I agree that there is no infraction here. Aniki has no obligation to help their opponent make good choices and whilst I might encourage players to communicate better and be more specific with their blocks in the future, there is nothing wrong occurring here.

EDIT:

On reflection and discussion on my regional Discord, I think that this is technically a GRV on behalf of NAP. However, I think a reasonable interpretation is that NAP has effectively given the choice of blocks to AP. This is one of those cases where a usually unenforced penalty for breaking a rule where investigation and context might lead to a different outcome.

Edited Norman Ralph (May 10, 2019 10:06:21 AM)

Personally I think CR 509.1a has been broken here, and GRV for the blocking player and FTMGS for the attacking player is appropriate. No backup and leave game state as is, because imho the backup is horrific.

In addition, if the attacking player intentionally did this knowing it was illegal, there is potential for a cheating DQ, however I'd likely not go down that path as the attacking player likely thought they were allowed to choose which was blocked in this scenario.

No infraction. By not specifying which one they blocked, N has given up potential advantage and that’s not against the rules. Their mistake is its own penalty. This is a relatively common shortcut and I don’t think we need to be infracting N or A here.

Edited Daniel Lee (May 10, 2019 10:16:19 AM)

Why create a problem, where there is none?

Originally posted by Daniel Lee:

that’s not against the rules

Originally posted by CR 509.1a:

…the defending player chooses one creature for it to block…

My interpretation of this is the defending player has to choose a specific creature to block.

Originally posted by Daniel Lee:

This is a relatively common shortcut

If it's 3x Grizzly Bears attacking, yes I'm fine with this shortcut and we don't need to do anything. But in this case the spirit tokens have linked triggered abilities that are linked to separate exiled cards that the attacking player knows the identity of, so the blocking player should specify the block clearly as it has an impact on where the game state ends up.

Originally posted by Johannes Wagner:

Why create a problem, where there is none?

In theory, hypothetically:
- The attacking player knows the defending player specifically has to choose which creature they block
- The attacking player knows that when they didn't specify, they should clarify or call a judge
- The attacking player intentionally choose the Liliana token in order to gain an advantage, knowing this was technically illegal
If all these were true, it'd be a cheating DQ. However, as I stated above I suspect the attacking player thinks what they are doing is ok, in that case I'd like to educate and reinforce it's not ok via warnings.

1) https://blogs.magicjudges.org/whatsupdocs/2016/04/11/official-handling-identical-permanents-with-non-visual-differences/

“When two identical permanents are on the battlefield and there are non-visible differences between them, if a player needs to know which is which, they need to ask for clarification.”

2) Aniki controls two Grizzly Bears, one of them has an invisible +3/+3 (say, a Giant Growth cast before other ten or so spells, so it's sound that Nikolai forgot about it).

Aniki attacks with both Grizzly Bears.
Nikolai: “Block one of them with my 4/4”.
Aniki: “Ok … you blocked the pumped one, please bury your 4/4”.

Would you let Aniki away with that?

With respect to the original scenario, my opinion is that Aniki has the obligation to ask “which one?”, and Nikolai should choose - maybe at random, but he should choose.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (May 10, 2019 11:38:55 AM)

Originally posted by David Murray:

In theory, hypothetically:
- The attacking player knows the defending player specifically has to choose which creature they block
- The attacking player knows that when they didn't specify, they should clarify or call a judge
- The attacking player intentionally choose the Liliana token in order to gain an advantage, knowing this was technically illegal

The defending player has to tell which one he's blocking, but he gives the choice which one he's blocking to his opponent. So what is the problem here?

Did he make an illegal block? No. -> No Infraction
Did he make the best possible block for him? Yes. Is this an infraction? No.

As always on judgeapps, it took 2 answers to be at the DQ…

Edited Johannes Wagner (May 10, 2019 12:36:13 PM)

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

2) Aniki controls two Grizzly Bears, one of them has an invisible +3/+3 (say, a Giant Growth cast before other ten or so spells, so it's sound that Nikolai forgot about it).

Aniki attacks with both Grizzly Bears.
Nikolai: “Block one of them with my 4/4”.
Aniki: “Ok … you blocked the pumped one, please bury your 4/4”.

Would you let Aniki away with that?

No, but it's also not the same situation as presented in this thread.

As far as Nikolai is concerned, there is no difference between the attackers. They're all 2/2s linked to blank pieces of cardboard. If he really truly wanted to make a decision about which to block, well, he could have.

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

1) https://blogs.magicjudges.org/whatsupdocs/2016/04/11/official-handling-identical-permanents-with-non-visual-differences/

“When two identical permanents are on the battlefield and there are non-visible differences between them, if a player needs to know which is which, they need to ask for clarification.”

…

With respect to the original scenario, my opinion is that Aniki has the obligation to ask “which one?”, and Nikolai should choose - maybe at random, but he should choose.

I agree that in an ideal world this is how these interactions should happen but are you penalising this with a Warning and a potential back up?

Hi,

This is a very interesting situation. Would you be so kind let me know whether I understand the solution and philosophy presented by Scott?

MtG is known as a game of skill (and a bit of randomness). Do I understand it correctly that we judges take this action performed by the active player as a demonstration of skill level superior to the nonactive player? From the description of the scenario, it looks like the nonactive player is not aware of the importance of the decision and lets the active player select the card they need the most from those three (in this case changing the probability of getting Liliana from 33% to 100%).