Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool everyone! The water's cold this time of year, but the subject for this week's scenario is hot off the press. Since this is a Gold scenario, we ask L3+ judges to refrain from answering and/or guiding conversation until Friday. Also, please remember that in this scenario, as with almost all KP scenarios, we assume that there is no cheating going on. With that all out of the way, dive in!

The blog post for this scenario can be found here: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/?p=1215

In a sealed PPTQ for which you are a floor judge, Nat calls you over. He explains that during a relatively complicated combat step on Andy's turn, Nat cast force away targeting one of Andy's face-down morph creatures, and it wasn't revealed. You ask to see Andy's hand and it contains a Rattleclaw Mystic, a Sagu Mauler, and a Mountain. Andy tells you that it was the Rattleclaw Mystic that was just returned to his hand. What do you do?

Edited Josh Stansfield (Dec. 19, 2014 11:36:29 AM)

If we are going by the new rules, he would get a warning for not revealing it. If we were going by old rules, he would be very sad.

EDIT: Although now that I think about it, there are two morph creatures in his hand. Does that matter? Does this possibility for an immense advantage with only his word to go by warrant an upgrade? We are told to assume he wasn't cheating, so we don't consider he really bounced his Mauler and doesn't want to show it… But his opponent doesn't know he has two morph creatures in his hand so I don't think this factors in. What if the judge didn't look at the hand?

I still don't think I would upgrade though.

EDIT EDIT: Just to be clear, a judge was called because the Mystic was not revealed before going to his hand, correct? I feel like I've missed something crucial…

Edited Sal Cortez (Dec. 18, 2014 02:30:10 AM)

This is interesting. With the new announcement about how we handle morph reveal, this would be GPE-GRV with a Warning for Andy which will not be upgraded, because the card was in a position where the opponent could have verified the legality. The big question: is it possible to reveal the hidden information? I'd say no, because what do we show, Mystic or Mauler? Yes, we could show Mystic if we believe Andy, but the opponent cannot confirm this. Having said that, I don't believe Andy should be punished by having to reveal two cards from his hand (we assumed no cheating), so my final decision would be not to reveal anything and have the game continue.

Waiting to be corrected :)

To clear up any potential confusion, the change to the IPG that was announced last week was effective immediately. Please refrain from answering new rules/old rules- there are only the current rules, which the change is a part of. If you need the IPG wording that uses the update, look for the bolded paragraph near the end of Toby's post, which is linked in the scenario introduction.

With the recent change in policy, I think this is a great Gold level question. I reread Toby Elliott's blog about the policy change and found something I didn't notice before.

When you think about the player actions surrounding the times at which morphs don’t get revealed, who controls the flow of the game? … It’s also the same for bouncing a morph – the opponent is initiating the action (there’s a corner where you’re bouncing your own morph, but that’s unusual enough that it’s going to draw everyone’s attention). Since the opponent controls the flow of the game at the time, it seems reasonable to put some burden on them as well. (Elliott 2014)

I'm reading this as, Nat had the opportunity to ask for the card to be revealed before it touched Andy's hand. As the opponent initiating the action, he shares some of the burden for making sure the morph is revealed. So, Andy will get a Warning for GRV, and since Nat is the one who called us over, he will not receive any warnings.

Now to the question of the fix. The change to the IPG says, “reveal the information if possible.” Andy has two creatures with the morph ability in his hand, but he says it was the Rattleclaw Mystic. Since this is a KP scenario and cheating is right out, that means lying to a judge is also right out. I would rule that since he says it was the Rattleclaw Mystic he should reveal the Rattleclaw Mystic.

GPE-GRV - Warning for Andy for not revealing his morph when it was bounced.
Sounds like Nat has called attention to the situation in plenty of time to avoid a GPE - FTMGS.
The fix typically involves revealing the information if possible, but given the presence of 2 morphs it's harder to do. Since this is a Knowledge Pool question and we know that nobody is cheating, I can also assume he's not lying to me when he says it was the Rattleclaw Mystic. If I assume that, then I can have him reveal it and carry on the game. However that feels a little bit like gaming the scenario.

In real life, I have options. If I do believe the card was the Mystic, then I can continue with the fix and ask him to reveal it. I'd like to avoid the situation where I reveal information about his hand (if possible) i.e. that there is a second morph. If I'm familiar enough with the format, then I could perhaps ask about the past several turns while the morph has been in play. I could perhaps figure out whether the morph was more or less likely to be one or the other. For example - if the morph was played face down when 7 lands were in play, then it's likely that it's a mystic, as someone in that position is very likely to cast a Mauler face up rather than risk it dieing while face down. Other situations which would lead me to believe it's a Mystic include aggressively attacking into 2/2s, or passing through the opponent's turn with 5 mana, and doing nothing with it (i.e. not flipping it). On the other hand, if Andy was being very careful in his plays to ensure his morph didn't die, while not having an opportunity to flip it, I may wonder if it was actually a Mauler all along.

I could do all of the above under the pretence that I was making sure that it was actually a morph in the first place, thereby avoiding giving out the information about the existence of a second morph (after all, someone who has played a mountain as a morph is unlikely to be trying to trade it with a 2/2!).

So after all that, my choice in fixes, starting with most preferable are:
(1) Quick analysis of game state and last few turns to be sure it was a Mystic - reveal Mystic
(2) Choose to believe it was the Mystic - reveal Mystic
(3) Tell Nat that I can't reveal the information. Nat will ask “why?” and I'll have to say that there's more than one morph.

I think that I, personally, could go with (1) given my familiarity with the format, but the others are not without their own merits.

I'd upgrade to a GL for GPE-GRV. The new wording still says that the legality must be able to be verified, and the morph-controlling player never allowed that opprotunity. As the player has multiple cards in his hand, there is no way that the bounced card is identifiable and able to be verified; therefore, I go with the upgrade.

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

GPE-GRV for Andy, no upgrade, no remedy.

Originally posted by Nick Louzon:

I'd upgrade to a GL for GPE-GRV. The new wording still says that the legality must be able to be verified, and the morph-controlling player never allowed that opprotunity. As the player has multiple cards in his hand, there is no way that the bounced card is identifiable and able to be verified; therefore, I go with the upgrade.

Nat does have the opportunity to verify, as he has to allow the bounce spell to resolve - Andy may hurry through the resolution a bit, but Nat will still be aware the bounce is happening and have the opportunity to intervene. Really most (if not all) morphs on the battlefield should fall under the verifiable position clause, though the examples only cite the end-of-game situation - as Toby pointed out, the list is illustrative, not exhaustive.

On the fix: I don't believe we should compel Andy to reveal the Mystic or any other cards in his hand, for the same reason we wouldn't compel him to reveal if he scooped it up at end of game. The card itself is no longer in a unique position, and while we expect Andy to be honest with us, we have no way at all to verify that ourselves. Once the card has moved from a unique spot to a non-unique spot, the “if possible” at the end of the paragraph should kick in. Otherwise we're creating more detective work for ourselves than it feels like we should be doing, as I think Mark's example above somewhat demonstrates.

Edit: Didn't RTFS. Nat is casting the bounce spell, not Andy. Answer's still the same.

Edited Aaron Huntsman (Dec. 18, 2014 01:48:47 PM)

I agree with others that this is a GPE:GRV, and the penalty is a warning (the opponent could verify the legality of the Morph as they were the one causing the Morph to leave the battlefield and thus controlled the pacing of the game).

I believe the crux of this scenario is in whether or not we reveal the identity of the card. Since there is more than one possibility (Andy has two Morph creatures in his hand), we can not determine which Morph creature was played face-down.

Mark believes he can reason which Morph it is based on his experience of the format, but this is something we should not take into account (not every judge has expert strategic knowledge of a format) as it would lead to inconsistent rulings. Furthermore, even if the player states what the Morph is, we can not verify his statement (similar to if a player drew two cards as a result of a GRV; even if the player can tell us which the extra card was, we still have to return one at random).

The most consistent ruling we can give in this situation is to simply state “since we can not determine which Morph creature was in play, it will not be revealed.” Giving away the information that the player has more than one Morph in hand is a better solution than giving the player the opportunity to reveal the Morph creature he wants to reveal. Moreover, we can consistently apply this ruling.

BEFORE READING OTHER RESPONSES: GPE-GRV do not upgrade. Ask him to reveal the mystic and remind players to play more carefully in the future.

AFTER READING OTHER RESPONSES: GPE-GRV do not upgrade. I agree that consistency Is key here and that it is no longer uniquely identifiable. Therefore no reveal and remind them to play more carefully in the future.

Nat does have the opportunity to verify, as he has to allow the bounce spell to resolve - Andy may hurry through the resolution a bit, but Nat will still be aware the bounce is happening and have the opportunity to intervene.

I understand the reasoning for this, and the example in the announcement leads towards this also, but it is less than clear. The actual rewording of the paragraph specifically states on the battlefield at the end if the game, and philosophically, there is a huge difference between the battlefield at the end of the game and during the course of it. Moreover, if the onus is on the player casting the bounce spell, why not give a penalty to both players, a double GRV?

If a player takes an action called for by an effect controlled by his or her opponent, but does it incorrectly, both players receive a Game Play Error – Game Rule Violation.

The action of returning the card from the battlefield to the player's hand is a effect controlled by his opponent, and he clearly returns the morph incorrectly, so both should get GRV, and since the hand has multiple cards in it, and he legality of that creature cannot be verified, that should be upgraded. In this case, though, “incorrectly” is ambiguous.

And not to get into corner cases, but I'd the onus IS on the player controlling the event, would failure to reveal from an opponent's Weird Harvest be downgraded?

I also completely understand that I may, in fact, be misinterpreting this completely.

I'm going with GPE - GRV, Upgrade to GL. In short, this not the end of the game and Nat did not have opportunity to reveal the morph himself.

When Nat casts force away, he is waiting for a response from the opponent. Maybe he unmorphs, maybe he reveals it then puts it in his hand, maybe he counters Force Away.. When Andy picks up the morph and puts it in his hand, that is the first indication of Andy's response. That is not an opportunity for Nat to reveal the morph for himself nor adequate time to remind Andy.

From the official quote from Toby they added “or on the battlefield at the end of the game”. This is not the end of the game and I would not expect Nat to be able to stop Andy before Andy picks up the morph and jams it into his hand.

This is a GRV. AP failed to reveal a card at a time that he was obligated to reveal it. The card was in a position where the opponent was able to verify the legality of the situation at the time of the error (it was on the battlefield), so we will decline to upgrade this penalty.

Previously, I would not have directed the player to reveal this card, as it's impossible to do so - that's why we used to upgrade this penalty. However, now that this is being considered a Warning rather than a Game Loss, I think we have a better ability to apply the “reveal if able”. Direct AP to reveal the card if he hasn't done so already, make sure the card he revealed is the same as what he told us it was during our investigation, and we can move on.

NAP is not receiving a penalty because he called attention to this error immediately and did nothing wrong.

AP is receiving a GPE:GRV - W with no upgrade.

It should be clear that the list of examples in the new IPG paragraph is just that - a list of examples in which the GRV should not be upgraded. It is not intended to be exhaustive. Also note that the previous wording "uniquely identifiable location after the error" no longer exists. I have a chatlog saved in my drafts folder to this effect, but I won't post it, as L5s are not yet able to participate in this scenario ;)

Edited Dan Collins (Dec. 18, 2014 12:42:32 PM)

Originally posted by Nick Louzon:

I'd upgrade to a GL for GPE-GRV. The new wording still says that the legality must be able to be verified, and the morph-controlling player never allowed that opprotunity. As the player has multiple cards in his hand, there is no way that the bounced card is identifiable and able to be verified; therefore, I go with the upgrade.

I'd just like to note that this is exactly how I read the change to the IPG and Toby's blog post the first three times I read it. Reading it a fourth time I finally see why so many people are going the other way but I don't feel that the wording of the IPG actually supports it (though Toby's post does).

When I read the IPG passage I feel that the interaction listed here doesn't give the opponent the opportunity to verify. If the interaction goes “Force away?” (expecting a counter or response), then Andy immediately picks up the Morph, there is no opportunity to ask to see it before it is too late. Because the IPG specifically states “on the battlefield at the end of a game” it indicates to me that this is specifically different instance than just a morph on the battlefield.

However, the intro to Toby's blog post says “Effective immediately, failing to reveal your morph is now a Warning. A non-morph played as a morph, unless it’s caught by the player almost immediately, remains a Game Loss.” Which means that this is intended to not be a game loss. If this is the case I feel that it may be worth removing the “at the end of the game” from this section of the IPG. If we are ruling that anytime the card is on the battlefield it becomes verifiable, then we shouldn't have the restriction in the IPG.

If I was just reading the IPG here, I'd upgrade the GRV here too. However, with Toby's blog post, I'd leaving it at a warning and reveal what Andy says is the correct card. I'm scared to think about what I'd do if he didn't remember which card it was but I'm happy to take his word about it considering the other options include revealing nothing (which is less fair) or revealing a random morph (which just feels weird).

I agree Marc. If we are treating a case where Andy bounces his own morph and does not reveal it as a corner case that does not get upgraded either (atleast I think that is what Toby is saying, to not upgrade that corner case that probably won't happen), then why does the IPG include “at the end of the game”?

Ok. I am digging into it too much. I will not upgrade either case since it could have been possible for the opponent to verify, even if the action was taken so quickly he couldn't do so. Still I think it could be better to shorten the example to “on the battlefield”.

Edited Brian Brown (Dec. 18, 2014 07:48:30 PM)