The following sequence of plays happened at a Modern PPTQ:

T1: Stomping Ground, enchant it with Utopia Sprawl naming Red.
T2: Forest, tap Stomping ground for GR, Utopia Sprawl on Green on the Forest, Blood Moon.
T3: Skip land drop for turn, tap both lands to generate 4 mana and cast Tireless Tracker and Birds of Paradise.

It's at this point that the non-active player pauses, reads Blood Moon and Utopia Sprawl, and calls me over. Sprawl has Enchant Forest, and Stomping Ground is no longer a Forest, so one of the Sprawls should have fallen off last turn.

I assessed the appropriate penalties (GRV and FtMGS) and double-checked the IPG to confirm that a partial fix applied: a required zone change was missed (Utopia Sprawl going from Battlefield to Graveyard), so we move the card and play on. However, the IPG also has this to say:

For each of these fixes, a simple backup may be performed beforehand if it makes applying the fix smoother.

So my question: Does that clause apply to this situation? Is leaving in play an uncastable Birds of Paradise less ‘smooth’ than the complications of a backup? Is returning a creature (or both creatures!) to hand something you'd consider “simple” according the IPG definition?

I polled L3s at a recent GP and got a variety of answers, so I'm curious what the community at large will make of it. Thanks!

Well, the definition of a simple backup according to the IPG is “backing up the last action completed (or one currently in progress)” and long as it does “not involve any random elements.”

I think returning both creatures definitely does not fit into this definition. At that point, you're just performing a backup, which ignores the partial fix.

Returning one creature is an option, but the question is really “does it make the partial fix smoother?” I think simply moving the Utopia Sprawl to the graveyard at this point is smooth, even if it may not be the most ideal outcome. I think it is reasonable to perform the simple backup, but technically speaking, I don't think it fits. If it was caught while one of the two creatures was still on the stack, then backing up the casting would be a good example of a simple backup for the partial fix.

If it were me, the way I'd handle “simple backup” in this case would be to ask which creature was supposed to be cast last and back up just that one. It returns the game to a more organic state since both creatures couldn't have been legally cast with the mana properly available.

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

If it were me, the way I'd handle “simple backup” in this case would be to ask which creature was supposed to be cast last and back up just that one. It returns the game to a more organic state since both creatures couldn't have been legally cast with the mana properly available.

I suppose the exact situation is:
“tap 4, cast these two”. (i.e. player taps for four mana, then casts both creatures without thinking/pauses/interaction with oppo).

If you ask AP which creature they cast last, player effectively gets to choose a creature, and how to tap for mana.
Really, it's no different than telling them “both creatures in your hand, untap all, resume from here”. (player casting nothing, or casting a third spell, is unlikely).

Unless you ask “which creature touched the table first, and which last”? Seems unfair to me.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (Sept. 12, 2018 03:51:01 AM)

What is the unfairness in Player A getting to specify the order in which they cast the creatures. Had they cast the “properly” they would have done so explicitly, so I do not believe that it is unfair to ask them in which order they intended to cast the creatures. In the case of a simple backup there is no additional information to be gained here, so the player choosing which order should not give them any advantage (especially if you are considering backing up here and putting one of the creatures back into the players hand). Just some food for thought as you continue to discuss this topic!

Originally posted by Nicola DiPasquale:

What is the unfairness in Player A getting to specify the order in which they cast the creatures. Had they cast the “properly” they would have done so explicitly, so I do not believe that it is unfair to ask them in which order they intended to cast the creatures. In the case of a simple backup there is no additional information to be gained here, so the player choosing which order should not give them any advantage (especially if you are considering backing up here and putting one of the creatures back into the players hand). Just some food for thought as you continue to discuss this topic!

OK, I try to clarify:

- if you ask the player the order in which they intended to cast creatures *after* they had cast them, it's nonsense. It's like “let's play a game! Choose odd or even!” “even” “sorry, you lost”
Ok, maybe not nonsense - but it's the same as telling player “put both creatures in your hand, untap, cast one creature of your choice”
- if you tell the player “this card touched the table before that other one, so order is this before that”, it's nonsense in another way - player cast both creatures, didn't think nor intend “this before, this after”.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (Sept. 12, 2018 06:54:56 AM)

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

- if you ask the player the order in which they intended to cast creatures *after* they had cast them, it's nonsense. It's like “let's play a game! Choose odd or even!” “even” “sorry, you lost”

I disagree with this. This is a situation of shortcutting, and we already have the ability to ask “in what order do you intend to take these actions?” in situations where an opponent may want to respond or the order might otherwise become relevant. While there is arguably an advantage to be gained by choosing which creature to have in play vs in-hand, the player would have been able to make that decision anyway if the game state had been represented correctly. There's no “gotcha” here for AP.

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

Ok, maybe not nonsense - but it's the same as telling player “put both creatures in your hand, untap, cast one creature of your choice”

Why would this be a bad way of handling things? Strictly speaking, it isn't supported by the IPG as described, but it's functionally identical to a fix that is supported (simple rewind of an illegally-cast creature).


Also, I agree that “which touched first?” is a silly and unreliable way to try and fix things.

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

Ok, maybe not nonsense - but it's the same as telling player “put both creatures in your hand, untap, cast one creature of your choice”

Why would this be a bad way of handling things? Strictly speaking, it isn't supported by the IPG as described, but it's functionally identical to a fix that is supported (simple rewind of an illegally-cast creature).

Indeed, I never said that that would be a bad way ;)

Hi All

I think we are over analyzing this and trying too much to create this perfect game state.

The GRV is for the Utopia Sprawl, the 2 creatures cast simultaneously is not part of it, they just led to the error being picked up and would lead to a GRV derived from it, and as stated above if we knew the order, we could fix it perfectly with GRV.

The creatures part falls under this clause of tournament shortcuts “If a player adds a group of objects to the stack without explicitly retaining priority, they are assumed to be adding them to the stack individually and allowing each to resolve before adding the next. If another player wishes to take an action at a point in the middle of this sequence, the actions should be reversed to that point.”
Therefore the problem is the ambiguity in the order of their shortcut. which falls under Communication Policy Violation..

Therefore we have 2 and not 1 infraction and we can apply the partial fix for the 1, and a backup for the other

Birds was clearly the second creature cast–sorry if that wasn't clear from my initial description.

Thanks for the clarification Eli, that makes things a lot easier to resolve. I still think that a simple backup of the Birds cast is reasonable here since we've effectively discovered the error during the “cast/resolve these creatures” batch of actions.

I do briefly want to make the point that, as described, there is absolutely no way that a CPV has occurred here. Taking a shortcut or performing OoOS is not a CPV. The progression of play may be ambiguous and eligible for clarification upon request, but it in now way is a violation of the rules for communication. The order that the creatures were cast in is only relevant for considering how to back up the game (if we decide to perform a backup at all).

Edited Andrew Keeler (Sept. 13, 2018 12:40:15 AM)

This looks like one root cause GRV and some derived ones. If we back up one creature what's to say the player didn't cast the first one with mana from the ‘bad’ utopia sprawl and can still cast the second. In fact, given he had to tap both lands for the first one, backing up the birds will still leave him with a mana floating - you don't get to take the mana away as well.

You could even just not do any fix and apply SBAs here. In any case, I would just bin the sprawl now and do nothing else.

Edit: It's probably worth noting that in an older version of the IPG we did backups in preference to partial fixes and this would be a reasonable backup to the point the blood moon resolved. However, that's no longer an option for us

Edited Matthew Johnson (Sept. 13, 2018 01:05:58 AM)

Originally posted by Clint Lee:

Therefore the problem is the ambiguity in the order of their shortcut. which falls under Communication Policy Violation.

I disagree with this - I don't believe a player tapping 4 mana and saying “cast these two creatures” is violating any part of the MTR's communication policy.

The shortcut quoted here

Originally posted by Clint Lee:

If a player adds a group of objects to the stack without explicitly retaining priority, they are assumed to be adding them to the stack individually and allowing each to resolve before adding the next.

means that when the player says “cast both these sorcery-speed things,” we can assume they're not committing a GRV for trying to illegally cast the 2nd spell when they couldn't. Casting both creatures isn't a problem.