Hi everyone, a friend of mine sent me an interesting situation:

Player A eternalizes an Earthshaker Khenra and because he believes that he attacks for lethal and the game will end at that moment, he just puts the card from his graveyard to the battlefield as is (that means, no “eternalized” label, no candy, no piece of torn paper, no marking) and attacks with everything. (Un)fortunately, player N has a kill spell, namely Chandra's defeat which he uses to get rid of the mentioned eternalized guy. He reads it incorrectly and he performs the discard/draw, as if he just targeted a Chandra. Then, Earthshaker Khenra is exiled and combat damage is dealt. In the second main phase, player A reads Khenra and realizes that it actually could not be targeted because it was black when eternalized. He calls for a judge.

The questions are as follows:
- Who is responsible for the confusion about the token?
- Which penalties do you issue and why?
- What about the fix of this?

Thanks for your answers!

Both players are always responsible for the game state being correct, so at the very least we're assessing a Game Rules Violation (warning) to NAP for casting their spell illegally and Failure to Maintain Game State (warning) to NAP for allowing it to happen. Our only options for fixes are back up to the casting of Chandra's defeat or to leave the gamestate as-is. Since AP also drew a card by resolving the spell incorrectly (and this is not an infraction with the same root cause as casting the spell illegally) we'd also assess Hidden Card Error (warning) for NAP (I'm comfortable not issuing 2 FtMGS to AP here, since multiples don't upgrade and both errors were caught at the same time). I could see assessing a second GRV instead of HCE if AP had a reasonable opportunity to stop NAP from completing the draw (this is the ‘publicaly correctable error’ clause in HCE, which is relevant since the discard happens first).

If we decide to back up, we'd back up to the point of the casting of the defeat. I would lean toward backing up here, as while we have passed decision points for NAP and revealed some hidden information, I don't find it likely that the revealed information substantially alters lines of play since AP has already committed to their attack, so NAP is the one making all of the decisions and already had all of that information.

To back up, I'd undo combat damage (including returning any now-dead attackers and blockers to the battlefield), undo blocks if defeat was cast in declare attackers, return the khenra to the battlefield attacking, undo the discard-draw (thoughtseizing NAP and shuffling the card away, as per HCE, or putting a random back on top if you rule it as a GRV instead), and then return chandra's defeat to NAP's hand and untap the mana spent to cast it.

Note that I would not issue a CPV to AP for not using the eternalize indicator. AP has not misrepresented any characteristics of the eternalized khenra, merely used an unclear representation. If NAP could realize that it was a 4/4 and that the card should be in exile when it “dies,” or at least acknowledged the use of the eternalize ability, then the absence of the eternalize indicator is not the problem and should not be penalized.

Edited Andrew Keeler (Aug. 23, 2017 10:06:17 PM)

Both players are responsible, as Andrew pointed out.

N is receiving a Warning for GPE - GRV. There are two GRVs here, but we only issue one as they were discovered at the same time; I don't believe the discard/draw is HCE as discarding was publicly correctable and part of the the same instruction that had N draw a card.

I agree with backing up to just before Chandra's Defeat was cast (or leaving the game as is under the usual caveats).

Originally posted by Sophie Hughes:

N is receiving a Warning for GPE - GRV. There are two GRVs here, but we only issue one as they were discovered at the same time; I don't believe the discard/draw is HCE as discarding was publicly correctable and part of the the same instruction that had N draw a card.

I agree with the thinking here, though I think a case can be made for HCE since, while the discard technically precedes the draw, if NAP were moving quickly enough I don't think AP would have much time to notice and stop NAP from drawing the card.

As a sidebar: it looks like the wording for multiple infractions in IPG 1.2 has been changed since I last checked, since it no longer specifically mentions “multiple instances of the same infraction,” instead only mentioning “multiple related infractions.” I'm not sure if this was merely a cosmetic change or if there's a functional difference now.

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

I think a case can be made for HCE

Originally posted by IPG:

Be careful not to apply this infraction in situations where a publicly-correctable error subsequently leads to an uncorrectable situation such as a Brainstorm cast using green mana.

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

Originally posted by IPG:

Be careful not to apply this infraction in situations where a publicly-correctable error subsequently leads to an uncorrectable situation such as a Brainstorm cast using green mana.

Just to make sure I understand this correctly, even though the player technically made another mistake, the second mistake would have never happened if it were not of the first one so I treat it like it never happened in terms of penalties? My point is that the example from IPG looks a bit different from this, I think more suitable situation would be casting Brainstorm for {G} and resolving it by drawing 4 and putting back 2. Do I still issue only GRV here?

What Toby's reminding us is that the error of targeting a non-red creature with Chandra's Defeat was a publicly-correctable error that leads to a subsequent error - namely, the “loot” ability.

So, in other words, this example is not HCE.

Now, back to our regularly-scheduled discussion…

d:^D

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

the error of targeting a non-red creature with Chandra's Defeat was a publicly-correctable error that leads to a subsequent error - namely, the “loot” ability.

Except that's not the error that's being referred to. Even once the spell started resolving with an illegal target, Player N should still not have looted, since the loot is only when targeting a Chandra Planeswalker. I believe that's the argument Andrew is using for HCE.

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

the error of targeting a non-red creature with Chandra's Defeat was a publicly-correctable error that leads to a subsequent error - namely, the “loot” ability.

Except that's not the error that's being referred to. Even once the spell started resolving with an illegal target, Player N should still not have looted, since the loot is only when targeting a Chandra Planeswalker. I believe that's the argument Andrew is using for HCE.

It's actually not a loot, but a rummage. The first point of error (ignoring the illegal targetting) is discarding a card. That's publically correctable, and drawing a card is attached to this. This can never be HCE if you discard first while doing this.

If however, it were a loot, and the draw was not confirmed by the opponent, then we would have HCE.

Originally posted by Guy Baldwin:

If however, it were a loot, and the draw was not confirmed by the opponent, then we would have HCE.

This still wouldn't be HCE if it was looting instead of rummaging. The initial cause of error is the illegal casting of Chandra's Defeat. The loot vs rummage confusion is a downstream consequence of the illegal casting.

Part of the reason that HCE wouldn't apply in either case is to prevent opponents from waiting to call a judge for a GRV until a card has been drawn to get the HCE fix instead.

We want to encourage people to call for a judge as soon as they notice something's wrong.

Guy is correct that it's a “rummage”, not a “loot” - mea culpa - but Jason sums up quite nicely the correct ruling in this scenario. And, as Guy points out, the discard before draw would be yet another publicly correctable error prior to drawing a card. We appear to have TWO previous errors that could be noticed & corrected.

d:^D