So as a new judge members of my LGS like to ask me about weird rules interactions that they've had come up in events. One of them asked last night what the proper response is to the following situation.

-During Adam's main phase he casts a tarmogoyf
-Ned (who has been flicking through his cards absent-mindedly) announces Force of Will. He proceeds to look more closely at his hand and say never mind (He realized that he did not actually have the Force of Will in hand that he had thought.)
-A judge gets called to determine if he is allowed to announce a card and then not play it.

the judge declared that since Ned had announced the spell he had to reveal his hand to Adam to prove that he could not cast it. The head judge was called and sided with the floor judge. This seems incorrect to me.

The way this was handled gave Ned free information that he had no legal way to obtain. So I just wanted to know is this actually the proper way to handle this situation and if not, what is?

Moved to Regular REL.

Daniel

There's nothing supporting the “reveal your hand” fix. Ned tried to start casting a spell but didn't do it properly. Since it was noticed right away, the game is backed up to right before the illegal action, like it would for any similar case. At Regular REL the most this would warrant is a reminder to play more carefully, regardless of the actual contents of Ned's hand.

Players are allowed to bluff the contents of their hand. So if he announces force and then says no i cant cast it. That is an allowed bluff. Play on. Battle Magic. Nothing to see here, move along.

Per 601.2a:

Step 1 of casting a spell is to announce it
Step 2 is to move it from its current zone to the stack

At any point a player cannot or does not continue casting a spell, you reverse the entire action and return to the point it was announced.

The revealing hand fix seems entirely wrong to me. It sets a bad precedent at Regular REL for fun. Have you ever played against a player over-analyzing whether or not you have a combat trick or answer to their spell/creature and jokingly said you had it, just to get a rise out of them?

“Giant Growth! O_O Just kidding. My guy dies.”
Do I now have to reveal my hand? No way!

In this case, the player has announced FoW, realized he doesn't have it, and potentially given his opponent the lead that he doesn't have it. Or bluffed well, which is completely ok. Proceed with the game.

Nitpick- the contents of Ned's hand are private information. I can't think of a fix where we ever force a player to reveal their hand, other than if they forgot to reveal for a tutor and the uniquely identifyable card (usually a single card in their hand) is revealed. You were correct to feel that this was wrong- it's unnatural for a judge to give away information that hasn't already been called for or incidentally revealed by the opponent.

For that matter, it sets a bad precedent for fun and competitiveness at any REL.

This sounds a lot like a Judge deciding to straight up punish the player for their mistake, which is really not a thing which we should be doing at any REL.

This is plain wrong way of handling that situation. It's an allowed bluff, like any bluff of cards in your hand or library (private zones).

“Yes, I play 4-of FoW”. I have none.
“Yes, I put those Torpor Orb from SB”. Didn't
“Yes, I sideboarded 13 cards against Miracles”. Nope, only 5. However, he can check my sideboard's SIZE, not contents :)
“Yes, I have the remaining piece of combo”, after which opponent concedes.

It's all allowed. In Regular REL, you may try to encourage players to be nice and truthful, but by no means this is a requirement nor they can be punished for that.

He could have taken a bluff even further: “You probably don't really want to play that Tarmogoyf, I've got a full grip of counters…”

And yes, that was a horrible solution; please help that judge understand why. (But, be gentle!)

d:^D

To go a step further, Ned goes “if you have the burn I lose”; then Adam goes “sure do”. Ned scoops. But did he really?