Players could be able to “know” the cards by only looking at their backside, either by that card being a foil or even by being marked. Dealing out 7 cards allows the player to not draw the 1st card in his oppener and/or to look at the back of the 8th card sitting on his libary.

I guess this sort of cheating is exceptionaly rare, but it´s very hard to spot and even more if not recorded. On the other hand, because of this being very unlikely to happen, it may bad to hand out a warning. Brian already suggested a good way to handle this.

Originally posted by Thomas Ludwig:

The penalties we hand out don´t only look at the current case only, the penalties are linked to how easy something is to exploit, how hard it is to spot, how much impact it has on the game and the like.

The penalties don´t change just because we are in the knowledge pool.

Here is were I start. If I don´t hand out a warning for this mistake, I won´t be able to notice a pattern if someone abuses this.

When we issue an Improper Drawing at Start of Game warning, what we are penalizing is the advantage a player would gain if he kept those extra cards in that player's hand. That is why, after the player started taking legal game actions, it is considered Drawing Extra Cards and the penalty is more severe.

Considering that the player hasn't already mixed that card that is unkown to the player with the rest of the cards in hand, and the player pointed out the error right before any advantage would had been gained, I don't see the need of issuing a warning and applying a fix for something that hasn't happened yet.

Regarding the card that is face down, and it was supposed to be the first card on top of library before the player started putting them face down on the table: if that player doesn't know which card is it, would you consider that putting that unkown card on top of library is too much disruptive?

EDIT

Players could be able to “know” the cards by only looking at their backside, either by that card being a foil or even by being marked. Dealing out 7 cards allows the player to not draw the 1st card in his oppener and/or to look at the back of the 8th card sitting on his libary.

It is important to refrain from adding “what if”s to the scenario given, since it might deviate the attention from the main point of discussion.

Edited Julio Sosa (Aug. 29, 2014 05:59:21 PM)

Originally posted by Suhas Arehalli:

The first comparison that came to mind was to compare this to GPE - DEC, which, to note, is a stricter penalty then ID@SoG. Imagine player A casts sphinx's revelation for 5. He/She lays out the cards to count them out, and, confusing the mana payed with the X value, lays out 8 cards. The cards were placed from left to right, card 1 on the left and 8 on the right. Player B quickly points out that X was 5, and A apologizes, picking up cards 1, 2, and 3 and placing them on top the library. A then proceeds to pick up cards 4 - 8 and put them in his/her hand.

Would this receive a penalty?

This is far more abusable then the KP situation presented and is imo not even close to the same.

2 examples of why:

1) Ive scryed and know the top card of my deck is an Entreat the Angels, you for me to rev on my turn, but i want to miracle that entreat. I set 8 cards down in front of me, you correct me, and i put back cards 1-3. Ive now drawn 5, gained 5, AND left the entreat on top of my deck.

2) You fateseal me and leave the card on top. I do the exact same thing as above - now the card you left on top of the deck is still there and ive drawn 5 new cards.

Originally posted by Thomas Ludwig:

If I don´t hand out a warning for this mistake, I won´t be able to notice a pattern if someone abuses this.

I see what you mean. You want to issue a penalty for this because you want it to be tracked by the DCI so that they can trace a pattern in case this is intentional.

As Mr. Schenck already mentioned above, we can treat this as an infraction and have it recorded in the penalty database. But I feel that if we declare this an infraction just so we have a way to record this problem and make it visible to tournament officials, then we are reverse-engineering the IPG by searching for an infraction that fits a “recorded” penalty.

Should we really have to enforce the IPG in the event of “sloppy” actions that don't necessarily give anybody an unfair advantage?

Edited Eric Paré (Aug. 29, 2014 06:22:47 PM)

I agree with Thomas here. Whether or not the player might know the cards just by seeing them from the back doesn't really matter.

The correct pre-game procedure is: Player A shuffles his deck and presents it to player B. Player B shuffles A's deck, then player A draws his starting hand from the top of his deck. Nowhere in the MTR does it say player A is allowed to change the order of the cards after B shuffles his deck.

Player A has failed to follow this procedure because he didn't draw from the top (ie. he put the top card of his library to the 7th place from the top), and it is clearly covered by the IPG: “A player makes an error while drawing his or her opening hand”.

I'm sorry for nitpicking, but in my opinion, while perfectly justifiable, not following the IPG (penalty and additional remedy) is a deviation.

About the deviation from the main point of the discussion, Julio:
I think it is sometimes difficult to just say “just look at this exact scenario”, but I generaly understand what you mean and I agree with you, but I don´t think this “if´s” here are a real deviation from the problem, I am just taking a closer look at the penalty that is maybe fitting this situation and check why we would or would not apply it, but maybe this went too far, not sure, tbh.

Anyways, I want to take the same course of action in the knowledge pool, that I would take when judging a tournament. While I believe the player did a mistake (else it had been cheating anyways), I still have to apply the fitting penalty. And my concern just was that the Warning for making a mistake drawing the opening hand is to apply, because one reason, sure not mainly, it is there is because it helps you find patterns/prevent people from trying to abuse marked cards? Or am I totaly wrong with that.

Edited Thomas Ludwig (Aug. 29, 2014 07:12:58 PM)

Originally posted by Abeed Bendall:

Suhas Arehalli
The first comparison that came to mind was to compare this to GPE - DEC, which, to note, is a stricter penalty then ID@SoG. Imagine player A casts sphinx's revelation for 5. He/She lays out the cards to count them out, and, confusing the mana payed with the X value, lays out 8 cards. The cards were placed from left to right, card 1 on the left and 8 on the right. Player B quickly points out that X was 5, and A apologizes, picking up cards 1, 2, and 3 and placing them on top the library. A then proceeds to pick up cards 4 - 8 and put them in his/her hand.

Would this receive a penalty?

This is far more abusable then the KP situation presented and is imo not even close to the same.

2 examples of why:

1) Ive scryed and know the top card of my deck is an Entreat the Angels, you for me to rev on my turn, but i want to miracle that entreat. I set 8 cards down in front of me, you correct me, and i put back cards 1-3. Ive now drawn 5, gained 5, AND left the entreat on top of my deck.

2) You fateseal me and leave the card on top. I do the exact same thing as above - now the card you left on top of the deck is still there and ive drawn 5 new cards.

Exactly my point. If you follow the ID@SoG interpretation, you're assigning a harsher penalty for a less abusable infraction. Is there anything higher than a GRV that's supported by the IPG for this situation?

I'm also in the “No penalty” camp, just put the card back on the library and move on. Direct instruction to not do that again.

The IPG does say “makes an error while drawing” now for ID@SoG, but I think that change was more a nod towards “economy of words”*, rather than a generalization of all possible kinds of mistakes that could be made in the process.

I'm always uncomfortable when not literally processing the text in the IPG (especially in a test scenario), but this seems like an appropriate place to use judgement. (There's a similar weirdness where if you drew 6 instead of the intended 7 and didn't notice until you played your land, it becomes “Drawing Extra Cards” because of the last sentence in ID@SoG's description. Clearly that's not how it should be treated.)

In the end, they needed 6 random cards, they got 6 random cards, and they just accidentally picked the wrong 6 random cards.

* I stole the phrase “economy of words” from the Annotated IPG: http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Annotated_IPG/Improper_Drawing_at_Start_of_Game

Just my two cents on the no infraction - no penalty approach. If it's not an infraction, then what's to stop me from counting, for example, 10 cards from my library and choosing 6/5/4 random to put in my hand? Nothing illegal, right?

Originally posted by Piotr Łopaciuk:

…what's to stop me from counting, for example, 10 cards from my library and choosing 6/5/4 random to put in my hand?

The fact that you know you can't do that should stop you from doing it.

In the KP situation, Anita brainfarted (a.k.a. she screwed up) and it resulted in her taking the wrong order of cards into her opening hand. This is an accident and hence an honest mistake.

In your situation, you are paying attention and you are aware of what you are doing. This is not an accident and I will be suspicious.

To sum it up, I do NOT have a problem if you accidentally miss the top card of your deck when you are drawing your opening hand. But I DO have a problem if you skip the top card on purpose (or decide to draw a number of cards from anywhere else but the top of your deck for any reason whatsoever).

Eric, what if player A presents his deck, player B shuffles, and player A shuffles again before drawing his opening hand. In this case it's also “brainfarted”, that still doesn't mean it's legal and it should still be penalized.

“Brainfart” is not an excuse for making mistakes in my opinion, the player has done something wrong in this case, even if it's a really minor thing here, where do you draw the line for not giving a penalty? Like Piotr said, what if the player brainfarts on a mulligan to 4 and lays out seven cards, and puts cards 4, 5, 6 and 7 in his hand before realizing his mistake? It doesn't even have to be on purpose.

I'm not saying I'm happy with giving the player a warning and a “forced” mulligan, I'm just saying it's supported by the IPG and it makes judging everywhere more consistent. That's what the IPG is for after all.

Originally posted by Tobias Rolle:

Eric, what if player A presents his deck, player B shuffles, and player A shuffles again before drawing his opening hand. In this case it's also “brainfarted”, that still doesn't mean it's legal and it should still be penalized.

Except that there is no applicable infraction to such a situation. And the last paragraph of MIPG 1.3 (edit: slip of the finger and typed “2” by accident) should ring true to such a situation. Yes, it's “wrong”, but it does not require a penalty.

But I fear we should be careful to discuss too many alternate scenarios, else we detract from this specific KP situation. Which should be evaluated on its own merits.

Edited Brian Schenck (Aug. 29, 2014 10:42:28 PM)

If you go hunting for irrelevant errors, you'll find them without difficulty. Don't do that.

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

If you go hunting for irrelevant errors, you'll find them without difficulty. Don't do that.

Where would you say the line between relevant and irrelevant is drawn? Honest question, I promise.

Indeed, I'm sure the number of matches played with 100% technical accuracy at a typical event is roughly zero.