Here's my take on this. While the document says that the card need to have been “uniquely identifiable,” but by whom. I would issue a GL, and seek HJ permission to deviate on these grounds.

While the card is in fact uniquely identifiable when it is on top of the library, it is merely a face down card with unknown characteristics, and one of N cards in the deck where N is the number of remaining cards. In this instance, it just happens to be a card that a player put there. When it moves to the player's hand, it retains those characteristics, (even if the player casting Enlightened Tutor knows what it is, to me that point is irrelevant.) When the card is in the player's hand, based on the fact that there is a single enchantment, it could be assumed that the tutored for card is the enchantment card there, but how does anyone else know that. To my understanding, uniquely identifiable means that it should be obvious to all players as to what the card is. In addition, investigation will most likely determine if the following statement, within the definition of FtMGS.

“If a judge believes a player is intentionally not pointing out other players’ illegal actions, either for his or her own advantage, or in the hope of bringing it up at a more strategically advantageous time, the infraction is Cheating — Fraud.”

In addition, I think that those who are stating the example non-deviation situations from the IPG are reading into the situation by the letter of the law, and not the spirit of the law.

This is one of those where investigation will prove what has happened, but based solely on what I've gathered, this is GPE - GRV with deviation to Game Loss. One of the hardest lessons that I had to learn as a judge is that sometimes everything isn't black or white, and that despite this being clearly identified in the IPG, I don't think that this is as clear cut as it sounds, or looks. That's why I'd rule as I've listed.

I'd investigate a bit, but in the scenario as written this is a clear GRV Warning for Nolan and FtMGS for Adam. However, if the circumstances were slightly different I can see the argument for an upgrade to GL for Nolan. (And no FtMGS for Adam.)

As has been noted, the reason we don't upgrade in cases of the card having been uniquely identifiable at some point in the past is to stop players from seeing the problem and waiting to call it out so that their opponent gets a GL rather than a Warning–it's all about the fact that the other player had a chance to call it out, and didn't.

While yes, from a pure rules perspective Enlightened Tutor leaves the card was on top of the library and thus uniquely identifiable, I've known players to shortcut through end-of-turn top-of-library tutors significantly, pulling the card out of the library face-down, shuffling, and only then revealing, putting the card into their hand pretty much immediately, such that it barely touches the top of the library, if it does at all. (Heck, I've been one of those players in casual games.) If Nolan shortcutted the tutoring process in this manner, it's quite possible that Adam would not reasonably have had a chance to call him out on the lack of revealing before the card was already in hand. If my investigation seemed to indicate that this was the case, I'd talk to the HJ about upgrading the penalty.

But once again, as presented, this is plain old GRV Warning/FtMGS.

Edited Callum Milne (Dec. 6, 2012 10:14:39 PM)

Fair enough, Callum. I admit I haven't judged/played/watched much sanctioned Legacy or Vintage, so I didn't realize that people actually short-cutted those tutors in sanctioned play. I've seen it in Commander, but if we ported all our Commander short-cuts into sanctioned play, we'd have a lot more problems :-P.

Mike, sorry, I just can't agree with your reasoning, and if I was your head judge I would not grant you a deviation here. While I understand and appreciate your “spirit of the law” argument, this example from the old Failure to Reveal infraction (with the same word-for-word instructions to downgrade) is exactly the same except with a different Mirage Tutor (which all had the same “reveal” text). This isn't a case where there's a technicality; the actual scenario happens almost word-for-word in the example for this specific infraction. I'm also not sure I agree with your definition of “uniquely identifiable.” We're not suggesting the card is uniquely identifiable because the NAP now has only one enchantment in hand. The card is UI because it was on top of the library, where, according to the definition of GRV, it was UI. GRV only cares about whether the card “was EVER” UI, not whether it is now. The fact that it is no longer UI doesn't mean it was never UI, and the fact that the opponent can't identify it now doesn't change the fact that it WAS identifiable when it was on top of the library. After all, if they HAD revealed the card and it was clear to the opponent what it was, there would be no infraction, right?

Again, I think “spirit of the law” is important to consider, particularly in corner cases, but this isn't a corner case. This is a textbook case, formerly by definition since it was used as an example in the Failure to Reveal infraction.

-Justin Miyashiro
L1 Fort Collins CO

Again, to those continuing to answer with anything other than a GPE - GRV Warning for Nolan, can you please explicitly identify the “significant” or “exceptional” circumstances under which you are deviating from the MIPG?

Most deviations, including this one, require significant and exceptional circumstances before deviation is even considered. Note that such circumstances are in the realm of a meteorite colliding with the draft table in the middle of pack three, and not KP question semantics.

Edited Josh Andrews (Dec. 7, 2012 06:53:49 AM)

Would there be any change if there was another enchantment/artifact in Nolan's hand?

Tomas: As I see it, no - and everyone seems to agree upon the fact that the card (if ever) was UI, it was when it sat atop the library, but not anymore once it entered the hand, unless of course it is the only card in his hand.

Hello Judges!

We had a lot of great discussion and debate on this topic and I got a few messages saying this was a good topic, so thanks to everyone involved in this thread for getting some good education out there! Without further ado: Here is the answer.

The infraction is Game Rule Violation, the penalty is a warning and the fix is to reveal the information, if possible. We also should award Adam a warning for Failure to Maintain Game State. Since Nolan has 3 cards in hand, we can't really know what the card he searched for was so we can't really reveal any information. There isn't really any point in a rewind here, so we will let play continue from this point.

This is a Game Rule Violation because Failure to Reveal was taken out of the IPG in the last update, with fixes for failing to reveal relevant game information added to GRV. We downgrade to a warning here because the information was in a position to be uniquely identifiable, it was put on top of the library correctly before being drawn. This makes it so the opponent can't wait until the card can't be identified anymore to call a judge and get the player a game loss. We don't want the timing of judge calls determining what the penalty is for things like this, turning the IPG into something that you can game for free wins.

The player having 2 irrelevant cards and 1 potential choice for the Enlightened Tutor in his hand that he shows you is also irrelevant and is a red herring to the question. All we know is that the information wasn't revealed and it fits the description to fix it in GRV. It's important to note that even though it is tempting to reveal that correct choice, since the card isn't identifiable by both players, we do not reveal the information to the opponent.

Big props to Joshua Andrews for hitting the right answer right away in the second post with all of the supporting details from section 2.5 of the IPG. I'd quote the relevant sections of his post, but it was all great, just go read it!

Again, big thanks to everyone involved and stay tuned for the next Knowledge Pool scenario!