You know what? I'm convinced.

I've been on the fence about whether calling sloppy priority passes prior to a draw should be GRV or DEC for months. I've been on the GRV side recently, but thinking more about this scenario has sort of been the final straw to push me back to just calling it DEC.

While it's reasonable to just draw this card in Standard 99% of the time (I've literally never seen “in response” to Erebos draws matter), we really want players to confirm with their opponents before drawing cards. The more I think about this, the less reservations I have about just giving this guy a Game Loss so he takes that lesson to heart.

I would love to hear from Scott Marshall on this one.

I too would love to hear the official answer

Nah, the only thing I can add is boring predictability. :)

we really want players to confirm with their opponents before drawing cards

This. More than anything else, this is what I want to emphasize. There's a couple reasons we added that new(ish) clause to DEC (“If the player received confirmation from his or her opponent before drawing”) - and one was to encourage a Best Practice. (Another was to discourage a silly “gotcha”…)

As Federico noted, this is a corner case; I don't think there's a lot of benefit to any sort of ‘O’fficial answer. In fact, this strikes me as a perfect example of the motivation for Toby's amusing but on-point blog post.

My opinion? Well, as I mentioned in a different thread yesterday, it takes a lot to consider deviating, it takes a train to cry Deviate! (Hrm, probably whiffed on that cultural reference… too much work to get there.) I would not deviate.

Why? Because, as others have mentioned, this is not Significant & Exceptional.

Having said all of that? Eric, I like the fairness you sought in your ruling, and especially like that you took a moment to consider all the circumstances, instead of just “windmill-slamming” the ruling. Even if we arrive at different conclusions, let's all thank Eric for giving us food for thought, and the reminder to think through these situations - i.e., don't just Judge on auto-pilot.

d:^D

I don't think there's a lot of benefit to any sort of ‘O’fficial answer. In fact, this strikes me as a perfect example of the motivation for Toby's amusing but on-point blog post<http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2013/03/05/no/>.

Conclusion from that blog for those who did not read:
“And if you’re asking for an answer because you think it’ll help your education as a judge, you’re missing out on a huge number of other people who are capable of educating you, many of whom are at least as expert on topics as the people empowered to provide answers. Answers are valuable when they are backed up with logical reasons and citations, not when a voice behind the curtain declares it to be so.”

Thanks for sharing all your opinions with me.

I see that I should have considered sticking to the procedure written in the IPG to correctly handle the DEC infraction and using the situation as an opportunity to educate the potentially upset Game-Lossed player that confirming your card draws with the opponent is a solid precaution to ensure that one doesn't get into trouble like that.

Drawing cards without confirming them is like running toward the end zone with the football while you're staring at your cleats. Sure there's the chance you'll still make it there to get the team six points, but it's better to look up to see if the coast is clear before you run into a line of blockers and end up underneath a dogpile.

This is tough, because there are two things that contradict each other in the story:

Both players agreed that Adam drew his card right after he finished paying the costs for activating Erebos’s ability

Neil told us he quickly tapped his lands and put his Notion Thief on the table the moment Adam indicated he was activating the ability

I think the precise order things happened in matters significantly. GPE: DEC has the following exception:

A player illegally puts one or more cards into his or her hand and, at the moment before he or she began the
instruction or action that put a card into his or her hand, no other Game Play Error or Communication Policy
Violation had been committed,

So, if Neil 1) started to play Notion Thief before Adam started drawing, and 2) committed an error by doing so, then there is no DEC.

As a new judge, I'm hesitant to make definitive statements about procedure. But I'm certain that putting Notion Thief on the stack without announcing it is some sort of communications policy violation. Additionally, my reading of the case was that Neil was treating his Theif as if it was on the battlefield, not on the stack. If so, that should be a GPE: GRV putting the creature into play without giving Adam a chance to respond, right?

Unfortunately, the precise order things happened in seems hard to determine. And I don't like penalties being determined by “twitch time,” either. Still, that's my reading of the guidelines.

I don't see any Communication Policy Violations here. I see two players who don't like to wait for responses before doing things, but that's not a reason to deviate from policy.

DEC, Game Loss.

Eli: I don't know about your players, but most players I know don't really announce their permanents as “on the stack.” They usually just sort of say “Grey Merchant” and put it on the table, because “Hey, where IS the stack IRL?” They have no choices to make with most creature spells- tap your mana and put it into play.

Players who put their creatures on the table when casting understand that if the opponent casts counterspell, they're responding to the spell or can say “in response” to clarify where we are.

Considering Notion Thief doesn't do anything on the stack, I don't fault Neil for treating it like it's in play unless his opponent says otherwise. If he tried to “gotcha” by not letting his opponent respond at all, we are indeed looking at GPE-GRV (or worse!).

Either way, it's as Casey said: Not communicating well is not CPV. Drawing cards is serious business, and unfortunately poor communication caught up to Adam and it's costing him this game.

Originally posted by Evan Cherry:

Eli: I don't know about your players, but most players I know don't really announce their permanents as “on the stack.” They usually just sort of say “Grey Merchant” and put it on the table, because “Hey, where IS the stack IRL?” They have no choices to make with most creature spells- tap your mana and put it into play.

Players who put their creatures on the table when casting understand that if the opponent casts counterspell, they're responding to the spell or can say “in response” to clarify where we are.

Considering Notion Thief doesn't do anything on the stack, I don't fault Neil for treating it like it's in play unless his opponent says otherwise. If he tried to “gotcha” by not letting his opponent respond at all, we are indeed looking at GPE-GRV (or worse!).

Either way, it's as Casey said: Not communicating well is not CPV. Drawing cards is serious business, and unfortunately poor communication caught up to Adam and it's costing him this game.

Thanks for the clarification. And thanks to Casey for spending 20 minute talking me through the case late last night. I stand corrected :-)