Most of us will be familiar with the following:

AP: “Thoughtseize”
NAP: *reveals hand*
AP: “Take Jace. Go.”

AP hasn't announced a target for their Thoughtseize. NAP doesn't care. AP doesn't care. We don't care; we're not stepping in or assessing an infraction here.



The following situation came up for me recently:

AP: “Cabal Therapy, trigger my Pyromancer, get a token”
NAP: “Response to Therapy; Fatal Push your Young Pyromancer. Crack my fetchland, get an Island, cast Brainstorm. *resolve brainstorm* Okay, Therapy resolves.”
AP: “Name Arclight Phoenix *Discards two copies of Arclight Phoenix and reveals their hand*”
NAP: JUUUUDGE!



We have had some discussion in the UKISA Regional Discord server over this situation and a few points were raised:

• This might not be Communication Policy Violation. Targets are free information and AP was never asked for that information, therefore they had no obligation (from the perspective of communication policy) to say anything about them.

• This is a Game Rule Violation; a player has failed to announce targets for their spell. We should assess GRV and fix accordingly.
  
  Counterpoint to these two arguments is that the game obligates you to provide free information at this point, and both players were of the correct understanding that the spell did indeed have a target. The confusion is over exactly who that target was and this could actually be CPV.

• This is a Game Rule Violation; a player has failed to announce targets for their spell. We should not assess GRV to remain consistent with how we normally handle situations where a player does not announce a target for their spell; that is, that we don't care (see the example given above involving Thoughtseize).
  
  Counterpoint to this is that whilst we don't normally care, as per the example, in the situations where we have had to step in (either because a player has involved us or because we believe it is necessary) we should assess this infraction. The loss of consistency is okay.

• This could be completely fine. Whilst perhaps not amazingly sporting, it is common for players in real tournament situations to not be explicit about their targets with spells, this isn't a GRV and it isn't a CPV. AP has done nothing wrong. FWIW, I have spoken with a couple of non-judge Legacy players about this in the past and they are of the opinion that you should be asking your opponent for targets to their Vendilion Clique/Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy etc.

This brings us to the point of the thread. I would appreciate both an ‘O’ answer and also some discussion as to whether or not this is an infraction and, if it is, what infraction is it?

Further to that, if it is an infraction, are we actually assessing that penalty? Or do we remain consistent with other times where we don't step in?

I will also point out that, if this is indeed an infraction, then cheating is certainly a possibility though I'd prefer to steer away from discussing any potential investigations. If you do want some more details for your own thought experiment, please contact me by PM and I'd be happy to provide more detail about the game/match.

Edited Winter (Feb. 12, 2019 05:47:14 PM)

Originally posted by Winter Hughes:

• This might not be Communication Policy Violation. Targets are free information and AP was never asked for that information, therefore they had no obligation (from the perspective of communication policy) to say anything about them.

I think that's a curious proposition.
Free information is information you must deliver when asked. That doesn't imply you can hide that information till asked.
When casting a spell, you have to declare targets. Can you imagine a player casting lightning bolt
and not declaring target?

Originally posted by Winter Hughes:

• This could be completely fine. Whilst perhaps not amazingly sporting, it is common for players in real tournament situations to not be explicit about their targets with spells, this isn't a GRV and it isn't a CPV. AP has done nothing wrong. FWIW, I have spoken with a couple of non-judge Legacy players about this in the past and they are of the opinion that you should be asking your opponent for targets to their Vendilion Clique/Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy etc.

From a player point of view, it is wise asking for confirmation.
From a judge point of view, we must answer the question: who has the burden of properly communicating targets?
should AP be more explicit, and tell “therapy, target myself”?
or should NAP double check every time? “therapy”. “target?” 99.9% of times, response will be “you”, and 0.1% will be “myself”.

I think a world where AP has the burden of specifying “therapy, target myself” is much more desirable, and I would assess GRV-Warning.

I am curious about the upcoming Official Answer.

For now, given the information I have without talking to both players, I don't think that an infraction was made. NAP made an assumption, and AP did nothing illegal. Perfect example of why we insist that they communicate clearly all the time…

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

Can you imagine a player casting lightning bolt and not declaring target?

I don't need to imagine, I do it all the time! Legacy is a fun format. :D

AP: Jace
NAP: Sure
AP: 0; brainstorm?
NAP: Bolt
AP: *puts Jace in graveyard*

In fact, against Burn, I am often in the situation where I have a Jace and they cast a bolt and I clarify “Me or Jace?”.

Originally posted by Francesco Scialpi:

I think a world where AP has the burden of specifying “therapy, target myself” is much more desirable, and I would assess GRV-Warning.

Thank you for the answer! Do you assess that warning because you believe it is correct or because you don't want to live in a world where NAP isn't obliged to ask “Target?”. They may well be one-and-the-same; I am happy for an answer of “I would assess the warning because it is correct to do so, and it is correct to do so because I/we don't want to put the burden on NAP.”

Edited Winter (Feb. 13, 2019 05:53:37 PM)

The other point to bear in mind is that in addition to the examples Winter already provided regarding Bolt, the “presumed” target can be different in different decks.

If a player is playing a re-animator deck, it's hardly strange for them to want to put cards from their hand into their graveyard.

A player must choose a target for a spell when it is announced. They don't
necessarily need to verbalize it. They may point to the Jace with the
bolt. However, it must be clearly demonstrated it. For Cabal Therapy (and
similar cards), some players may misunderstand the card and think they
choose the target on resolution, since that's when they name the card.
Either way, they have violated a game rule by not choosing a target on
announcement. In OP's first scenario, AP committed a GRV, but like many of
the small game mistakes made by players, if both players are fine with it,
we do not need to step in. However, in scenario 2, once a judge is brought
into the situation, they need to assess the penalty committed. This isn't
a problem of inconsistency.

I know that you wanted to keep this away from investigation discussions,
but I wanted to make a couple points. One, hopefully judges reading this
situation (#2) see how advantageous it is to AP not to name a target. They
are playing a deck that will often want to discard cards from the own hand,
so there is no reason AP should think that the target is assumed or default
NAP. If AP knew how targeting of spells work and choose not to name a
target, it is highly likely that they are Cheating. I was involved in a
very similar situation recently that ended up in a DQ.

On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 6:08 AM Michael Douglas <

Originally posted by Shawn Doherty:

In OP's first scenario, AP committed a GRV, but like many of
the small game mistakes made by players, if both players are fine with it,
we do not need to step in.

What if both players aren't fine with it? Belligerent players are the minority, but I can absolutely see a salty or sharky player angling to get his opponent a penalty for this, if we consider scenario as a ‘technical’ GRV.

Yes, we have players that want to call a judge for every little thing. “Judge, my opponent put a creature into the graveyard instead of exile” will happen, but many times the opponent will just say, “hey that should be exiled” and they fix it on their own. Both of these situations can co-exist in events. It doesn't mean that the opponent didn't commit a GRV in one case vs other. This is a much more fundamental argument than this thread is asking about, so I'm not going to go any deeper on it.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

Originally posted by Shawn Doherty:

In OP's first scenario, AP committed a GRV, but like many of
the small game mistakes made by players, if both players are fine with it,
we do not need to step in.

What if both players aren't fine with it? Belligerent players are the minority, but I can absolutely see a salty or sharky player angling to get his opponent a penalty for this, if we consider scenario as a ‘technical’ GRV.