In the fifth and last round of Swiss in a PPTQ, you are watching Achilles play a win-and-in against Nestor. Achilles is playing Temur Ascendancy combo. He announces Genesis Hydra “for seven” and taps seven lands. Nestor says “Ok”, and Achilles puts the Hydra on the battlefield with four +1/+1 counters and reveals the top four cards of the library. Nestor looks at you questioningly (but silently), while Achilles is oblivious.

Do you intervene? What do you rule?

Do you change your answer if Achilles announces nothing, but taps seven mana? If, instead of you being watching the game, a spectator comes to you while the situation is unfolding and Nestor remained silent?

If I'm observing it, I intervene when I see first incorrect action (that is
either putting 4 counters on hydra or choosing a card from the 4 top
cards). I would rule GRV for Achilles and depending on the type of Nestor's
questioning look, either no infraction (I didn't give him an opportunity to
commit FtMGS by my immediate intervention) or cheating for Nestor.

If he doesn't say anything, shortcut which says all remaining mana in mana
pool is used to pay for X applies. But this changes nothing. Nestor still
performs an illegal action either by putting 4 counters on hydra or
choosing a card from 4 top cards, rathrer than 5). Same intervention timing
and infractions apply.

Even though it is possible that Achilles meant to cast Hydra with X=4 and
he simply tapped one more land, I wouldn't allow him to change it (ie.
rewind). He already gained too much information that would affect his
decision (he saw top 4 cards which can signifiantly affect his decision).
Not rewinding it also promotes a good communication.

If I'm informed by spectator, I would probably also issue FtMGS to Nestor
(provided that he wouldn't be disqualified).

So he announced “For 7” which is often seen as X=7.
He tapped for X=5.
He resolved for X=4.

You'll need to intervene alright, as regardless something has gone wrong. The next step is to figure out what went wrong.

(a) If you believe he clearly announced X=7, then you have a case of not paying the costs correctly (just like the IPG example of paying 3W for Wrath of God instead of 2WW). The fix for that would be to rewind, which includes shuffling the cards seen off the trigger back into the library.

(b) If you believe the reference to 7 meant GG plus X=5, then he has failed to properly resolve his trigger. Since he's still resolving the ability, just have him reveal the 5th card too, choose, and assuming the hydra resolves, add the 5th counter.

© If you believe he has just overtapped for a perfectly legal X = 4 and hasn't announced floating mana, well, that's probably not the case. It sounds much more like he paid 7 mana for a 6 mana spell, which again is paying the incorrect mana as above. Rewind, including shuffling seen cards. Yes, sure, players can float mana. But I don't believe that's what he's done here, so he's not guilty of not announcing floating mana.



If he just tapped 7 lands, then we're at solution (b).

If a spectator calls you it's much the same as above, with a thank you to the spectator.

In all cases, I'll say to Nestor that it's better for him to speak up when he sees an issue, even when a judge is there. This is because the judge hasn't been playing the game, so may not be up to speed on everything that has happened; the judge may not be familiar with the cards to know immediately that something is wrong; or the judge may have been nearby but actually watching something else so may have missed it. Ultimately, I don't want the player to see an error, have the judge miss it, and for the player to leave with a sour taste in his mouth because the judge failed him in some way. Speak up! We won't bite!

Lastly, I'm happy for players to put counters on their hydra before properly resolving the trigger, even though it's the wrong order. So long as they make it clear that they're resolving the trigger and haven't forgotten it I'm not going to stop the proposed shortcut or argue they've missed the trigger, just because they wanted to keep everything clear.

Originally posted by Florian Horn:

Nestor looks at you questioningly

David Záleský
or cheating for Nestor

What about Nestor's actions look like Cheating?

d:^D

He might have seen the overpayment (or too few cards and counters,
conversly) and not say anything, because it benefits him. That's why it
matters what he was thinking, when he looked at the judge. Was it

a) Something weird is happening, don't you want to do something about it?

or

b) Oh c**p, you saw me letting him do it, didn't you?

It would be hard to justify DQ in case when you intervene immediately since
you probably didn't give Nestor enough time to catch the mistake himself,
but it is a valid option when informed by the spectator (espicially if he
didn't pause the match).

2015-02-12 19:57 GMT+01:00 Scott Marshall <

or
c) Judge, is that OK? do I have to do/say anything here?

d:^D

I feel like if just ask, “why did you let him resolve it with x=4” then his answer will be pretty telling.
If he says “I wasn't sure if he could do that or not” then he's good to go. If he says “I didn't want to remind him about the extra card” then I feel like we have player intentionally allowing a GRV to occur to gain an advantage. In that case the DQ feels inevitable.

c) Judge, is that OK? do I have to do/say anything here?
———————-

A look with his expression can easily be communicating with the judge silently. I have personally seen it many times. You have to be there to interpret it, but if you interpret it as he's alerting you silently, this would definitely NOT be cheating. I agree with Scott - alerting a judge doesn't necessarily have to be strictly verbal.

Heh, i remember seeing a player use a facial expression at me while I was watching. His opponent had just made a third GRV in the same match for the same type of error and they were in Top 8. The opponent DIDN'T want me to say anything and GL the guy, so he gave me a quick, pleading expression. I gave his opponent the MAXIMUM possible time to catch his own error (and maybe then downgrade), but it didn't matter - he blew it, so I stepped in. But I knew that the oppnent knew, and he knew I knew that he knew. The expression was easy to read. No way that would be cheating, because he did alert me.

We understood each other perfectly :)

-Eric S.

It's important also to remember the tenets of USC-Cheating. A player
intentionally allowing a GRV to occur to gain an advantage is not by itself
enough to DQ them. In this case, the player would also have to somehow
convince me that she knew she was not allowed to do this and did it
anyway. That's not entirely clear. After all, not all players know that
announcing floating mana is required, or any myriad of other things. It
would be very easy for this to be an innocent mistake on the part of N,
even if they were deliberately letting their opponent resolve Genesis
Hydra/'s trigger for less than was announced. The player would have to say
a pretty specific set of things to get DQed here, I think.

I think we should move away from the DQ discussion and back onto the original topic, I think with the experience of both Scott and Eric we can safely say that the opponent has fulfilled their obligations.

In the first instance I would intervene and ask the player what they meant by “for 7”.

In the second instance where they just tapped 7 land, I would ask the player what value of X they had chosen.