At Competitive REL; If Player A controls an unknown Morph, and Player B casts Act of Treason, and without looking at the morph, deals lethal damage to Player A. Who is responsible for revealing the Morph at the end of the game?

Moved to Competitive REL.

Daniel

IMO Both players have had the creature under their control with access to the information. There is no longer any hidden information to verify.

Without written policy backup/just off my mind:
It's the player who initially cast that face-down creature who has to make sure that the opponent can know the play was a legal play.

Casting Act of Treason on a face-down morph is always legal, there's nothing player B has to do in order to verify legality of his play.

Player B could verify the play (casting morph) from A was legal by just looking at the face-down creature once he controls it. I don't think anyone should be penalized for GPE-GRV-(edit: Upgrade) here if noone reveals/looks at the card.

Edited Philip Böhm (Dec. 4, 2014 09:46:41 AM)

The IPG tells us “An error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded.” The player could have looked at the facedown and verified it, so I think the upgrade should not be applied. However, the CR say If a player leaves the game, all face-down permanents and spells owned by that player must be revealed to all players.". So if the owner does not reveal it we have a GRV-Warning

To be clear: Player A is clearly *required* to reveal this at the end of the game, as each player is required to reveal all face down permanents or spells they own at the end of the game, regardless of whether they have been previously revealed or been shown to all players.

It seems that we've extended the question to ask what penalty is needed if they don't reveal it. However, I have a meeting and don't have time to figure out whether this is a Game Loss or not. My gut feeling is not.

Just wanted to make it clear to OP that there is indeed an obligation to reveal the card here.

Are we then also supporting no GRV upgrade if I control a Lens of Clarity, the game ends, and my opponent fails to reveal his morph?

707.9. If a face-down permanent moves from the battlefield to any other zone, its owner must reveal it to all players as he or she moves it. If a face-down spell moves from the stack to any zone other than the battlefield, its owner must reveal it to all players as he or she moves it. At the end of each game, all face-down permanents and spells must be revealed to all players.

Just because this hasn't made it out there yet.

The rule Marc quoted is from the Comprehensive Rules; if a player breaks a rule from the CR, and it's not specifically covered by any other Game Play Error category, it's a GPE-Game Rule Violation. So, not revealing the Morph(s) in these scenarios is an infraction.

However, the upgrade clause is specifically for an “error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of”. If the opponent could have verified the legaltiy, the upgrade should not be applied - even if the opponent failed to verify the legality.

d:^D

You know, we had a good discussion at GP San Antonio about this.

Tell me, what if you were to choose not to look at the face down creature when you have a Lens of Clarity in play? What about if you activated Smoketeller and chose not to look at the face down card? What if your opponent had 2 cards in hand and his only face down creature was bounced to his hand and he didn't reveal it and when the judge was called, he revealed his whole hand revealing 3 morph cards?

Think about it.

-Ronny

Originally posted by Ronny Alvarado:

Tell me, what if you were to choose not to look at the face down creature when you have a Lens of Clarity in play? What about if you activated Smoketeller and chose not to look at the face down card? What if your opponent had 2 cards in hand and his only face down creature was bounced to his hand and he didn't reveal it and when the judge was called, he revealed his whole hand revealing 3 morph cards?

With the first two situations I think the same infraction as above occurs GPE-GRV with out the upgrade because the opponent had the opportunity to verify the legality of the play but chose not to.
The third scenario is tricker, I want to say that because you were able to verify that the card (whatever it was) was cast legally it should not have it upgraded. I would definitely conduct an investigation however.

Edit:grammar

Edited Walker Metyko (Dec. 5, 2014 12:40:17 AM)

So, the IPG should read, "An error that an opponent could never have verified the legality of should have its penalty upgraded"?

Edited Clynn Wilkinson (Dec. 5, 2014 02:13:05 AM)

Originally posted by Clynn Wilkinson:

So, the IPG should read, "An error that an opponent could never have verified the legality of should have its penalty upgraded"?

That's what I'm getting out of this, though with Smoke Teller perhaps it should be “could never have freely verified the legality of…”

“Could have verified” can mean a lot of things. I understand the Act of Treason and Lens of Clarity lines of argument since looking is free, but if a player sees better lines of play besides activating a Smoke Teller at any given time before the game ends, why should that give the opponent a free pass on a serious mistake?

This happened to me at a sealed PTQ a little while ago: Game 2 ended, and (as far as my opponent and I knew) so did the match. While we finished picking up our cards, we both started chatting with friends who had come to watch the last few turns. I could have made it a point to ask my opponent “what are those morphs?” before he accidentally scooped them into his library, but I didn't. He earned a game loss and we went to Game 3.

What's the burden on each player for making an effort to verify when it was only an option, rather than a requirement?

Lens of Clarity and Smoke Teller are different. For Smoke Teller, you need to pay mana, then may look at it. For Lens, you just need it on the battlefield.