An interesting topic came up in IRC today, but there weren't many people around so the conversation didn't get very far. I'd like to better understand it for education's sake though, so here goes:

Alice is playing against Nick. She has a Think Twice in exile, and she is keeping her exile pile right next to her graveyard. At the end of Nick's turn, she reaches for the Think Twice, taps 2U, and draws a card. By the time Nick realizes what happened she's already drawn - he calls a judge, clarifying that he believes she cast the Think Twice from exile. Investigation shows no other copies of the spell in her graveyard, and there doesn't appear to be foul play - she just got the piles mixed up and thought it was still in her graveyard.

This seems pretty clearly a GRV for casting the spell illegally; it isn't DEC because of the GRV committed just prior of casting a spell from the exile zone. No problem there; take a random card from Alice's hand, put it back on top of her library, move along. Where it gets tricky is if the following happens instead:

Alice is playing against Nick at a comp REL event. She has a Think Twice in exile, and she is keeping her exile pile right next to her graveyard. At the end of Nick's turn, she taps 2U, declares she's flashing back a Think Twice, and draws a card. She then goes through her graveyard, mortified, and realizes she doesn't have a copy of Think Twice there to flash back - she forgot she already flashed it a few turns ago, or thought there was a second copy still in the yard. A judge is called.

Is this still a GRV? The specifics of the circumstances sound remarkably close to the Howling Mine example for DEC under the IPG, so I am really unsure, and several of us in IRC thought it odd that the only conceivable difference between one and the other could be whether or not Alice physically moved the card out “onto the stack”.

Do the circumstances of the infraction/penalty change any further if, rather than the Think Twice having already been flashed back, it ends up back in her library (via Serene Remembrance or similar, something that would potentially recover a single spell that was otherwise buried and obfuscated in the graveyard)?

Edited Rebecca Lawrence (Jan. 13, 2013 12:02:55 AM)

The distinction between illegally casting a Think Twice and drawing from a non-existent Howling Mine is that in the latter case the opponent has no indication that something is going wrong until the card hits the hand. This makes the latter case less detectable and more abusable, so it has to be punished more severely.

In the case of illegally casting Think Twice, regardless of why it's being cast illegally, there is some chance for the opponent to notice that something is wrong before the card is drawn. (In practice the window may be small, but it is nonzero). Because of this opportunity for the opponent to catch the error before it results in a card draw, it is less abusable, so it is punished less severely. Also, we don't want the penalty to depend on when the opponent points out the error. If we distinguish between GRV and DEC based on whether the card has already been drawn, that would create an incentive for the opponent to sit on the error until it goes from GRV to DEC, and we want to avoid giving players incentives to cheat wherever we can.

Finally, the Rules Discussion forum is probably not quite the place for this question. The Competitive REL forum (http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/75/) is probably better suited to discussing tournament policy at Competitive REL.

Okay, that makes more clear sense. Thanks!

Apologies for misplacing the thread. :)

So if Alice draws an extra card off an illegal Think Twice in a competitive event, even if it's technically a GRV, what remedy can you apply that's not a GL? Assuming Alice gave Nick the chance to respond to TT, Nick would be guilty of FTMGS (or Fraud) for not pointing it out, but the card is in Alice's hand regardless and is no longer uniquely identifiable (assuming it's not the only card in her hand).

It's not “technically” a GRV, the infraction for illegally casting Think Twice is Game Player Error - Games Rule Violation. The fix would be to randomly put a card from their hand on top of their library.

Not arguing against the IPG here. Just let me throw this out.

Alice casts Mystical Tutor, searches for a sorcery, reveals it, shuffles her library, then puts the revealed card on top. She then casts Think Twice from her graveyard. Opponent passes. Alice draws the card. Both players then realize Alice didn't have another blue mana to cast the Think Twice. The remedy is to back up before Think Twice was cast and put a random card from Alice's hand on top of her library. Assuming Alice had more than one card in hand, the odds are favorable that she will retain the card that she tutored for.

Please help me if I'm missing something here, because I see a real disconnect in the DEC guidelines allowing for this sort of thing to be “backed up” in a competitive environment given the potential for abuse in drawing extra cards - potential the IPG stresses.

Aaron, in the case you describe, the tutored card would be put back, since its identity was known to all players.

Cards incorrectly placed in hand are returned to the location in the zone from which they were moved (if the identity of the incorrectly drawn card is not known to all players, a random card is returned instead).

Originally posted by MIPG, Drawing Extra Cards:

If the identity of the card was known to all players before being placed into the hand, and the card can be returned to the correct zone with minimal disruption, do so and downgrade the penalty to a Warning.

MIPG, GPE-GRV
Cards incorrectly placed in hand are returned to the location in the zone from which they were moved (if the identity of the incorrectly drawn card is not known to all players, a random card is returned instead).

Even though the first quote doesn't really apply here - we are remedying a GRV, not DEC - I included it to emphasize an important point: the identity of the card IS known, by virtue of having been revealed when resolving the Tutor.

So, we don't put a random card back, and it's also pretty clear that this example should result in a Warning. (Even if it were DEC, which it's not.)

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In this case, the tutored card is placed on top of the library:

Cards incorrectly placed in hand are returned to the location in the zone from which they were moved (if the identity of the incorrectly drawn card is not known to all players, a random card is returned instead).

The identidy is know, so that known card is placed on the top of the library.

Another thing to note is that both players are responsible for the game state. So the opponent had in this case the chance to see the mistake before the card was drawn. Instead of passing priority he could already realize that the player had paid think twice incorrect. That is the reason why DEC is not applied. If the opponent stopped the game at that point (where he could) it is in no way drawing extra cards. And we don't want players be able to sit on an infraction to get their opponent a harsher penalty. (It will be Cheating - Fraud to do so, but that would be very hard to prove in such cases and providing incentives to do so is bad).

Sorry folks, I'm using example cards without thinking them through. Replace Mystical Tutor with Vampiric Tutor in my example (that's what I was thinking of but for some reason didn't type) or any similar effect that results in one card being put on top of the library that its owner knows but not his or her opponent. I don't want the forest to be missed for the trees here.

We can also debate on whether the opponent having the chance to “sit” on an infraction is a bigger problem than letting the other player stack their draw in some way, intentional or not.

Edited Aaron Huntsman (Jan. 21, 2013 06:13:39 PM)

Aaron:
That's still not DEC. Casting a spell without having the correct colored mana is a Game Rules Violation. Since it immediately precedes the card drawing we apply GRV instead. This means that we rewind according to the IPG (if we deem it appropriate). Since we most likely do not know the identity of the card a random one is returned and we move on from there.
-Ben

@Ben: Thank you for acknowledging that. I'm new to the scene here and I'm probably barking up the wrong forum, but from where I'm sitting, drawing extra cards is drawing extra cards, and if the extra card isn't uniquely identifiable, then the action has compromised the game state, just as failing to reveal would (and is in fact upgradable).

No problem :) In this case we want to look at the real base cause of the problem. The player cast Think Twice, and they drew one card. Both of those things are absolutely fine, so we don't really want to go with DEC. The problem instead, is in the color mana that was paid for the card. Since the colored mana was wrong we look to the other Game Play Errors, with GRV being the most appropriate. Once we've identified the infraction, we look at the penalty, which is normally a warning. Since none of the upgrade clauses are applicable, a simple warning is all we do (with the appropriate rewind, if possible).

Originally posted by Benjamin McDole:

No problem :) In this case we want to look at the real base cause of the problem. The player cast Think Twice, and they drew one card. Both of those things are absolutely fine, so we don't really want to go with DEC.

That is NOT fine. I am not asking for a citation of the IPG. I have them right here in front of me. I am trying to demonstrate that if Alice knows the next card she's going to draw, possibly one that will win her the game, then draws it inappropriately through some GRV, then puts a card back at random that isn't the card she's just tutored for, she's drawn an extra card with only a warning. All I want is for someone to acknowledge that this might be a Bad Thing, and that someone in charge of making the rules might be reading this.

Edited Aaron Huntsman (Jan. 21, 2013 06:34:37 PM)

If you believe that happened you are looking at the wrong section of the
rules, try looking in Cheating - Fraud.


On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Aaron Huntsman <
forum-2546@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> *Benjamin McDole*
>
> No problem :) In this case we want to look at the real base cause of the
> problem. The player cast Think Twice, and they drew one card. Both of those
> things are absolutely fine, so we don't really want to go with DEC.
>
>
> That is NOT fine. I am not asking for a citation of the IPG rules. I have
> them right here in front of me. I am trying to demonstrate that if Alice
> knows the next card she's drawn, possibly one that will win her the game,
> then draws it inappropriately through some GRV, then puts a card back at
> random that isn't the card she's just tutored for, she's drawn an extra
> card with only a warning. All I want is for someone to acknowledge that
> this might be a Bad Thing, and that someone in charge of making the rules
> might be reading this.
>
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