This thread is for discussing the article Backups-Embracing the Rewind by Jack Doyle & Joel Krebs.

Thanks for the article, Jack and Joel! I thought the Thoughtcast example was particularly interesting, especially if the player was able to draw a second land to cast the spell. Really thought-provoking!

I believe there is a slight mistake in the first example.

The ‘answer’ reads “Because the object was not changing zones (even though it should have)”, but all objects in the question have changed zones after all….the Doomblade was cast from Hand and then presumably put into the Graveyard, and the Zombie was destroyed, right?

Yes, Philip, you are correct. It should read something along the lines of:

Because the objects involved were not supposed to change zones in the first place, we cannot apply the partial fix for moving objects into the right zone.

Thanks for the catch.

Edited Joel Krebs (Aug. 20, 2013 01:06:29 PM)

I find the “No Love for Boars” case a good example for discussion. Foremost, if you decide to back this one up, don't forget to add life points back for the damage done in combat! I've seen this happen all too often as judges get caught up in the technical details of rewinding game actions one step at a time.

Also, before deciding to back things up, one of my considerations is my confidence level in the correctness of the game state at the end of the rewind. As the article notes, “Now we have to determine which permanents were tapped during Alice’s turn. This is often forgotten by judges.” To me, which lands are tapped and which lands are untapped is a valid consideration. If I don't have a high confidence that I can get it right, I'll probably leave things as-is. In this case, the initial game state was probably pretty clear, but use your judgement. If it's not clear, I likely wouldn't back up.

Thank you for catching the error, Philip. And thank you, Joel, for providing a clarifying sentence. I have updated the article with your quote.

Thanks for the article, Jack and Joel!

I'm not sure if it's a correct place to raise a question regarding situations not covered in the article, but I'm often puzzled how should I handle backup when dealing with batch actions.

Here is a scenario that triggerred a heat debate in our local instant messaging group yesterday:

In a Return to Ravnica block sealed GPT, A was playing against N. A cast an Aerial Maneuver on his Ubur Sar Gatekeepers. In response, N tapped 8 lands and announced that he would activiate Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius' activated ability 4 times targetting the Gatekeeper. When N was asking if those abilities could be resovled, a judge stepped in, pointing out that even though N has tapped 8 lands for the activations, the mana he had could only allow him to legally activate the ability twice (Say he was able to generate only two U or two R from the lands he had).

The case itself seems simply enough to perform a back-up. But opinions split on how to determine the point of error in this situation? Specifically, Was the error occured when N announced he would activate Niv-Mizze's acitvated ability four times as he tapped 8 lands, or when he was trying to “actually” activate the third activation only to find he didn't have sufficient mana to do so?

Thank you for the opinions!

I like the idea of applying existing tournament policy to your situation, Zhaoben. Think about this tournament shortcut:

"Whenever a player adds an object to the stack, he or she is assumed to be passing priority unless he or she explicitly announces that he or she intends to retain it. If he or she adds a group of objects to the stack without explicitly retaining priority and a player wishes to take an action at a point in the middle, the actions should be reversed up to that point."

The way I've always interpreted this is that the player activates an ability, has it resolve, and repeats that multiple times. So if we think about your Niv-Mizzet situation the same way, you could argue that A activated Niv-Mizzet, had it resolve, did it again, then did it twice illegally. So you would rewind only the two illegal ones.

(But then again, one could argue that the *first two* activations were illegal and third & fourth ones were the legal ones…)

To the “No Love for bears case”: In the suggested fix Alice puts back a random card from her hand on top of her library even though the article sais she drew a forest.

Just to clarify the situation: Two scenarios:

A) Alice draws the forest, puts it into her hand and then calls a Judge.
The fix for me here is clearly putting a random card back on top, because the opponent does not know what card she drew
B) Alice draws the forest and looks at it, but does not put it into her hand but in front of her face down.
Do we still fix the situation by placing a random card on top of the library or do we put back the face down card which was clearly drawn that turn for all players (and the judge)

Originally posted by Markus Offergeld:

B) Alice draws the forest and looks at it, but does not put it into her hand but in front of her face down.
Do we still fix the situation by placing a random card on top of the library or do we put back the face down card which was clearly drawn that turn for all players (and the judge)

In this scenario I'd put the card (the forest) on top, and then shuffle the library. Then proceed with the backup from there. Alice is entitled to draw a random card from the top of her library. This may or may not be a forest. Her play decisions should not be affected by the knowledge whether she will draw the forest or not.

Markus,

In the scenario as given, the card that isn't drawn yet is in a position where it is identifiable to both players, regardless of whether they both know what it is. Joel's fix is what I would also do in this situation.

Regards,
Jack Doyle

Necro time! :)

I liked the distinction between Simple (mana, resolution of spell), Moderate (Card, attacks), and Complex Backups (More Cards). I've never heard about it before and I think it's a valuable educational tool.

Also, thanks for this: “With this newer wording, an object must have tried to change zones in order to be eligible for this fix – if an object should have gone to the graveyard, but didn’t, it is not eligible. If it should have gone to exile, but went to the graveyard instead, that is eligible. Be careful!”

Finally, I'm also curious about Jack or Joel's opinion on Zhaoben's case :)

Thank you :)