I was floor judging in a recent Comp. REL Modern tournament; when I got this judge call:

A player had cast Thought Scour, then preceded to draw a card without putting the top two cards of his library into his graveyard. Both players realized what had gone wrong immediately, and called for a judge. The player who had drawn the card had 3 or 4 other cards in hand. My initial ruling was a game rule violation, and my prescribed fix was to leave the game state as is.

My reasoning for leaving the game state as is:
* No partial fixes seem to apply here.
* The rewind results in something very close to the player discarding a card at random, that seems quite disruptive.
* If we leave the game state as is, the only real damage is that two cards weren't milled (assuming that drawing one random card from a library is the same as drawing another). That seems like the lesser of two evils compared to the rewind.


The players appealed my ruling, they both thought that the offending player should get a game loss. After the head judge got up to speed he supported the GRV but decided to rewind. So a random card from the players hand was put on top of his library, and then Thought Scour was resolved properly. The players seemed content with that ruling.

So, I felt at the time, and really still do, that this rewind is too disruptive. So I'm here, in an effort to educate myself and better align my judgements with policy and the larger judge community. What fix would you prescribe if you were the head judge, and why?

Edited Grant Fowler (April 16, 2015 12:15:59 AM)

I agree with the players thinking it is a game loss, it looks like
Drawing Extra Cards to me. He drew a card when he shouldn't, and just
before that action there was no visible GRV.


If I wasn't giving a DEC then it would be GRV, and backing up so there
is a random card on top and a mill effect on the stack sounds
incredibly damaging to the game. The game would suddenly take a turn
in a very different direction to the one it should have gone (is it
the spell he was going to play next that is milled, or maybe next
turns land drop, or the only counterspell in his hand, etc).

The game state where the mill just didn't happen is far less damaging.

On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 2:15 PM, Grant Fowler
<forum-17619-2336@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> I was floor judging in a recent Comp. REL Modern tournament; when I got this
> judge call:
>
> A player had cast Thought Scour, then preceded to draw a card without
> putting the top two cards of his library into his graveyard. Both players
> realized what had gone wrong immediately, and called for a judge. The player
> who had drawn the card had 3 or 4 other cards in hand. My initial ruling was
> a game rule violation, and my prescribed fix was to leave the game state as
> is.
>
> My reasoning for leaving the game state as is:
>
> No partial fixes seem to apply here.
> The rewind results in something very close to the player discarding a card
> at random, that seems quite disruptive.
> If we leave the game state as is, the only real damage is that two cards
> weren't milled (assuming that drawing one random card from a library is the
> same as drawing another). That seems like the lesser of two evils compared
> to the rewind.
>
>
> The players appealed my ruling, they both thought that the offending player
> should get a game loss. After the head judge got up to speed he supported
> the GRV but decided to rewind. So a random card from the players hand was
> put on top of his library, and then Thought Scour was resolved properly. The
> players seemed content with that ruling.
>
> So, I felt at the time, and really still do, that this rewind is too
> disruptive. So I'm here, in an effort to educate myself and better align my
> judgements with policy and the larger judge community. What fix would you
> prescribe if you were the head judge, and why?
>
> ——————————————————————————–
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–
Gareth Pye
Level 2 MTG Judge, Melbourne, Australia
“Dear God, I would like to file a bug report”

Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

Drawing Extra Cards to me. He drew a card when he shouldn't, and just
before that action there was no visible GRV.

I disagree, he was instructed to draw a card he just ignored part of the card. thus warranting a GRV rather then a DEC.

From the opponents point of view, when is the first opportunity for him to point out that an error happened while resolving Thought Scour? The momemt the first card hit the rest of the cards in A's hand.
I'm with Gareth here, this sounds way more DEC then GRV for me.

Echoing the DEC game loss here. The only way this changes is if the opponent confirmed the draw. It sounds like he didn't by the description.
What GRV has occurred prior to the draw that allows this to be considered that?

I concur with Guy and René.

I think there are some judges who will try to come up with any possible justification of how something is not a DEC because a game loss “feels” harsh. We should always remember to determine what infraction has occurred and then – and only then – assess the applicable penalty.

After reading through the Usain Ascendancy KP scenario again, in particular this explanation by Scott Marshall:

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

If we apply a very precise analysis, we can easily say “oh, well, Nathan failed to discard before the 2nd draw, and he also failed to resolve that 2nd Bolt (evidenced by not changing life totals) before resolving the 1st Trigger's draw, so that's clearly a GRV before the DEC, so…” - but, as noted in George's official conclusion, that takes us too far down a purely analytical path, and ignores the base philosophy: at what point could the opponent have noticed something going wrong? It's only when drawing the 2nd card that the opponent - or any observer - could detect a problem.

I have to agree this is DEC. At what point could the opponent have noticed something going wrong? When the player drew the card.

Originally posted by Thomas Ralph:

I concur with Guy and René.

I think there are some judges who will try to come up with any possible justification of how something is not a DEC because a game loss “feels” harsh. We should always remember to determine what infraction has occurred and then – and only then – assess the applicable penalty.

But in this example the infraction was that he didnt mill 2, not that he drew an extra card?

Let's take a look at the definition of Drawing Extra Cards:

Originally posted by From the IPG:

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 a card into his or her hand, no other Game Rule Violation or Communication Policy Violation had been committed, and the error was not the result of resolving objects on the stack in an incorrect order.

When is Player A allowed to draw the card? With Thought Scour the target player first needs to put the top two cards of his or her library into the graveyard. Only after that happened A is allowed to draw a card. So i'm sure we can agree that he illegally put a card into his hand, its simply too early for it. And since there wasn't a GRV before ie A's opponent is only able to point out that something went wrong once the card hits A's hand the “no other Game Rule Violation” part applies here. And the scenario doesn't say that there was any conformation for the card draw, so .. too bad so sad, A hopefully learned a valuable lesson.

I understand why by the letter of the law it is DEC and that if Scott or someone else capable of delivering an ‘O’fficial says its DEC I can move on. However the philosophy of DEC is there because the potential of abuse is so high and it's very easy to commit without the opponent noticing. That just isn't the case here. I'd like to point out that the IPG does not say the a visible GRV has to take place only that there was one. However the philosophy is that the opponent should have been able to catch them so we go by that even though the IPG only says any GRV or CPV. Did he put it into his hand, yes. Did he do it illegally, yes. However the potential for abuse is very low and the opponent knew a card draw was coming. I'm not arguing that this is not technically DEC, it is. I'm arguing that it doesn't line up with the philosophy of the infraction and a deviation might be warranted.

I would be interested in knowing whether or not the topcard(s) were known
to the player, for investigative purposes.

Perhaps that top card was exactly what he needed?

There's a potential for abuse here and giving the option to deviate in the
IPG would give a lot more inconsistency in rulings around the globe.
We're already seeing an inconsistency in this specific case where the
infraction was incorrectly assessed. I fear that would be a lot more common
with more options given in the IPG.

-R.

2015-04-16 14:57 GMT+02:00 walker metyko <

Originally posted by walker metyko:

I'd like to point out that the IPG does not say the a visible GRV has to take place only that there was one. However the philosophy is that the opponent should have been able to catch them so we go by that even though the IPG only says any GRV or CPV.

It specifically says:

IPG
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

Before the player started to the draw the card, did a GRV or CPV occur? No. They haven't committed an error until after they've drawn the card.

Moreover, there is no actual mention of the opponent having to have no time to stop the player from drawing the card, it is just a rule of thumb. The only mention is the following:

IPG
Though this error is easy to commit accidentally, the potential for it to be overlooked by opponents mandates a higher level of penalty.

Edit: I agree with Richard that there is a potential for abuse in this instance. Did the opponent have a Courser of Kruphix in play last turn? Did they cast Personal Tutor? Yes, any sort of investigation would let us know if this happened, but it illustrates the potential for abuse.

Edited Matt Braddock (April 16, 2015 09:19:20 AM)

You didn't state who was the target of The Spell

If the opponent was chosen as a target player for discarding it may be considered a out of order sequence, isn't it?

“A player had cast Thought Scour, then preceded to draw a card without putting the top two cards of his library into his graveyard.”

This implies that the player targeted themself with the Though Scour. I'm guessing that this was clear to the players, so there is no issue.