Hello, judges! Welcome to another Knowledge Pool scenario. This scenario is classified SILVER, so it is aimed towards L2s and experienced L1s to participate. However, all judges should feel free to chime in. You can read the scenario here:

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=647

You are on the Deck Checks team at a Grand Prix. You have been assigned a table to perform a deck check on, and you are casually wandering around that area, watching the players at that table shuffle. Suddenly, “JUDGE!” There's a judge call, and you're standing less than five feet away, so you decide to take the judge call. Once you answer the player's question, you return to your assigned table, only to find that the players have kept their opening seven-card hands and are waiting for the round to start.

“No matter,” you think to yourself. “I can still perform a deck check, as long as I keep their opening hands separate from their deck.” So when you take the decks and sideboards from the players, you carefully orient their opening hands so that they are perpendicular to the rest of the deck. You take the decks back to your deck check partner, hand one of them to her, and start checking yours.

Halfway through checking the deck, you suddenly realize… You didn't tell your partner that those top cards were the player's opening hand! You look up, and see her sorting those cards in with the rest of the deck. “NOOOOO,” you exclaim; “STOOOOPP!”

What do you do from here?

If a game loss is to be issued to one or both players, by MTR 2.8, there is nothing to worry about. GL to the affected player, they take new hands anyway, etc., no harm.

But I guess that's too easy, so let's say that we finish the deck check and find no errors.

What I would not try to do is reconstruct the “lost” opening hand from memory, even if I thought I was absolutely certain, as memory is a fragile mental construct subject to any number of cognitive biases. There are significant issues that might arise should we attempt to reconstruct their hands and be wrong, even if no player knows what cards were in the hand.

Since this is in violation of policy and will require some deviation from prescribed policy, I would first make sure the team lead and/or head judge are notified to sign off on any decisions that end up being made.

At this point, I would petition the supervising judge to go ahead and have both players take new 7's. There is a lot of unspoken information that has already been gained just in the players making their mulligan decisions - if I'm going second, I'm making the mulligan decision based on what my opponent has done. This isn't just a case of whether my opponent kept the seven. It's also a case of the body language, the time spent evaluating, etc. Would the player whose hand isn't lost have kept if the opponent had snap-kept his seven versus taking 10 seconds, sighing, grimacing, and then deciding to keep a hand? There's too many factors involved here, and I don't think there's a particularly fair partial fix to be had, especially if the affected player was slated to go first, and would normally have to make his mulligan decision without knowing whether the opponent kept. I don't think there's another fair alternative, or at least not one that I am immediately seeing.

My issue with giving both players a forced Mull to 7 is that the other
player (who's hand is still in tact?), says, “Actually, I want to keep this
instead of having the free mull.”
Would you let him? Would you force him to mull anyway? or Would you have
'lost' that hand as well?

Saying you let the player keep the preserved hand and the opponent does the
free mull. Would you then hold him to his decision not to mull if after
the opponents free mull if the opponent then decides to go to 6? I would
be inclined to let the other player also mull to 6 if he wished.

Jonathan Trevarthen
L2, Auckland, NZ.

What I would want to do in this situation is deviate from policy as little as possible. Certainly one solution is to back the game up to the point where players drew 7 cards and have them start from there. However the MTR states that when doing a deck check after the players have already drawn their hand you preserve the hand, for one player that is still possible.

I think in this case the best solution is after we are done deck checking the player whose hand we lost, I'd pick 7 cards at random from that players deck. We'd go back to the table and apologize to the player and explain what happened. Give the player the 7 cards I choose at random for their hand and back the game up to the point where players take their mulligans.

Edited Cris Plyler (April 18, 2013 09:41:48 AM)

The issue I have with allowing the person whose hand we didn't lose a chance to keep (and yes, I maintain that it should be a forced mull to 7 for both), is that you're essentially allowing that player to get a free mulligan to seven at his discretion - instead of seeing the current hand and choosing to keep or mulligan to six as per normal procedure, that player is now getting to see his current hand and either keep or mulligan back to six, essentially allowing him to throw back any hand that is worse than the average seven yet better than the average six, which really isn't fair to that player's opponent and opens the door for all sorts of cans of worms.

I think the only two options that can be considered here are either to force player B to his decision to keep the 7, or force him to do a mull to 7, after which he may mulligan along with his opponent in the fashion prescribed by policy, and for the reasons I stated above, I do not feel letting him keep his seven is wise.

I don't think the “back up to mulligans” is a complete fix either. Assume the player whose opening hand we lost is n the play for game 1. Player A now knows that his opponent has a hand which is at least marginal, giving him strategic information about the relative strength of his opponent's hand that he would not otherwise have access to had we not been in this situation.

Again, I stress that since this is in the realm of irreparable damage to the game state (we can't go back and recreate the opening hand) and therefore a deviation is warranted here, the head judge or his designate (I don't know if team leads are given the right of deviation at a GP - someone with GP experience want to help me out?) should be notified and must sign off on any decision we consider.

It depends slightly on if it is A or N's hand that we've destroyed.

If it is A's then we give him a new seven and give him the option to
muligan. If he keeps then start the game, if he muligans then we have
to give B the choice to muligan now that his opponent has muliganed.

If it is B's then it is simpler, we give him a new seven and he can
muligan. Regardless A can't muligan.

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Trey Cizek
<forum-3859@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> The issue I have with allowing the person whose hand we didn't lose a chance
> to keep (and yes, I maintain that it should be a forced mull to 7 for both),
> is that you're essentially allowing that player to get a free mulligan to
> seven at his discretion - instead of seeing the current hand and choosing to
> keep or mulligan to six as per normal procedure, that player is now getting
> to see his current hand and either keep or mulligan back to six, essentially
> allowing him to throw back any hand that is worse than the average seven yet
> better than the average six, which really isn't fair to that player's
> opponent and opens the door for all sorts of cans of worms.
>
> I think the only two options that can be considered here are either to force
> player B to his decision to keep the 7, or force him to do a mull to 7,
> after which he may mulligan along with his opponent in the fashion
> prescribed by policy, and for the reasons I stated above, I do not feel
> letting him keep his seven i s wise.
>
> I don't think the “back up to mulligans” is a complete fix either. Assume
> the player whose opening hand we lost is n the play for game 1. Player A now
> knows that his opponent has a hand which is at least marginal, giving him
> strategic information about the relative strength of his opponent's hand
> that he would not otherwise have access to had we not been in this
> situation.
>
> Again, I stress that since this is in the realm of irreparable damage to the
> game state (we can't go back and recreate the opening hand) and therefore a
> deviation is warranted here, the head judge or his designate (I don't know
> if team leads are given the right of deviation at a GP - someone with GP
> experience want to help me out?) should be notified and must sign off on any
> decision we consider.
>
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–
Gareth Pye
Level 2 Judge, Melbourne, Australia
Australian MTG Forum: mtgau.com
gareth@cerberos.id.au - www.rockpaperdynamite.wordpress.com
“Dear God, I would like to file a bug report”

So lets walkthrough all the steps I would take in this situation.
First, as soon as I realize that the hand has been mixed into the deck. I'm going to ensure that my team completes the check while I go speak with the HJ.
As the HJ I would visit the table as the deck were being returned and explain to the players the error that occurred. My personal ruling would be to restart mulligans. I feel that by a Judges fault one player has to redraw his hand Both should the restart that game. I would field questions and offer to speak the players after the round if they would like.
Finally, I would speak to the Judges involved and explain the importance of keeping the integrity of the hand intact and also of passing along information.

“Sorry guys, I goofed. Please shuffle, present, and restart your game.”

It seems like many people would have both players restart mulligans from seven (and I agree with this). To build on the original question, though, what if the situation was such that not both players had kept a hand of seven? What if, for instance, one player had mulliganed to five before keeping his hand? Do you have them start over again from seven, or from where they had originally left off?

Even if one mulliganed I would restart both from 7. Anything less feels like a “partial fix”.

This KP feels more like a customer service question than a technical question. By restoring the game to fresh hands no player can argue that either was given an advantage. All you've done is erased a little bit of luck (or lack of it) that manifested in their opening hand.

Neither player knows what the other player had. Maybe his opponent mulled and got the nut 6 draw. Maybe he kept a loose hand. No one can effectively speculate on what “might have been” given this limited information.

After doing a deck check their match has already been delayed a substantial amount of time. The priority should be resuming the match as quickly as possible while not leaving either player feeling bad. Telling players to restart with fresh hands is quick, fair, and easy to understand. Anything else is going to require a substantial amount of explanation and may lead to arguments, appeals, and will likely lead to at least one player feeling screwed.


As an aside, I'd recommend if your intention is to keep both hands intact during your deck check, whip out your smart phone and snap a photo of each person's hand. Also helps serve as a reminder when you get back and forget whose deck is whose ;).

Go to the head judge, tell him or her this is what I want to do:

(For clarity, let's say Aaron's hand is lost. Nancy's has not been. Whether Aaron is actually active or non-active player is not relevant to my answer.)

Complete the deck check, maintaining Nancy's hand. When we return to the players, we tell them “When opening hands have been drawn prior to a deck check, it is DCI policy to maintain those hands. However, due to technical difficulties, Aaron's hand got mixed in with his deck. Nancy, here is your original hand, which I want you to hold onto for now. Both of you shuffle your decks, since they have now been sorted. After you finish shuffling, Aaron will draw a new 7 card hand and the mulligan process will resume from his choice to keep or mulligan to 6.” (If Aaron is actually active, Nancy will get another chance to go to 6. If Nancy is active, she has already made her choice.)

I don't see any reason whatsoever for us to force Nancy to draw a new seven just because we lost Aaron's starting hand. What is the possible justification for this? "The game is already broken, so let's really break it!“ How could a new random 7 possibly be more ”fair“ than the original random 7?

I would also never shuffle the player's deck and draw them the new 7 myself. First, as a judge, I should never shuffle a player's deck unless directly asked to do so by a player. The players in a game are responsible for ensuring that the decks are randomized, and we only become involved if we believe that randomization is insufficient. (Then we investigate for cheating and give the player a warning and tell him to shuffle better if he's still in the event after the investigation.) If a deck needs to be shuffled, tell the player to do it. Second, as a player, I wouldn't want some joker shuffling my deck (especially where I couldn't see what they were doing) and then telling me ”I did a good job shuffling, and this is your hand now." I don't care what kind of fancy shirt he's wearing.

Also, as a follow-up, my answer does not change if either player has taken mulligan. If we lost a 6-card hand, Aaron gets a new 6-card hand and we resume mulligans from that point. (If Nancy kept 7 or is AP and kept 6, she is still bound to that decision.)

This is exactly the same solution that I would use if I accidentally de-sideboarded one player's deck during a mid-round deck check.

Edited Joshua Feingold (April 18, 2013 10:41:53 AM)

> I don't see any reason whatsoever for us to force Nancy to draw a new seven just because we lost Aaron's starting hand. What is the possible justification for this? “The game is already broken, so let's really break it!“ How could a new random 7 possibly be more ”fair“ than the original random 7?

I just personally see this as a partial fix. It is just as easy and less confusing to just say ”We made a mistake. Please draw a new 7 card hand and continue mulling from there."

I'm not saying you are wrong by any means as this is obviously a unlikely situation but I do disagree.

Originally posted by John Temple:

I just personally see this as a partial fix. It is just as easy and less confusing to just say ”We made a mistake. Please draw a new 7 card hand and continue mulling from there."

The old saying goes “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

Nancy's hand ain't broke.

Quick deviation from this question: After finishing the judge call and noticing the players have finished presenting and are about to start play, could another option be to hold off until they present for game 2 to initiate the deck check? Not having done deck checks at a GP, would there be too many to do to wait?

Brian: There can be a little bit of a logistical issue with trying to
switch up tables. Normally, your team lead will be back in the judge area
pulling out the decklists for the table that you were assigned to do. So,
you could pull off and target another nearby table that hasn't started yet,
but you will lose a little bit of time in needing to pull different
decklists. The other end is that you might not be able to wait until Game 2
and/or you might not catch them finishing Game 1 and going into Game 2.
Doing a deck check before Game 2 is called a ‘Mid-Round Deckcheck’ since
we're doing it in the middle of the round. With that said though, we
generally don't wait too long into the round to do one. Typically, once
we're 20 minutes into the round, we're not going to do a deck check. If
that table has a 30 minute game 1, you're not realistically going to be
able to do a deck check on them.

-George FitzGerald
L2, Sarasota, FL