I had a really weird situation occur at my super FNM last Friday, and after discussing it philosophically with most of the local judges in my area, I thought it would be a fun one to bring up here :)

Player A casts "Day of Judgment," and illegal card in the format. Player B does not notice Day of Judgment is not a legal card, and both players put their creatures into the graveyard. Player A passes turn, and the head judge (myself) notices a Day of Judgment in the graveyard before the player draws a card.

After confirming that Day of Judgment was not in M13, I asked the players what creatures were on the battlefield. Neither player could remember the specific amount of tokens on player B's side (he was playing various token producers, and had multiples of each type), but a spectator stated that he knew exactly what was on the battlefield.

Player B was quite upset, as he was going to alpha strike next turn to win, and Player A had no idea he was playing an illegal card.

What is the fix?

A couple of points for discussion:
- Can you use the spectators “possible biased recollection” to determine the creature count?
- If you don't back up, what do you do about the day of judgement in the graveyard?
- If you do back up, what do you do about the day of judgement in the hand?

Also, a proposed solution would be to replace the card with a functional reprint of Day of Judgement that is legal in the format (supreme verdict,) either now, or at the end of the round/game


BTW - this is the exact reason this is a game loss at competitive - their is NO clean fix for this situation!

Discuss Away!

Edited Amanda Swager (May 21, 2013 12:45:54 PM)

At Regular REL (or Comp), I will take a spectator's account into consideration, as long as the players can come to agreement about it. Obviously don't just blindly accept it as fact, but you know that. :)

If I don't back up, I would use the JAR's remedy for this. Remove any illegal cards, replace any cards that should be there (this doesn't apply, since the player added DoJ on purpose, and that's what he thinks is supposed to be there), and add basic land(s) to make the deck at least 60 cards again.

If I do back up, see previous paragraph.

I can't imagine replacing the card with a totally different card (functional reprint or not; and I would argue Supreme Verdict is a rather different card than DoJ). I wouldn't expect many players to think that is the fair and unbiased solution. This player made a mistake, and we should just follow the JAR to remedy that.

I'd like to point out that even though Player B is “quite upset” they did allow the spell to resolve without calling for a judge. This is a prime example for why we tell players to play more carefully. This situation would have been infinitely simpler to fix if Player B was paying enough attention. This does not mean that Player B is fully at fault for this mess. Both players share it. Explaining to Player B that they wouldn't have the “feel bads” if they caught it in time. <-Do not use these exact words. Sugar-coating is delicious. Take a softer approach.

In the interest of customer service I would try my best to back up to before the DoJ. Making sure that both players agree on the creatures in play. Giving a friendly reminder that being honest is a great way to continue playing in the event. Find out if they have other illegal cards. Then remove the illegal card(s) from the hand / deck and have them draw a new card. After the game have them replace the card(s) with basic land(s).

This is unorthodox, but I might just ask player A if B had the win if DoJ had not been cast, and if so if he would be willing to forfeit the game and fix his deck. If that doesn't work, then we try a rewind with the input of both players and the spectator and hope to find a board state that both players can agree on. Since this is an event at regular I'd really want to avoid saying ‘no rewind, fix your deck, shuffle, and play on.’

The players have called us to fix the situation. I don't like the idea of shifting responsibility to the player. It's our job to deal with less than fun situations. If you ask a player if they want to concede then you're suddenly putting them on the spot. They may feel pressured to look good and “do the right thing”. Now, if they decide on their own to concede that's fine. But I wouldn't ask them to.

I wouldn't do it at the table, and I'd let him know he was well within his rights to say no, especially if he had other plays, but that just seems to be the easiest way to resolve the situation and get everyone playing again.

Originally posted by David Jimenez III:

I wouldn't do it at the table, and I'd let him know he was well within his rights to say no, especially if he had other plays, but that just seems to be the easiest way to resolve the situation and get everyone playing again.

While it may be the easiest, it isn't our position to say who should have won here. I agree with Mark, we shouldn't be bringing that up as it can be seen as pressuring the player to concede and that is not what we're there for. Our job is to fix the problem as best we can in accordance with the JAR. The problem here is that an illegal card was cast and resolved, in this instance we should rewind if we can come to a reasonable belief as to what was on the battlefield before the Day of Judgement resolved and something that both players are happy with. If there's just no way to determine that information we're going to need to leave the game as is and remind both players to play more carefully; it's both player's responsibility here to ensure proper gameplay. The illegal Day of Judgements should be replaced with a basic land of the player's choice.

I would not accept a spectator's recollection, because there is no way to tell for sure what interest they may have in the outcome of the match or game. Even if they are not a friend of one of the players, they may be rooting for one or the other in hopes of playing them (or not playing them) next round.

If the two players cannot agree on the exact board state without help from spectators, I would not back up the game. I would remove the DoJ from the graveyard, replace it with a basic land, and let the game continue. Then I'd make sure that after the game (or round), I talk with player A, make sure he has no other illegal cards, and make sure he understands what sets are legal in standard right now.

I think the more people you bring in to the discussion of what creatures were or weren't there, the more complicated it gets, and if these are newer players, it is likely going to overwhelm them by having multiple people standing over them discussing their game.

Keep it simple, smarty. Especially at Regular, you don't want to go
through too many headaches. “Oooops. Well, I have no idea how we would
go back to fix it now, let's just keep playing from here.” If it takes
you two paragraphs to simply explain what you did, it will take
players two pages to spin the yarn of what you did or did not do. The
perfect game of Magic involves no Judges. The perfect FNM involves no
Judge calls. (A new player asking what these pretty cards do is not a
Judge “call.”)

Leave as small a footprint as you can.