Welcome back to Knowledge Pool! This week we have a Bronze scenario, so submit your answers to the link below.

Enjoy.

During a Legacy Open run at Competitive REL, Amon casts Gitaxian Probe paying 2 life and targeting Nikki, who responds with Brainstorm. Amon casts Counterspell targeting the Brainstorm. Nikki responds by casting Daze, returning his Volcanic Island to his hand leaving his board empty. As Nikki is resolving Brainstorm, Amon says “Go,” so Nikki untaps and draws for his turn. At this point Amon realizes the Probe was never resolved and calls a judge. What do you do?

Submit your solutions here: https://goo.gl/forms/8gNSnVlDI0r9E8Yq1

Edited Joe Klopchic (Aug. 24, 2017 06:43:20 AM)

We had quite a few excellent submissions this week. I would like to highlight this one.

Originally posted by Jake Eakle:

First of all, this is a straightforward GRV for Amon and FtMGS for Nikki: Amon did not resolve his spell, instead implying that the stack was empty by saying “Go.” It's Nikki's responsibility to make sure Amon resolves his spell, but not Nikki's responsibility to actually do it. Even if Probe said “Target player reveals his or her hand.” I would interpret it this way, since Amon was so explicit, but the fact that it says “Look at..” makes it even clearer that the ball is in Amon's court, and Nikki is just getting FtMGS.

The interesting part of this question is whether to back up or not. This (along with Cheating investigations) is one of the only times when we're allowed to consider the strategic particulars of the game when deciding how to handle a call. So, let's consider the strategic implications of backing up.

The backup point is after Brainstorm is done resolving and both players have passed priority, and Probe is beginning to resolve. To get there, we must:

- Reverse Nikki's draw. This is done by returning a random card from his hand to the top of his library. We do not exclude Volcanic Island, because it may have been put back on top by Brainstorm.
- Reverse Nikki's untap. This is easy because his board is empty. I'm not sure why Nikki untapping was specified :)
- Now we're at the backup point, so we resolve Probe. Amon looks at Nikki's hand and draws a card.

The difference between this outcome and a correct outcome is that Amon may see a card Nikki intended to conceal with Brainstorm, because we've returned a random card to the library rather than the card actually placed on top. It's hard to know, but this may have rather severe negative strategic repercussions for Nikki. Of course, not getting to draw a card also has severe repercussions for Amon. It's tempting to give Amon the card but not the information about Nikki's hand, but partially resolving spells is not one of the options available to us. Therefore, since the error was Amon's, I would choose not to perform this backup - Nikki should not have to risk having some of the value of his Brainstorm play negated because of Amon's error, and Amon must suffer the consequences of forgetting to resolve his spell."

Jake has correctly identified all of the issues going on here. We can either back up to the point where Probe is the only thing left on the stack, or do nothing.

The only issue is with the rationale for not backing up. While we do consider strategic implications, our goal is not to arrive at the “most fair for the player who made the mistake” solution, but rather the “least disruptive” solution. While backing up does introduce slightly more information into the equation, our solution does complete the back up, as it is less disruptive than having Probe never resolve at all.

Amon receives a Warning for Game Rule Violation, and Nikki a Warning for Failure to Maintain Game State. Back the game up to the point where Gitaxian Probe is the only object on the stack. When backing up Nikki's draw step, choose a random card, Volcanic Island is not excluded as it could have been returned with Brainstorm.

As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, not backing up is always a valid answer.

Edited Joe Klopchic (Aug. 29, 2017 10:32:22 PM)