Hello friends!

At a Comp REL Event, a player Mulls to 5 cards declares they keeps and then Scrys 2 cards incorrectly assuming they got to Scry X where X is number of mulligans. As soon as the 2 cards are picked up, you are called over.

Now it feels very natural to apply HCE as there is an example about Scry 2 in HCE's description. However according to CR 103.4 the “Scry” is apart of the Mulligan process so the error better fits MPE. If it's MPE, then the only fix available is a forced mulligan which doesn't make a lot of sense.

Now I'd rule MPE with the forced mulligan, but I'm curious as to what your thoughts are, HCE, MPE, or something else?

Why wouldn't you consider L@EC here?

Edit: I found why. Under examples of HCE: “B. A player scries two cards when he should only have scried one”

Edit 2: And Uncle Scott is saying it's L@EC…

Edited Olivier Jansen (April 15, 2016 09:44:41 AM)

If it helps Olivier, in the above example this was not a dexterity error. (Although, I think we should consider both possibilities in the overall discussion).

Originally posted by Olivier Jansen:

Why wouldn't you consider L@EC here?

I wouldn't consider LEC because of the following passage.

IPG 2.2
Players are considered to have looked at a card when they have been able to observe the face of a hidden card, or when a card is moved any significant amount from a deck, but before it touches cards in another set. A set is a physically distinct group defined by a game rule or effect. It may correspond to a specific zone, or may only represent a part of a zone. This includes errors of dexterity or catching a play error before the card is placed into his or her hand.

Once they Scried 2, I believe the extra card has joined the distinct set of the one card they were supposed to be looking at.

Originally posted by Adam Eidelsafy:

Olivier Jansen
Why wouldn't you consider L@EC here?

I wouldn't consider LEC because of the following passage.

IPG 2.2
Players are considered to have looked at a card when they have been able to observe the face of a hidden card, or when a card is moved any significant amount from a deck, but before it touches cards in another set. A set is a physically distinct group defined by a game rule or effect. It may correspond to a specific zone, or may only represent a part of a zone. This includes errors of dexterity or catching a play error before the card is placed into his or her hand.

Once they Scried 2, I believe the extra card has joined the distinct set of the one card they were supposed to be looking at.

Got it, found the relevant passage from the IPG: “B. A player scries two cards when he should only have scried one” - under HCE. At this point, I'm strongly considering HCE.

Originally posted by Olivier Jansen:

Got it, found the relevant passage from the IPG: “B. A player scries two cards when he should only have scried one” - under HCE. At this point, I'm strongly considering HCE.

But has the game begun? After reading CR 103.4, which describes mulligans, I don't believe it has which is why I'd rule MPE.

CR 103.4
Each player draws a number of cards equal to his or her starting hand size, which is normally seven. (Some effects can modify a player's starting hand size.) A player who is dissatisfied with his or her initial hand may take a mulligan. First, the starting player declares whether or not he or she will take a mulligan. Then each other player in turn order does the same. Once each player has made a declaration, all players who decided to take mulligans do so at the same time. To take a mulligan, a player shuffles his or her hand back into his or her library, then draws a new hand of one fewer cards than he or she had before. If a player kept his or her hand of cards, those cards become the player's opening hand, and that player may not take any further mulligans. This process is then repeated until no player takes a mulligan. (Note that if a player's hand size reaches zero cards, that player must keep that hand.) After all players have kept an opening hand, each player in turn order whose hand contains fewer cards than that player's starting hand size may look at the top card of his or her library. If a player does, that player may put that card on the bottom of his or her library.

From Toby Elliott's Blog on changes to the IPG with SOI:

Step one was to pull all the pregame errors back out. They were derivable from Hidden Card Error, but it was asking too much. The Vancouver Mulligan introduced a lot of complex nuance into the process, and having to wedge the “you can mulligan again to prevent this” into Hidden Card Error was confusing. So, now we have a new infraction – Mulligan Procedure Error – that handles all the ways in which a player can make a mistake before the game has even begun.

One thing to note is that Mulligan Procedure Errors only apply before the game begins. Specifically, drawing for the first turn is not a Mulligan Procedure Error and is handled as a Hidden Card Error. First-turn draws being part of pregame procedure was a bit of a hack to keep it out of Game Loss territory, and now that the penalties are much closer, it can go back to a more natural place.

…..
So does this make all pre-game errors the exclusive providence of MPE?

Charles

(Full Blog Post Here)


Edit for clarity of quote.

Edited Charles Featherer (April 14, 2016 11:41:22 AM)

As Adam noted, the “scry 1” or “Vancouver Mulligan” is part of the pre-game procedure, so this can't be an HCE - no matter how well it seems to fit, otherwise. And I agree, the fix seems cleaner - but it isn't supported, so we won't do that.

While the MPE remedy may seem harsh, keep in mind, this is very much a corner-case - I can't imagine where this player got the idea it was Scry X, with X=number of mulligans! - and it just won't happen enough to justify a change to how all the “normal” MPEs are handled.

d:^D

I guess that would also be MPE if they kept a 7-card hand then scryed for
1. Yes?

That feels correct as well, Shawn. I think in that case (and in the one cited by Adam), we're talking forced mulligan as the solution. Perish the Thought fix doesn't work, as they have the correct number of cards in both instances.

Edited Charles Featherer (April 14, 2016 12:09:59 PM)

So if someone mulligans, wants to scry 1 but accidentally grabs 2 cards(maybe because they stick together or sth like that) we force him to mulligan to 5? Seems really harsh and to be honest, that's not that much of a corner case…

I'd consider the HCE-Fix, but never the MPE-Fix… And that as a player and as a judge.

Edited Johannes Wagner (April 14, 2016 12:25:23 PM)

Originally posted by Shawn Doherty:

I guess that would also be MPE if they kept a 7-card hand then scryed for
1. Yes?

Is this not L@EC?

The way I am seeing Scott's point is that any error that takes place during
the “mulligan process” would fall under MPE. My hope would be that scry
errors would not fall under this situation and that only errors involving
the mulligan itself would be MPE

Shawn

Note: In the situation of “looking at top card then mulligan again”, the
error isn't scrying, it is the mulligan after that, so that's not a ‘scry
error’

I was actually drawing a line between MPE and HCE - which is the line in the IPG, “before the game has begun”, which includes everything until you keep an opening hand; the “scry 1 after mulligan” addition is part of pre-game, as well.

If a player commits L@EC before or during the game, it's still L@EC, and it still shows up in the IPG prior to either HCE or MPE. So the player who sees 2 when they tried to scry 1 is L@EC (dexterity error), whether as part of pre-game or in-game actions.

Shawn's scenario is really odd, in that it's an action that isn't part of the actual pre-game, just part of the imaginary pre-game that player is performing. He's actually completed his pre-game process, and then did something that he can't do, which is normally part of pre-game. :p

In this specific example, I'd be inclined to say that I don't care what phase he thinks he's in, he's actually begun the game, so this is L@EC, so just shuffle it away. I haven't given any thought to whether or not that logic is solid, however…

d:^D

Scry 2 instead of Scry 1 is explicitly pointed out as being a part of HCE though?

This is, incidentally, one of the few cases where the ordering of infractions in the IPG defeats the “top down” concept - there are a great many situations that LEC could conceivably cover that HCE covers instead.