Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

Jacob, and what about player A? In 9/10 cases there's no fair fix for both players. One of them will end up with additional information.

While we'd prefer to restore the game state to as close to unbroken as possible, if we have to choose between disadvantaging one player or the other, I believe we should err on the side of the player who has committed the infraction.

it seems that many folks here think that it is normal and somewhat acceptable for a player to immediately draw cards when activating abilities such as these. I find this unusual. Im my experience players generally pause after activating effects or casting spells to ensure they resolve before completing the instructions. As a player, I would definitely confirm with my opponent in these situations before drawing and as a judge expect players to at least leave a chance for the opponent to interject if not a true confirmation. How differently do you view activating an ability from casting a spell? If a player cast divination and immediately drew before confirming that divination had resolved, would you treat it differently? Why?

If I was on the spot for this, without guidance from highers, and NAP says “I wanted to respond with K Command, doing X and Y”, I'd apply the DEC penalty, but lock NAP on the decisions they already made, in the same spirit as the Established MTR Shortcuts.

Specifically: “If a player casts a spell or activates an ability and announces choices for it that are not normally made
until resolution, the player must adhere to those choices unless an opponent responds to that spell or
ability. If an opponent inquires about choices made during resolution, that player is assumed to be
passing priority and allowing that spell or ability to resolve. ”

While it's not the same situation, the spirit of the situation is highly similar. You can't make one decision to create a specific outcome, then change the decision.

Edit: Having now discussed this with a local senior type, I'm thinking this would be a dangerous ruling.

Edited Josiah O'Neal (Dec. 10, 2015 12:31:09 PM)

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

While we'd prefer to restore the game state to as close to unbroken as possible, if we have to choose between disadvantaging one player or the other, I believe we should err on the side of the player who has committed the infraction.

I think that this is an incredibly dangerous path to go down. The IPG aims to have consistent fixes regardless of who it helps. The infraction goes to the player who made a mistake, the fix goes to the IPG.

Objectively, why is a thoughtseize a better fix than a backup?

The DEC fix is a major disruption to the game state. Placing a random card back is how we deal with card draws that are legal but need to be backed up.

DEC: AP loses the best card in their hand, then draws a new and different card.
Backup: AP puts random card on the top of library, then redraws it.

Edited Marc DeArmond (Dec. 10, 2015 07:17:15 PM)

Originally posted by Jacob Milicic:

Once we're at the point where Player N has not yet interjected and cards were drawn, it does not appear as though there is a fix that completely eliminates any potential advantage gained by Player A drawing quickly while simultaneously not impacting the decisions of Player N. Putting a random card from the hand back on top could remove a card that was previously in Player A's hand that answers Player N's spell, but is nicer to Player A than allowing Player N to take the best card. At the same time, Player A could end up with an answer that they did not have before. And then there are shuffle effects. Would we put a random card back with a shuffle effect in play? Normally we would not, but then would we be making a special exception in this case as to not back up is to not allow Player N to play an effect they should've been able to legally play?

As I have already said in this thread once before: If you believe Player A is abusing this ruling to get extra information and gain advantage, you can send him on a trip to Dairy Queen, that is within your ability as a judge. So for the time being, while it is an issue that is fair to raise, the solution is “if you think he's cheating, we have a penalty and a fix for that too”.

Originally posted by Marc DeArmond:

I think that this is an incredibly dangerous path to go down. The IPG aims to have consistent fixes regardless of who it helps. The infraction goes to the player who made a mistake, the fix goes to the IPG.

Objectively, why is a thoughtseize a better fix than a backup?

I'm not sure why you think it's a dangeroud path to go down when, in fact, it's the guiding philosophy of the IPG. For example, we shuffle an extra card away during Improper Draw At Start Of Game because it's better to damage the game state against the person who drew an extra card than to leave potential for abuse that benefits the infractor.

Also, the backup fix does potentially give the active player an advantage. They know an extra card now; if the card they drew was an answer to Cut (say, Dispel) and they didn't put it back, they've gained a major advantage. And if a worse card gets put on top–well, what if they have a fetchland or a Dig Through Time?

Finally, speaking of paths to avoid, I'm not sure we really get to chose whether to back up or to thoughtseize. If you can make a policy argument that the situation above fits the backup criteria, I'm all ears. But if policy says thoughtseize, we throughtseize, even if a backup seems to be a “better fix”

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

Also, the backup fix does potentially give the active player an advantage. They know an extra card now; if the card they drew was an answer to Cut (say, Dispel) and they didn't put it back, they've gained a major advantage. And if a worse card gets put on top–well, what if they have a fetchland or a Dig Through Time?

One can also make the opposite argument. For example, what if you had the Dispel for your opponent's Cut already and now you had to put it back, so they get to Cut your Jace when you had the answer already? What if you put the best card in your hand back and then your opponent casts Path to Exile on your Jace?

The point being, for every case you can name that benefits Player A, there exists another case which benefits Player N. On the whole, the rule is about as fair as it can get. And again, if you're worried about Player A using this ruling to his advantage by attempting to get mini-Brainstorms using this “rules loophole” (so to speak), remember both that we're still handing out Warnings to track this stuff so player A isn't getting off entirely scott-free, and UC - Cheating is an infraction you can give if you feel the situation is particularly egregious.

Finally, speaking of paths to avoid, I'm not sure we really get to chose whether to back up or to thoughtseize. If you can make a policy argument that the situation above fits the backup criteria, I'm all ears. But if policy says thoughtseize, we throughtseize, even if a backup seems to be a “better fix”

We don't get to choose. The way I understand it is that the rules currently say that DEC is appropriate (I've heard no convincing argument to the contrary) but Toby said “yeah that's not what you should do, try not to do that” and an update to IPG is presumably forthcoming.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Dec. 10, 2015 11:14:03 PM)

If a player moves directly to combat without giving his opponent a chance to respond, declares attackers, and the opponent calls a judge stating “I had responses to make”: would you give a GRV to AP in this case?

It seems to me that the general consensus is that we “back up” to the point when NAP has priority before attackers are declared. Kevin Desprez also had an article (Your text to link here…) talking about when backups are appropriate for lapses of communication where no infraction is being assessed.

So we can return a random card to the top of AP's library, give NAP priority with the Jace ability on the stack and play proceeds as normal. Yes, there are cases where this favors AP (they drew a response, randomly put back something else) but there are also cases where it favors NAP (they drew something that isn't useful, and their response was put back), and these 2 cases should in theory balance out. The only issue here is if AP has some form of library manipulation (usually a shuffle effect) which generally makes backing up through a card draw less than ideal.

I've been thinking about this situation quite a bit over the last few days and wondering if there was some way we could preserve the location of these “drawn” cards even through a shuffle effect. Such as: During a simple (1 action) backup, a drawn card can be set aside. This card functions as the top card of the player's library, but is omitted from any shuffle effects. The intent is that this known card will be the card drawn when the player is next instructed to do so.

The most common cases for a simple card draw backup seem to me to be cases where priority wasn't given and the other player has a response, skipping through the upkeep, and a player casts a card draw spell by tapping the incorrect lands (though this is only a simple backup if they could, in theory, still cast the same spell after the backup). A change to this affect would prevent players from getting a “free” mini-brainstorm out of their penalty.

Please note that the above two paragraphs are not suggesting a deviation, but rather looking to create discussion about a possible change to policy. Would it break anything? Could the wording be better? Is it a dark and dangerous road best left untraveled?

“Due to the complexity of accurately representing a game of Magic, it is acceptable for players to engage in a block of actions that, while technically in an incorrect order, arrive at a legal and clearly understood game state once they are complete.” -MTR 4.3

After discussing this briefly with another judge we eventually came to a consensus. We interpreted the actions in example 1 as having been made out of order and apply no remedy. Both players resolve all of their actions, and as long as a legal and clearly understood game state is reached, we would not step in or apply any penalty.

“An out-of-order sequence must not result in a player prematurely gaining information which could reasonably affect decisions made later in that sequence.” -MTR 4.3

If Active player would like to respond, then out of order sequencing is not applied, due to the premature information from having an extra card in their hand. If Active player would like to respond, DEC with thoughtseize remedy would be appropriate before they announce their action.

If other actions have been taken (e.g. exiling and returning Jace to the battlefield transformed) you can treat them like the GRVs they are, and rewind.

This is not DEC, as the card was meant to be drawn; this is not OoOS, as everything was done correctly. This is just playing too fast for this opponent to respond in time. Situations in which that really matters are rare, but - if the opponent really does have a Stifle or similar reason to respond prior to the draw - you can consider a simple backup.

Since AP did not pass priority before resolving they have technically violated a game rule, but you should be able to get someone for that 15-20 times a game, easily, which suggests it's not the best approach. As Toby pointed out, we must be very careful with something like that; consider these posts:
http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/post/150538/
http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/post/150586/
http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/post/150662/ <– esp. that one
http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/post/150834/ <– yep, that one too
http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/post/150912/ <– and that's why this ‘O’ is so belated

I'm not about to start issuing GRVs every time an opponent claims “he didn't let me respond”. Yes, it's best to confirm draws before you draw, but not doing so isn't strictly an infraction.

d:^D

So where did this end up? Especially in light of some wording from the new Hidden Card Error (quoted below), it seems one could interpret this as someone being able to speed through their Jace, Vryn's Prodigy ability and transform their Jace to avoid any potential for it getting killed as a creature.

Originally posted by IPG 2.3:

If a pending ability on the stack would result in a legal overall outcome (e.g. a draw action that has been resolved out of order), continue to resolve that part of the stack to restore the game state.

This feels like it should be an incorrect interpretation of the text. Perhaps it does not even apply here. I'm confident someone will set me straight. :)

This isn't an out-of-order resolution, and it isn't HCV for the same
reasons as Scott stated 12 days ago - I suspect he might have been aware of
these changes when he confirmed that no infraction would need to be issued.

If you believe a simple backup is necessary to give the opponent an
opportunity to respond, then do so. You're not rewinding a GRV, you're just
helping the players agree on where in the game we are, since one player is
a few seconds ahead of the other. If this rewind involves returning a card
from the hand to the top of the library, and the identity of that card was
not previously known to all players, the card returned would be random. If
the opponent does not have a response this time, but just wants his
opponent to slow down, remind the player to get confirmation before drawing
cards, and that should be the end of it.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

I suspect he might have been aware of these changes

;)

In fact, Toby and I collaborated on that Answer, even while the L4s were discussing and polishing the IPG that just went public.

d:^D