge pool, because I think it is very helpful to think about how we should handle given problems in general and why/when to handle them differently.

My oppinion is, that the best way to approach situations like this, when only a short time has passed and only a single action has been taken to most of the times return the card to the correct zone, otherwise the opportunity to exploit the way we handle such problems seems very huge, if all it takes to deny the opponent a card is to quickly fetch a land or cast a bolt at his face. But I wonder if I am wrong with that?

Good afternoon, judges. We had quite a lively discussion this week. Nearly all of you avoided the trap of treating Soulfire Grand Master's ability as if it were a trigger. Excellent job! (We thought this would trip up more of you, but I guess Knowledge Pool is succeeding too well for our own tricks to work!) So we know that Anne has committed a Game Play Error - Game Rules Violation. And we know that Ned has committed GPE - Failure to Maintain Game State by allowing her error to persist through several actions.

And that leaves us with the sticky bit: the fix. Fundamentally, we have three options. We may apply a partial fix if one is applicable, rewind the game to the point of the error if no partial fix is available, or leave the game as-is if we can neither partial fix nor rewind without excessive disruption. This is the partial fix in question:

Originally posted by IPG 2.5:

If an object changing zones is put into the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it can be moved without disrupting the state of the game, put the object in the correct zone.

Swan Song was supposed to go to the hand, but went to the graveyard. This condition is quite unambiguously met. However, there is the matter of “without disrupting the state of the game.” From Anne's actions, she has clearly indicated that she knew Swan Song was supposed to be in her hand and thought it was. From her perspective, there is absolutely no disruption from putting the Swan Song where it is supposed to be. The question is whether Ned's perception of the game state is different and if this is sufficient to stop us from putting the Swan Song back. Here are the things Ned knows:

• Anne cast Swan Song following a Soulfire Grand Master activation last turn.
  
• Anne has some cards in her hand and tapped an Island following his Wild Slash being cast.
  

So we can say fairly unequivocally that Ned should expect there to be a Swan Song in Anne's hand if he was paying attention to immediately prior actions. And if he wasn't paying attention before, he has no reasonable expectation that there must not be a Swan Song there now, given his knowledge of Anne's current hand contents and actions. Since Anne is certain the Swan Song should be there and Ned is, at worst, uncertain whether it should be, the disruption is quite minimal. This being the case, the Knowledge Pool team agree that we will apply the partial fix in this situation.

That being said, many of you raised valid concerns about applying this partial fix, and we applaud your analysis of the situation. We here at the Knowledge Pool feel comfortable with the partial fix, for the reasons stated above, but this does not mean your reservations are unjustified.

Thanks to everyone who participated this week, and we will be back tomorrow with another scenario.