Originally posted by Jacob Milicic:

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.

Indded, I think I can agree on the drawing extra card explaination, as it is kind of the same situation as drawing more cards than a spell you cast instructs you to do.

My problem with DEC here is how do you define that the cards are in Andy's hand? If you say that because he is physically holding them with his hands then they are considered in his hand, then it's basically impossible to resolve Dig Through Time. Yes, you are only “looking” at the top 7 cards of your library not “drawing” them, but the actual mechanical way you do that in paper magic is by setting aside your hand and picking up those 7 cards so you can look at them.

Since Andy had no cards in hand while he was resolving Dig, it's not like we can point to when the cards from Dig touched the rest of his hand as the moment they were “drawn” instead of just “looked at,” so in order to claim that we have to do some sort of retroactive “Well you said ‘Go’ so that means at some point, even though you didn't physically do anything, those cards went from ‘being looked at’ to ‘drawn’” Which just sounds too much like fishing for a justification for a penalty, instead of taking what we are presented with.

I would go with a GPE - GRV for improperly resolving Dig, along with a rewind to that point and having Andy properly finish resolving Dig Through Time and continue with his turn from there.

Originally posted by Chuck Pierce:

My problem with DEC here is how do you define that the cards are in Andy's hand?

Andy has passed the turn to his opponent, who has now taken multiple actions. If Andy is in the process of figuring out the second card to take and just passed to his opponent to save time, maybe that's one thing. But now Andy has more information to make his decision than he should have had, namely that Nathan has no effects during his turn. Given the wording of the scenario, some more information from the players might make it clear what has transpired and with what timing, etc.

GPE-GRV - Warning for Andy, wouldn't issue a FTMGS to the opponent since he called a judge the first time there was an error (When he's kept the cards and hasn't put them back - otherwise wonky OOOS would be possible). Rewind to the point of error, since Nathan hasn't done anything/given any information.

Originally posted by Chuck Pierce:

even though you didn't physically do anything

Andy Played a land. He had to draw it to play it. (unless he played it from his deck for no reason, which is a hard argument to justify)

If he hadn't you would be right.

Edited Clynn Wilkinson (Nov. 14, 2014 12:19:05 PM)

Originally posted by Clynn Wilkinson:

Andy Played a land. He had to draw it to play it. (unless he played it from his deck for no reason, which is a hard argument to justify)

But again, you can't point to a single point in time when those cards that he was holding went from “On the top of his library but being looked at” to “In his hand.” You are inferring that's what happened because he played a land, and you can't normally play a land from anywhere other than your hand. The problem there is that we aren't in a normal game state, so we can't just assume that he “drew” all the cards because he played a land, since there was no actual indication that all those cards are actually in his hand.

To put it another way, the IPG says this about DEC:

IPG
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 Rule Violation or Communication Policy Violation had been committed, and the error was not the result of resolving objects on the stack in an incorrect order.

How can we know that no other GRV or CPV has occurred at the moment before Andy took the action of putting the extra cards in his hand, when we can't even point to exactly when that moment is?

Chuck Pierce

I am new to judging so I need a little clarification.

Are you ruling that he is still “looking” at the six cards, hasn't drawn any cards, and he played the land from his deck?

Clynn, I guess you could characterize it that way, I'm fairly new too, so that's just my interpretation of what happened. Specifically, I would rule that he didn't resolve Dig Through Time correctly because he didn't put any cards into his hand or on the bottom of his library. I'm not comfortable saying that what he did was put all 7 into his hand and then move on from there, because as I said with an empty hand, there's no clear delineation between “holding the cards looking at them” and “holding the cards, but now they're in the hand.”

So I'd be issuing a GRV for incorrectly resolving the Dig Through Time and since it was caught essentially immediately, I would want to back up to that point and have him finish resolving it correctly.

Since the cards ended up in his hand as a result of a GRV involving casting Dig Through Time super wrong, the infraction here is a GRV for Andy. The penalty should be Warning. As he had no cards in hand when the Dig Through Time was cast, there is no non-verifiable information at work, so the penalty is simply to finish resolving the Dig immediately. It might also be a good idea to make sure it was truly an accident and remind Andy to play more carefully.

The more I look at this the more I keep coming back with a different answer. The point of error was not actually a GRV with resolving Dig Through Time. The point of error was when Andy was supposed to look at the top seven of his library and draw two, and instead drew seven. The error becomes evident when Andy plays a land from his “Hand” and says go. At this point he's basically moving forward with the cards he's drawn as his hand. I could imagine a scenario where he's just OOS by playing the land then putting five of the other cards in his deck. But passing priority means he's done and he's drawn 5 extra cards.

The Annotated IPG gives the following litmus test:

if the first opportunity an opponent had to possibly notice a problem was when the card hit the hand, it is DEC.

In this example Andy made the same kind of error as drawing 4 off of an Ancestral Recall. He drew 7 cards not 2. He did this by incorrectly resolving an Dig Through Time, but that's not what the exception looks at. If he didn't have the mana to cast Dig Through Time, then it would be a GRV. But he incorrectly resolved Dig Through Time as a Braingeyser resulting in extra cards in his hand. This is a DEC.

Normally DEC brings with it a game loss unless “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.” In this case, the cards were placed into an empty hand and can be returned to the correct zone (bottom of the library) with minimal disruption. I feel that the 5 extra cards can be placed on the bottom of the library with minimal disruption especially because the spell gave selection of the cards initially, and no new information has been gained as play moved forward. I'm fine with placing them on the bottom and giving a downgrade.

Final answer (3rd time's a charm) DEC - Downgraded to Warning.

Ok, That makes sense.

thanks, guys excellent conversation

Originally posted by Marc DeArmond:

The Annotated IPG gives the following litmus test:

Annoted IPG
if the first opportunity an opponent had to possibly notice a problem was when the card hit the hand, it is DEC.

This is actually the basis of my argument that it isn't DEC. Since there was no existing hand for the cards to go into, the first opportunity for the opponent to notice a problem is when he plays a land before he put 5 of the cards on the bottom of his library, not when he picked up the cards. There's never a point where the opponent could notice “Hey, you aren't looking at those cards any more, now you drew them!”

If the error occurred as soon as he picked up the 7 cards (i.e. ‘when the card(s) hit the hand’), then it would be basically impossible to resolve Dig Through Time in paper Magic.

Before reading other responses:

Andy has resolved Dig Through Time incorrectly. There's two ways we can look at this situation - Andy has six cards in hand, and has committed Game Play Error - Drawing Extra Cards, or Andy has no cards in hand, and the six cards he's holding are still considered to be on top of the library, in which case this is only a Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation.

The actual sequence of events, as I'm assuming it happens, was:

* Andy casts the last card in his hand, Dig Through Time, and puts it directly into the graveyard.
* Andy picks up the top seven cards of his library
* Andy places one of those cards, a land directly onto the battlefield
* Andy passes the turn.

Since there was no other cards in hand, we can't be sure whether the current cards are ‘in hand’ or ‘on top of library’. I think, in this case, it's reasonable to assume that they are not in hand, treat this as a GRV, and rewind to the point of error.

* re-tap Nathan's land
* return the land from battlefield to the set of seven cards
* Andy must now pick two cards to put into hand, and put the other five on bottom of library.
* Issue Andy a warning for GPE-GRV.
* While Nathan has advanced the game state by untapping lands, he called us soon enough that I think it's fine not issuing a FtMGS.



After reading other responses:

Not surprisingly, this is quite a tricky scenario, with a lot of debate whether or not it is DEC.

One argument often gets brought up (incorrectly) with DEC debates:

Originally posted by Clynn Wilkinson:

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.

This isn't really the correct application of that rule. This is intended to catch situations where an opponent might be tempted to not call out a GRV, in hopes that the unnoticed mistake will compound into a player illegally drawing a card. e.g., a player casts Cryptic Command to bounce a Hexproof creature and draw a card. Before the spell can resolve, there's a GRV here, and the opponent should not be allowing the spell to resolve at all.

The “no previous Game Play Error” clause is pretty narrow. If you think it applies, it probably doesn't.

Whether or not this is DEC depends, I think, on whether you consider the cards Andy is holding to be in the Hand zone, or still in the Library. If they're in his hand, he's drawn extra cards.

I don't understand how you can assume the 7 cards are not in hand after he has started playing cards out of them.

Also I don't understand why “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” doesn't apply. (I understand why we don't want it to apply, but I don't see anything in the IPG that Implies it shouldn't)

Edited Clynn Wilkinson (Nov. 17, 2014 12:17:59 PM)

Originally posted by Clynn Wilkinson:

Also I don't understand why “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” doesn't apply.

What is the Game Rule Violation that was committed prior to the cards entering Andy's hand?