So, this was a new one. I was called over to a table at a Regular REL tournament last night and was presented with the following issue:

Anson is playing against Noah, and it is currently Anson's first turn (Noah went first overall). He plays a land and passes, at which point Noah cracks a Wooded Foothills, and at some point during the fetch shuffled his hand into his deck. I reasoned that since only Noah knew what was in his hand at the time, and there was no reasonable way to correct the game state, a Game Loss was appropriate (and this was immediately accepted by both players).

I'm wondering if anyone here has had anything like that happen, and if a fix is theoretically possible. Thinking about it a few hours later, I had the idea of having Noah finish resolving the fetch, then drawing cards equal to how many were in his hand. My trepidation about that is the possibility of exploitation.

Thoughts?

First of all, a Game Loss for this is totally undesirable.

At worst, Noah will play without hand. This is the way you handle it at Competitive REL, as explained previously in this forum. There's no way to fix their hand (not even with a previous Thoughtseize!! :) ), so no fix. GRV, Warning and keep playing as you can.

In Regular REL… well, you can think on a quite a lot of creative fixes. I don't support yours, since you open a undesirable possibility of shuffling “accidentally” my mana-flooded hand and draw some nice new cards. But could be argued, why not :) I'd personally apply the same one as Competitive REL. No new hand redrawn, advice about playing more carefully, and go on :)

Edited Joaquín Pérez (July 22, 2015 06:56:47 AM)

I'm with Joaquin here, a game loss for creating yourself a huge disadvantage is harsh for Comp REL and not something I'd want to do at Regular.

I'd ask Noah to play on with no hand. That said if Anson seemed unhappy with this (I know players at my LGS who just want to play a good game of magic) I might suggest Noah draws half the cards shuffled away, it gives Noah a chance to come back into the game but reduces the likelihood of undesirable behavior.

Edited Marc Shotter (July 22, 2015 07:08:55 AM)

At regular this is most definitely not a game loss. Game losses are super rare at Regular - generally for repeated errors or problems despite a lot of education. A game loss is never the answer when you can't fix the game (even at Comp REL)

In this case, at Regular, given its turn 1, is probably just have the player finish shuffling and then replace the 6 cards with random draws and play on. To avoid exploitation I'd have a stern talk about how this was a once off because it's regular; to be very careful in the future; and let that be a lesson.

I agree.

REG REL is a place where no GL should be given under most circumstances.

Your poor player has already lost his hand and I agree this seems to be unfixable.
Asking the players to continue the game with some new cards is probably the solution here.

Edited Théo CHENG (July 22, 2015 07:14:47 AM)

I appreciate all the advice for fixes in the event this happens again. I admit, I was rather thrown by the situation, and with the benefit of hindsight, I see there are several ways this could have been handled differently. But that's why these discussions exist, right?

Another very important tip: when in doubt, call a judge! That's what we educate players to do, but it's also true for seasoned judges ^^ I have the phone numbers of several experienced judges in my phone, so when I encounter a problematic situation, I can call for advise.

Learning from mistakes is a great way to grow, but preventing them where possible might be even better. Also, it would be great if you have the courage to inform the players next time you see them about the discussion we had here, so they know what to expect next time. And also, to show them how seriously we take judging and customer service!

Greetz, Dustin.

Originally posted by Dustin De Leeuw:

Another very important tip: when in doubt, call a judge! That's what we educate players to do, but it's also true for seasoned judges ^^ I have the phone numbers of several experienced judges in my phone, so when I encounter a problematic situation, I can call for advise.

Learning from mistakes is a great way to grow, but preventing them where possible might be even better. Also, it would be great if you have the courage to inform the players next time you see them about the discussion we had here, so they know what to expect next time. And also, to show them how seriously we take judging and customer service!

Greetz, Dustin.

I always make a point to inform players when I make a mistake. I want my players to know that I'm not above owning up to it when I make a mistake and learn from it.

I had this exact scenario happen at FNM once. What I did was the following:
I let Noah play it as though he took a mulligan and let him play as though he did nothing on his first turn (Because we are already in Anson's Turn). No further Mulligans are possible.
So if he shuffled 6 cards in by accident, we let him shuffle back the land he searched and let him draw 6 (Because the land should be added to the 6 cards shuffled in).

My thought process:
- There isn't a clear fix for it.
- We can't let him search back his hand, because the chance for abuse is to high.
- We also can't let him draw random cards without shuffling the land back (Again abuse chances. He might have kept a one-lander and he might now be trying to draw a fresh 6 with more lands).

With my remedy, we “punish” him for not paying attention, but he can also still play.
What I remember, is that both players liked the solution. Because they could still play a game of magic on friday night, instead of just going to the next game.

I have the same exact scenario, but rather it was on a different level of event - Grand Prix Singapore :)
After I understand the situation from the players, I am already pretty much convinced that there is no possible way that I can fix the situation, and instruct them to play on, and I would not issue any penalty to any players on the ground that the player who had shuffled his/her hand into the deck already suffer a huge disadvantage to play on the game down his whole hand against his/her opponent. I quickly double check with a L3 - Christian before I issue the ruling, and the call was acknowledge by Christian.
I issued my rulings to the players, explaining the reason I come to this and also offered the player the opportunity to appeal to the head judge. Well, the player who made the mistake accept the ruling with a smile and offer a concession to his opponent at the end.

For the folks who would let the player draw some new cards: how many is the right number to draw? Try to answer without looking at other folks' answers - I suspect we'll see that there's quite a bit of variance. That's why I'd tell the players to be more careful, and play on - no hand. It feels like the most consistent answer that will be reached regardless of which judge arrives at the table, it minimizes the possibility for abuse (cards that let you shuffle your hand back in and draw a new one are either symmetrical, cost a ton of mana or are banned - that should say something about how disruptive they are!), and while it feels bad, there's no scenario that doesn't create some amount of feel-bad for someone at the table, and this fix has them at least feeling that it was fair.

Originally posted by Yu Win Yew:

After I understand the situation from the players, I am already pretty much convinced that there is no possible way that I can fix the situation, and instruct them to play on, and I would not issue any penalty to any players on the ground that the player who had shuffled his/her hand into the deck already suffer a huge disadvantage to play on the game down his whole hand against his/her opponent. I quickly double check with a L3 - Christian before I issue the ruling, and the call was acknowledge by Christian.

Not to bleed into competitive, since this is the Regular REL forum, but “the player already received a huge disadvantage” isn't a reason to not issue a penalty when an infraction has been committed. Shuffling your hand into your library when nothing instructs you to do so is a Game Rules Violation, and should come with a Warning.

While it might be uncomfortable to give a player a warning after he or she does something that will cause him or her to probably lose, a warning is just a reminder to play more carefully and a method of tracking which players are making mistakes - it's possible that this player didn't realize that you'd rule that he or she wouldn't have a hand, and was hoping for a new one (perhaps because someone let them re-draw at FNM?), and while their plan turned out poorly here, it may be part of a pattern that merits investigation later.

This has had a couple of times to me and the fix really does depend on what has happened previously and what will make both players enjoy the match.

I would never make a player carry on with no hand. They either get to draw a random number of cards back to what they should have or if we can piece together the hand then I will let them go and find those cards, or most commonly, somewhere in-between.

At Regular REL, we are open to the possibility of reconstructing the hand using information like a previous Thoughtseize. At Competitive REL this isn't an option, but at Regular we can attempt to repair the game enough to allow the players to play.

There are times, however, when there is no choice but to have the player proceed with no hand. If we cannot reconstruct what their hand was, then I don't like giving them random draws to fix the problem due to the potential for abuse. This unfortunately feels like one of those times.

Sent from my iPad

Originally posted by John Brian McCarthy:

Not to bleed into competitive, since this is the Regular REL forum, but “the player already received a huge disadvantage” isn't a reason to not issue a penalty when an infraction has been committed. Shuffling your hand into your library when nothing instructs you to do so is a Game Rules Violation, and should come with a Warning.

While it might be uncomfortable to give a player a warning after he or she does something that will cause him or her to probably lose, a warning is just a reminder to play more carefully and a method of tracking which players are making mistakes - it's possible that this player didn't realize that you'd rule that he or she wouldn't have a hand, and was hoping for a new one (perhaps because someone let them re-draw at FNM?), and while their plan turned out poorly here, it may be part of a pattern that merits investigation later.

Thanks for the point John, I did overlook the fact on players expectation could be different and the importance of tracking infractions.

Edited Yu Win Yew (July 22, 2015 10:22:05 PM)

I think we reached a conclusion here: never give a Game Loss, and apply a fix that you with your personal judgement deem reasonable. This varies from person to person: some judges will let the player draw a number of cards (maybe smaller than their original hand size), others will not. This is not the consistency we want at Competitive, but it's exactly fine at Regular: cater to your players and the atmosphere in your LGS.

I think everything useful has been said here, thanks for sharing all your ideas!