Hey there Knowledge Pool Readers! This week's scenario was created by Lee Fisher. As it is a silver level scenario, we ask L2+ judges to wait to contribute to the discussion until Friday.

The blog post for this scenario can be found here: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/2015/02/25/horse-of-greed/

You are the head judge of PPTQ. Anna has a Courser of Kruphix in play. Both Anna and Nicole are playing quickly due to it being near the end of time in the round. While watching the match, you see Anna untap, play the revealed land from the top of her library, and draw for her turn. She then records that she gained 1 life from the Courser of Kruphix trigger. Nicole immediately calls for a Judge. Assuming no cheating has occurred, what do you do?

I would issue two warnings for Anna: a Game Rule Violation and a downgraded Drawing Extra Cards
To me, the issue here lies if the card she drew could be easily identifiable - it should be, as it would be revealed by Courser of Kruphix (and no infraction happened here).
The Game Rule Violation warning is simple: she can't play lands outside her mainphase, and she did it at her upkeep.
For the Drawing Extra Cards, I'm going with its philosophy here:
Since the card was known to all players before being placed into the hand, we can downgrade the penalty and return the drawn card to the top of the library.
As for the game state, the land card Anna played should be put into her hand as it would be the card drawn this turn and her life total adjusted as if the land did not got into play. Resume the game and give it extra time as this ruling would probably take a few minutes to be given.

Now, if she did not reveal the card drawn after the land played and it can't be easily identified, the penalty is not downgraded anymore. Game Loss. Still issue GRV Warning.

Edited Guilherme Henrique da Silva (Feb. 26, 2015 01:05:53 PM)

Anna seems to have played a land during her upkeep. I would give her a warning for GPE-GRV and backup just before the land was played. Since the identity of the drawn card is known to all players (assuming she did reveal the top card of her library before drawing it), correct her life total, ask her to put that card back on the top of her library, then put the played land on the top of her library.
If she didn't reveal the top card of her library before drawing it, I'd apply the same ruling (root is still GRV, so no DEC) but would put a random card form her hand on top of her library.

I would not issue GPE-FTMGS because it's reasonable for her to believe that, because Anna's playing fast, actions occured like this: Anna untaps, draws the land on top of her deck and immediatly plays it at the beginning of precombat main phase. In which case she could only detect the error when Anna draws her second card.
I also feel like Anna's peace of play doesn't allow Nicole to answer any action.

Edit after reading other posts:
You're right, if the drawn card wasn't revealed, issue a separate penalty for GPE-GRV.

Edited Nicolas Mihajlovic-Gendron (Feb. 26, 2015 01:27:18 PM)

It looks like there are a couple of GPE-GRVs that have been committed here. The first is the play of the land before the draw step, and the second is the failure to reveal the new top card of the library from the Courser before the incorrect draw. This doesn't fall under DEC because these GRVs were committed before the draw happened.

The question is whether to treat these as separate infractions or whether the “root cause” is the same. In this case, I would rule that the Courser interaction (and the quick gameplay) is definitely the root problem here, so I would only issue Anna a single GPE-GRV. I would not issue Nicole a GPE-FtMGS because she called for a judge at pretty much the earliest opportunity. They are playing quickly and the land drop + draw was probably too quick to interrupt.

In terms of a remedy, no partial fixes apply so we can then consider a backup. This error was caught quickly enough that a backup seems pretty clean, assuming there are no fetch lands or scry effects available to Anna. I'd want to talk to both players to make sure that they can clearly identify and agree on which land was played, and that Anna gained a life from the Courser trigger. First, a random card goes back on top of Anna's library (don't reveal it yet, leave that to Anna after her draw for turn). Then the played land goes back on top of the library revealed and the gained life is undone, and we pick back up in Anna's draw phase. I would make sure to remind both players to be careful with their play, even when time is short, especially with game-altering effects in play like a Courser.

I don't think there should be DEC here, as it was caused by the GRV of playing a land during the upkeep/draw step. Also, the scenario doesn't say that the card put in hand was revealed. This would be another GRV since this isn't caused by the first error, she would still need to reveal before the draw. Given the probable rate of speed of which these actions were preformed, I don't believe there should be a FtMGS for Nicole. I believe she called as soon as she could be expected to notice that there was a problem.

I would request a backup. If granted, place random card from hand, subtract one life from Anna, replace the improperly played land back on top of the deck face up.

If not granted a backup, I would leave things as they are because I don't believe this situation fits any situation that the IPG prescribes a partial fix for.

I agree that there are two seperate GRVs here for A (thus not DEC) - playing a land during upkeep, and not revealing the next card to Courser before she drew it. We should investigate exactly *why* N is calling for a judge - is it because A is trying to gain a life after missing the life gain trigger? If so, then should N should get a FtMGS for allowing A to play a land in her upkeep? I don't think so, but it's worth considering.

A rewind is possible, and not too disruptive, so that would be my recommended fix.

The question is whether both GRVs are part of the same “action”, and in this case, I think it's reasonable to say they are. Thus A should only get a single GRV.

Before reading other responses:

There's a couple of problems, here. Anna played a land card at a time she couldn't - either she played a land during her upkeep, then drew, or she missed her draw step, then played a land. Then, she didn't reveal the top card of her library before continuing. Then, she resolved her trigger at an incorrect time (after having already passed the point where it should have resolved). Portions of this could be considered Out of Order Sequencing. However, these actions did not end up at the same result state as they would if they were completed in the correct order, so it's not Out of Order Sequencing.

On their own, playing a land at the wrong time is a GRV with a Warning, (or, alternatively, drawing a card when nothing tells you to is DEC), failing to reveal is a GRV with a Warning, and resolving a trigger that no longer exists would also be a GRV with a Warning. Does Anna actually get all these warnings, though?

The very first point of error is playing a land from the top of library, without having drawn a card first. This is a GRV, and it means that whatever comes next is not DEC. Then we have an error for not revealing, and resolving a trigger at an incorrect time. We apply the most severe infraction & penalty here - Game Rule Violation with a Warning for Anna.

It sounds like Anna made all these actions in quick succession, as a single block of actions. If this is the case, Nicole has not done anything wrong. No Infraction. Ask anna how many GRV's she's had so far.

Now, for the fix. The game hasn't advanced too far, and few decisions have been made, so I'd probably be comfortable authorizing a backup. Remove 1 life from anna's life total, return a random card from her hand to top of library, return the played land from the battlefield to the top of her library. It is now Anna's upkeep. Give a time extension as appropriate, remind Anna to be careful, and continue play.


After reading other responses.

I hadn't considered whether we should treat failing to reveal and playing a land at the incorrect time as separate infractions, and Warn for both. They don't have the same root cause per se, but they were both part of the same block of hastily taken actions. This would indicate that we should treat the problems separately. On the other hand, the severity of the courser's problem is only because a land was incorrectly played - had Anna drawn for turn, then played a land before revealing, we'd have a technically incorrect game state, but one that was essentially undamaged (because there were no unrevealed cards going in to Anna's hand), with a very simple fix. (no rewind required, just no partial fix required, just continue the game and reveal the top card of library per rules.) This encourages me to consider the two problems as related.

I'm interested to see discussion on this point.

Edited Talin Salway (Feb. 26, 2015 02:40:21 PM)

I would say Anna drew a land for the turn, played it, and drew an extra card. GPE - DEC - Game Loss.

I see a lot of people saying she played the land during her upkeep, but I disagree simply because she never announced being in her upkeep. In this game we make a lot of assumptions, one being that we speed through phases we don't announce. Even though it would be convenient to say she did this during her upkeep, the next time she could legally move the land from the deck to play is by drawing it and playing it.

Also I don't think the failing to reveal really factors in here, the DEC overshadows it.

So assuming she didn't cheat, the first problem is that she tried to play a
land during her upkeep, GPE GRV. All other infractions are not given as
they have the same root cause as the first GRV.
I would not give FTMGS, since she called as soon as possible.
I would back up the game to the upkeep since the identity of all cards
changing zones is know to both players. Seems pretty clean cut to me.

Oh she already drew and didn't reveal… *enters the think tank*

Edited Jesse Meiring (Feb. 26, 2015 04:34:13 PM)

Originally posted by Sal Cortez:

I would say Anna drew a land for the turn, played it, and drew an extra card. GPE - DEC - Game Loss.

Originally posted by Sal Cortez:

Also I don't think the failing to reveal really factors in here, the DEC overshadows it.

While I think it's tempting to view the situation like this, and it's certainly one interpretation to say that the land was “drawn” and then immediately played, followed by another illegal draw, that still wouldn't fall into DEC - Game Loss. The failure to reveal doesn't overshadow DEC because it is a separate error that occurred before the draw. Imagine instead that Anna had revealed the second card before drawing it (not specified in the scenario, so maybe she did). 2.3 Philosophy says “If the identity of the card was known to all players before being placed into the hand…and the card can be returned to the correct zone with minimal disruption, do so and downgrade the penalty to a Warning.” So now we would have a GPE-DEC, but downgraded to just a warning.

So functionally you get the same result, a warning, but a different GPE. And the Comp Rules for card draws state “120.1. A player draws a card by putting the top card of his or her library into his or her hand.” In this scenario where we're observing the play, we see Anna “play the revealed land from the top of her library.” I think it's fair to rule that she didn't actually draw that card, issue the single GRV warning, and perhaps keep an eye on Anna to make sure this doesn't get abused later in the tournament.

Thinking about this further, why it can't be DEC is the line from 2.3 of “at the moment before he or she began the instruction or action that put a card into his or her hand, no other Game Rule Violation or Communication Policy Violation had been committed.” Specifically the part about “the instruction or action that put a card into his or her hand.” I'd like to hear some higher level judges' interpretations of this line.

Obviously, if a player just draws some extra cards for no reason, that sounds like Cheating. Otherwise, players are drawing cards because they believe some part of the game is requiring that of them, whether it's the normal draw step or some other effect. The example in the IPG of forgetting that a Howling Mine is no longer on the battlefield is a good one here. Even if that effect is gone, it is still an instruction the player is acting off of.

In this scenario, when I go up to the players and start asking questions about what happened, I'm definitely going to ask Anna why she drew that card, and the answer (in this scenario) is very likely going to be “for my draw step.” I think this solidifies the case that the land played off the top was definitely done before the draw step and is therefore the first GPE that occurs and the reason to give Anna the GRV.

I think the GPE-GRV for Anna is fairly obvious, but I'm a little hesitant about the back-up, depending on details not mentioned in the scenario so far.

Firstly: I don't see a reason to assume that Anna actually drew the land as her draw for the turn, then played it, then drew an additional card. From the scenario, it seems like she tried to perform the normal draw for her turn after the land drop, so we're in GRV territory, not DEC. The penalty for that is a warning.

Nicole called a judge as soon as she could have noticed something was amiss (drawing a card seemingly without instruction), so Nicole doesn't get a FTMGS. No infraction and no penalty for Nicole.

I don't believe that Anna has committed a separate infraction by recording Courser's life gain trigger after drawing a card for the turn. The source of both errors seems to be the same: performing a game action at the wrong time (the draw for her turn).

Secondly: Whether or not I would want to back this up depends on whether or not the card that Anna drew after her land drop was revealed to both players before she drew it.

If it was, then this is an easy back-up: Subtract 1 life from Anna's life total, then return the drawn card to the top of the library, then return the land to the top of the library; we are now in Anna's draw step.

If it wasn't, then I'm uneasy about returning a random card from her hand to the top of her library as part of the back-up, where it would end up underneath the land that she should have drawn for her turn. Unlike other situations where we back up a draw, she is not about to draw that card for at least an entire turn (if she has a fetchland in play, maybe not at all). Also, because that card will be revealed due to Courser of Kruphix's ability, we may end up not only altering Anna's hand in a way that severely affects how the game progresses (maybe we took that Hero's Downfall out of her hand), but we might also end up leaking information to the opponent (maybe Nicole had never seen the card we took from her hand, because it was drawn before a Courser was in play).

These things make me really uneasy about returning a random card as part of the back-up here. It might just be that, even with all of these factors, that back-up is still less disruptive than leaving the game state as-is. I'm unsure, and would love some guidance from other judges on why they might find this less disruptive than what has actually occurred (Anna drawing the “wrong” card for her turn).

So the first thing I would do would be to investigate and ask Anna what her intentions were as to the actions she took. I'd ask her to explain what she did before I was called over (even through I was watching and saw it, I need to know her intentions). Assuming she is not cheating (as the scenario stated), I would do the following.

This is a GPE-GRV Warning for playing a land at a point where she could not, which in turn ended up with a card in her hand that should not have been there. I would ask the HJ for a rewind to do the following because she should under no circumsances been allowed to keep the additional card that was drawn as part of the error: In interviewing both players if the card that was additionally drawn could not be identified, a random card from Anna's hand would be placed on top of the deck, and the land that she played would be placed on top of that. One life point would be removed from Anna's total as she had already added one for playing the land. The game would rewind to restart at the Anna's upkeep (where the error occurred). Nicole would not get a FTMGS as she called a judge immediately as the events happened.

Edited Charles Webber (Feb. 26, 2015 08:01:17 PM)

before reading others - we could assume, that playing land straight from the top was a shortcut meaning draw that land and play it in Anna main. After that we should have revealed card on top of Anna library. Unfortunately, she didn't do that, and Anna also drew that card. I would say it's GRV because potential DEC is immediately after GRV (not revealing top card). It's not GRV that we would upgrade, so just warning. As a fix - we undo that draw by putting random card from hand on top. Also, I allow for that Courser trigger based on Out of Order Sequence assuming it was made in one, consistent action.

After reading others - well, I'm not sure that we have 2 infractions there. based on how players play in my LGS, it's common to “play” land at beginning of their turn from top their library then “skip” their drawstep, so it's some kind of shortcut from upper paragraph. Additionally, I think, going either way, we end in that same spot, with 1 GRV and Anna putting her random card on top.

Edited Bartłomiej Wieszok (Feb. 27, 2015 09:51:57 AM)

So without reading others…

We have two errors here: First a land is played during the upkeep, then the next card is not revealed before being drawn. I'm assuming out of order sequencing for the life gain based on the OPs comments about moving quickly.

Given the first error we give Anna the GRV-GPE, this is the point at which Nicole should call a judge, however from the OP I assume this has all happened very quickly and even though a second error has occurred after this my assumption is that this was a series of swift actions and so the ‘immediately’ clause for FtMGS is met.

Depending on board state (fetchlands, shuffle effects etc.) I might ask the head judge for a back up here. If agreed the solution is to adjust life totals, select a random card from Anna's hand and return that to the top of the library, then return the land Anna played to top of her library and turn it face up. Proceed from Anna's upkeep step.

I suspect there is a temptation to consider this a DEC but the action of drawing a card is actually legal here (the other errors make it the incorrect card) and DEC includes a specific clause for errors that occur immediately before it which make it the wrong infraction to consider.

*edited to include the life total correction and for commentary below*

Reading other comments I find two items picked up elsewhere pretty interesting - where would a back up leave us and second are there two warnings for GRV-GPE?

For me I end up back in the upkeep because this must be where the first error happened as Anna drawing the card is the turn based action at the start of the draw step and we need to get back to before that - hence the upkeep.

I'd record both but apply a single GRV-GPE and only provide one warning (as well as an admonishment to play more carefully) because I believe the root cause is the same - Anna is rushing.

Edited Marc Shotter (Feb. 27, 2015 10:14:10 AM)