At a PPTQ I was playing yesterday, we had an interesting scenario that came up in a discussion.

We are after time ended and after/in the last round of the extra turns. Match score is 1-1 and neither player can win.
Player A was playing on turn 4 somehow knows the top card of his library (e.g. “brainstorm” with JTMS or scry on top after serum visions).
After the extra turns players discuss whether anyone should concede (by evaulating board state and future turns).

My question(s):
1) Is player A allowed to claim/argue about the top card of his library to the opponent when discussing, without seeing/revealing it? (And by promising to show it after possibly)

2) Is player A allowed to reveal the known top card of his library to the opponent when discussing?

3) Finally, if player A isn't allowed to reveal, can he do so by searching his library with a game action (e.g. cracking a fetchland).

(I'll post my thoughts/answers on a separate post later)

For the record, the player knowing that he isn't allowed to reveal cards from library didn't do so, even though he could probably convince his opponent with that card. But he had that discussion later.

Recently, a L2 judge from my area summarized it brilliantly:

“If it would lead to a penalty during the game, then you probably aren't allowed to do it while discussing for concession”.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (July 24, 2018 02:23:56 AM)

Now.. the analysis we did so far:

IPG says on UC-IDW:
“A player uses or offers to use a method that is not part of the current game (including actions not legal in the current game) to determine the outcome of a game or match.”

1) Clearly the player can claim the top card is anything, without showing it. But.. they might lie (and the opponent doesn't have to believe them), since players are allowed to give their opponents false information about the contents of a hidden zone. (annotation on mtr 4.1).
This might lead in awkward situations if it happens, with the player that conceded feeling cheated.

2) Well.. this is where it becomes complicated to me.
I understand that this wording, it's a catch-all way of the rules to “white-list” the allowed ways to determine winner, instead of black-listing all the ways the players can't use to determine winner. I perfectly understand the logic behind it and I totally agree with this method.

To be more technical:
The top card of one's library is Hidden information => players aren't allowed to look at them, although it can become known by a game action. Still the players cannot access it anytime at will.
And because a player doesn't currently have access to it, he isn't allowed to show it to his opponent either.

But.. for our case we actually just want to discourage players from using a random method to determine winner, since magic could be categorized as gambling if we are not very strict about it. But since the top card is known, it stops to be “random”, and we don't treat it as such (for example when shuffling a card as a remedy we do it in the “random” portion of the library).

So my conclusion is that by the book the player isn't allowed to show it by the rules, but he shouldn't be forbidden to do so, because it's not random in this scenario.

Of course we cannot judge based on what the rules-maker “intent” was, so in a real scenario we can't allow that.


3) Since cracking a fetch-land is an in-game action, and while a player is searching their library it is available for them and can reveal their contents and previous order as far as I can tell. So I understand that the player can do that. But what if the 2 players do this if they can, to learn the previous order of their libraries to determine the winner?
(And I see that this can be used as a “loophole” to learn and use something that was random to determine winner)

If I was called to the table, I would ask the players the following instead of trying to navigate them through this DQ-maze:

To player A: «Do you concede?» Yes/No
To player B: «Do you concede?» Yes/No

If neither player says yes I would urge them to mark the match slip as 1-1-1. Would you say that this is bad customer service?

I am with Lars on this answer.

also, the only way to determine a winner is to play magic.

now I could “bluff” my opponent and if they concede because of my bluff, that is fine.

I have to disagree with the line of reasoning here. We do allow players to reveal information they legally have access to, such as their hand, graveyard and sideboard, to agree on a winner. While resolving Brainstorm, a player may reveal the cards they put back on top of their library to their opponent if they so wish. They may also use these cards to convince their opponent of a certain match outcome, as they legally had access to that information anyway, and they could have shown it to their opponent at that time. Random cards from the library may not be revealed to determine the outcome iof the match (as in, let's see what I would have topdecked), but in this scenario, we're explicitly talking about known cards.

Thank you for your aswers.

@Lars, Tommy: I understand what you are saying, but sorry it isn't what I'm looking for.
I want to be 100% sure if this “action” is allowed or it would be a DQ (as a judge to not dq someone I shouldn't, or even as a player to possibly use it), not a way to prevent the situation from going near there.

@Dustin: In my “case”, let's say that the “brainstorm” effect was resolved the previous turn (extra turn #4) and the player didn't reveal any cards then. Still he clearly knows what cards he placed there.
At the moment thought he isn't allowed by any game rule to “look again” the cards he placed there, and ipg states that they cannot use illegal actions. If he was able somehow, he could reveal them.

So for I've understood so far, the player has the knowledge, but cannot share it, which feels awkward.
Personally I would like to allow it, since it's reasonable to be able to do so, but I don't want to deviate if it isn't.

Of course I'm not talking about any card from the random portion of the library, things are pretty clear there.

Rather than possibly confusing players (and judges!) by listing a few (corner case?) exceptions, let's just stick to a simple rule: don't reveal cards you don't have access to.

d:^D

I kindly disagree. Those forums have educational aspect (at least I treat them as that) and it would be great to have clear and transparent answer on that topic. Knowing that few exceptions might be vital. If players decide to act on them and Judge at the table is not familiar with them (because saying “looking at library is wrong” is easier for us than explaining rules fully and clearly) that situation might end up with unjustified DQ.

If I settle with the current conclusion: don't reveal cards you don't currently have access to, even if they are known (which is what I thought before posting), I would have to:

- DQ a player revealing a known card from the top of his library (where the motivation is understandable at least).
- but, allow 2 player who both fetch on extra turn 5 to see “what the would draw” and determine the result, which is perfectly legal by the current wordings on the rules but the intent is clearly malicious.

Corner cases or not, I didn't find this satisfying enough to settle with, and that's why I posted here.
edit: but if the general opinion that what I understand is what the rules say… well I guess i have to settle.

Edited Vasilis Papoutsakis (July 24, 2018 07:43:11 AM)

Originally posted by Vasilis Papoutsakis:

- DQ a player revealing a known card from the top of his library (where the motivation is understandable at least).
- but, allow 2 player who both fetch on extra turn 5 to see “what the would draw” and determine the result, which is perfectly legal by the current wordings on the rules but the intent is clearly malicious.

I can see where you want to take this, however, let's clear away your assumptions from the quote:

Originally posted by Vasilis Papoutsakis:

- DQ a player revealing a known card from the top of his library.
- but, allow 2 player who both fetch on extra turn 5 to see “what the would draw” and determine the result, which is perfectly legal by the current wordings on the rules

In one scenario, a game rule is broken, in the other, there is not. While you may think the situations should be treated the same, (both DQ or both no DQ), or even if you think the situation should be reversed (no DQ in case 1, but DQ in case 2), the current rules don't support that decision. Your assumptions about malicious intent and understandable motivation do not help the discussion. If you spend more than an hour in rush hour traffic, you totally understand the motivation behind clearly malicious intent when someone changes lanes just in front of you. Malicious intent is NOT a DQable offense. Understandable motivation ‘the player really, really, really wanted to go to the PT’ is also not an excuse for cheating.

In this thread, so far, the discussion is about how the current rules work. The current rules are guided by policy, which is (in this case) guided by attempts to speed up the post game time to fill out the result slip. Barring players from using unknown information certainly speeds things up in many cases, and the current written rules are clearly in support of policy here.

Are there cases, where the result is in disagreement with policy, but still within the rules? Yes, we probably found one here. Does that mean policy should be changed? Probably not, as the policy is sound. Does it mean the rules as written should be changed? Probably not, because it's hard to write a piece of text that fits this corner case, and does not open the door to other, larger corner cases. Or the new text will be longer, harder to remember and to apply, leading to other inconsistencies. However, if you think you have a better way of phrasing this piece of the rules, feel free to suggest it.

Originally posted by Jasper Overman:

The current rules are guided by policy, which is (in this case) guided by attempts to speed up the post game time to fill out the result slip.

I think the desire to eliminate random elements from affecting the outcome is the driving force, here. Yes, we want to keep things moving along, but that's not really the guiding principle behind this rule.

Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

I kindly disagree. Those forums have educational aspect (at least I treat them as that) and it would be great to have clear and transparent answer on that topic.

Well, thank you - the educational aspect is my motivation for moderating these forums.

But I stand by my answer above, and maintain that it is clear and transparent. Very simply: "don't reveal cards you don't have access to."

Originally posted by Vasilis Papoutsakis:

If I settle with the current conclusion … I would have to … DQ a player

Actually, if you're right there at the table, you can stop them before they take the action, and I certainly hope everyone is doing that - be proactive! As soon as a match completes its five turns, step in and outline their options, as well as reminding them of what they can never do.

This discussion reminds me of a frequent topic in these forums, which is often paraphrased as “how can I teach players to tiptoe on the line”. Our previous Judge Manager would often step in with the (very wise) admonition, “Don't teach them how to get close to the line; teach them to stay far, far away!” The same principle applies to this - don't help them find an odd exception, just guide them to a much safer place.

d:^D

Thank you everyone for your answers.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

I think the desire to eliminate random elements from affecting the outcome is the driving force, here.

Yes I do believe so too, that's why I made this post and ask about that, because the “result” on these 2 examples are contradictory to this desire. I fully understand thought that as judges we don't want to deviate from the rules and we should apply them exactly as they are written, not how we believe they should be.

No, I don't want to teach the players how to use a “loophole”, so I wasn't planning on mentioning the last example to players. But I would prefer if we could close the loophole, so if I can ever come up with a wording that solves this I'll propose it.

Till then.. I'll stick with the rulings above (and the advices on how to handle end game procedures).