Welcome back to another exciting edition of Knowledge Pool! This week, we have a special scenario that we hope will challenge you to put your thinking caps on. This is a GOLD SCENARIO! Gold Scenarios require a deeper understanding of the IPG as well as knowledge of the philosophy behind particular infractions and penalties. This is open to all judges through Level 2. Level 3 judges are asked to wait until Friday to join the discussion. Good luck and have fun!

Woot! Free Win! - GOLD

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1191

You are the Head, and only, Judge of a Sealed Grand Prix Trial. Alex calls you over to his table, where he is playing against Brian. Alex says, "Judge, I just realized that I played this Archers' Parapet face down a couple turns ago. I thought I was putting down a Sagu Archer. I don't have Sagu Archer in my hand.“

You confirm that it is Game 1 and that Alex has no other Morph creatures in his hand. You issue a Game Rule Violation to Alex, upgrade the penalty to a Game Loss, and explain what will happen to both players. You take the result slip and write out the penalty while the players prepare for the 2nd game. After finishing, you look up and realize something. ”Brian, did you reveal that Morph creature you had?“ Brian says, ”Oops, I didn't," and Alex agrees. What do you do?

While unfortunate, Brian had failed to reveal his Morph creature when the game had ended, even though it was due to a Game Loss. My first question would be to check if that Morph creature was ever identified by Alex during the game, perhaps via a Smoke Teller, among other potential methods, such as it being revealed by Courser of Kruphix, being drawn into an empty hand, and then cast for Morph. In the likely scenario that this is not the case, then I would be issuing a Game Loss to Brian at the same game that Alex had received. The Game Losses, while still applied and recorded, will effectively cancel each other out. Whoever chose to play or draw before Game 1 chooses again before this next game. While Brian may be upset that he is receiving a Game Loss for something that the “judge caused,” it is still his responsibility to reveal Morph creatures when a game ends, regardless if it was due to a penalty or natural means. (We also wouldn't inform Brian to reveal that creature when we issue the initial Game Loss. We don't prevent play errors from occurring.)

One note of concern about this scenario: You say that the players are preparing for Game 2. My answer assumes that they have not yet presented their decks and drawn their opening 7. Is this the case for the purpose of this scenario?

Disclaimer: I might be really, really wrong about all of this. Sorry!

Brian has committed a GPE-GRV for failing to reveal his Morph creature at the end of the game. Explain to him what infraction he has gotten and why, and then give him a GPE-GRV-GL. The Warning is upgraded to a Game Loss, according to IPG 2.5:

IPG 2.5 - Game Play Error — Game Rule Violation
An error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded.

Now, I'm not really sure what the IPG means by “simultaneous Game Loss”; does it mean in the same game, or stemming from the same error? I'm going with the former, so the GLs offset each other, the results are recorded, but do not affect the match score.

First off, Bryan's infraction. Bryan failed to reveal his morph at the end of a game, which is a GRV. Since this is a misplay of hidden information that the opponent could not verify the legality of, we upgrade the penalty to a Game Loss.

Now, we have the issue of what to do with two game losses. Game 1 isn't over at least until both players reveal their morphs or until Game 2 has begun. As a result, we are still in Game 1. According to the IPG, when we have two game loss penalties apply to the same game, they are recorded, but the game losses don't affect the match record. As a result, Game 1 has no result and is ignored. Both players may sideboard (because someone took a game action after the pre-game procedure in Game 1) and begin game 2. The player who chose whether to play or draw in Game 1 chooses in this game. I'll remind players that they are only expected to report game wins and draws on the match slip, so they should pretend Game 1 didn't happen for the purposes of reporting their match.

Edited Darcy Alemany (Oct. 30, 2014 01:23:24 AM)

Brian will be getting a GPE - GRV upgraded to a game loss for failing to reveal his morph. Per the fficial Policy, that Game Loss should be applied retroactively to the game that just finished. However, that game was ended by Alex getting a Game Loss.

While these aren't simultaneous Game Losses being given out (i.e. both players have D/DLP during a deck check), we still have 2 Game Losses being given for the same game, so I would treat it the same way. Both GLs are recorded but don't apply to the match score and the players just start a new game.

The only other option I can see would be to have Brian's GL apply to the next game that they were about to start, but this goes against the Policy of how we apply GLs for failing to reveal morphs at the end of the game, as well as the general philosophy of having matches decided by players playing Magic (since this would artificially shorten the match by having errors by both players in Game 1 essentially force the match to Game 3).

At what point do we consider game 1 to be final?

I could see issuing both players a game loss for game 1 OR Alex a G1 GL and Brian a G2 GL depending on when the game “ends”. I think there's even a third option where the penalty for Brian is too late to have been applied.

Personally, I think the policy intent is for both players to get a Game 1 GL and begin G2. What makes me uncomfortable is the undefined length of time between his infraction and the recognition of the same.

-mf

Before reading other responses -

Brian has failed to reveal a face-down Morph card at the end of the game, which is a game rule. Brian has committed a Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation. Because the error is one the opponent can't verify the legality of, the penalty should be upgraded to a Game Loss.

In my opinion, this qualifies as Alex and Brian both being issued simultaneous Game Losses. Both are issued a Game Loss Penalty, but these will not affect the match score. Alex and Brian move to the next game (with 0 wins each), and may sideboard before playing.

After reading other responses -

I still like treating this as a simultaneous infraction. Assuming we don't, however, we have to consider “when” to apply Brian's game loss - to game 1? or game 2?. A recent ‘O’fficial statement on this forums (link goes here when I find it) indicates that we should apply morph-related game losses such that it's actually a penalty. I.E., if a player would have otherwise won a game, they lose it. If a player lost the game, the GL should be applied to the next game.. Brian made his error while cleaning up Game 1 - the error occurred in Game 1, and that's when Brian gets the game loss.

In this case, Alex has lost the game, and Brian has also lost the game, so there's no wins going in to the next game. It's effectively the same as treating the two Game Losses as simultaneous.

Edited Talin Salway (Oct. 30, 2014 03:13:16 AM)

Originally posted by Talin Salway:

I still like treating this as a simultaneous infraction. Assuming we don't, however, we have to consider “when” to apply Brian's game loss - to game 1? or game 2?. A recent ‘O’fficial statement on this forums (link goes here when I find it) indicates that we should apply morph-related game losses such that it's actually a penalty. I.E., if a player would have otherwise won a game, they lose it. If a player lost the game, the GL should be applied to the next game.

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2014/09/23/ktk-policy-changes/

So the new official way to handle a morph Game Loss is to always apply it to the game in which the failure to reveal occurred. You still issue it, even if the Game Loss itself may be irrelevant.

So there's that. Brian's loss will still apply to G1.

Before reading anything else;

Bryan will get a game loss due to failure to reveal morphs as a GRV, which is upgraded due to opponent being unable to verify the legality of the card.

From the IPG;

An error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded. These errors involve misplaying hidden information, such as the morph ability or failing to reveal a card to prove that a choice made was a legal one. If the information needed to verify the legality was ever in a uniquely identifiable position (such as on top of the library or as the only card in hand) after the infraction was committed, do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.

Per the Khans of Tarkir policy changes there will be a simultaneous game loss, which will be applied to the original game because:

The new official way to handle a morph Game Loss is to always apply it to the game in which the failure to reveal occurred. You still issue it, even if the Game Loss itself may be irrelevant.

As a result they will go into game 2 at 0-0, as the game losses offset. It is not a judges responsibility to step in and prevent an issue from occuring.

After reading;
I still believe that this is still a simultaneous game loss which is applied to the original game.
As per Peter Richmond's response;

“While Brian may be upset that he is receiving a Game Loss for something that the “judge caused,” it is still his responsibility to reveal Morph creatures when a game ends, regardless if it was due to a penalty or natural means. (We also wouldn't inform Brian to reveal that creature when we issue the initial Game Loss. We don't prevent play errors from occurring.)”

I fully agree with it and had similar thought patterns while I was providing my initial answer, however I did not word it as well as I could have.

Originally posted by Aaron Huntsman:

Talin Salway
I still like treating this as a simultaneous infraction. Assuming we don't, however, we have to consider “when” to apply Brian's game loss - to game 1? or game 2?. A recent ‘O’fficial statement on this forums (link goes here when I find it) indicates that we should apply morph-related game losses such that it's actually a penalty. I.E., if a player would have otherwise won a game, they lose it. If a player lost the game, the GL should be applied to the next game.

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2014/09/23/ktk-policy-changes/

So the new official way to handle a morph Game Loss is to always apply it to the game in which the failure to reveal occurred. You still issue it, even if the Game Loss itself may be irrelevant.

So there's that. Brian's loss will still apply to G1.

I was thinking of http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/post/80270/, which I thought was posted after and superseded Toby's blog post, but it was the other way around.

So, we always errors in the game they occurred, which would be Game 1 for Brian.

Without reading other comments:

I believe this falls under the recent change of the Game Loss, where simultaneous Game Losses do not affect the match score. While the IPG says “simultaneous Game Losses”, and they weren't really simultaneous, the philosophy behind this situation is to avoid the awkwardness of both players receiving a Game Loss and playing a Best of 1, rather than a best of 3, like a match of Magic should be. Since failing to reveal the morph applies only to the game it happened, Brian receives a game loss, which is annotated, but does not affect the match count. Therefore, the game starts fresh with no wins for either side, and the player who decided the Play/Draw order will do so for the next game.

After reading:

I'll only add the investigation part Peter Richmond put to make sure both players knew if the card was a morph due to Lens of Clarity or Smoke Teller. I believe the Courser of Kruphix draw into an empty hand is too much of a rare situation for players not to remember, and if they do, they'll hardly ever be sure if it was drawn into an empty hand.

Without looking: Issue a GRV with upgrade to a game loss, these offset so they still need someone to win two games.

Double grv, double game loss, offset them and carry on.

My first thought is a GRV upgraded to Game Loss for each player applied to the first game. So each player has one loss and the match continues until a player has two wins.

In order for the game losses to not count toward the match result they must be simultaneous game loss penalties. That didn't happen here, in this case the active player committed a GRV that the opponent could not verify due to hidden information. After that the game ended which led to the GRV committed by the non-active player that their opponent couldn't verify so they too would receive a game loss. Since these are not simultaneous we'd move to game 3 with the score tied 1-1.