Hello, judges! Welcome to another week of the Knowledge Pool, back with a scenario from the murkiest depths of time. This week we have a Silver level difficulty, so L2+, please wait until after your local FNM to add your opinions.

Blog post: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1200

Andy and Nathan are playing in the first PPTQ of the season; the format is Standard. Andy has one card left in his hand during his main phase, and he taps out to cast Dig Through Time. He grabs 7 cards, and looks visibly relieved to have found what he was looking for. He drops a land and says ‘go’ without putting any cards on the bottom of his library. Nathan untaps all his lands, draws, looks at Andy's hand, and calls a judge because his opponent clearly has too many cards in hand.

What do you do?

Edited Josh Stansfield (Nov. 13, 2014 05:13:03 PM)

In my opinion, we have there GRV for Andy and FTMGS for Nathan. Andy should properly resolve Dig before he puts land in play (that mean - put 5 cards at bottom of his library). So, warning for both players and we back up till Dig resolution - instruct Andy to take back that land back to the “hand”, and put 5 of those 7 cards at bottom of his library.

Clearly the Dig Through Time was not resolved correctly. This seems to me like it would be a GRV for Andy carrying with it a warning.

Nathan took a little too long to notice anything so I think we should go ahead with the FtMGS/ warning for him.

We need to get this spelled resolved correctly so we will need to back the game up to the resolution of the Dig.

How I rule this depends on the specifics.

Since the Nathan looks at Andy's “hand”, I'm assuming than Andy is actually holding the six cards in some fashion. This is Drawing Extra Cards.

What's interesting is whether the game loss gets downgraded. I think by an extremely legalistic reading, it does not. We downgrade if extra cards were drawn into an “empty hand,” but Andy's hand wasn't empty when he drew extra cards; it had two cards from the resolved Dig. But my inclination is that the previous interpretation is too hairsplitting. If I were head judge, I'd issue a warning and have five of Andy's cards “returned to the correct zone with minimal disruption” (though not before I had asked enough questions of Andy to rule out cheating).

On the other hand, it's possible that Andy isn't holding the cards and they're just sitting fanned out on the table. In this case, I wouldn't consider the cards drawn. Instead, the penalty is a warning for GPE:GRV for not finishing the resolution of Dig. Since the cards aren't in “the wrong zone” (they're not in any zone, just lying in limbo on the table), none of the partial fixes apply; fortunately, it's easy enough to back up. Nathan puts a card from his hand on top of his library, Nathan un-untaps his permanents, the six cards on the table and the land Andy played are put back on top of Andy's library. Dig resolves normally.

In both cases, Nathan gets a warning GPE:FtMGS.

I look at the game state. It is Nathans draw step and Andy has too many cards in hand.

Andy has a GPE-DEC and GRV, but since the root is the same I would only issue the DEC. However, since the Additional remedy for the GRV results in a legal game state i would only apply the rewind. The thing I would wonder about is whether or not to give Nathan a FtMGS (it is the first PPTQ after all). After a quick debate in my head I would decide to Give Nathan FtMGS.

My final ruling is:
Andy gets a GPE-DEC - downgrade to Warning - the cards were uniquely identifiable (resolving dig incorrectly)
Nathan gets GPE-FtMGS Warning (letting Opp. resolve dig improperly)
Additional remedy: Rewind. (Get approval from HJ)
Then put put one card at random in Nathans hand on top of his library and tap his previously tapped lands. Then go back to Andy's main phase return the untapped land to his hand and have him finish resolving Dig.

Then I would caution them both to play more carefully, and sincerely explain to Andy that if he does anything like that again it will be a game loss so please don't. Finally I would tell them that I really appreciate them calling for a Judge.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

On the other hand, it's possible that Andy isn't holding the cards and they're just sitting fanned out on the table. In this case, I wouldn't consider the cards drawn. Instead, the penalty is a warning for GPE:GRV for not finishing the resolution of Dig.

Wouldn't Andy playing the land out of the seven cards mean he has drawn them?

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

but Andy's hand wasn't empty when he drew extra cards; it had two cards from the resolved Dig.

I do like the point you made about the extra five he has drawn not being uniquely identifiable. I hadn't thought about that. After thinking more about it and reading over the IPG I think the correct ruling is GPE-GRV because under DEC the IPG says “ at the moment before he or she began the… action that put a card into his or her hand, no other Game Rule Violation … had been committed” What I interpreted to happen is, Andy looks at the top seven then draws seven. Since Andy didn't resolve Dig completely he has committed a GRV at the moment before he began the action that put the extra cards in his hand. So I think that GPE-GRV Warning : Rewind is correct (even with some hairsplitting rule lawyering lol) .

Andy has committed a GPE-GRV since he resolved the spell correctly and not putting any cards below. Since after casting Dig Through Time (he will have no hands), he will only have all those cards in hand from the spell casted.

Nathan will get a GPE:FTMGS.

Rewind is possible with Nathan returning a land and a random card put on top the library, Andy to return the land and the other cards on top the library.

OK

For starters

The origin of the extra cards in Andy's hand comes from the bad resolution of the Dig Through time. So this falls under the clause ->This is not DEC if a GRV or CPV has been done previously.

So We have a GPE-GRV identified for Andy. Does it fall under one of the 3 special clause of GRV demanding an immediate partial fix? IMO no it does not, the description "if an object changin zones is put into the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players" does not match here since the card was not supposed to change zone (unless this borderline case of puting cards from top to bottom of library is considered as changing zone, but I do not believe so), it has been transfered from the deck to the hand instead of staying in the library.

If we regard this as a generic GRV, we should ask ourselves if it is better to rewind time or to let the game at its current state. It is obviously not OK to let Andy draw 7 cards instead of 2. Minimal amount of actions have been taken inbetween so I advise a backup =>
undraw by putting a random card in Nathan's hand to the top of his library
take back the played land, then ask Andy to resolve properly his spell.

It is a GPE-GRV-Warning for Andy and a GPE-FtMGS-Warning for nathan.


PS : in an alernative reality where we consider this case as a wrong change of zone demanding an immediate partial fix, the outcome is not that different : we immediately ask Andy to put 5 cards under his library, give GPE-GRV-Warning for Andy and a GPE-FtMGS-Warning for Nathan.

All in all all roads lead to Rome it seems.

Edited Théo CHENG (Nov. 13, 2014 09:10:59 AM)

Definitely a FTMGS warning for his opponent. As for the Dig through Time, I think we give him a GRV warning for failing to correctly resolve a spell–one could make the argument that he was still “holding” the top 7 cards of his library and was attempting to shortcut (save time by announcing the land drop and finishing putting cards on the bottom while his opponent untaps and draws). Certainly the remedy is to back it up, return the land and the other 6 cards to the top of his library, and correctly resolve the dig through time.

This is a clear example of a GRV - Warning for Andy with a FTMGS - Warning for Nathan. However, no backup is necessary because we have a partial fix to step in.

• If a player forgot to draw cards, discard cards, or return cards from their hand to another zone, that player does so.

Andy should return five cards to the bottom of his library.

which is our case? in those 3 cases?

Originally posted by Théo CHENG:

which is our case? in those 3 cases?

That's a good point. I totally was looking at the cards drawn as going into the hand then being “discarded” to the bottom of the library sort of like Brainstorm. These cards were never supposed to be in the hand. That means it's either a back up or not. I'd say that keeping the cards is more disruptive than backing up in this case.

Nathan puts a random card from his hand on the top of his library, Andy picks up his land back, Andy puts 5 cards on the bottom of the library.

Originally posted by Clynn Wilkinson:

Wouldn't Andy playing the land out of the seven cards mean he has drawn them?

I would consider it a legit Out of Order Sequencing for a player to go “Dig, play a land, put one card in my hand, put the other five on the bottom, pass.” I've seen and done similar plays before (Demonic Tutoring a land directly into play before shuffling, for instance). If the six cards are sitting on the table and not obviously in Andy's hand, my assumption is that Andy started OoOS and got distracted in the middle. Of course, I'd ask some questions of Andy and Nathan and depending on the answers might revise my evaluation.

Needless to say, all of this is moot if Andy is actually holding the cards.

Eli, I like it.

Originally posted by Niels Viaene:

Nathan untaps all his lands, draws, looks at Andy's hand and calls a judge because his opponent clearly has too many cards in hand.

Bolded for emphasis, as I think this makes it clear that the 6 remaining cards are not on the table. If this were improperly resolving Dig Through Time, those cards should be on top of the library as Dig Through Time instructs you to view the top 7, not draw them. Only two should ever enter the hand. As the first indication that Nathan has that anything went wrong is that more cards are in Andy's hand than should be there at present, Andy's infraction is Game Play Error - Drawing Extra Cards. The penalty is a Game Loss.

Correct resolution of Dig Through Time is looking at the top 7, keeping 2, and putting 5 on the bottom in any order in that sequence. Playing the land to OoOS one of the kept cards is fine, but at best we have 6 cards drawn into an empty hand where 5 should not have been. An argument could be made for downgrading the penalty to a Warning given that all cards were drawn into an empty hand, in which case we apply the fix in the IPG for Drawing Extra Cards with a downgrade being

IPG 2.3
If the identity of the card was known to all players before being placed into the hand, or was placed into an empty hand, and the card can be returned to the correct zone with minimal disruption, do so and downgrade the penalty to a Warning.

So downgrade to a Warning and instruct Andy to put five of the cards in his hand on the bottom of his library in any order (“returning” to the correct zone with minimal disruption).

We also have a Game Play Error - Failure to Maintain Game State and a Warning for Nathan, since this Game Play Error was not caught immediately.