Situation:

AP controls the following:
- Courser of Kruphix (or any other lantern of insight type effect)
- Polluted Delta
*on top of library*
- Breeding Pool

AP activates Polluted Delta, and seeing a breeding pool on top, takes it to truncate the search. After “searching”, they shuffle their library, and present to NAP.

This would technically be a violation of 401.5 – Playing with the top card revealed.

My question is as follows:
Is this a GRV or a HCE?

Would this change if they performed the search and chose to take the card on top?

Hey Brandon,

I'd bet you're going to get an answer in the rules forum, so it's probably redundant to try to answer here too. Although I'm curious, when do you believe the rules violation has occurred?

Because AP didn't reveal the top card of their library before shuffling – as is required by rule 401.5.

So they are not following the rules on whichever card it is revealing the top card.

Well, according to rule 401.6 “Some effects tell a player to play with the top card of his or her library revealed, or say that a player may look at the top card of his or her library. If the top card of the player's library changes while a spell is being cast, the new top card won't be revealed and can't be looked at”

In this case, a spell isn't being resolved, but an ability is. I wasn't able to find a separate rule for an ability changing the top card separately during resolution, but I don't see a reason why it would be different. So, the top card of the library changes while the ability of the fetch land is being resolved, because AP is still searching their library, they find the land, put it into play, and then shuffle, and only then do they have to reveal the top card (if 401.6 can be taken to apply to abilities resolving as well as spells). So, there is no violation here as far as I'm seeing?

Interested to see what the ‘O’fficial answer is.

Originally posted by Joseph Marcia:

Well, according to rule 401.6 “Some effects tell a player to play with the top card of his or her library revealed, or say that a player may look at the top card of his or her library. If the top card of the player's library changes while a spell is being cast, the new top card won't be revealed and can't be looked at”

In this case, a spell isn't being resolved, but an ability is. I wasn't able to find a separate rule for an ability changing the top card separately during resolution, but I don't see a reason why it would be different. So, the top card of the library changes while the ability of the fetch land is being resolved, because AP is still searching their library, they find the land, put it into play, and then shuffle, and only then do they have to reveal the top card (if 401.6 can be taken to apply to abilities resolving as well as spells). So, there is no violation here as far as I'm seeing?

Note that this rule is for when the top card changes during the casting of a spell, not the resolution of a spell. This is for cases where, for instance, a player activates a Chromatic Sphere's mana ability while casting something.

On the other hand, the top card changing during the resolution of spells and abilities is just fine.

A clarification would be in the rulings for Lantern of insight:
4/15/2013 When playing with the top card of your library revealed, if an effect tells you to draw several cards, reveal each one before you draw it.

Furthermore, it is noteworthy that you can fulfill this ability while searching etc – and it is not an exception. If anything, this ability is an exception to how you normally play the game (ie not having the card revealed).
Therefore you would still have it revealed while resolving an ability.

This is indeed a rules violation. Polluted Delta resolves in the order it was written- first the Breeding Pool moves to the battlefield, meaning there's a new top card of the library, then the library is shuffled afterwards.

Originally posted by Joseph Marcia:

Well, according to rule 401.6 “Some effects tell a player to play with the top card of his or her library revealed, or say that a player may look at the top card of his or her library. If the top card of the player's library changes while a spell is being cast, the new top card won't be revealed and can't be looked at”

In this case, a spell isn't being resolved, but an ability is. I wasn't able to find a separate rule for an ability changing the top card separately during resolution, but I don't see a reason why it would be different.

The reason they're different is because.. they're different. Casting a spell and resolving a spell are not remotely the same thing.



As for what the penalty is, it's something of a judgement call. A good number of players and judges won't even realize that something illegal happened, so many judges probably wouldn't give any penalty at all on the first occurrence, and just educate the players for the future. (And potentially have them reveal a card as they were supposed to, if the game state allows.)

Personally, if I'm giving any penalty at all, I'm calling it a GRV. (As long as the library was random before this happened.) While the error did involve a card in a hidden zone, it was a random card- revealing the second card down before shuffling is no different than revealing the 20th card down, or any other one. We just have AP reveal a random card from the library now, finish the shuffle, then reveal the new top card.

My opinion changes if the library was not fully shuffled before this happened- at that point the second card down is not completely random, so information is lost when it gets shuffled away. That makes it an HCE. The fix for HCE in this case would be rather odd though- AP simply reveals their entire library to NAP and then proceeds the game from there. I would not perform this fix without talking to a head judge about it first, since this is not what HCE is really intended to cover.

Edited Isaac King (April 2, 2019 12:15:30 PM)

Would we be allowed to do that? Not giving a penalty, especially if a call is made, would be against the whole penalizing those who make errors in the IPG.

Originally posted by Isaac King:

As for what the penalty is, it's something of a judgement call. A good number of players and judges won't even realize that something illegal happened, so many judges probably wouldn't give any penalty at all on the first occurrence, and just educate the players for the future. (And potentially have them reveal a card as they were supposed, if the game state allows.)

I'm curious why you feel this isn't directly under HCE, but only if there was a scryed card? I'm afraid I don't follow your logic behind that distinction. I could see there being a discussion between it being GRV and HCE, and it being judgment of the judge, but why would it change based on that?

Originally posted by Brandon Scyner:

I'm curious why you feel this isn't directly under HCE, but only if there was a scryed card? I'm afraid I don't follow your logic behind that distinction. I could see there being a discussion between it being GRV and HCE, and it being judgment of the judge, but why would it change based on that?

IPG 2.3:
A player commits an error in the game that cannot be corrected by only publicly available information.

If the library was random, the infraction does not fit that definition. We can correct it by revealing any card from the library.

Edited Isaac King (April 2, 2019 12:19:48 PM)

I would contest that – the library is and was not publicly available information, and would therefore fall under its jurisdiction.

My supporting arguments for this would be as follows:
1) The library is a hidden zone by definition, and that is even if it is revealed at the time (though I understand the IPG doesn't care about the fact it is being searched by a player, it does stand that the library is not publicly available information however.)

401.2.
Each library must be kept in a single face-down pile. Players can’t look at or change the order of cards in a library

400.2.
Hidden zones are zones in which not all players can be expected to see the cards’ faces. Library and hand are hidden zones, even if all the cards in one such zone happen to be revealed.

2) If the library is not random (which, by definition of searching, it is not anymore), It would still fall into the realm of HCE.

IPG: HCE
If the error involves one or more cards that were supposed to be revealed, the player reveals the set of cards that contains the unrevealed cards and their opponent chooses that many previously unknown cards. Treat those as the cards that were ‘revealed’ and return them to the set that was being selected from; the player then re-performs the action.

In this case, the cards aren't being selected for anything, however they are still cards that are supposed to be revealed.

I do agree that revealing any card in the library should suffice. My only concern is why that is the fix, because this is not a part of any documentation I can find, meaning this would be a deviation. And while I acknowledge that they are sometimes appropriate to do, as a judge, I would rather be backed by the IPG (because performing a deviation leaves me to be responsible if it is incorrect).

Should it be a GRV, then as far as I can tell, the “fix” is to inform the player that there is no fix and to continue playing, and issue a warning. I don't see it fitting into any of the GRV categories though, and it does seem to fit better in HCE.


Also, for the record, I genuinely have nothing invested in it being either, I just want to know why it is one or the other beyond a shadow of a doubt, and to fully understand your reasoning for it, one way or another.

Edit: Formatting

Edited Brandon Scyner (April 2, 2019 12:52:45 PM)

If the player searched the library and didn't keep the top card revealed while searching, would you penalise the player?

If the player found a different Breeding Pool to the one that was revealed would there be an infraction?

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

If the player searched the library and didn't keep the top card revealed while searching, would you penalize the player?

No, so long as it is revealed afterwards. Though technically it should be kept revealed, it makes searching harder due to not being able to see the card face.

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

If the player found a different Breeding Pool to the one that was revealed would there be an infraction?

No, because the card was not moved from the top of the library, so no infraction has occurred. If they moved the pool to look at it or anything, then it would be a grey zone because they're reordering their library, which is technically against the rules (though often not relevant, in this case it is). In that case, yes – a penalty would be in order – that being a GRV (as that was the root cause of the issue) for changing the order of their library when they were not instructed to.

Originally posted by Brandon Scyner:

1) The library is a hidden zone by definition, and that is even if it is revealed at the time (though I understand the IPG doesn't care about the fact it is being searched by a player, it does stand that the library is not publicly available information however.)

The fact that the library was technically being searched is not relevant to what I was saying. As long as the library is random, all the cards in it are equivalent. Shuffling it does not lose any information. The error is publicly correctable.

Originally posted by Brandon Scyner:

I do agree that revealing any card in the library should suffice. My only concern is why that is the fix, because this is not a part of any documentation I can find

The first fix we consider for GRV is a simple backup.

I feel like we have a different opinion on what “publicly available information” means.

To my understanding, the IPG is referencing section 4.1 of the MTR – as that defines what information is under what category. That would mean that the library is not publicly available information. I do agree that the cards are functionally equivalent (assuming proper shuffling, which won't be considered right now). But that doesn't make this publicly correctable – NAP is still not allowed to look at any cards, nor is AP at this moment. That would make it hidden / private information, by definition.

How do you define “publicly available information”?

Also, I understand that the fix is a possible backup, but that can not be reasonably performed, so it would become a situation where you need to say “just keep playing”, and I believe that is an appropriate fix, assuming it is a GRV.

Originally posted by Brandon Scyner:

I feel like we have a different opinion on what “publicly available information” means.

I think we do. The IPG is not referring to “public information”, as the examples in that section of the IPG should make clear. A revealed card in a player's hand is “publicly available” for the purposes of HCE, but it is not public information.

Originally posted by Brandon Scyner:

Also, I understand that the fix is a possible backup, but that can not be reasonably performed, so it would become a situation where you need to say “just keep playing”, and I believe that is an appropriate fix, assuming it is a GRV.

A backup here is extremely easy. All we need to do is backup through the shuffle. Since the library was already random beforehand, this backup involves: nothing. There are 0 steps required to perform it, it's the cleanest possible backup in the game. :)