Hey all!

So GP San Antonio had some really fun calls and all that good stuff and I'm wanting to share with you all at least an interesting scenario that could have some discussion about.


Andrew starts the game off and leads with a swamp and Thoughtseizes Nick, taking Nick's Whip of Erebos and passes the turn. Nick plays a land and passes. On Andrew's second turn, he plays tapped tri land and uses a black mana to Thoughtseize a second time and takes Nick's Commune with the Gods and passes the turn. On Nick's turn, he plays a scry land, looks at the top card, and keeps it there and passes the turn back. On Andrew's third turn during his main phase, Nick realizes he actually didn't draw a card for his own turn 1. They both call me over and see what's going on.

Before I tell you my ruling, I'm curious as to what all of you would have done!

PS: Assume no foul play.

-Ronny

Assuming we have determined that Nick did in fact miss his draw, this seems like a pretty clear GRV / FtMGS with the additional remedy of having Nick draw a card right now. The IPG, under GRV has this to say about additional remedies:

Originally posted by IPG 2.5:

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

So tell me this: would you take into consideration the fact that he had just scryed and kept the card on top?

To me, the result of his scrying seems irrelevant overall. The main issue to me is that this card should have been up for grabs for 2 thoughtseizes… by the book, it would be “draw now ” as Chuck said…

ok, your followup question just clicked in, if we determined no foul play, I'd still say draw the card, best possible fix, but there is a very strong case for not letting him draw here with how fishy and exploitable this seems.

So he should have been able to have seen the cards with the Thoughtseize, yes, so you would let him draw the card then?

but there is a very strong case for not letting him draw here with how fishy and exploitable this seems

Please, be very careful with this line of reasoning. Once you've investigated and decided that this is not Cheating, just follow the IPG. It's very dangerous - and destroys our goal of consistency! - to deviate just because you didn't quite get to Cheating, but were close…

d:^D

No worries Scott, I fully understand that, and maybe I should have been a bit less vague with my meaning. I agree with Chuck's words entirely on the infraction and fix, but I can see why this is an especially sticky situation that would need to be checked out entirely, and why Ronny feels it's an interesting situation for a discussion.

I agree with chuck here, while it does seem fishy we have already ruled out foul play. We issue the GRV/FtMGS warning and this will allow us to track it, if he continues this “sloppy play” then it will catch up to him.

I'd actually be more concerned that his opponent was cheating. At a GP (or other Comp REL event), players typically write down the contents of their opponents' hands after a Thoughtseize. The player should have noticed the second time that he didn't see any cards that weren't written down the first time (and that a land was already crossed off).

In any case, since it is both players' responsibility to maintain a consistent game state, I am not overly concerned about this player's getting an extra card past his opponent's Thoughtseize. The opponent could easily have prevented this situation, and is responsible for the outcome.

GPE-GRV, Warning, make him draw immediately a card. If you ruled out Cheating, as always.

Alright, I'm glad we had a few judges give their reasons for their rulings so I'll go ahead and tell you mine.

As per policy, one of the additional remedies allow us to apply a fix. Here are the fixes.

Originally posted by IPG:

If the infraction falls into one of the following categories, perform the fix specified:

• If a player made an illegal choice or failed to make a required choice for a permanent on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.
• If a player forgot to draw cards, discard cards, or return cards from their hand to another zone, that player does so.
• If an object changing zones is put into the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it can be moved without disrupting the state of the game, put the object in the correct zone.

Otherwise, a backup may be considered or the game state may be left as is.

You see which one we apply, despite the previous Thoughtseizes played as well as the Scry land keeping on top (ruling out foul play after talking with both players about it).

So my ruling was, despite the thoughtseizes and scry land, was to have that player draw the card. The player who Thoughtseized twice was not happy with it and decided to appeal and the ruling was upheld. This player was still not happy since he wanted to have at least information regarding what the opponent was going to draw out of it and so player that drew decided to offer to reveal this information to make his opponent happy. That card drawn was a Swamp.

Note, the player didn't have to reveal it, but decided it was best to do so to keep everyone happy.

EDIT: GPE-GRV to the player who did not draw for his turn.

Edited Ronny Alvarado (Dec. 2, 2014 11:13:18 PM)

After a quick refresher that FtMGS can only be given to the opponent I'm curious to if any penalty was given out. This seems like a GPE-GRV but You made no mention of handing one out.

Woops, I'll edit that in.

Yes, a GPE-GRV was handed to the player who did not draw a card for his turn 1. Though I'm pretty sure I didn't give out a FTMGS to the opponent so that may be my fault.