You're judging at a Competitive REL tournament.
AP controls Mystic Remora.
NAP : "I'll cast Giant Growth.“
AP : ”Mystic Remora ?"
NAP, glancing at his board, nods.
AP proceeds quite fast to drawing a card.
NAP : “Hey, wait, I meant to pay 4”.
Both players agree on the scenario above. However, AP interpreted NAP nodding as “You may go ahead and draw the card”; NAP simply as “The trigger may resolve”, but without any indication on their choices upon resolution of said trigger.
This was the first Remora trigger, so the usual “How have you been resolving the previous triggers?” is out.

What do you rule, and why?

This is a communication problem. Your ruling will depend on who you feel is lacking in their communication efforts, there will never be a general answer to this question.

Talk to the players, look at the board state, and make the fix that feels the most appropriate. Your options are:
- leaving the game as it is, no penalty
- backup, no penalty (be extra careful with a backup that sends a card from AP's hand to the top of their library)
- HCE + HCE fix (this feel unlikely with your description, but it is a possibility)

As Florian said, this is just a miscommunication between the players, so you'll need to use your judgement and decide which interpretation of the game state makes the most sense. From what you've described, it sounds like NAP allowed the trigger to resolve and was expecting to have the chance to pay 4, while AP just went straight to drawing the card. If that's the case, I'd probably say the fault lies with AP for moving the game forward too fast.


Florian, I'm not sure why this would be HCE, can you clarify under what situations that would apply? I only see the options of:
* Leave as-is (if you determine NAP was at fault and the current game state is legal).
* Backup with no penalty (if you determine neither player committed as actual infraction but the game needs to be before the card was drawn).
* GRV with a backup (if you determine AP resolved a trigger too early).

The criterion to distinguish between HCE and GRV is not the reason for the mistake, it is whether the situation can be corrected using public information. If (and that is a big if) you decide that AP is responsible for the mistake, then the infraction is HCE, not GRV.

Originally posted by Florian Horn:

This is a communication problem. Your ruling will depend on who you feel is lacking in their communication efforts, there will never be a general answer to this question.

Talk to the players, look at the board state, and make the fix that feels the most appropriate. Your options are:
- leaving the game as it is, no penalty
- backup, no penalty (be extra careful with a backup that sends a card from AP's hand to the top of their library)
- HCE + HCE fix (this feel unlikely with your description, but it is a possibility)

How can you back up with no penalty? Which infraction have you determined happened?

We'd back up here because the two players are at different points in the turn, and we need to re-align where they are. This isn't an “IPG backup” because of an infraction, this is a “logistics backup” because the game can't continue if both players aren't in the same place.

Originally posted by Abdulrahman Alhadhrami:

How can you back up with no penalty? Which infraction have you determined happened?

Things quite often go wrong in games where nobody is necessarily at fault, yet we are in a position where something needs fixing. These are very often communication issues where someone says something, meaning one thing, and the other player interprets it as meaning another thing and where both interpretations are quite reasonable. We don't want to punish either player, and we still want to get the game back on track.