Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

May I ask why we do not randomize the second card drawn?

The main/obvious reason would be that IPG doesn't instruct us to do so, as shuffling only is done when the excess cards should have been in the library, Here, the error perfectly fits the description of this part of the additional remedy, therefore, we can't argue that this is a corner case that isn't covered by policy, and we should stick to the described remedy.

But if we're discussing if this should be changed: The way I see it, your suggestion would be an even more “damaging” fix (and I guess situations like this is why we have this part of the HCE remedy). The present remedy let us fix this and similar errors in a more clever way than the more general “old” HCE remedy did. Since we cannot use our judgement to fix each situation in the fairest way possible, I think it is great when we get remedies like this that fixes the less abusable variations of HCE in a more intuitive way.

We don't know what card was drawn second, as both are added to the hand. That means that if we shuffle in the card Neena choose, Alexander would lose a card he might have had since the start of the game, while if we just set it aside, we remove most benefits from the mistake, while ending up as close as we can to the correct game state. Sure, he gets some extra information, and as always, we have to investigate to check for potential abuse of this, but the remedies are there to fix errors in a consistent way, not to be an extra penalty.

For “normal” HCE where i.e. extra cards are drawn, the more damaging fix is deemed necessary, as the error might give too big of an advantage (and keeping the card on top of the library will in many cases lead to a different game state than the “correct” game state anyway, while letting them have extra information for a whole turn, it also makes shuffling abusable for instance). In this and similar cases, however, setting aside a card of Neenas choice still makes the discarding as “bad” for Alexander as it could have been, thereby giving minimal benefits even though he gets some extra information, and after the remedy is applied, he has no extra information, and the game state is much closer to the correct game state than it would have been with the more general HCE fix.

The official answer is given: the fix is to “set aside” one card.

This post is only meant to debate whether the fix should be changed in the policy.

This is very similar to the scenario where a player activates Nahiri +2 ability then draws a card before discarding. Now, after applying the fix, he gets to discard with extra information, knowing which card is set aside and joining his hand soon.

I agree with Marit that using the “Perish the Thought” fix might be very damaging but it is damaging to the player that committed the error. On the other hand, the “set aside” fix we have now might be very damaging to the player that did nothing wrong.

The player that did nothing wrong is gaining a lot of information. I don't
think he's being damaged

2017-01-17 13:24 GMT-03:00 Jorge Monteiro <

Originally posted by Marit Norderhaug Getz:

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

May I ask why we do not randomize the second card drawn?

The main/obvious reason would be that IPG doesn't instruct us to do so, as shuffling only is done when the excess cards should have been in the library, Here, the error perfectly fits the description of this part of the additional remedy, therefore, we can't argue that this is a corner case that isn't covered by policy, and we should stick to the described remedy.

But it should have been in the library. Specifically, the extra card drawn should have been on top of the library, waiting to be drawn while the first card was being discarded, but instead it was in the hand. Or am I missing something? I don't understand why this is different than “normal” HCE (as discussed later in your reply).

Edited Lyle Waldman (Jan. 17, 2017 12:17:11 PM)

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

But it should have been in the library. Specifically, the extra card drawn should have been on top of the library, waiting to be drawn while the first card was being discarded, but instead it was in the hand. Or am I missing something? I don't understand why this is different than “normal” HCE (as discussed later in your reply).

It is not as straightforward as I initially thought, but I would argue that even though the point of error is when he draws the card, the actual error is that he didn't discard a card, or - you can say - prematurely drawing a card. In other words, it is not the drawing of a card in itself that is the error here, but the timing of the draw (or the lack of discarding first). I (and the IPG as far as I know) would argue that this is a less severe infraction (or at least easier to fix) than if he just drew an extra card. I guess this is why the HCE additional remedy has the sentence “If the error put cards into a set prematurely and other operations involving cards in the set should have been performed first” and then let the opponent choose a card that is set aside until we reach a legal game state again. Note that this part of the fix doesn't mention “excess cards”, and we see later in that section that only excess cards are “returned to the correct location” (which would indeed be the library right after the error), so if we agree that this situation is prematurely putting cards into a set, then we aren't allowed to shuffle in the card chosen.

In other words, the error can either be seen as having excess cards in hand (shuffle them away) or cards prematurely added to the hand (set them aside), but not both, at least not for the same cards. And since cards indeed were added prematurely to the hand here, it seems more correct to me at least to use the more specific additional remedy.

Originally posted by Jorge Monteiro:

I agree with Marit that using the “Perish the Thought” fix might be very damaging but it is damaging to the player that committed the error. On the other hand, the “set aside” fix we have now might be very damaging to the player that did nothing wrong.

But is it correct to try to “punish” the player more here? I mean, we don't want to have fixes that systematicaly “award” players for making mistakes, that is why the “excess cards-HCE”-fix is stricter I guess. However, is this fix really that damaging? The player that did nothing wrong gets extra information and might choose a card that the player really wanted to discard first for whatever reasons, while the player that commited the error got extra information for one single game action. That might be a slight benefit, especially in some situations, but with all the extra information the opponent gains here, I don't see the need of being that strict when the fix usually negates most benefits here.

Also note that this fix will cover other situations where this fix is soo much better that the “perish-the-thought fix”, like when a player draws a card for turn before discarding to hand size. Isn't it better to just have to investigate a bit extra in these situations that might be abusable, instead of over-punishing small honest mistakes that usually gives the opponent more extra information?

After AP resolves the first trigger, can NAP respond to the second trigger using the perfect information at hand? If so, can AP just decide not to draw/discard upon resolving the second trigger? What happens to the set aside card? Shuffle I assume.

What if NAP chooses the counter spell to set aside and then casts a boss instant spell between triggers? NAP could set aside a huge bomb and then ghost quarter one of AP's lands in an attempt to shuffle away the set aside card?

Hey!

I'm super glad that this topic has generated a lot of great discussion :)
At this point, I want to ask that we move the side discussions to a
separate thread about policy and why we would or would not do certain
things. I don't want the final answer to get lost in the shuffle. (Also
that's largely the Knowledge Pool protocol.) Thanks!