Welcome to Personal Tutor, where we learn how to maximize our opportunities for education. We've had a couple variant months, but this time we're back to having a good, honest scenario. Our goal is to transcend the basic answer to create an informative answer that the players will really remember and teaches them something about the rules, rather than just resolving this ruling. You may even find this process helps you come to a better understanding of the rules yourself.

The Scenario:
Agitator and Nonconformist are playing in a sealed GPT, of which you are the head judge. Agitator calls you to the table. "So, I stole my opponent's Jeskai Infiltrator with Lose Calm and attacked him. No blocks, so now I need to resolve the Infiltrator's ability. But I'm playing red sleeves and Nonconformist has blue sleeves, so how am I supposed to shuffle the cards?"

The Basic Answer:
It's fine. Don't worry about it.

We are looking for the actual words you would say aloud to the player, not a description of the type of information you would provide. (So, “Power and toughness always swap last,” not “I would tell them about the sublayers of 7.”) L1s and Judge Candidates, feel free to give your answers immediately. L2s, please wait a day to add your input. L3+, please wait two days.

I would probably give the player a quick rundown about the types of information–specifically, that a card's owner is public information. It isn't relevant which sleeve the Infiltrator is in, because Nonconformist has a right to know which card is his at any given time.

Just a quick reminder:

Originally posted by from Joshua Feingold:

We are looking for the actual words you would say aloud to the player, not a description of the type of information you would provide.

So, what exactly would you say to the player Jeremy?

Edited Auzmyn Oberweger (April 2, 2015 06:26:12 PM)

“It doesn't matter, just manifest them both as they are. Which cards belong to you and which belong to your opponent is always public information, so you can't really shuffle in this unusual case. The manifests are not feeling secretive right now.”

“Because a player has the right to know which card is theirs at any given time, the shuffle effect of Jeskai Infiltrator is only a formality. You can keep the cards in their original sleeves.”

You can shuffle the cards if you want but a player always has the right to know which card is his so it doesn't matter if you have different sleeves. If you had the same type of sleeves you'd be required to tell him which manifest is owned by him anyway.


Edit After reading the other answers : I don't know if mentionning “Public Information” is right here. It's a bit technical but at the same time we're at Comp REL so we're kinda forced to give a more precise answer.

Edited Jaurès Chabalier (April 2, 2015 07:21:45 PM)

“Even if both of you had sleeves of the same color, it wouldn't make a difference here. Your opponent still gets to know which manifest is the Jeskai Infiltrator after the two cards are shuffled. The owner of a card is public information at all times, because players have a right to know which of the pieces of cardboard in front of them are their property. Imagine there's a glowing aura around each card at all times that differentiates it from your opponent's cards.”

“Just like how both players get to know who controls a permanent, both players also get to know who owns a permanent. I'd recommend just shuffling them together with the sleeves different, because that way it's easy to tell who owns each card.”

Edited Darcy Alemany (April 9, 2015 06:39:53 AM)