Originally posted by Tobias Rolle:

I always thought, that in a nutshell regular REL is “use your own judgement”, while competetive REL is “only use your own judgement, if the IPG doesn't cover this specific case”. This thread tells us, that even when the IPG says “Once a card has been placed into his or her hand … the offence is no longer Looking at Extra Cards” (implying that once the cards touch, it's DEC) we should use our own judgement when determining if a card was drawn or just incidently touched the other cards in hand.

I think the emphasized part is the big misunderstanding in this thread. In the IPG there is no paragraph were a card touching the cards in hand is defined as a card beeing drawn. That is just something the most people interpreted into it. What I take away from here is that we should use our own judgement to decide whether the card is drawn or not. Once the card is drawn we should apply the appropriate infraction and penalty

Originally posted by Markus Dietrich:

Tobias Rolle
I always thought, that in a nutshell regular REL is “use your own judgement”, while competetive REL is “only use your own judgement, if the IPG doesn't cover this specific case”. This thread tells us, that even when the IPG says “Once a card has been placed into his or her hand … the offence is no longer Looking at Extra Cards” (implying that once the cards touch, it's DEC) we should use our own judgement when determining if a card was drawn or just incidently touched the other cards in hand.

I think the emphasized part is the big misunderstanding in this thread. In the IPG there is no paragraph were a card touching the cards in hand is defined as a card beeing drawn. That is just something the most people interpreted into it. What I take away from here is that we should use our own judgement to decide whether the card is drawn or not. Once the card is drawn we should apply the appropriate infraction and penalty

Keep in mind that a massage of the definition for DEC will need to recognize a threshold that likely lies between “touching” and “reasonably considered part of the player's hand”, since judges should care about the potential for unintended/overlooked shuffling of cards in hand could have easily occurred, where the player would genuinely assert that it did not happen and “this is the card” is the claim. The habit of “hand shuffling” is so ingrained in player behavior and most do it without acknowledging it happens, that a player could be insistent and earnestly believe that it didn't happen.

Really, this is a situation the player created themselves, whether by not reading a card correctly (presuming “hand” rather than something else), not being careful with their physical motions (putting the hand too close to the library), or true physical dexterity “oops” moments (where they just fumbled). We have only so much latitude here (i.e., not every table offers nearly as much room is ideal for some games), and we must put the onus on the players to be responsible for ensuring these situations don't happen. There's only so much we can do to clear up those minor bits confusion that happen, before we truly have to intervene in the game by treating the situation via an actual infraction.

Would I be in fault if I kept applying rulings by the rule “It's a drawn card if it touches the rest of your hand”?

Let’s say AP is resolving a scry effect and, while thinking about what to do, places the scryed card on the table so that it slightly touches the rest of his hand, he immediately takes the card back and puts it on the bottom of his library. NAP immediately calls for a judge. I would have some trouble not ruling this as GPE-DEC for a few reasons.

1) It is easily avoidable
I feel like, when a player sets his hand aside face down on the table to resolve a spell like Anticipate, it’s his responsibility to make sure both piles are far enough so that there is no confusion for anyone.

2) It leads to less consistency
I understand that consistency as its limits, but the unwritten rule that is “It's a drawn card if it touches the rest of your hand” just made it a lot easier for judges to apply the right ruling and for players to know what to expect from judges.
Like in the original scenario, since AP putted the touching card under his library, it is very likely that both players won’t completely agree as for how much the card touched the rest of the hand.
A lot of judgment calls could be made but are not for the sake of consistency and respect of the IPG. I once gave a game loss to a player who registered 56 cards decklist in a modern tournament. He had a very obvious burn deck without any Lightning Bolt registered. He was indeed playing 4 Lightning Bolt main deck, but still had a game loss.

3) It can be abused more easily
According to the annotated IPG, the penalty for GPE-DEC is GL partly to discourage the “good liars” from trying to draw a card when the opponent isn’t looking. If the penalty was just a warning, some players would “play the odds” and just accept the Warning if caught.
Some players found quite ingenious ways to cheat at high level tournaments that required more dexterity than simply switching two face down cards. I’ve personally seen a few magicians perform awesome tricks with a deck of cards, they could easily switch 2 cards in front of my eyes without me noticing. I’m sure a lot of players could do the same if they were allowed to place their cards in a fashion that would let them perform this trick with more ease. I feel like being too permisive on this matter might compromise the integrity of the game a bit more.

EDIT: Cut because I misinterpreted what Brian said, and the rest of what I was asking is asked better by Nicolas above.

Edited James Winward-Stuart (April 23, 2015 01:09:06 PM)

Originally posted by James Winward-Stuart:

Brian Schenck
Being L5 or L1 is largely a moot point, and it is frankly distressing to see it bandied about that somehow an L5 has a better ruling or opinion on the matter.

It's not unreasonable to grant high-level judge's answers more weight - they have more experience and expertise, and it helps to get more consistency if we're all following the same steer.

If we shouldn't “bandy about” that Scott's opinion in this matter is a weighty one, then why shouldn't we just go on doing what we're doing in contravention of that opinion, and training other judges to do likewise? (Maybe we are allowed to do that, but it seems like a bad idea…)

If we disagree with an L5 judges practices/interpretations, then I would have thought the correct thing to do is to discuss the topic (as we're doing here), but in the meantime “follow orders” and do what they say. (Whereas if we disagree with an L1 judges practices, we should discuss that too, but not switch to their system while the discussion is ongoing).

Well, if we want to discuss that one sentence out of the rest of that paragraph and my post, and thus my broader point… My point was to address Mat's post in comparing two incomparable statements. Because I think it does treat the opinions rendered in this thread very unfairly, as well as put weight on a ruling that really was made in a far different context. And yes, I think that it is a far more casual treatment than should be made, which is unfair to the judge who made an entirely different ruling in that context. Hence why I used “bandied about” there.

When level is brought into the comparison of rulings… I feel that is even worse, because it renders the appearance of the opinion to be about the level of the poster, and thus doesn't fairly acknowledge the opinion itself. Which could be a very good point worth considering on its own merits. Which is especially important when considering policy changes. (Consider someone's over familiarity with the MIPG and overlooking that a definition is confusing.)

So please, as a general rule be careful when comparing rulings or even who made them. Because it's more than a little of the “that judge said”-isms that players make.

Edited Brian Schenck (April 23, 2015 01:35:30 PM)

Originally posted by James Winward-Stuart:

If we disagree with an L5 judges practices/interpretations, then I would have thought the correct thing to do is to discuss the topic (as we're doing here), but in the meantime “follow orders” and do what they say.

Correct. In my role as “NetRep” for these forums, I try to provide ‘O’fficial answers where & when appropriate. I also want very much to foster discussion where appropriate - that's a challenge, since once I post something, it's seen as the final & official answer by many … even when I try to make it clear it's just a discussion point, or opinion.

I have posted a few thoughts in this thread that can be considered ‘O’fficial, and I've avoided formal answers to some questions. For example, you will NOT get a serious answer to the question “what percentage overlap constitutes ‘drawn’?” I know that some judges seem to want a very precise, exhaustive manual to cover all permutations, but that simply isn't possible. We can only provide philosophy and guidelines, so when players introduce variance, you can still get to the best possible answer.

I think that we've covered all the ground that can be, profitably, in this discussion. I'm going to leave this thread open for now, in case someone has a new and innovative point of view to share. If I see one more repeat of “I need an exact percentage overlap!”, then this thread closes. (Don't be the person that shuts off everyone else…)

d:^D

Ok. I came up the same situation in a Competitive event recently. In this case, the line where cards were drawn were clear.

1) Held: 3 cards, H1/H2/H3 (With one of them being Anticipate itself). On Table: 0 cards. This is before Anticipate is cast and is obviously ignoring other physical game state objects as they are irrelevant.
2) Held: 2 cards, H1/H2. Table: 0 cards. Anticipate being cast.
3) Held: 3 cards, A1/A2/A3. Table: 2 cards facedown, H1/H2. Resolving Anticipate.
4) Held: 2 cards, A2/A3. Table: 3 cards facedown, H1/H2/A1. Adrian chooses a card.
5) Held: 3 cards, A1/A2/UNKNOWN. Table: 2 cards facedown, H1/H2. Adrian puts his choice back with a small pause in between the two actions.
6) Held: 2 cards, A1/UNKNOWN. Table: 3 cards facedown, H1/H2/UNKNOWN. Adrian chooses a different card.
7) Held : 3 cards A1/UNKNOWN/UNKNOWN. Table: 2 cards facedown, H1/UNKNOWN

In this case, what would the ruling be. Is this DEC ? or is it a GRV with upgrade ?

Edited Pavel Brzezinski (May 10, 2015 11:55:58 AM)