Thanks everyone for the great back and forth discussion last week on our GOLD problem.  I love seeing everyone working together through the details.

This week were back on a SILVER question so our L3+ judges please wait until Thursday to join in with your answers.  Good luck!

You are the Head Judge of your local standard RCQ. Alex wins the die roll and elects to go first.

 

Both players draw their opening hands. Before either player audibly elects to keep their hand, Alex draws a card, plays a mountain and says, “your turn.”

 

Startled, Nathan says “Ok I guess you kept your hand. I wanted to mulligan. Wait, did you just draw a card for your first turn?  Judge!”

Alex explains that they are primarily a commander player and they just weren’t thinking.  

 

What do you do?

 

Gonna talk things out, because I'm new at this.

If I had to handle this right now, I'd be looking at the IPG on my phone, so that's what I'm doing (on my computer). My first thing I looked at was Looking at Extra Cards. However, there's a section in there that says once cards in the library go to another hidden zone, then it's either a Hidden Card Error or a GRV. Since the hand is a hidden zone, this looks like it'd get bumped to a HCE. Checking that section, we see that drawing for your first turn is a given example of an HCE, so that looks right.

But there's also Mulligan Procedure Error, which has also been committed, since Alex didn't allow Nathan to make their mulligan choice. The MPE section seems to state that once the game has begun, a mulligan error becomes another sort of error. But in this instance, it looks like Alex, though unintentionally, rushed the beginning of the game, and is the only one that has wanted to go to the beginning of the game.

Both an MPE and an HCE deserve warnings, so that looks like what will happen here. At first glance, I'd say back up the beginning of the game, do the HCE fix of shuffling a random card from Alex's hand into their library, then allow Nathan to mulligan, then let the game start over.

The trick here becomes that Nathan has technically gained information about Alex's deck, however minimal. He knows that Alex is on red mana. And that might have influenced his mulligan decision. Looking at the IPG, I can't necessarily determine a fix that can properly account for this knowledge gain. Insisting that Nathan not be able to mulligan is far too great an advantage for Alex, because it means he was able to rush past a fairly significant decision point if Nathan really did want to mulligan in the first place.

I also don't think that this should be a Game Loss either, since that's not how multiple errors at the same time works.

Final answer: Warning for Alex for MPE and HCE, roll back the beginning of the game by putting the Mountain back into Alex's hand, shuffle a random card from Alex's hand into their library, allow Nathan to mulligan. Once Nathan has decided to keep their hand, Alex can begin the game.

(The last thing to consider is, after losing a random card, what if Alex wants to mulligan now? Should he be allowed to? My thought is no, his decision was made. But there's argument for it.)

There are two main issues:

• Alex skipped Nathan's mulligan and showed their turn 1 play. From the IPG, 

Unintentional process errors that provide no advantage, such as declaring an intent to mulligan early or exiling too many cards to Serum Powder, are not an infraction.

Alex revealing their first turn to their opponent doesn't provide them an advantage, so it shouldn't be a Mulligan Procedure Error.

• Alex drew on their first turn: Nathan didn't confirm their draw nor had a reasonable time frame to stop it from ocurring, so it goes into Hidden Card Error terrain. Alex gets a warning for GPE - HCE, and we have to apply the fix; return the Mountain to Alex's hand, show Alex's hand to Nathan so they can choose the extra card and shuffle that card into Alex's library. The point of the fix is offsetting the advantage Nathan would have knowing the extra card, so I'd apply the fix after Nathan finishes their mulligan procedure, as Alex's error theoretically happened after Nathan would have chosen to keep a hand. 
  
  tl;dr: Alex gets a GPE - HCE warning, Nathan doesn't get a sanction. Let Nathan continue their mulligan decision, then apply the HCE fix after Nathan keeps.

I'd go MPE here.

 

Just because a player has attempted to take a game action doesn't mean the game has actually started. Calling this an MPE leads to an outcome that I think would feel pretty fair and comprehensible to both players:

 

"Because Nathan hasn't finished mulliganing, the game effectively hasn't started yet and what you've done is just accidentally drawn an extra card and revealed a mountain from your hand. The good news is that because we're still mulliganing, the infraction here is a Mulligan Procedure Error, which has a fix which isn't too disruptive— Alex, you're just going to take a mulligan, and then Nathan will continue with the first mulligan decision. We'll be marking down a Warning for you Alex, so please be a bit more careful with your mulligans. And thanks for calling a judge over right away, that was the right thing to do."

 

Edited Buck Bukaty (Yesterday 01:27:11 PM)