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http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/2014/03/19/i-am-the-mouth-of-saurerr-ronom/

I am the Mouth of Saur…err, Ronom!

In a Modern Grand Prix Trial where you are the head (and only) judge, Alex calls you over to his match. He explains that during his turn, he had attacked with a Celestial Colonnade. Nathan responded by activating a Mouth of Ronom targeting the Celestial Colonnade. Alex responded by casting a Sphinx's Revelation for 4. He gains 4 life and draws 4 cards. After considering his options, he picked up the Celestial Colonnade and moved it to the graveyard. Alex then played an Island and passed the turn. Nathan has just drawn his card for the turn when Alex noticed that Nathan did not put the Mouth of Ronom into his graveyard. You determine that Nathan forgot he needed to sacrifice it because of Alex’s immediate response with the Sphinx’s Revelation.

What, if any, infraction, penalty and fix is appropriate to the situation?

Edited George FitzGerald (March 20, 2014 04:59:52 AM)

Nathan has failed to correctly pay for his ability. This would appear to be an honest mistake. The infraction is GPE-GRV, the penalty is a Warning, and the fix would be a rewind, if possible. Less than a turn has passed (from Alex's declare attacks to Nathan's draw) and only two spells have resolved, but one of those spells was a Sphinx's Revelation. If we were to rewind, we would have to:

1. Return one random card from Nathan's hand to the top of his library, do not shuffle
   
2. Return Celestial Colonnade to the battlefield, it is a creature
   
3. Return four random cards from Alex's hand to the top of his library, do not shuffle
   
4. Alex loses four life
   
5. Untap 7 lands for Sphinx's Revelation
   
6. Return Sphinx's Revelation to Alex's hand
   
7. Untap 5 lands for Mouth of Ronom
   
8. Nathan has priority in Alex's declare attackers step
   

I've heard judges say that they would never rewind through a combat phase, but since in this case no actual combat damage was dealt, I'm more concerned about the Revelation. We potentially run the risk of altering Alex's entire turn by changing which cards he has in his hand (should he choose not to cast the Revelation again) - not to mention that we're choosing a total of five cards at random - so I'd have to choose not to rewind this scenario. None of the partial fixes apply (an object changing zones was not put into the wrong zone, it forgot to change zones altogether), so the game state will be left as is.

I admit to some confusion related to the partial fix of an object changing zones - specifically, whether there's any reason why it doesn't include a situation where an object should have changed zones, but didn't, and also why there is a one-turn time limit on it, but not either of the other partial fixes.

Edit: formatting

Edited Dan Collins (March 20, 2014 05:33:47 AM)

Short version GPE - GRV (Warning) for Nathan and GPE - FtMGS (Warning) for Alex. No backup.

The error was not paying the full cost of Mouth of Ronom ability. In my opinion drawing four cards from Sphinx's Revelation, information communicated by Alex after drawing them (no valid response for Mouth) and an additional card drawn by Nathan at the beginning of his turn make backup problematic and possibly disruptive. Hence - no backup. Also there is no partial fix available for this situation. There was no choice, no cards in hand manipulation and no putting in the wrong zone (the third fix applies if an object is changing zones and is put into the wrong one; Mouth hasn't moved at all). Current game state is legal, so I'd leave it as it is.

Nathan will get a warning for GPE-GRV for not fully paying his Mouth of Ronom's cost. Alex will get a warning for GPE-FTMGS for letting Nathan not fully pay his Mouth of Renom's cost. Now this tricky part is can we rewind.

If Alex had no cards in hand after casting the Sphinx's Revelation, I would consider rewinding up to before the activation of the said land so Nathan can fully pay for his spell.
So I would go like this :

• Nathan returns a card at random from his hand on top of his library and undoes his untap step
  
• Put back Celestional Colonnade under Alex's control as a creature
  
• Return the 4 cards drawn by Alex on top of his library and return the Sphinx's Revelation to his hand
  
• Untap his 7 lands
  
• Untap Nathan's Mouth of Ronom and 5 lands

If Alex had another card in his hand, it becomes too much complicated to rewind without corrupting the game. In this case, I would simply put the Mouth of Ronom into the correct zone, after checking the legality of the current board and applying SBAs, according to the IPG 2.5:

If an object changing zones is put into the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players,
and it is within a turn of the error, put the object in the correct zone.

In my opinion, Mouth of Ronom should have been changing from Battlefield to Graveyard but was put into Battlefield instead.

Edited Samuel Tremblay (March 20, 2014 12:13:24 PM)

I think there may be some over-fixation on “object changing zones”. I know we treat the IPG literally, but the phrase can mean “object that should be changing zones”.

So, as a mental check, I'd consider the Geist of Saint Traft scenario where someone fails to ditch their Angel token. They don't just get to keep it, that's the kind of thing this was meant to fix. And since they didn't physically start moving it, that doesn't excuse them from having to lose it.

Similar here, I think the partial fix applies.

On the rewind, I think it's more disruptive than it's worth. Alex may have reacted to what he drew, giving Nathan a clue that he's got something good. So maybe after rewinding, he'll choose to do something to force him to shuffle his deck (or maybe Alex will force a reshuffle himself to get a shot at better cards?).

GRV (failure to pay)/FtMGS warnings. First we consider rewind (which I rejected), and move the offending land into the graveyard.

EDIT: I should have read Geist again… it is a delayed trigger, so it's a different circumstance. In this case, since we're not rewinding, he gets to keep his land. Both players are responsible for the gamestate, so our Sphinxy friend should have been a little more vigilant.

Edited Chris Nowak (March 21, 2014 12:54:20 PM)

I seem to remember things like that: the partial fix applies to object that should have changed zones but didn't (or went to the wrong zone, but that one's obvious), but not to object that changed zones when they shouldn't have. Currently, the description of the partial fix is very misleading however: if Samuel, Chris and i are not wrong in this, maybe it should be rewritten in the next edition to be clearer.

I think it's clear that this partial fix is clearly the best for the integrity of the game. Rewinding through the casting of a Sphinx's Revelation is not something I would do, so if this partial fix is not allowed and I don't want to deviate (I might be tempted to), I'll just leave the gamestate as is.

I agree that GPE-GRV and GPE-FtMGS are appropriate here. I also agree rewind isn't possible.

While I agree with the partial fix being the best solution, I just don't see this supported in the IPG. Unless you make the argument that the Mouth of Ronom changed zones to the graveyard but was mistakenly put back into play, I don't see a way to justify the partial fix. I really want the partial fix to be the right answer and in any other game it would be handled this way.

Geist has a different solution because it is a missed delayed zone change trigger, not a GRV. Here we have a failure to pay casting cost in a situation where backup is too disruptive. The delayed zone change trigger resolution doesn't fit.

Hello,

It is simple to agree with the general “by-the-IPG” consensus of GPE-GRV + GPE-FtMGS + no backup (and I agree with that as well).

I would like to know if it could be appropriate to ask the players (separately) if the presence of Mouth of Ronom somehow impacted their decisions in the meantime (between the activation of MoR and finding about the error). My opinion is that both players have been evaluating the board state as if the Mouth of Ronom card was already in the graveyard. So from their point of view, by not applying the partial fix, you damage the board state and give Nathan card advantage of an extra shot with MoR (and yes, I know that the extra shot is the “penalty” for Alex for not pointing out the error immediately).
Would this make sense? Or is it just a waste of our time, so precious in the tournament?

Originally posted by Chris Nowak:

I think there may be some over-fixation on “object changing zones”. I know we treat the IPG literally, but the phrase can mean “object that should be changing zones”.

That paragraph seems mostly intended to cover things like “my opponent Path to Exiled my creature, but I accidentally put it in my graveyard instead of exiling it.”

In this case the “should” interpretation seems the obvious and desired one, but if that is intended it should be made explicit. And I have a nagging suspicion that this paragraph in the IPG was deliberately phrased to not cover the “should” case.

I agree with most of the people who've already posted, it's a GRV for N and a FtMGS for A (Warnings for all!).

Technically in order to pay the costs for the Mouth to resolve it was sacrificed and changed zones, the player errored by sending it back to the battlefield instead of the graveyard less than a turn ago so the 3rd bullet under Additional Remedy applies and the Mouth is put in the graveyard.

Originally posted by Milan Majercik:

Hello,

It is simple to agree with the general “by-the-IPG” consensus of GPE-GRV + GPE-FtMGS + no backup (and I agree with that as well).

I would like to know if it could be appropriate to ask the players (separately) if the presence of Mouth of Ronom somehow impacted their decisions in the meantime (between the activation of MoR and finding about the error). My opinion is that both players have been evaluating the board state as if the Mouth of Ronom card was already in the graveyard. So from their point of view, by not applying the partial fix, you damage the board state and give Nathan card advantage of an extra shot with MoR (and yes, I know that the extra shot is the “penalty” for Alex for not pointing out the error immediately).
Would this make sense? Or is it just a waste of our time, so precious in the tournament?

I like this idea, and it certainly isn't a waste of our time to try to fix a game state, but - is this something that we can actually do? I seem to recall a discussion where we determined that if both players thought something had happened - that is, if both players thought that the Mouth had been sacrificed - but the card had been left on the field, it would be acceptable to move the card so as to let the board state match the state the players agreed on. This seems like it could be easy for a player to get around though, for example by the Mouth player saying they forgot it was supposed to be sacrificed and they thought it was still on the field, so perhaps that's why it isn't policy.

Hmm, I think everyone is pretty much in agreement when it comes to the penalties GPE-GRV and GPE-FTMGS and warnings all around.

The sticky bit is the resolution of the Game state. I really dislike the rewind, as a large number of moving parts have been changed, involving 5 cards worth of combined contents from both players hands. So if I dont think the rewind is appropriate, where does the mouth of Ronom go?

I think the spirit of “object changing zones went to the wrong zone” applies, but the wording doesnt. (Note that this is different to the Geist of St Traft Angel example from earlier in the discussion, as thats a delayed trigger relating to a change of zone). Im trying to think of similar examples involving rulings on “should have sacrificed X but didnt” and coming up a little bit empty. Since it is within a turn cycle, I think I would probably put the Mouth in the graveyard, but Im willing to accept that Im wrong

Before reading other responses:

A game rule was broken, and neither player caught it right away. This is a GPE - FtMGS for Alex, and a GPE - GRV for Nathan. Both players are issued a warning.

To fix, we either do nothing at all, or back up to the point of the error. The point of error is incorrectly paying for Mouth of Ronom's ability. While there were quite a few card draws, I think it's safe to back up in this case, as very few decisions have been made. To rewind:

* Put a random card from Nathan's hand on top of library.
* re-tap any of Nathan's permanents that had been tapped.
* return the Island from to Alex's hand.
* return celestial colonade to the battlefield, it is animated as a creature and attacking
* put 4 random cards from Alex's hand on top of his library, reduce his life total by 4.
* put Sphinx's Revelation from graveyard to Alex's hand, untap lands used to pay for it.
* untap the Mouth of Ronom and the lands used to pay for it.
* The game is now in Declare Attackers step, Nathan has priority.

In this case, rewinding does have the negative side effect that Alex could end up with an answer in hand, although I believe we shouldn't consider who gains an advantage by rewinding, just how difficult it is, and what preserves the integrity of the game more. This is probably the most complicated rewind I'd ever want to do, and I could see arguments for just leaving the state as-is. As head judge, I'd probably choose to rewind this.


After reading other responses:

I understood that the partial fix for “An object changing zones, but went to the wrong zone” generally applied to graveyard/exile mixups, like Ernst points out.

This case is more similar to example A. “A player casts Wrath of God for 3W (actual cost 2WW)”. Sacrificing Ronom is part of the cost of activating the ability, and Ronom should have been in the graveyard before Sphinx's Revelation is ever put on the stack.

Originally posted by Samuel Tremblay:

If Alex had no cards in hand after casting the Sphinx's Revelation, I would consider rewinding up to before the activation of the said land so Nathan can fully pay for his spell.

I think we're not supposed to consider the rest of the gamestate, or who might gain an advantage, when deciding to apply a fix or not. If we would rewind through an otherwise entirely-known hand, we should rewind through any hand. Or, if we wouldn't rewind through a hand that had extra cards, we shouldn't rewind through a Revelation-only hand.

The penalty for both players seems fairly straightforward: Nathan should get a GPE - GRV for not correctly paying the activation cost of his Mouth of Ronom and Alex gets a GRE - FTMGS for not recognizing Nathan's error within a reasonable amount of time.

The remedy for this situation is not so cut and dry, however. The intuitive answer seems to just put the Mouth of Ronom in the graveyard, but I don't think that is what the IPG intends us to do in this situation.

In order to rewind, the game would have to back up to the point at least when Mouth of Ronom was activated; doing so would make Nathan put a random card from his hand on top of his library have the appropriate amount of lands tapped/ untapped, and Alex would put the 4 cards he drew back go back to his original life total and untap the lands he used to cast Sphinx's Revelation (and possibly the lands used to activate colonnade?). By doing so, we may be giving either player an unfair advantage by allowing them access to unknown information. Because of this I think rewinding the game would be more disruptive than helpful and so I would leave the Mouth of Ronom on the battlefield and encourage both players to play more carefully. The game would proceed where it left off after Nathan's draw step.

@Talin Salway

Originally posted by IPG:

If the error was discovered within a time frame in which a player could reasonably be expected to notice the error and the situation is simple enough to safely back up without too much disruption to the course of the game, the judge may get permission from the Head Judge to back up the game to the point of the error.

Knowing whether or not the hand is empty after casting Sphinx's Revelation guides us toward deciding if the situation is simple enough or too much complicated. You can't rewind through any hand ; what if he had 7 cards, a Divination and a shuffle effect? It would be too easy to let the player shuffle away his things before re-casting his Divination to gets his hand on brand new cards. If he had nothing of the previous, then rewinding make way more sense as it doesn't corrupt the game state more than leaving it as it is.