This cannot be DEC; it has to be GRV.

What happened immediately prior to Abel putting the card in his hand? He revealed the top card of his library when there was no card or rule that would allow him to do so. The definition of DEC specifically states that it does not apply when a player commits a GPE before putting the card into their hand, and a player revealing the top card of their library for no reason is absolutely a GPE. And if Abel putting the card into his hand can't be DEC, it has to be a GRV.

As HJ, I would apply the GRV backup; put the Swamp back on top of the library, since it was known to all players. However, I would also apply the fix for L@XC and shuffle the unknown portion of the library, including the Swamp.

Applying the L@XC remedy here makes sense because when you break things down there were actually two separate infractions: revealing the card, which is L@XC; and putting the card into hand, which is GRV. They have the same root cause (incorrectly resolving the Seer's trigger), so we only apply one penalty, but we can still use the appropriate remedies for each infraction.

There are a number of things going wrong. First, the player missed his Pain Seer trigger, as indicated by him drawing a card. This is a missed trigger infraction, and will be handled accordingly

When he attempts to fix the infraction himself, things go haywire. Let's take a closer look:

The player revealed the card before putting it in his hand. That isn't allowed, so must be some kind of GPE. Due to the “no other GPE violation had been committed” clause, the infraction can't be DEC.

The player was able to observe the face of a hidden card, which makes us look at L@EC. There, however, we see "once a card has been placed into his or her hand the offense is no longer Looking at Extra Cards".

Since no other GPE's apply, this must be a GRV. It's relatively easy to back up: return the swamp that was incorrectly placed in the hand and the identity of which was known to all players, back to the top of the library.

I am inclined to also apply the fix for L@EC, because there was a point in time where the infraction was applicable, and it brings us closer to how the game state should have been. However, this seems to be a deviation.

After the fix for the GRV has been applied, there's still the missed trigger. It is not generally detrimental, so we don't give a warning. Finally, we give NAP the choice to put the trigger on the stack or let it remain missed.

I'm almost with Michel Degenhardt but I would take a good look at the board state and follow up with an investigation if he's at low life and the trigger has been remembered previously for 5 times in a row, I would have a good word with him leading into a possible cheating DQ. Take into account that scrying could have happened before and I don't want to be the judge who does the paper work after hearing “well yeah I kinda forgot that I put this huge cmc cost card on top, so I deliberately forgot my trigger”.


This is the same type of trigger of Dark Confident, not detrimental, up to a certain point where life totals have to be considered…

I think the most important part here is education: “Don't try to fix your own mistakes, you might make it more messy, as you did”.

Originally posted by Matt Farney:

Abel's actions while playing the Pain Seer's trigger ability qualifies as both LAEC and DEC. However, the GPE-Missed Triggers immediately preceded the illegal action, meeting the restriction on DEC, so the DEC penalty does not apply. This leaves only the LAEC penalty.

I'm going to risk being a maverick here and suggest not considering the MT when deciding if DEC applies. Yes, there has been a GPE preceding the DEC - the Missed Trigger. However, the missing of the trigger did not -cause- Abel to draw the card illegally.

Let's say you get called over because a player drew an extra card, and it's a fairly clear cut case, but then you also notice that one player has a Chained to the Rocks enchanting an Island. Clearly that's a GPV, and clearly it would had to have happened before the extra card was drawn, but it had no bearing on the card being drawn. The risk of being too literal with the IPG here is that you may have an unsavory, unrewindable game state, and no way of remedying a DEC infraction, when that DEC could (and likely did) happen independently from the other errors.

Let's say you have a MT followed by a DEC - it's reasonable to assume that in any given game, at least one MT has happened at some point. If you decide that MT cancels out DEC, what's the remedy? You can give Nancy the option to make the trigger happen, but you can't even rewind anything.

Callum Milne
The definition of DEC specifically states that it does not apply when a player commits a GPE before putting the card into their hand, and a player revealing the top card of their library for no reason is absolutely a GPE.

Why would it be a GRV and not L@EC? Again, which rule is being violated? Isn't looking at cards for no reason exactly what L@EC covers?

GPE-GRV is not a catch-all for -anything- that might go wrong during a game. We don't issue penalties for sloppy play because there are no rules against playing sloppily. There isn't even a rule against showing your opponent the top card of your library (as long as you don't look at it yourself). We can't invent a rule for Abel to have broken because it makes the remedy simpler.

Originally posted by Aaron Huntsman:

Callum Milne
The definition of DEC specifically states that it does not apply when a player commits a GPE before putting the card into their hand, and a player revealing the top card of their library for no reason is absolutely a GPE.

Why would it be a GRV and not L@EC?

I said it was a Game Play Error, not a Game Rule Violation. DEC doesn't make any distinction between different kinds of GPE when laying out its exception, so I didn't specify what specific infraction it was, just the category.

I kindof doubt the reason for the sentence ‘Once a card has been placed into his or her hand or if a player takes a game action after removing the card from the library, the offense is no longer Looking at Extra Cards. ’ is supposed to mean ‘Once the card has been drawn, this is a GRV’.
Because if it is read that way, that means that looking at an extra card always cancels out DEC. Which, consecutively, basically means that DEC is a non-existant infraction, unless a player cannot account for a card in his hand. Arguably, I will always see a card before it touches my hand - even if it's just for a split-second - making the L@eC always a precedent to the DEC, which then transforms all clear-cut DECs to GRVs, as we now have a GPE prior to the DEC (which makes DEC unapplicable), but the card was put into the hand (which makes L@eC unapplicable), so we have no infraction fitting this GPE, hence it would be a GRV.
I also believe that this is the very exact reason for the sentence in L@eC - there is argueably always L@eC before DEC, but the quoted sentence actually allows us to apply DEC. Not prevent us from doing just that.

Edited Philip Ockelmann (May 15, 2014 07:41:55 AM)

Originally posted by Callum Milne:

I said it was a Game Play Error, not a Game Rule Violation. DEC doesn't make any distinction between different kinds of GPE when laying out its exception, so I didn't specify what specific infraction it was, just the category.

You said “a player revealing the top card of their library for no reason is absolutely a GPE.” Which GPE is it?

Greetings…

Ah, the joy that happens when player's attempt to fix a game state and roll a 1. :p

A simple note on how I would rule this.
Abel started of with a simple Missed Trigger, which in this case would have gone without penalty, as this trigger is, indeed, not considered a detrimental trigger.

Without prompting, and without giving his opponent the opportunity to do much about it, he placed the trigger on the stack and resolved it.

The actions that he performed started as L@EC. He revealed the swamp, which definitely counts as L@EC; there, at this point, was no other Game Play Error. Despite the fact that he indicated *why* he thought he was allowed to do so (pointing to Pain Seer), this has no baring on the action's result. This, at this point is L@EC.

Then he put the card in his hand. L@EC is quite explicit in stating that once the card is drawn (placed in the hand), it is no longer L@EC; it now becomes DEC.

This is, in fact, how I would rule it. This is GPE-DEC. As the card was revealed first, it becomes a uniquely identifiable card; a classic downgrade case. Abel receives a GPE-DEC (W).

The fix for DEC as a warning states: If the identity of the card was known to all players before being placed into the hand, and the card can be returned to the correct zone with minimal disruption, do so and downgrade the penalty to a Warning.

I would place the Swamp back on top of the library (it's proper zone), and move on.

(I would like to note that previous to this knowledge pool scenario, I would not only have been tempted to shuffle the library , but would have, with 99% assurance, done so. However, as this is no longer L@EC, shuffling would, in my opinion, be an improper fix. Perhaps DEC could offer the addendum that if the “proper zone” is the Library, that a shuffle could be performed?)

That's my three cents, thank you for listening.
Until that time…

Richard are u missinng that

“ Without prompting, and without giving his opponent the opportunity to do
much about it, he placed the trigger on the stack and resolved it.”

is a GPE-GRV ?

jose nazareno


2014-05-15 12:05 GMT-03:00 Richard Warren <

Greetings…

Jose - I am not missing that he improperly placed the trigger on the stack and resolved it (without giving his opponent the opportunity to do much about it).

GRV handles “violations of the Comprehensive Rules that are not covered by other Game Play Errors.”
From my view, GPE-L@EC *does* handle this violation, as that is the result of what has occurred.

In this case, as I see it, the physical game action is revealing the card. I don't feel GRV is appropriate here because there is another category the action fits in.

(Athena is declaring an attack; on the previous turn he had a Goblin Guide in play; it is no longer in play. Nasus, upon Athena's attack, reveals the top card of his library believing he is resolving Goblin Guide's trigger. This is L@EC, not GRV - even if Nasus says “revealing for Goblin Guide” and doesn't give Athena a chance to remind him that it is not in play; or are you suggesting that, because Nasus indicated why he was performing the action, that is “explains away” the infraction?“

If it remains L@EC, and he puts the card in his hand, it becomes DEC. It doesn't ”revert“ to GRV just because he put it in his hand and mis-announced a trigger)

Abel resolves a trigger that should not have been on the stack. It's game action is reveal then draw. It is the revealing of the card that being penalized, not announcing the trigger. In this case (in my opinion), this is clearly L@EC; not GRV. I think the wording of ”without prompting, and without giving his opponent the opportunity to do much about it…" is a red herring designed to make us over-think, and over-analyze the situation.

Until that time…

As I see it, the decision to apply a GPE-DEC penalty hinges on the definition: “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, and the error was not the result of resolving objects on the stack in an incorrect order.”

I remember back in the day when the “no other GPE or CPV” clause was added, and if memory serves it was to distinguish between a card legally draw in the course of an illegal action (e.g. resolving a Ponder which was cast using white mana) and drawing an extra card for no reason (a howling mine no longer in play). If an immediately prior violation occurs, the opponent has a chance to notice and stop the active player before the card is drawn. So I think the clause was added at least in part to make it difficult for the opponent to keep quiet and thereby reap the benefits when the ponder-player received a game loss.

In this situation we have a card revealed by a player attempting to fix his own missed trigger. If Nancy had stopped Abel and called a judge, I would have ruled the revealed card was a GPE-L@EC because players saw a card they were not entitled to see and that's a more specific penalty than assigning a GPE-GRV penalty for “improper trigger-fixing.”

So now I'm in a quandry - we have Looking at Extra Cards immediately prior to the draw, which is “another GPE or CPV” (and if she were quick, Nancy might have stopped things at that point), and we have an IPG statement that specifically says “Once a card has been placed into his or her hand or if a player takes a game action after removing the card from the library, the offense is no longer Looking at Extra Cards. if, after the Looking, the player puts the card in hand then infraction is Drawing Extra Cards.”

Because the IPG is so specific, I'm (still) assigning a penalty of GPE-DEC and, with permission of the head judge, a downgrade to a Warning. Plus my standard “Next time please call a judge, we're happy to help” speech. No FTMGS for Nancy, though, because from the way I'm envisioning the episode it all happened very quickly.

I'm not describing my fix here because I've already said I would not shuffle and I need more time to think about that before changing my mind.

edit: changed “quite” to “quiet”

Edited Martha Lufkin (May 15, 2014 12:41:13 PM)

Originally posted by Aaron Huntsman:

Aaron Henner
I think Toby might be alluding to the discussion about DEC vs GRV.

I believe this lies firmly on the GRV side.

I believe he is alluding to the exact opposite, actually. What rule allowed Abel to reveal the Swamp? There isn't one. Abel saying “oops” and pointing to his Pain Seer does not suddenly put the ability on the stack - that Abel -thinks- he is resolving it is an error on his part, but does not constitute a GRV. Abel revealed a Swamp and then put it into his hand; that's a DEC.

I am unable to follow this logic. Sorry!

Here's another way to think about it. Rewind back to the moment in time before that card hit his hand. At that moment, time stops and he never draws the card. Do you issue an infraction? If the answer is “yes”, then it's not DEC.

Also, the missing of the trigger is a red herring here. We make rulings (for the most part) based on what physically happens in the game, not why we think those things happened.

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

Also, the missing of the trigger is a red herring here. We make rulings (for the most part) based on what physically happens in the game, not why we think those things happened.

That's the point I agreed on and wanted to drive home. Where we're torn is whether or not putting the card into Abel's hand makes the infraction DEC, thus precluding L@EC; or if the L@EC happens in the first “action” of the ability, thus precluding the later DEC. I expect I'm going to be wrong on this one, but I'm sticking to my answer until the official solution is revealed.

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

Here's another way to think about it. Rewind back to the moment in time before that card hit his hand. At that moment, time stops and he never draws the card. Do you issue an infraction? If the answer is “yes”, then it's not DEC.

Just to make sure I understood this right:
You mean to say that if I see a card before drawing it, it is not DEC, because I would issue L@eC if I'd rewind to just before the card touches the rest of the Hand?
EDIT: Wether or not my opponent has seen it too should not make a difference here, as either way, I would be guilty of L@eC.

Wouldn't that mean that I couldn't even issue DEC for textbook examples of DEC? For example, example B or DEC:
B. A player draws a card forgetting that a Howling Mine is no longer on the battlefield.
If I'd do exactly this, in 90%+ of cases, I would see and be able to identify the card I am about to draw (as in, have it touch the rest of my hand). If someone would pick up a card, but stop right before having it touch his hand, and saying ‘oh, howling mine isn’t in play anymore - judge', I certainly would issue L@eC. So…drawing the card would not be DEC.

I probably missunderstood your post, but that is what it sounds like to me…

Edited Philip Ockelmann (May 15, 2014 01:58:21 PM)

I think what toby is trying to say is to look at the moment before the card
starts to be drawn. If there is an infraction there then we can't call it
DEC because of the previously alluded to statement. In the case of this
scenario we have a situation where if we Time Stop right before he goes to
put the card into his hand there is a GPE infraction from him flipping over
the top card of his library when he wasn't allowed to. Seeing the card is
a natural part of drawing the card so taking a “technically you see an
extra card before it is considered ‘drawn’ ” stance doesn't really fit with
how we want to be applying this type of policy.

I say that right now we have a GRV that we can easily rewind and apply
fixes for. Warning for Abel, no warning for his opponent. Return the
swamp to the top of the library and have Abel shuffle his deck (technically
not part of the GRV rewind but I think appropriate here) with the
permission of the HJ if that is not you, in addition after we have rewound
the last action we give Nancy the option to put the trigger on the stack as
we still have the missed trigger to technically deal with. Likely she wont
take it, but it technically is part of the fix for MT. Toby did say that
the MT is a red herring here, but I think it is worth noting that since we
are already here and the call originated from a missed trigger it should
probably be part of our final resolution.

What we are looking for really is a game state that is as close to the
unmolested state that the game should have been in based on actions taken
(or not taken). The fix while a deviation from the normal GRV fix puts us
in a situation where the trigger is being dealt with appropriately, and a
random card is on top of the deck.