It's well past Thursday, so I'm adding my two cents because I think something important has not been given due consideration.
While I think OA here is a slam dunk, let's give a little more thought to the DEC penalty. We'll start with the scenario description:
Originally posted by Patrick Vorbroker:
At the end of Anna's turn, Nalick taps out to play Azorious Charm, choosing to draw a card. … Before you begin, Nalick says “Judge, I just cast an Azorious Charm and I accidentally drew two cards that were stuck together”.
Now, an Extra Card was obviously Drawn. And there is no prior GRV or CPV. And the identity was not known to both players. But let's take a look at another section of the IPG:
IPG General Philosophy
If a player commits an offense, realizes it, and calls a judge over immediately and before he or she could potentially benefit from the offense, the Head Judge has the option to downgrade the penalty without it being considered a deviation, though he or she should still follow any procedures recommended to fix the error.
Do we meet this condition for downgrade?
Well, Nalick didn't
technically call the judge, but a spectator stopped the match to get a judge for an unrelated event immediately after the infraction was committed. The match may have even been stopped before the infraction was noticed by Nalick. In addition, Nalick interjected to alert the judge to the problem as soon as it was his turn to speak when the extra card had not been mentioned (or apparently noticed) by any other party. I would submit this meets the intent of the “called it on yourself” clause.
The tricky part is “before he or she could potentially benefit.” This rarely applies to DEC, but let's look at this particular scenario two different ways:
1) Nalick is tapping out at the end of Anna's turn to draw a card and draws two cards. That means that he drew one extra card. The next action Nalick is likely to take is to untap and draw a card for his draw step, and he is currently tapped out. If we choose to rewind the second draw, Nalick will have gained no advantage as soon as he has a meaningful option to take another action. This, to me, says the problem was potentially caught within the appropriate timeframe to downgrade even if the match were going to continue. (Maybe Nalick has a Thassa or an Instant with Scry in his hand that would let him potentially gain some advantage during his Upkeep. But, in general, I think we should at least consider whether potential for advantage actually exists here.)
2) This match is over. Anna committed OA. Having an extra card in hand is of no benefit to Nalick. The only thing Nalick needs to contribute to this investigation in order to win his match is “Yup, they said that.” But he has chosen to volunteer that he has committed an infraction that potentially loses him a game. I really don't want to punish him for that at this point.
If I am the head judge at this event, I am going to ask some questions to confirm that Nalick hadn't noticed the extra card prior to the match pause. If this is case, I am going to thank him for his honesty and take the General Philosophy downgrade path to issue him a DEC- Warning.
Edited Joshua Feingold (Sept. 29, 2013 12:04:06 AM)