In a local Legacy event a player (Alaba) played a deck, using Auriok Salvager, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Walking Ballista. Their opponent (Natalia) had a Chalice of the Void with 0 counters in play.
With 4 mana available and the Salvager already in play, they cast and resolved the Ballista with X = 1 and then put their LED directly from their hand into their graveyard because of the chalice. Then they tapped 2 more mana and explained their loop of getting LED back, saccing it for WWW, get their LED back for 1W…. have infinite mana, use that to put counters on the ballista and then kill their opponent with direct damage.
Natalia then said: This doesn't work. Alaba replied: It does, pointing to the Salvager. They claimed it brought back artifacts directly to the battlefield. Natalia then didn't read the card but scooped. Alaba scooped as well. Then a judge was called by a spectator.

We ruled out cheating as we got rules questions earlier that showed that Alaba believed the card brought back artifacts to the battlefield, not to the hand. For example an earlier opponent of them asked if Grafdigger's Cage prevented non-creature-artifacts from entering the battlefield from the graveyard. They also had never played that deck before outside of goldfishing at home.

As it was turn 4 or 5 and both players could reconstruct their game states as they hadn't shuffled yet, we ruled a CPV as Alaba clearly misrepresented the game state by explaining their loop incorrectly and told them to continue from there after reconstructing the game state (so technically backing up through a concession that was based on the misrepresented loop/game state) to both players agreement (there was no disagreement at all).

I understand that this was probably a deviation, but as other judges I discussed this with, agreed with this ruling and both players were happy with the ruling, I don't regret making that decision. However I'd like to have more opinions and also an answer, if possible, including the philosophy behind the correct ruling.

Edited Christian Gienger (July 24, 2019 09:53:34 AM)

So you know that thing where something happens to you and then you see it everywhere? Well this happened yesterday to me, and it was caught on camera: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/457074122 (fast forward to 1:14:00)

TLDW: This was at RREL. A player had a Devoted Druid come back in on end step and tried to go off on his end step with Vizir of Remedies and Walking Ballista, and the opponent conceded to this. I wasn't really the judge there (I was the one in the booth!) but I basically rushed out of the booth to try to prevent the concession, but it was too late. In my instance though, one of the players had already shuffled up his cards and we couldn't reconstruct the game state, so I figured, well, you've conceded.

This is the answer I've always went with; if you scoop up your cards because both players don't understand how the rules work, then, well, you've done that. Obviously as judges we have to prevent this as much as possible, but if its been done, then its been done.

There's some weird edge cases with concession timing; I don't think this is a problem with the rules as written; its just how it is. For example, in another instance I've experienced, a match had went to game 2, and the player down a game was on turn 4. He scooped up his cards because he couldn't win and the other player clearly couldn't finish the game on turn 5, but then there was a disagreement on whether the match should be reported 1-0-1 or 2-0. After some consultation, the match ended up being reported 2-0, and I believe that was the correct call even though it obviously wasn't the conceding player's intent.

yeah i was playing a game one time where my opponent conceded to my pact of negation trigger. i was playing a red black deck and i pact of negation to stop his combo from winning. he passed the turn to me and picked up his cards and started shuffling. i cast manamorphose and paid for pact but since he picked up all his cards and shuffled the judge ruled it as a concession to me. sometimes you have to just play things out to see what happens and not play to fast or call a judge to make sure things are going right. its a good lesson to learn.

Let's not turn this into bad beats story time, Christian asked a specific question.

I, personally, agree with the ruling that was made. An error was committed, backing up to it was feasible, and both players were happy with the resolution- that checks my boxes. I'm not sure what philosophy you're asking for, can you clarify that part of your question Christian?

I'm also curious about the Cheating investigation you conducted. Why was Alaba not educated about how Auriok Salvager actually works after the Grafdigger's Cage Call?

I've discussed this scenario before with one of my mentors who said that he would also have issued a CPV and back upped (is this a real word?) the concession that was made on the wrong information given by Alaba, but he also said that he vaguely remembers that there might have been some answer in the past that said that a concession is final and you can't back up through that. So he also suggested to make a topic on the forums to learn if that was a deviation or possible to back up.

The reason why we couldn't educate the player on the card text of the salvagers was that their previous opponent asked that question away from the table during sideboarding, not mentioning why he did. He was just calling a judge. Ask to step away from the table and then ask: Does Grafdigger's Cage prevent artifacts from entering the battlefield. We did not know at that point that their opponent was misrepresenting that specific card as there are several cards in the format that can bring back artifacts or non-creature permanents from the graveyard to the battlefield.

Christian - FYI the correct wording is Backed Up

I think what depends here is what actions were being taken opposed to what actions were being proposed. If the player simply proposed, return Druid, combo off, win making the other player scoop I'd have the scoop stand

(off topic, but it could be useful also for other non-native English speakers; I come across it sometimes)

Originally posted by Christian Gienger:

back upped (is this a real word?)

backed up (put the -ed ending that indicates the past tense to the verb; up is an independent word - a particle)

Originally posted by Christian Gienger:

Natalia then said: This doesn't work. Alaba replied: It does, pointing to the Salvager. They claimed it brought back artifacts directly to the battlefield. Natalia then didn't read the card but scooped. Alaba scooped as well. Then a judge was called by a spectator.

Everyone has stories of players fooling themselves and scooping. I have a few for sure:
- not attacking for lethal after opponent cast a *non-kicked* Orim's Chant
- scooping to a creature enchanted with Splinter Twin when creature was summoning sick

Still, in the described scenario, Natalia did not fool herself; Alaba actively misrepresented something.
In other words, my examples can be considered legal tricks - the interaction described by Christian cannot.

I agree with the backup, and personally, I wouldn't even consider it a deviation.