Antoine playing against Nora casts Slaughter Games naming Thoughtseize and asks his opponent “How many Thoughtseizes do you play?”. Nora reveals her hand with no Thoughtseize and says “I play exactly 3 Thoughtseizes” when, in fact, she plays four. Anotine searches her library and when he exiles the third Thoughtseize, he stops searching and the players continue.

Has Nora commited Communication Policy Violation (or Cheating if she was aware)?

Originally posted by MTR 4.1:

The number of any type of objects present in any game zone.
…
Any information that is not free or derived is automatically private information.

The number of Thoughtseize in a player's deck & sideboard is not a match for “number of any type”. Antoine asked a question that Nora is not required to answer honestly or correctly; the burden lies on Antoine to verify Private Information. Obviously, some Private Info can't be verified until after you've acted - and that's part of what makes the game so much fun.

Neither a CPV nor Cheating.

Thinking about this further… if it's discovered later that there is another Thoughtseize, we'd be looking at a GRV/FtMGS at that later point, I think.

If after some investigation, Nora just forgot about the 4th copy, then it seems we're done here.

But if she knew she had 4 and let her opponent knowingly commit the GRV, then it seems we're in UC-Cheating territory: “notices an offense committed in his or her (or a teammate's) match and does not call attention to it”. By saying “exactly 3”, I'd have a hard time believing she didn't notice. So the question turns to whether she knew that failing to complete the resolution is illegal, and I'd have a fairly hard time believing she didn't know that either.

So in terms of technical application of the IPG, “Neither a CPV nor cheating” seems easy enough. But if someone is asking us about that scenario, I'd think we'd want to explore the potential results of that choice with them.

Unless the extra Thoughtseize was in the graveyard, the resolution of
Slaughter Games is completely legal. Nonpublic zones like the hand and
graveyard are subject to failing to find. That is, when a player is
searching those zones for cards matching a particular criteria (such as
with Mystical Tutor, or Slaughter Games), the player is allowed to find
all, some, or none of the cards matching that criteria.

Well, Slaughter Games specifies that the spell's controller may exile “any
number” of cards they search for. Naming Thoughtseize and only exiling 3
Thoughtseizes is perfectly legal, even if there are actually 4 in the
library. So there's no GRV here.

This is true even if some of the Thoughtseizes are in the graveyard. Yes,
as Justin pointed out, you cannot “fail to find” something if you're
searching the graveyard, but “the exile any number” clause still lets you
leave some there if you want.

Ah yes… yet another reminder to read the whole card before speaking =)

It doesn't always work exactly how you remember

Very true, I had forgotten the “any number” distinction on Slaughter
Games. Thanks for the correction.

Would you give them the warning if the card was not Slaughter Games, but Extirpate instead? Extirpate specifically says “all” =)

It's the same. When a player search in a private zone he can fail to find.

For the sake of completeness I'll point out that you can only fail to find
when searching a private zone for a card with a specific characteristic.
Diabolic Tutor can never fail to find.

I believe my colleague means “searching a private, non-empty zone.” Diabolic Tutor can fail to find in the corner case of an empty library.

> Diabolic Tutor can never fail to find.
>
Unless there are no cards in the library ;)

And now that I've accidentally led us down this corner, I'll attempt to bring us back. There's no infraction, for either player, for trying or falling prey to this trick.

Kevin

I have seen some players use this trick with different art on their cards. I.E. 3 Return to Ravnica Syncopates and 1 Odyssey Syncopate. A fair number of players rely on card art when searching private zones for specifics. Fail to find because of a different art is interesting as well.

You'll also see Legacy players run all 4 arts of Hymn to Tourach to avoid Slaughtergames, Extirpate, and Cranial Extraction getting all 4 copies. I think it's a stretch, but there's a chance it'll work so we can't fault them for trying. :)