Last weekend I was judging a competitive Legacy tournament. During this, it came to a tight situation at which i had to make some decisions:

Player N knows the top 2 cards of his library (due to Ponder). Now, N does not have any shuffle effects available. In his Upkeep, Player A reveals Path to Exile with Dark Confidant an puts it into his hand. In the Main Phase, A plays Swords to Plowshares targeting N's Delver of Secrets. N says “Spell resolves, cannot find any Basic.” and shuffles his library.
By the way, both players were very emotianal when i arrived at the table.

I counselled two other judges in order to find the right decision. We found out that we cannot restore the board situation and that Player N will take advantage out of his own mistake. But we really can retrace the mistake since N saw the Path to Exile. So I gave a Warning for GPE GRV.

What are your thoughts about the situation?

From the information provided that seems like the right course of action.

As long as your investigation didn't reveal any intent to gain an advantage from either player then both players committed GPE GRV regarding the resolution of Swords to Plowshares. Since the top two cards were not known to all players it is not possible to fix the game state.

I agree with Michael.

If you believe this to be an honest mistake, a warning for GPE-GRV is correct.

If, however, you believe that the player did this on purpose trying to gain an advantage, then you’re looking at a DQ for cheating.

Without being able to be on hand for any investigations it’s going to be hard for anyone to say anything. You were there, you were in the person in the best position to make an assessment and you did what you believe was right, and in doing so created the best possible outcome. Don’t doubt yourself on this after the fact.



From: Michael Quinton
Sent: May-25-13 9:11 AM
To: thatoldguy81@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Taking advantage out of own mistake (Competitive REL)



From the information provided that seems like the right course of action.

As long as your investigation didn't reveal any intent to gain an advantage from either player then both players committed GPE GRV regarding the resolution of Swords to Plowshares. Since the top two cards were not known to all players it is not possible to fix the game state.

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Why does the player who casts Swords get a GRV? What was his error?

He didn't, he gave a GRV to the person that shuffled…



Depending on the competiteveness of the tournament (regular vs non-regular) I might have opted to give the Swords-casting player the option to have cast Path to Exile instead… Not because that would be a better move, but because it'd probably calm down their emotions…

Thanks for your feedback!

The two possible choices seem to be Warning and Disqualification. This looks like a large spread between these options. Nevertheless, the reasons are comprehensible.

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

Why does the player who casts Swords get a GRV? What was his error?

Just to clarify why I said both players get a warning for GPE-GRV here is the relevant quote from the IPG

“In a situation where the effect that caused the infraction is controlled by one player, but the illegal action is taken by
another player, both receive a Game Play Error – Game Rule Violation. For example, if a player casts Path to Exile
on an opponent’s creature and the opponent puts the creature into the graveyard, both players receive a Game Play
Error — Game Rule Violation infraction.”

Sorry it took a bit to see that response. Been a busy several days :)

I think that what IPG says about both players receiving a GPE-GRV is meant
to be used when you discover the error after some time. What I mean is that
if AP casts Sword to Plowshares and NAP puts the creature in the graveyard
and AP calls a judge because of that, do you think both players should
receive a GPE-GRV? If the call is done after some actions once the spell
has resolved there's no doubt, both players are responsible of the error
and should receive a GPE-GRV.

In this scenario it looks like NAP has performed an illegal action
(shuffling library when resolving a swords to plowshares) and at that
particular moment AP has realized about the error. They have begun a
discussion and they have called you because of NAP mistake. I don't think
AP should receive that penalty.

My interpretation of the scenario is that NAP has performed a GPE-GRV
infraction when resolving his opponent Swords to Plowshares. The penalty
for this infraction is a Warning (depending on previous GPE-GRV from that
player). And since we don't know the identity of the two cards that were
known by NAP on the top of the library we can't back up the status of the
library. So it must be shuffled to be in a randomized state.
It is possible for NAP to abuse from this situation to shuffle and avoid
those two cards on top, so we should invest some effort investigating (but
he will rarely accept it). Since a Path to Exile was revealed by the
opponent during upkeep I think it is very probable that the error is not
intentional.
Asking the player to cast Path to Exile instead of Swords to Plowshares is
not acceptable for me, it doesn't matter if it is a Regular of Competitive
tournament. AP casted that card correctly, I can't find any reason to ask
him to change that action.



2013/5/30 Michael Quinton <forum-4326-feb7@apps.magicjudges.org>

NAP shuffled his library instantly after AP casts Swords to Plowshares. They did not go on since AP recognized the mistake immediately.
This is what most of you already assumed.

I assume NAP initially did not gain life off the STP before the judge call and that the resolution from the judge included the life change.

@ David Larrea

I guess I focused a bit too much on the fact that the NAP in this scenario actually said “Spell resolves, cannot find any Basic.” before moving to shuffle the library, and that the AP allowed the NAP to pick up his library and start shuffling before anything was said. I realize after thinking about it longer this may have been more like one fluid motion but I would almost expect to see a life total change on the AP's records showing that he was resolving the spell correctly rather than what could be a situation where they are taking advantage of the NAP's mistake by letting them shuffle after announcing a failure to find.

It does depend on the timing between the failure to find announcement and the shuffle but my initial interpretation led me to want to discourage not being focused on the resolution of your own spell. Their was some indication the NAP was doing something incorrect before they performed the shuffle and the AP did not stop it.

I agree on what you are saying Michael.
My answer is more likely to be in a scenario where AP gets astonished when
NAP says that, picks his deck and starts shuffling. Timing is imporant as
you say, as it is the fact of AP taking notes of the life change or
something that makes you think he was going to resolve the spell correctly.


2013/5/31 Michael Quinton <forum-4326-feb7@apps.magicjudges.org>