Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Eric Paré <
forum-4776-f251@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> CR 601.2 doesn't say anything about players being required to correctly
> say the name of a spell or ability they're putting o n the stack. I'd just
> give him a caution that he needs to be more careful when he's verbally
> announcing spells he's going to cast.


The PCP has something to say about declaring the identity of a card in a
public zone incorrectly.


–
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”

Indeed, which is why I would assess a CPV to Abel for declaring the wrong name for an object on the stack and rewind to immediately before he cast Garruk.

When Abel announced Garruk Wildspeaker, he should have placed Garruk Wildspeaker on the stack. By placing Garruk Relentless instead, he commited a GRV. Nick didn't notice the error in a timely fashion, and therefore committed FtmGS.

Note that I do not consider the activation of Garruk Wildspeaker an infraction. The problem with the board state is that the wrong object is on the battlefield, and the wrong object is in hand. The players are treating the object on the battlefield as if it is the correct object.

As for fix, I may be stretching the IPG, but I do not believe I'm deviating when I say that:

• Garruk Relentless is on the battlefield, when it should be in the hand.
  
• The identity of Garruk Relentless is known to all players.
  
• Garruk Wildspeaker is in the hand, when it should be on the battlefield.
  
• The identity of Garruk Wildspeaker is known to all players because Abel announced it. (this is a stretch, but not unreasonable)
  
• It is within a turn of the error.
  

Based on the above, I'm applying the fix as listed in the IPG by switching the Wildspeaker from hand with the Relentless on the battlefield.

On Thu Jun 27 08:36, Michel Degenhardt wrote:
> When Abel announced Garruk Wildspeaker, he should have placed Garruk Wildspeaker on the stack. By placing Garruk Relentless instead, he commited a GRV. Nick didn't notice the error in a timely fashion, and therefore committed FtmGS.
>
> Note that I do not consider the activation of Garruk Wildspeaker an infraction. The problem with the board state is that the wrong object is on the battlefield, and the wrong object is in hand. The players are treating the object on the battlefield as if it is the correct object.
>
> As for fix, I may be stretching the IPG, but I do not believe I'm deviating when I say that:
>

• Garruk Relentless is on the battlefield, when it should be in the hand.
  >
• The identity of Garruk Relentless is known to all players.
  >
• Garruk Wildspeaker is in the hand, when it should be on the battlefield.
  >
• The identity of Garruk Wildspeaker is known to all players because Abel announced it. (this is a stretch, but not unreasonable)
  >
• It is within a turn of the error.
  >

Based on the above, I'm applying the fix as listed in the IPG by switching the Wildspeaker from hand with the Relentless on the battlefield.

I too would like to treat this as an error in representation - he correctly announced Wildspeaker, paid for it and activated and correctly resolved its ability. His opponent also seems to be onboard with this understanding of the game state. In effect, the game state is clear for both players - there is a Wildspeaker in play. Abel also has revealed that he has a Relentless in hand, which is also fine and is his error, so is stuck with it.

However. What if _Abel_ has drawn since casting the Garruk? We now can't verify that the Wildspeaker was in hand already at that point. What if he knew the top card of his library, cast the ‘wrong’ garruk and then drew a card. Perhaps if we replace this scenario with a different planeswalker who does draw cards. This makes it difficult to just ‘fix’ the representation of the game state.

OTOH, perhaps this should be taken into account. If it had been “Garruk Wildspeaker”? “That's Garruk Relentless” “Oh, um, I meant this one” then I trust we would all allow the change. When we can't verify that the actual intended card was in hand at that point there's a question of where/when to backup to. Between those two… I'm not sure where the line should be or what side this falls on.

Matt

Originally posted by Michel Degenhardt:

As for fix, I may be stretching the IPG, but I do not believe I'm deviating when I say that:

Garruk Relentless is on the battlefield, when it should be in the hand.
The identity of Garruk Relentless is known to all players.
Garruk Wildspeaker is in the hand, when it should be on the battlefield.
The identity of Garruk Wildspeaker is known to all players because Abel announced it. (this is a stretch, but not unreasonable)
It is within a turn of the error.

Based on the above, I'm applying the fix as listed in the IPG by switching the Wildspeaker from hand with the Relentless on the battlefield.

Before you apply a partial fix, you must first establish that rewinding is not reasonable. I see a lot of judges jump to “I can partial fix, so I will,” when that is only a fallback option. In this case, I believe that a GRV rewind is both called for and easy to perform. (No game decisions have been made based on the incorrect identity of the shown Garruk rather than the announced one. The intent of the casting was unambiguous based on player communication and following actions. The announced action was possible to perform at the time. All this makes the rewind a slam dunk in my book.)

However, if you decide to apply the Object in the Wrong Zone partial fix, how many counters are you going to place on Wildspeaker? The IPG has no provision for counting that +1 on the previous turn. You just put the correct object onto the battlefield, which means 3 counters. That means your partial fix is actually leaving the game broken with respect to the issue you are trying to fix. When given the choice between applying a partial fix that leaves the game broken by a judge and doing nothing to leave the game equally broken by the players, I generally prefer to leave things as they are.

So, I think you are correct that applying the Object in the Wrong Zone partial fix is an available choice. However, I would prefer rewinding or leaving the game as is.

If the options for dealing with a GRV or a CPV are “full rewind” or “do nothing”, then there should be no game state fixes at all because the current state is legal. Also, the additional GRV remedy “If an object is in the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it is within a turn of the error, put the object in the correct zone” can't be applied to justify a swap-fix because the Garruk Wildspeaker object isn't known to all players (it's been in a hidden zone this whole time).

It isn't a CPV because Abel didn't misspeak when representing the free information, he threw the wrong card down. We know this because the investigation shows that after the spell resolved he immediately started playing as if it were the one he verbally announced. The initial GRV was putting the wrong card onto the stack, so if the game is backed up it should be backed up to right before that point. This should be a GRV for Abel and a FtMGS for Nick.

Though the ultimate result of rewinding to right before the error is likely to put us in the same position as a swap-fix in this case, it's not a sure thing (especially since Nick is going to need to shuffle in a random card from his hand and draw another one), so the swap-fix shouldn't be used as a shortcut for the rewind.

Originally posted by Michael Shiver:

Nick is going to need to shuffle in a random card from his hand and draw another one

You don't shuffle when rewinding a draw. You just put a card on top. He will (probably) draw it next turn, returning his hand to the state it was in before the rewind began.

Whoops, I must be hanging around Abel too much. Thanks for catching that.

Though I was mistaken on that point I would still say there's no guarantee that the game rewind would put us in the same place as a swap-fix, and so the two remedies aren't equivalent to each other.

Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Eric Paré <
forum-4776-f251@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> CR 601.2 doesn't say anything about players being required to correctly
> say the name of a spell or ability they're putting o n the stack. I'd just
> give him a caution that he needs to be more careful when he's verbally
> announcing spells he's going to cast.


The PCP has something to say about declaring the identity of a card in a
public zone incorrectly.


–
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”

You are indeed correct, Gareth. But I do not believe that Abel violated the player communication policy this way because he said “cast Garruk Wildspeaker” and then mistakenly put the wrong card on the table. The Garruk was not yet visible to Nick when he said it and therefore he didn't misrepresent the free information. If Abel showed the Garruk Relentless card to Nick and then accidentally said “Garruk Wildspeaker” in that order then I would be inclined to rule it as a PCV.

Originally posted by Colleen Nelson:

For example, what if Abel was hoping the difference wouldn't be noticed for a couple turns? Then this would net him a free loyalty counter on his Relentless

If he had actually been hoping to net a few loyalty counters on Relentless, we'd have a whole other motive to consider and Unsportsmanlike Conduct - Cheating then has to come into consideration as well as the thought of bringing the Head Judge into the call. With the information in the scenario I do not think Relentless was his intended play, and logically putting counters on an unflipped Relentless makes little sense as his opponent would probably have realized a Garruk Relentless fighting and killing a bigger creatures only to survive and flip when it has no +1 abilities.

I think backing up to Garruk Wildspeaker resolving is the correct play here. We've had three actions, all of which are about to happen again once board state is corrected. Take a random card from Nick's hand and place it on top of his library for his draw step, tap his permanents that untapped during the untap step, tap the Swamps that was illegally untapped, and go from there. I would issue a GRV (or possibly TE-CPV, which is backed up in 4.1 of the MTR, as he gave his opponent incorrect information about what was on the board, even though it was most likely an error of dexterity) to Abel and a Failure to Maintain Board State to Nick.

Edited Josh Stothers (June 27, 2013 07:54:36 PM)

I think that we can interpretate this situation in two different ways. But
my common sense makes me think about the following one.
Abel announced an spell but picked the wrong card from his hand and both
players continued playing as if there was no error and Abel has activated
an ability that is not from the card that he actually played.
Abel has committed a GPE-GRV because he announced an spell but actually put
a different spell on the stack and Nick has committed a GPE-FTMGS. Because
of the error we have 2 objects in the wrong zone. The identity of one of
them is known to all players, Garruk Relentless, but the identity of the
other object is not known to Nick but he should expect that Abel has a
Garruk Wildspeaker in his hand.

I see two possibles fixes to this situation. With the HJ permission, we
could backup the game to the moment before Abel announced Garruk
Wildspeaker but put Garruk Relentless on the stack. We should put a card at
random from Nick's hand on the top of his library, tap the lands that Nick
had tapped when Abel announced his play and rewind the steps that Abel had
done when announcing his spell. Abel may continue playing but is not forced
to cast Garruk Wildspeaker neither Garruk Relentless, he may continue as he
would like to. However, I think that we could also fix the game state by
switching both Garruks because of the 4th exception that we have as a fix
for GPE-GRV in the IPG.
I think that switching the cards is the best and less disruptive fix in
this scenario since the intention from Abel is completely clear and Nick
also played around that game play.

Leaving the game state without any fix or doing a backup to the moment when
Abel activated Garruk Wildspeaker +1 ability is not a good fix in my
opinion since Abel announced an spell but put a different one on the stack.
Nick took an strategic decision based on the information Abel gave him but
didn't realize that the card played was not the announced until his turn.


2013/6/27 Eric Paré <forum-4776-d58f@apps.magicjudges.org>

Though Abel may get the impression that Nick might have Garruk Wildspeaker in his hand, he doesn't know whether or not that's actually true. It's been in a hidden zone this whole time and hasn't been revealed to anyone. The identity of the Garruk Wildspeaker object isn't known to all players, so it shouldn't be made to change zones during a fix for this situation.

Edited Michael Shiver (June 28, 2013 10:59:34 PM)

I really think you're going to have a hard sell if you try to explain that to the players when Abel could simply reveal the Wildspeaker, now making it known to all players.

While I grant that there are nuances to be discovered in investigating in person, as described this situation seems obvious. It is very clear to me from Abel's actions that he intended to cast Garruk Wildspeaker and had an error of dexterity. That case seems considerably more likely than that Abel cast Garruk Relentless and activated an ability of a completely different Garruk. I will side with those favoring rewind to the casting of Garruk and a GRV-GPE / FtMGS cocktail.

The information the NAP gained is not especially relevant to my decision in this case. If Abel didn't want his opponent to know he had another Garruk in hand, he should have taken care to put the correct card into play.

Justin Miyashiro
-L1 Fort Collins CO

Sent from my iPad

Let me point to the following quote from the IPG (introduction to section 2, last paragraph before 2.1):
If the players are playing in a way that is clear to both players, but might cause confusion to an external observer, judges are encouraged to request that the players make the situation clear, but not issue any penalty.

Yes, this is certainly not a perfect fit, but I feel that the underlying idea here can guide us in this scenario. Both players were totally clear on what happened, namely that a Garruk Wildspeaker has been cast and resolved, and that Garruk Wildspeaker's +1 ability has been activated and resolved. In other words, both players have been playing “in a way that is clear to both players”. Once they realize that the reality of the physical cardboard does not match the reality of the game state as they see it, simply “make the situation clear, but not issue a penalty”. I.e. swap the two Garruks, and let the players play on.

Obviously this assessment will need to be reevaluated and probably changed when the Garruk player has drawn cards or otherwise manipulated his hand. But in this scenario it seems the best solution to simply correct the error of dexterity and and just let them get on with it.

Originally posted by Sebastian Reinfeldt:

Let me point to the following quote from the IPG (introduction to section 2, last paragraph before 2.1):
If the players are playing in a way that is clear to both players, but might cause confusion to an external observer, judges are encouraged to request that the players make the situation clear, but not issue any penalty.

I think the problem with using this ruling would be that both players have, at the least, failed to maintain the game state. Penalties should be given to ensure that they are not making these types of mistakes constantly or abusing them.

The section from the IPG that you referred to would apply to a game state where the players have agreed on the named creature type for a Cavern of Souls but not marked the game accordingly. Simply asking the players what was named and ensuring they agree is what policy calls for.

When an incorrect object is in play, however, we have a much more serious problem.

On Mon Jul 01 00:23, Cameron Bachman wrote:
> The section from the IPG that you referred to would apply to a game state where the players have agreed on the named creature type for a Cavern of Souls but not marked the game accordingly. Simply asking the players what was named and ensuring they agree is what policy calls for.
>
> When an incorrect object is in play, however, we have a much more serious problem.

I think if you asked them both here what was in play they would also agree (-:

Matt