Originally posted by Jeff S Higgins:

Lyle Waldman
Much as I agree with your premise that we should be backing up here and not awarding game losses, I think you have misread that section of the IPG. What the IPG (seems to) means in this case, and since Toby is here he can correct me if I'm wrong, is that, in addition to using the Thoughtseize fix, if the player has applied any additional instructions resulting from the illegal card draw ability that can be backed up, they should.

I think Toby's point is that /NOTHING/ about this is DEC.

I think you misunderstood what I mean by “this case”. Here is the quote from Dominick's post I was replying to:

If the situation isn’t covered by the previous three paragraphs, the player
reveals his or her hand and the opponent selects a number of cards equal to
the excess. Those cards are shuffled into the random portion of the deck. A
simple backup may be used if there have been additional parts of the
instruction performed since the illegal card draw, such as discarding or
returning card to the top of the library. Once this remedy has been
applied, the player does not repeat the instruction (if any) that caused
extra cards to be drawn.

Why are we not performing a simple backup here?

What I am referring to is the assertion Dominick seems to have made (although again I could be misunderstanding Dominick's comment) that the bolded section of this section implies that we can apply a backup as an alternate fix for DEC, which is not the case, as I understand it; what IPG means in this case is to apply a simple backup to everything surrounding the extra card draw, and apply the Thoughtseize fix to the extra card draw event itself. To reiterate the example from my above post for explanatory purposes:

Let's assume the following situation is DEC (I know it's not, but for the purposes of the example, let's say it is, just for the sake of creating an example that's not wholly contrived): Player activates Jace, draws, discards, flips Jace. Under Dominick's assertion (which I believe to be incorrect, although again I could be mistaken so please correct me if I am), we would unflip Jace, un-discard the card, return the card to the top of the library, issue DEC. Under my understanding of the wording of this paragraph of IPG, we would unflip Jace, un-discard the card, then apply Thoughtseize, and issue DEC. The “simple backup” clause applies to everything EXCEPT the actual DEC event, which was drawing the card at an inappropriate time (again, caveat, not actually DEC, but for the sake of providing an example etc etc).

Edited Lyle Waldman (Dec. 8, 2015 08:11:32 PM)

If the cards were drawn as part of the legal resolution of an illegally played instruction, due to a Communication Policy Violation, or were as the result of resolving objects on the stack or multiple-instruction effects in an incorrect order, a backup may be considered or the game state left as-is.

In this instance I'd argue that the Jace ability is on the stack and should have been under the NAP's response, therefore falls under the bolded section.

I'd apply a backup, taking a random card from the AP's hand and placing it on top of the deck, and rule a DEC with Warning and ask the AP to be more careful and ensure they've given the NAP a chance to respond.

Originally posted by Marc Shotter:

If the cards were drawn as part of the legal resolution of an illegally played instruction, due to a Communication Policy Violation, or were as the result of resolving objects on the stack or multiple-instruction effects in an incorrect order, a backup may be considered or the game state left as-is.

In this instance I'd argue that the Jace ability is on the stack and should have been under the NAP's response, therefore falls under the bolded section.

I'd apply a backup, taking a random card from the AP's hand and placing it on top of the deck, and rule a DEC with Warning and ask the AP to be more careful and ensure they've given the NAP a chance to respond.

At the point immediately prior to the problem the stack has exactly one object on it, being Jace's activated ability. There are no “objects” to resolve in an incorrect order. There is a single object. The instructions on Jace's ability were not being followed in the incorrect order either. The issue was simply that they were being followed at all. I do not see how this clause applies in this case.

Toby, I believe judges were not issuing a Game Loss for this before because they were not issuing DEC for this before, but rather a GRV because of this old clause:

Old IPG 2.3, 1/23/15
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.

Not passing priority before resolving the effect could have been interpreted as a Game Rule Violation, since the rules of the game require both players passing priority in order to resolve an object on the stack. So there was a Game Rule Violation at the moment before the player began the instruction to draw the extra card.

The new definition for Drawing Extra Cards strongly indicates that this situation is, in fact, Drawing Extra Cards

New IPG 2.3
A player does any of the following:
• Puts one or more cards into his or her hand illegally
• Fails to verify specific characteristics of a card with his or her opponent as required by a spell or ability before putting it into his or her hand
• Has excess cards in his or her hand that cannot be accounted for
If a prior Game Rule Violation or Communication Policy Violation directly led to drawing the extra cards, it is treated as Drawing Extra Cards.

The bolded bullet applies here, coupled with the fact that we issue DEC now where it would have been GRV before. The card cannot legally enter the player's hand until their opponent passes priority with the ability on the stack. While it may not seem like the way players naturally play the game, it also does not seem fair to require the opponent to jump in and say they may have a response as fast as possible to prevent the draw. There is no conventional tournament shortcut to argue for implicit passing of priority on the part of the other player, but rather only for the player who added the object to the stack in the first place.

Edited Jacob Milicic (Dec. 9, 2015 09:03:19 AM)

For what it's worth, even under the old IPG, I don't believe you could use the “No other game rule violation” exception on a situation like this. The point of that was that, basically, an opponent couldn't commit FTMGS, in the hopes that the broken game state would lead to a DEC-Game Loss. If the first moment an opponent could know something was wrong was when a card was drawn, it was DEC. If the first moment that an opponent could have caught and fixed the game state was before a card was drawn, it wasn't DEC.

That's the old IPG, though.

Such a weird discussion. Why can't players just play correctly? :)

It's easy to see how this is always a slam-dunk no-doubt-about-it “DEC”. Generally speaking, we try to identify what the first thing was that a player did incorrectly. Not “failed to do correctly” (such as, not doing something when you're supposed to, like passing priority in this case), but did. In this case, the first incorrect thing that a player did was AP drawing a card after not not letting NAP have priority.

So we look at the penalties that exist. Well, AP drew a card when he/she wasn't supposed to, so it's DEC, right? The bullet point in IPG 2.3 that seems to apply is “Puts one or more cards into his or her hand illegally”. However, it could be construed that the card wasn't put into the hand illegally. It was the legal (though premature) resolution of a legally-played ability.

So we fall into 2.5 - GRV. Easy backup: a random card back on top of the library, and let NAP have priority (taking into account other confounding factors like fetchlands).

This sequence feels better than Thoughtseizing someone for playing quickly. But I acknowledge that treating the premature draw from Jace as “not DEC” might be a bit of hand-waving.

Originally posted by Jack Hesse:

So we fall into 2.5 - GRV. Easy backup: a random card back on top of the library, and let NAP have priority (taking into account other confounding factors like fetchlands).

Unfortunately, that seems to directly contradict

IPG 2.3
If a prior Game Rule Violation or Communication Policy Violation directly led to drawing the extra cards, it is treated as Drawing Extra Cards.

How does not allowing NAP to have priority fail to fit the definition of a GRV that directly led to drawing the extra cards? Especially if we're going to then apply a GRV to what actually happened?

Originally posted by Jacob Milicic:

Toby, I believe judges were not issuing a Game Loss for this before because they were not issuing DEC for this before, but rather a GRV because of this old clause:

Old IPG 2.3, 1/23/15
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.

No error had been committed prior to the card going into the hand; the card going into the hand was the first sign the game had gone wrong. That old clause shouldn't have saved them.

It also looks like I can get my opponent Thoughtseized every draw step by the arguments here. We'll have to add a whole bunch more text next update to preclude this, since it's clearly not somewhere we want to be.

In the interim, don't apply DEC to situations where the player is making a play that appears legal to an external observer.

So to be clear Toby, are you issuing /ANY/ infraction here?

Originally posted by Jacob Milicic:

At the point immediately prior to the problem the stack has exactly one object on it, being Jace's activated ability. There are no “objects” to resolve in an incorrect order. There is a single object. The instructions on Jace's ability were not being followed in the incorrect order either. The issue was simply that they were being followed at all. I do not see how this clause applies in this case.

I think the thoughtsieze fix seems incredibly harsh for this and not at all in line with philosophy, but that this has to be DEC as it involves an illegal draw. I also don't imagine we're going to try and make players play in an unnatural way and carefully get priority passes before each draw step and per Toby's comments we're clearly not going to be applying DEC as it's written in the IPG.

This was the closest reasoning I could find for my line of thinking, but I'd be the first to admit it's a stretch:

If nothing else was going on the stack there is no error - we'd be resolving the Jace now. That means there should be another ability/spell on the stack on top of the Jace activation and that means the Jace has been activated before it should have been (incorrect order), we can therefore apply the back up.

For clarity's sake there should perhaps be another line in the IPG for this fix that relates to drawing without giving an opponent has a chance to respond.

As a response to no one in particular, I would like to share what has often happened to me when I have encountered this exact thing at tournaments (sometimes it's “draw for turn”, sometimes it's draw from Jace TMS, or something else).

Player: “Judge, my opponent drew a card before I had a chance to respond”
Me: “Okay, well… take a moment, think about it, DO you want to actually respond?”
Player: “Well….. what if I did? How would you handle it?”
Me: “I'm put a card from hand randomly back on top of the library”. (Sometimes: Me: “Let's worry about that only if you actually wanted to respond”)
Player: “Hm……”

The majority of the time, the player eventually says “no, no response”. I think some players thought they were going to get a free win (under the old DEC rules), while others honestly weren't sure if they wanted to respond, and just wanted a moment to think about it, or perhaps they hoped my involvement would help convince their opponent to slow down. The situations where I have done “randomly, on top”, have not had any problems. (No miracles, no fetchlands, etc etc).

So, as far as a policy discussion, it is useful to jump straight to a player saying “I wanted to respond”. But in practice, they'll often say “I may have wanted to respond”. Step 0 is to give them a moment to consider it, and then to answer definitively whether or not they wanted to.

Originally posted by Jeff S Higgins:

So to be clear Toby, are you issuing /ANY/ infraction here?

I think whole point of Toby not answering clearly but in vague hints is to give us opportunity to find answer ourself and learn something instead of following blindly L5 ruling without understanding concept behind it ;-)

Back on topic - I think applying DEC there is really stretching IPG to fit remedy. If there would be no response, that card was drawn legally. I think Aaron's way to fix that is quite nice

As far as I understood the recent changes, we don't handle DEC very much differently than before, except that we (1) apply “Perish the Thought” Fix (advocating for the correct card name here) instead of a Game Loss and (2) if it wouldn't be an DEC under the old rules, but an GRV that somehow looks like an DEC (because one player ended up with an extra card) we now give them DEC but only a Warning.

Under the old rules, it never was DEC-Game Loss if an opponent could catch the error and stop the opponent from drawing. As I read Toby's Rules Update and the actual IPG, the same philosophy still applies for the “Perish the Thought” Fix.

So nowadays we wouldn't apply “Perish the Thought” for neither Jace activation nor casting Defiant Strike, as we wouldn't hand out Game Losses for it back then.

Originally posted by Bartłomiej Wieszok:

I think whole point of Toby not answering clearly but in vague hints is to give us opportunity to find answer ourself and learn something instead of following blindly L5 ruling without understanding concept behind it

:)

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

No error had been committed prior to the card going into the hand; the card going into the hand was the first sign the game had gone wrong. That old clause shouldn't have saved them.

You are correct, of course, but that also means it should've been a Game Loss for DEC by the strictest interpretation of the IPG at that time. Both fixes feel harsh for this situation… except for when Player N actively tried to stop their opponent from drawing cards before cards were drawn (Example 2). Once Player N indicates that the game cannot proceed forward to the card drawing effect resolving, I feel we have to treat the situation as Drawing Extra Cards. What else do we want Player N to do to make it clear to their opponent where the game should be?

Once we're at the point where Player N has not yet interjected and cards were drawn, it does not appear as though there is a fix that completely eliminates any potential advantage gained by Player A drawing quickly while simultaneously not impacting the decisions of Player N. Putting a random card from the hand back on top could remove a card that was previously in Player A's hand that answers Player N's spell, but is nicer to Player A than allowing Player N to take the best card. At the same time, Player A could end up with an answer that they did not have before. And then there are shuffle effects. Would we put a random card back with a shuffle effect in play? Normally we would not, but then would we be making a special exception in this case as to not back up is to not allow Player N to play an effect they should've been able to legally play?

It does not seem fair that Player N could be at a disadvantage when Player A was just playing quickly and Player N did not do anything wrong except possibly not reacting fast enough to Player A reaching for their library. That feels incorrect. I understand we want to be wary of players fishing for penalties, but we also need to make sure players are communicating clearly and allowing their opponents the opportunities to make plays where they are due.

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

It also looks like I can get my opponent Thoughtseized every draw step by the arguments here. We'll have to add a whole bunch more text next update to preclude this, since it's clearly not somewhere we want to be.

I do feel there is a clear and demonstrable difference between a draw that is “this happens every turn and you know it is coming” and “this is an ability that could happen any time and you cannot anticipate it until I've put it out there.” Player N calling a Judge over and saying they had effects in upkeep and their opponent just drew a card does not feel comparable because they know with certainty a card will be drawn, when that will happen, and that they will want to interrupt their opponent before that happens.

Edited Jacob Milicic (Dec. 10, 2015 09:20:47 AM)

I don't think there is a point in discussion involving old IPG, it creates unwanted confusion in this topic.
Jacob, and what about player A? In 9/10 cases there's no fair fix for both players. One of them will end up with additional information.