I would give Nightingale a failure to maintain game state.

I would give Annabelle a warning for grv, miscasting a spell due to insufficient mana.

I would not rewind, I'd leave the board as it is, too much information has been gained by both players and too much has happened. If I WERE to rewind, I would rewind to just before Anna cast the Leyline, with the petals in play as using up the petals was part of casting it and the problem was she didn't have enough mana to do so.

Originally posted by Markus Dietrich:

This is not correct. The Game Rules handle the rewind of a uncastable spell during the casting proces (like for insufficient mana) within themself. Therefore this is not a violation against the CR but in consens with the Game Rules and no GPE-GRV.

I totally commited RTFC here. You are right, Annabelle didnt pay enough mana to pay for the spell, therefore i'm with you. Rewding up to the point when Leyline is being cast, so Leyline gets back into her hand, both Petals on the battliefield and City of Traitor is untapped.

I'm with Sal here, I feel too much information has been shown for a rewind. We have 3 cards that were, potentially, unknown to the players and now they are out there. But that's just me.

I don't believe the amount of information gained negates the rewind. A rewind will always damage a game state to some extent. Any time a player's decision is reversed, that player gets an opportunity to make a new decision, using information they likely didn't have the first time. Rewinds are messy like that. And yet we do them anyway.

We do them because sometimes to leave the game as is would be more damaging, and the series of actions we are rewinding are simple enough that we can be confident in each step of the fix. To leave the game state as is would have Annabelle down a Mountain (er, a City of Traitors), up an untapped island (representing any number of spells), and up a Leyline of Sanctity she was not able to cast. Even if we allow her to replay the turn with new knowledge of a Bolt in Nightingale's hand, and even if she takes a completely different line of play, I still feel more comfortable knowing that the game isn't broken.

I may be completely wrong here, I'll admit that, but this one feels like a fairly safe rewind.

As for Penalties, GRV for Annabelle, FtMGS for Nightingale.

Giving your opponent information is just another one of the possible consequences of not playing correctly. Each player knowing 1-2 cards in the other's hand isn't the kind of disruption to the game state that should prevent a rewind.

Originally posted by Markus Dietrich:

This is not correct. The Game Rules handle the rewind of a uncastable spell during the casting proces (like for insufficient mana) within themself. Therefore this is not a violation against the CR but in consens with the Game Rules and no GPE-GRV.

Is there a difference between the “Game Rules” and the Comprehensive Rules?
If not, isn't breaking the rules of the game, by definition, a GPE-Game Rule Violation? (assuming it doesn't fit any other category of GPE, which this doesn't)

Originally posted by James Dowling:

Is there a difference between the “Game Rules” and the Comprehensive Rules?
If not, isn't breaking the rules of the game, by definition, a GPE-Game Rule Violation? (assuming it doesn't fit any other category of GPE, which this doesn't)

I don't know whether there is a exact definition of ‘Game Rules’, but not every violation against the CR is a GPE. A 59 card constructed deck for example would violate 100.2a but result in a TE(D/DP). I would define the Game Rules as a subset of the CR-rules. If that woudl be true, I agree that the breaking of a Game Rule has to result in a GPE of some kind.

Apart from that, it is not a violation of the CR to be unable to pay the costs of a spell. This is mentioned in 601.2:

CR 601.2
To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Casting a spell follows the steps listed below, in order. If, at any point during the casting of a spell, a player is unable to comply with any of the steps listed below, the casting of the spell is illegal; the game returns to the moment before that spell started to be cast (see rule 717, “Handling Illegal Actions”). Announcements and payments can’t be altered after they’ve been made.

717 handles how the rewind would look like and it would and pretty much end in the same situation to which we rewind normally (before the spell is put on the stack). And that is exactly why we rewind to this point. Even if the first violation happens technically at the point were the cost is payed instead of rewinding, the result is the same because the player could refuse to pay the cost and rewind even if he would be able to activate enough mana abilities to pay the cost.

Besides, if this would be a GPE-GRV for failing to have the correct mana, would you issue a penalty for insufficient mana provided by a activation of Selvala, Explorer Returned while casting a spell?

Originally posted by Markus Dietrich:

Apart from that, it is not a violation of the CR to be unable to pay the costs of a spell. This is mentioned in 601.2:

CR 601.2
To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Casting a spell follows the steps listed below, in order. If, at any point during the casting of a spell, a player is unable to comply with any of the steps listed below, the casting of the spell is illegal; the game returns to the moment before that spell started to be cast (see rule 717, “Handling Illegal Actions”). Announcements and payments can’t be altered after they’ve been made.

Glances suggestively over at the examples listed for GRV in the IPG

Is there a difference between not enough mana, and mana of the wrong color?

Edited Chris Nowak (Aug. 7, 2014 08:35:58 PM)

Originally posted by Chris Nowak:

Glances suggestively over at the examples listed for GRV in the IPG

Is there a difference between not enough mana, and mana of the wrong color?

Nope there is not (at least not a relevant one for this case) and I agree that it is a GPE-GRV if you finish to cast it for wrong/insufficient mana. However, everything is legal up to the point were the cost for the spell is paid with incorrect mana as far as I can see it. If they would notice the Blood Moon effect at that point, before paying any costs, and rewind there should be no infraction. Maybe you misunderstood that I was suggesting to not give a GPE-GRV at all in this scenario, but that is not the case. I was just commenting on Kyle's statement that we would set the player up for another GRV if we only rewind up to the point where the paying of the cost went wrong.

EDIT: Fixed formating error and wrong name^^"

Edited Markus Dietrich (Aug. 8, 2014 01:50:56 AM)

There seems to be a consensus on the penalties. I'm just going to throw my two cents in on the rewind:

This seems like a fairly easy rewind to me, for a few reasons:
* Executing the rewind is simple. Return Bolt and Leyline to their owners' hands, return City and both Petals to the battlefield.
* Not that much information was leaked. Leyline, Island and Bolt were revealed prematurely.
* It appears as if after play is resumed, all three of those cards will likely be played immediately, anyway.

Both players have actually learned a lot other than the many cards their opponents have (Anna's Leyline and Island and Night's Lightning Bolt).

Night learned that Anna has two useless cards in her hand, and Anna may have changed her plans knowing how Blood Moon works (though in all fairness she should have already known this) and might do something different now that her island doesn't make her city of traitors go away.

Regarding the rewind…why do we rewind game states? Not when, but why as in what's the reasoning behind doing it?

Side note: City of Traitors doesn't have the card tag in the original description.

Before reading other answers:

Annabelle has taken two illegal actions - tapping City of Traitors for 2 when it was only a mountain, and then sacrificing it when it was only a mountain. Nightingale had the opportunity to catch the first mistake, but did not. She did catch the second.

Annabelle has committed GPE - GRV, and Nightingale has committed GPE - FtMGS. Both receive a warning. After giving out warnings, the additional fix is to either rewind to the point of the first error (tapping city of traitors for 2 while casting Leyline of Sanctity), or to leave the game state as is.

Since not a whole lot of information got given out, and there was no deck or hand manipulation, this seems like a simple rewind. With the head judge's permission:

• Return City of traitors to the battlefield, tapped.
  
• Return the island to Annabelle's hand.
  
• Return Bolt from graveyard to Nigtingale's hand, untapping the necessary lands, and correcting Annabelle's life total.
  
• Return Leyline of Sanctity from battlefield to Annabelle's hand.
  
• Untap City of Traitors, and return two Lotus Petals from graveyard to battlefield, untapped.
  
• We are now at the point we were before Annabelle cast Leyline, with Annabelle holding priority. (I'm assuming this is either pre or post-combat main phase on Annabelle's turn, to be determined in investigation before rewinding)
  

If we leave the game state as-is, I believe we would put City of Traitors onto the battlefield tapped (we caught the incorrect sacrifice as it happened), but the rest of the game state would remain as-is. (with leyline on the battlefield, annabelle at -3 life, bolt in graveyard, and an island on the battlefield). I would be interested in discussion on what we do if we choose not to do a full rewind.

After reading other responses:

There seems to be a consensus on GRV/FtMGS, with a bit of debate on rewind or no-rewind. The decision on whether to rewind or not is based on 1) how recent the error is, in game-play terms, and 2) how disruptive it is to the course of the game (which can be a bit of a vague definition). In this case, the error was caught about as quickly as we could hope for while still giving out an infraction. While some information has been gained by players, a rewind won't cause the deck to reorder, and won't change player's hands. There will be a certain amount of information leakage in any rewind.

Originally posted by Chris Lansdell:

Regarding the rewind…why do we rewind game states? Not when, but why as in what's the reasoning behind doing it?

As I understand it - We rewind the game state because it's currently ‘broken’ - it's in a state it couldn't have reached through the game moves that were taken, and it should represent the actual consequences of player's actions. In general (without examining any particular scenario), GRV situations often give one player an unfair advantage. If we have the capability to do so, we should rewind the game state so that it reflects only what players are legally allowed to do, and so players gain minimal advantage from breaking the rules.

I agree with the majority on the penalties. How far to rewind is debatable.

Are the people saying that they wouldn't rewind also saying they aren't willing to rewind the City of Traitors?

I think at the very least Annabelle gets the City of Traitors back. There's pretty much no way that part of a rewind is problematic.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this week’s scenario! Here is the solution:

This would be a Game Play Error – Game Rules Violation for Annabelle and a Game Play Error – Failure to Maintain Game State for Nightingale since she let Annabelle tap the City of Traitors for 2 mana instead of 1 and did not point it out immediately. As the Head Judge, you decide whether or not to rewind – some will choose to rewind and some will not.

We should take into account the following key concepts before evaluating a backup:
- decision points; if players are likely to change their decisions after a rewind, it's disruptive.
- damage to the game state should be less after a rewind than if we left it as is.

If you believe the situation is simple enough to safely back up without too much disruption and choose to rewind, you would back up the game state to where Leyline of Sanctity would be cast which would include putting the City of Traitors back on the battlefield, returning the Island back to Annabelle’s hand, untapping Nightingale’s land, putting the Lightning Bolt back into her hand, returning the two Lotus Petals back onto the battlefield and putting the Leyline of Sanctity back to Annabelle’s hand.

Remember that when there is an error when casting a spell and we think that it is okay to rewind, we back up the entire process and not just to the point of error. So instead of rewinding back to where she announces that she puts the Leyline of Sanctity on the stack, we rewind it all the way and put the card back into her hand.

Why is it not a GRV-GRV? The definition of a Game Rules Violation states that “If a player takes an action controlled by his or her opponent, but does it incorrectly, both players receive a Game Play Error – Game Rules Violation”. Blood Moon is not one of these effects, as it does not require Annabelle to take an action controlled by Nightingale, so it is NOT a GRV-GRV and is instead a GRV-FtMGS.

Why are we giving a GRV for insufficient mana? While the basic rewind is covered in the comprehensive rules under CR 717.1 (“Handling Illegal Actions”), we are still giving the penalty because they did violate the rules of the game – in this case casting Leyline of Sanctity for 1WW instead of 2WW.

Thanks again for participating! Keep an eye out for our next scenario – it will be posted soon! :)