I've had this come up a couple of times recently and would like to know the correct actions I should take. A player announces a spell and before they tap their mana decide they don't want to cast it. Now if the player had already tapped their mana and then had buyers remorse I'd say too bad, but I'm a little less sure on what to do here. It's clear the player in question had the intent to cast the spell, but from what I've read if a cost needs to be paid and the resources are available then the cost must be paid however there is nothing that forces the player to actually activate their mana abilities to pay that cost. So as a judge should I:

1) Allow the player to back up to before they attempted to cast their spell and continue playing or
2) Tell the player that since their intention was to cast the spell they need to activate their mana abilities and finish casting the spell.
Or would this maybe fall into another catagory. Thanks.

I found this in the CR:

601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. Casting a spell follows the steps listed below, in order. If, at any point during the casting of a spell, a player is unable to comply with any of the steps listed below, the casting of the spell is illegal; the game returns to the moment before that spell started to be cast (see rule 717, “Handling Illegal Actions”). Announcements and payments can't be altered after they've been made.

It's that last line that makes me think “no.” However:

717.1. If a player realizes that he or she can't legally take an action after starting to do so, the entire action is reversed and any payments already made are canceled. No abilities trigger and no effects apply as a result of an undone action. If the action was casting a spell, the spell returns to the zone it came from. The player may also reverse any legal mana abilities activated while making the illegal play, unless mana from them or from any triggered mana abilities they triggered was spent on another mana ability that wasn't reversed. Players may not reverse actions that moved cards to a library, moved cards from a library to any zone other than the stack, or caused a library to be shuffled.

and

601.2g The player pays the total cost in any order. Partial payments are not allowed. Unpayable costs can't be paid.

So the player could choose not to pay the mana, and we cannot force a player to pay mana. So if the player gets to that point or an earlier point to make the announcement illegal, thus backing it up.

I don't see an infraction in GPE-GRV that looks like this, and if they follow 717 all should be legal.

This is just an opinion. If we want to discourage this as “free take backs” then maybe investigate to see if Cheating or Stalling is appropriate if the situation calls for it.

The two guiding factors are passing priority and fishing for a reaction.

Once you pass priority, it is too late to take it back. You also cannot
fish for a reaction, even if you have not passed priority.

My general course of action is to ask the opponent if the player looked at
him/her for a response. If the player did not, then I will generally allow
the player to undo anything that does not use the stack.

Slow play is a completely other matter than thinking visibly. We don't want
to encourage players to take forever before they do anything just to
prevent a gotcha moment. Unless it is a fishing expedition, players have no
incentive to give away information like what spell is in hand.

Magic is not a game of gotcha. Don't be a jerk.

Two refrains I am willing to use any time I am giving a ruling.
On Mar 15, 2013 2:54 PM, “Matt Sauers” <forum-3370@apps.magicjudges.org>
wrote:

605.3a A player may activate an activated mana ability whenever he or she has priority, whenever he or she is casting a spell or activating an ability that requires a mana payment, or whenever a rule or effect asks for a mana payment, even if it's in the middle of casting or resolving a spell or activating or resolving an ability.

The key word here is “may”. A player is not forced to activate abilities. If they choose not to, then the casting of the spell is illegal and I would handle is like any other GRV involving an illegal casting of a spell.

Bob, there is an argument to be made, then, that we're dealing with a
Cheating situation. After all, the player is clearly intentionally
commiting a GRV for the purposes of gaining an advantage (getting to play a
better spell). Do you think that argument has merit, or are you leaning
more towards a simple GRV?

-Justin Miyashiro
L1 Fort Collins CO

Originally posted by Cris Plyler:

A player announces a spell and before they tap their mana decide they don't want to cast it.

I think the first question is why the player is doing this. Are they “acting” through their actions, and only thinking after the fact? In a sense, is the player being a bit too impulsive? If so, then I'm not sure I'd really hold the player to a “partially thought-out” action. Especially if the player is lost in their own thoughts and isn't on a fishing expedition to get a reaction from the opponent.

If the “why” is pretty innocuous, I don't see much reason for intervention here, if any.

Originally posted by Cris Plyler:

Now if the player had already tapped their mana and then had buyers remorse I'd say too bad, but I'm a little less sure on what to do here.

Perhaps if the player already had mana in their mana pool after an earlier action (i.e., floating mana after casting an earlier spell), but if the player had tapped mana then announced the spell, then wanted to take it back… It seems all part of the same block of actions to me. I don't see much of a difference between whether the player taps 4W then announces Angelic Edict and moves to take it back, or announces Angelic Edict then gets to the point of tapping for 4W before deciding against casting the spell. Again, provided the opponent hasn't been involved in this at all, I wouldn't get too hung up on the exact specifics here.

Originally posted by Justin Miyashiro:

Bob, there is an argument to be made, then, that we're dealing with a
Cheating situation. After all, the player is clearly intentionally
commiting a GRV for the purposes of gaining an advantage (getting to play a
better spell). Do you think that argument has merit, or are you leaning
more towards a simple GRV?

-Justin Miyashiro
L1 Fort Collins CO

Justin, you bring up an interesting point. For me, the line between GRV and UC-Cheating is the player's intention when he originally cast the spell. For example, if he had no intention of ever casting the spell, but did so to gain information about his opponents hand, then I would definitely look at UC-Cheating.

If he had every intention of casting the spell when he started the process, but realized half way through that it was a dumb move, then that is not cheating.

Let's use three scenarios to illustrate this:

1. Alfred cast Loxodon Smiter. Nate announces rewind and shows the card. However, before he pays the costs, he realizes that Smiter was un-counterable. The rules of the game allow him to not pay the costs, therefore rendering the cast illegal. This, to me, is a GRV.

2. Let's say Alfred successfully casts Loxodon Smiter. Nate has a Missium Mortar in hand, but does not want to cast it until he can overload it with six mana. However, Nate wants to see if Alfred has a counter in hand. On his turn, he starts to cast Mizzium Mortars, but has no intention of following through. He starts to cast and sees Alfred start to pull a card out of his hand. He then stops and elects not to pay the mana. Nate's intention here was never to cast the spell, but he gained valuable information about Alfred's hand. I would definitely look at cheating in this scenario.

3. Here is where it gets interesting. Lets say Nate had every intention of casting the spell, but before he pays the cost, he sees Alfred reach for a card that he assumes is a counter. He then stops and elects not to pay the mana. For me, this is not cheating as he had every intention to cast the spell when he started. Alfred jumped the gun and revealed that he could have a counter in hand. Alfred could also be bluffing the counter to try and get Nate to stop casting the spell.

With that freely given information, Nate decides not to continue with the casting of his Mizzium Mortars. I would say that this falls in line with scenario 1, but it is a grey area and I would appreciate Brian's insight into whether this qualifies as an “opponent being involved” as he stated in his response above.

Originally posted by Bob Narindra:

Let's use three scenarios to illustrate this:

In case 2, you don't have to investigate cheating, it IS cheating. The text clearly indicates the intent of Nate.
In case 3, the exact same physical actions happen, but the thought process in Nate's head is different. It's all well and good to debate the different reactions a judge should have to case 2 and case 3, but in an actual tournament environment, there is no difference. A judge simply has no tell to differentiate between the two.

The Comprehensive Rules give us a 100% robust solution to genuine errors of players trying to play spells without targets, or with improper mana. That has to take into account weird interactions with Chromatic Sphere and Future Sight. For tournament magic, we use different criteria.

If the opponent hasn't had time or ability to react to the misplay, we can rewind stating the player was ‘thinking outloud’(when naming a spell that is not shown) or ‘thinking physically’ (when tapping lands). If the other player had time and opportunity to respond, but has a good poker face and elected not to, the play stands.

For me, there are 3 options:
1 The player played the spell (announced it, choose targets or mode, didn't pay mana) and passed priority, and will recieve a GRV for playing the spell without tapping mana.
2 The player hasn't completely played the spell, and was still deciding what to do, but showed a hand card to the opponent.
3 The player is cheating by trying to force his opponent to reveal strategic information by making the game state ambiguous.

The line between 1 and 2 is determined by asking questions about how exactly stuff was tapped, how things were played earlier, and the board state (is the other player monored, tapped out and no handcards, or are there 5 untapped islands and a full hand of cards?) You need to determine whether the opponent had time & opportunity to show a reaction. That will define which option it is.
For option 3, you need to ask not just ‘how was stuff tapped’, but also things ‘why did you not do …’ (fill … in with some other option on the board (if in front of the opponent) or in hand (if you have the player seperated)) Also, consider this: A player is showing a card from his or her hand, solely to determine whether his opponent has a counterspell in hand. Obviously there will be situations where your hand information is not relevant, but your opponents is, but in general, this doesn't seem like a very optimal method of cheating to me. Especially considering the amount of players that get into this situation. So unless a player flatout admits to being on a fishing expedition, I don't think you should investigate these types of errors for very long.