Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool! This week we have a silver scenario, so L2s should wait until friday to join in.

Alex is playing against Nate at a Standard PPTQ. Alex controls a Heart of Kiran and two Thraben Inspectors. Alex casts Thalia, Heretic Cathar and it resolves. Alex crews his Heart of Kiran with Thalia and attacks with all of his creatures. Before blocks, Nate activates his Whirler Virtuoso, and puts a thopter into play. Alex, not wanting Heart of Kiran to be blocked, destroys it with Unlicensed Disintegration. After taking 3 from the kill spell to 10, Nate makes another thopter with Whirler Virtuoso and says “ok, go to blocks?” Alex agrees, Nate blocks one Inspector with Whirler Virtuoso, and the Heart of Kiran with the remaining thopter. Both players record life totals, with Nate at 9. A spectator then points out that the tokens should have entered the battlefield tapped, and couldn't block. Both players agree that the tokens were put into play untapped, Alex even adding “I definitely wouldn't have killed the token if I knew it couldn't block.” What do you do?

Edited Joe Klopchic (May 3, 2017 10:20:05 AM)

My intitial thought process is to classify this as an illegal action. How we handle it is to rewind to before the illegal action was made (assignment of the Thopter as a blocker) and we redeclare blockers.We will not rewind to before the initial thopter was killed because, although the thopter should have come into play tapped, destroying the thopter was still a perfectly legal action. Issue Nate a GPE: GRV - Warning, and I feel it would be safe to assume I would also issue a GPE: FtMGS for not reminding their opponent that their creature came into play tapped and was not a legal blocker.

Putting the first thopter in untapped is the first point at which a problem occurs. Doing so falls under the category of GPE-GRV-warning. Because AP controlled the effect we're also in for a FTMGS warning there. From there, we have the possible GRV fixes. None of the partial fixes apply, so we either have to leave it as-is or do a full rewind. This involves reverting the life total changes, returning the unlicensed disintegration to AP's hand, untapping the lands used to cast it, giving back NAP the energy for the second activation, and return the game state to “whirler virtuoso effect one is resolving”. Given that the choice is full rewind here or nothing, I'm inclined to not back up. Significant decisions were made on the basis of the error (casting the removal spell) and we don't have enough other information to convince me to do this backup. If both players were otherwise hellbent, for example, I might be inclined to consider it, but overall I'm not in the rewind camp here because I think it significantly alters the way the game plays out and is more damaging than leaving things as they are.

Alex: GPE - FtMGS - Warning (not reminding his opp about Thalia's replacement effect)
Nate: GPE - GRV - Warning (placing tokens into play untapped despite Thalia)

As too much has gone on (combat trick, energy expended, tokens created and killed, attacking and blocking decisions made) there is no easy or clean way to back up at this point without significantly altering the game. Issue the warnings, remind both players to be more careful and leave the game as is.

Just my opinion.

Two questions for everyone to consider (though I'm not saying I know the answer to the scenario for sure):

1) Sould the penalty be double GRV instead of GRV + FtMGS?
2) A thopter was put down untapped twice. Are the only options to back up to the first mistake, or leave the game as is?

Backing up to the point the second thopter was made and having it tapped is reasonable to me. In that case I would still issue the GRV and the FtMGS as both penalties still apply and my back up would be:
Thopter #1 is still destroyed by Unlicensed Disintegration still 3 damage to Nate.
Energy is still spent putting thopter #1 into play tapped due to Thalia's replacement effect.
We are now at the beginning of the Declare Blockers step.

Thanks everyone for responding this week, this one was a bit tricky.

Nate receives a Warning for a Game Rules Violation. He should have put his tokens into play tapped. Alex receives a warning for Failure to Maintain Game state, while he controls Thalia, it was only passively involved in the error, so this is not a double GRV situation.

To fix, we have three options.

1) Do nothing. In this case, a block that shouldn't have happened remains part of the game.

2) Back-up all the way back to when the first token was created. In this case, Alex gets his unlicensed disintegration back, and Nate knows about it. While Nate is locked into making the first token, he has the option to not make the second token and use his energy elsewhere.

3) As Dave Tosto alluded to, and Bryan put into a solution, we have a 3rd option here. Back-up back to when the second token was created. In this case, we eliminate the block, while not giving either player any additional information. While some errors that occurred are maintained, the disruption of the back-up is minimal, and the main disruption of the error, the block that shouldn't have happened, is removed.

Option 3 is the most correct option. While we usually can't do a partial back-up, because there are two errors, we can go back to the second one. Note that leaving the game is also a reasonable solution here, but we prefer Option 3.

Complete the back-up by undoing combat damage (Nate goes back to 10), returning the token and Thraben Inspector to the battlefield. Then undo blocks, and tap the token. Let both players know they will both get priority in the declare attackers step before blockers.

Edited Joe Klopchic (May 8, 2017 02:38:17 PM)

I agree with the fix, but I'm curious about the reasoning behind FtMGS instead of double GRV? As I see it, Alex is partially responsible for ensuring Nate follows the instructions of Alex's cards, especially since the Thalia just entered the battlefield that turn and Nate hasn't had any other creatures enter tapped due to it previously.

Originally posted by Joe Klopchic:

Option 3 is the most correct option.

Why? What makes it better than option 2?

The only issue with 2) is that it gives a bit of extra info to Nate but at least Alex gets back the card that he used on an illegal-blocker-wannabe. Imo, option 2 seems less disruptive to what the game state should be if the players didn't forget about Thalia.

Originally posted by Jorge Monteiro:

Originally posted by Joe Klopchic:

Option 3 is the most correct option.

Why? What makes it better than option 2?

The only issue with 2) is that it gives a bit of extra info to Nate but at least Alex gets back the card that he used on an illegal-blocker-wannabe. Imo, option 2 seems less disruptive to what the game state should be if the players didn't forget about Thalia.

It seems to me that at the point the removal was used, although the token wasn't tapped, using Unlicensed Disintegration on it was in no way illegal so no need to back up past that point - IMO.

Originally posted by Jorge Monteiro:

Why? What makes it better than option 2?

My opinion is that knowing that your opponent can remove one of your creatures will change drastically your line of play from that moment on.
We have to take this into account too when we deal with such situations. :)

Originally posted by Joe Klopchic:

Alex receives a warning for Failure to Maintain Game state

I believe that what happened fits into double GRV instead, as Isaac was saying.
Being a passive observer doesn't matter in determining this in my opinion: If I path to exile my opponet's creature, I won't fetch a land for him/her. Anyway it's also my respinsibility to check that he/she will take a basic land from his deck e not a non-basic one.

Edited Jacopo Strati (May 9, 2017 07:42:45 AM)

Why double GRV when the FtMGS is clearly defined?

A player allows another player in the game to commit a Game Play Error and does not point it out immediately.

Which is exactly what happened no?

Originally posted by Bryon Boyes:

Why double GRV when the FtMGS is clearly defined?

Alex is responsible for his Thalia's ability. This makes him responsible to control all opponent's actions related to that ability too.

IPG 2.5 says: "If the judge believes that both players were responsible for a Game Rule Violation, such as due to the existence of replacement effects or a player taking action based on another players instruction, both players receive a Game Play Error — Game Rule Violation. For example, if a player casts Path to Exile on an opponent’s creature and the opponent puts the creature into the graveyard, both players have committed this infraction."

That's why I think that what Alex did is more a GRV than a FTMGS. :)

A reminder that once the solution has been posted, folks should start a new thread if they want to discuss this aspect of policy further.