Am I correct to interpret that the distinction between LEC and HCE, in the context of picking up cards to draw/scry/whatever and accidentally taking too many, is that dexterity issues noticed immediately are intended to be LEC (the first card will be drawn or scried, the second card will be shuffled into the random portion of the library), and it only becomes HCE once a player has added the cards to his hand or has potentially changed their order (at which point the Perish the Thought fix will be applied to the hand or the set of cards)?

Came up in #mtgjudge and the best explanation I could give was "If the cards touched the rest of the player's hand, it's HCE. If he's started the scry, if he may have changed the order of the cards, if he put them back on top or bottom of the library, it's HCE. But, it really feels like if the judge is confident that both players can identify the “right” card, it's LEC."

Edited Dan Collins (Jan. 27, 2016 10:36:46 PM)

My interpretation is this..

LCE - The card is uniquely identifiable and separate from the hand. So long it has not touched the pile of cards in the hand. Holding the “hand” cards on 1 hand and the other card in another will still amount to LCE for me.

HCE - Once the extra card enters the pile of cards which is part of the hand then it will be HCE. Does not matter if it is uniquely identifiable or not (includes placing the card on top or bottom of the pile and both players can identify it).

If a player cast Dig Through Time and grabs 8 cards, would you rule LEC or HCE?

If the player instead picked up their entire library and started to search, thinking they were cracking a fetch land, would you rule LEC or HCE?

What is the difference? Where do you draw the line?

The Examples are still pretty helpful, I think:
Examples A and C seem pretty obvious?
Example B, it's important that extra card is seen, but not added to another set of cards - typically, the hand, but not always.
Example D might trip us up, since we're following an instruction that creates a “set of cards” - so it seems like it could be HCE.

Say you're resolving a “reveal the top 5” effect (say, Commune With the Gods), you flip over 1, 2, 3, 4, and then two more stuck together. At this point, we know what the 6th card is, just shuffle it as usual and issue LEC.

Sensei's Divining Top gives us a fun example: you're activating a Top that is still in play, you pick up the top 3 cards and start to look - and realize there's 4, one stuck to the others. These cards are not public, the order isn't known (per the HCE Definition), so we have a set of cards with an excess, and hidden, card. I'm calling that HCE, and fully expecting players to say “hey, isn't that just Looking at…??!?!?”

d:^D

I'm not seeing the difference, or where the line is, between example B
(where I pick up two cards instead of one, they don't enter my hand or get
shuffled around, I put them right back down, and everyone agrees that the
order hasn't changed) and “top pick up 4” (where I pick up four cards
instead of three, notice immediately, put them right back down, and
everyone agrees that the order hasn't changed). I'm going to need to insist
on some more clarity on how the order is definitely known when I pick up
two cards in example B, but can't possibly be known when I pick up a fourth
card for Top.

I'd also be interested in knowing why these two equally common situations
have such radically different fixes - both came up at SCG Columbus, with
players somewhat dismayed at having to reveal their top 4 and losing a card
of their opponent's choice rather than the card that both players agreed
was the fourth card down. I can imagine that the reason is “who knows if
the order of those cards *really* changed or not”, but that's still
Cheating, and I don't see why we can't leave it to the judge to investigate
and determine whether he or she believes the cards are in their original
order or not.

Well, Dan, to be fair - I never said “everyone agrees on the order”, in my Examples. :)

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

I can imagine that the reason is “who knows if the order of those cards *really* changed or not”

That is a deciding factor.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

but that's still Cheating

No, not usually. I pick up 4 cards instead of 3, I'm looking at them, and realize “hey, there's an extra card stuck here”. I might be certain which one is 4th, but there's almost no chance my opponent will share that certainty.

In the draw-1-oops-got-2 example, it's common for that 2nd card to be lightly stuck to the 1st, and quite often the 2nd card just slides off the library and plops face up for everyone to be Looking At.

When it's clear to everyone what the order is, we can ignore the part of HCE's Definition that says “Order cannot be determined from card faces only visible to one player unless the zone in question contains only a single card.”

If you look carefully at the L@EC Definition, and that part about “a card is moved any significant amount from a deck”, you'll also realize that we don't have to be certain the card was Looked At by any player. Just the probability that it could have been glimpsed is enough to consider the infraction.

Does that help?

d:^D

My meaning was that if a player changes the order of the four cards, and then denies doing so when asked by a judge, this is Cheating. Clearly accidentally seeing an extra card is not. I didn't mean to change your examples by adding “everyone agrees on the order”, that's just the situation that I'm trying to get to the bottom of (and having some challenges along the way :P).

It sounds to me like you're saying that, for the “draw 1 oops got 2” example for LEC and the “look at 3 oops got 4” example for HCE, the difference isn't the type of instruction, or the number of cards involved, but whether “it's clear to everyone what the order is”?

As another possible line - Toby once described chapter 2 of the IPG as a “flow chart”. GRV is the “infraction of last resort”, if you will, and the correct way to apply that chapter is by starting from the beginning and stopping once you find an infraction that fits: Missed Trigger, then L@EC, then HCE (now), then finally GRV (and FtMGS is a special case all by itself). If that's still official guidance, then it seems that in cases where the definitions of both infractions apply, we apply L@EC and therefore the L@EC remedy, and it doesn't become HCE until it stops being LEC, which is the moment a card touches the other cards in the hand, or I suppose when the error stops being correctable based on publicly available information. I think this gets us to the same place of “if everyone agrees which card should not have been seen and the card never touched the hand, it is LEC, shuffle the extra cards into the random portion of the library”.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

GRV is the “infraction of last resort”

or (D) None Of The Above. :)
Yep, that top-down process still works, as designed.

Yes, lying about something would be a Serious Problem, aka Cheating. The opponent not being able to confirm the order shifts us from the easy solution of L@EC, into the more severe remedy of HCE. And, just like your “changes order, then denies it” example, the opponent shouldn't try to get away with lying about the order being clear. (There is less burden on the opponent to have paid attention, which is why this gets ugly at times.)

Dan, I think you understand this a lot better than you're admitting! I may start to quote your posts from time to time, just because I'm too lazy to write it myself! :D

d:^D

I agree, I'm very much of the ‘everyone knows what card it is, just fix it’ school of thought (also with things like ‘technically one corner of the card is touching the hand, but it’s still 100% clear which card it is').

I am still confused about the difference between LEC and HCE.

What is the difference between picking up an extra card while drawing (LEC - example B) and picking up an extra card while scrying (HCE - example B)?

Also,

If a player resolves a countered Titan's strength and illegally scry 1, why is not it HCE since it fits the definition and why not make HCE fix: player reveals the card, opponent has to choose that one, then player shuffles it in random portion?

Thank you,

You're reading too much into the examples and not enough into the definition. If he looks at an extra card, this is looking at extra cards, and the extra card is shuffled back into the library. If an extra card is moved to a hidden zone like the hand, or the extra card is picked up into a set of cards and moved about, then we cannot identify which one was the last one picked up, so it is a hidden card error.

Basically if the error was caught early enough that everyone involved is confident that the extra cards can be returned correctly, then it's LEC. On the other hand, as the definition of HCE states, if the information available to all players is not sufficient to correct the error, then it is HCE.

Paraphrasing what I said earlier, "the difference isn't the type of instruction, or the number of cards involved, but whether it's clear to everyone what the order is”

Ok, so if a player scries two cards instead of one but everyone is sure which card is the second one from top, we should rule LEC?
Going the opposite way of the example?

My understanding is that Looking at Extra Cards is only relating to dexterity issues when picking cards from the top of the library. If you pick up 2 cards when trying to draw 1, it's HEC, if you knock the next card off your library when trying to draw a card it's L@EC.

I'm hoping example B makes this a bit more clear in future IPGs.

It has nothing to do with why you're picking up the cards or what effect you're trying to accomplish and everything to do with what happens to the cards. As Scott mentions above:

I pick up 4 cards instead of 3, I'm looking at them, and realize “hey, there's an extra card stuck here”. I might be certain which one is 4th, but there's almost no chance my opponent will share that certainty.

In the draw-1-oops-got-2 example, it's common for that 2nd card to be lightly stuck to the 1st, and quite often the 2nd card just slides off the library and plops face up for everyone to be Looking At.

When it's clear to everyone what the order is, we can ignore the part of HCE's Definition that says “Order cannot be determined from card faces only visible to one player unless the zone in question contains only a single card.”

The deciding factor is whether you, the judge, have investigated and determined whether or not it is clear to everyone what the order is. That is, whether or not you are able to correct the error using information that is available to all players. If I grab what I think is three cards, lift them straight up, see the bottom card, realize that it's four, and put them right back down, I think it's clear that we can fix this error by shuffling the last card into the random portion of the library. If I pick up 8 cards for Dig, start looking through them, and then notice that there's two cards stuck together in the middle, I think it's clear that we cannot fix this error using information available to all players, so we fall back to HCE and the Thoughtsieze fix.

Remember that LEC, as the “more specific” infraction, takes precedence if they both seem to apply. Once the cards are potentially reordered or touch the hand, it must be HCE. Until that moment, all that a player has done is Looked at Extra Cards.

From a philosophical standpoint, this makes sense: the HCE fix is much more disruptive than the LEC fix, so we should prefer the LEC fix when both potentially apply. The exception that the crafters of policy have provided (thanks, Scott) is that if the error cannot be fixed to everyone's satisfaction, we have this new HCE fix. The new fix is as harsh as it is because there's often no other good way to fix these things, but most cases would previously have been a Game Loss, so at least this is less bad than that.

I agree that there seems to be a lot of confusion here at all levels on the interaction between LEC and HCE, and I hope they simplify or clarify it in the next update.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

You're reading too much into the examples and not enough into the definition. If he looks at an extra card, this is looking at extra cards, and the extra card is shuffled back into the library. If an extra card is moved to a hidden zone like the hand, or the extra card is picked up into a set of cards and moved about, then we cannot identify which one was the last one picked up, so it is a hidden card error.

This is probably the best, simplest way to tell between LEC and HCE that I've found yet.