Hello!

Alfonso and I are going to prepare a document covering frequent policy doubts/unclear situations with their official resolution. Similar to this one https://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/46404/

With new mechanics and new cards, it's normal finding situations that are not crystal clearly covered by the rules. This is not a flaw on the documents; it's caused because we judge a game with almost infinite possibilities. We would like to analyze such situations (together with the Policy Sphere and GPHJs), in order to allow all judges (at the premier tournaments and at store tournaments) applying consistent rulings and fixes.

I would like to ask help from the community to identify other situation that may be added to this document. Feel free to also suggest generic policy questions not specifically attached to this set, but currently not clearly answered in the documents.

Please, feel free to translate and share this request in your local judge communication channels.

Thank you!

There was a situation in London that I think would be worth covering and getting some more guidance on. The actual call resulted in a deviation, but goes as follows.

Anna has a few cards in her graveyard and has 1 creature card (a Bloom hulk) in exile, tucked under her graveyard. She casts Finale of Revelation with X=10. She shuffles her graveyard (and the exiled card) into her library, then draws 10 cards. After drawing, she casts and resolves an Elite Guardmage, drawing another card. After drawing this card, she realises that she drew the Bloom hulk while resolving Finale of Revelation.

Firstly, this cannot be HCE as the identity of the original object was known to both players at the time the infraction was committed. Therefore we're left with the options of GRV - Backup, or GRV - Leave as is.

Backing this situation up would get super messy, as when we're randomly putting cards back on top of the library, the Bloom Hulk could still be in the hand, and we just end up with the same problem we started with (unless we choose a card to exile, in which case, that's super messy).

Leaving this state as is is the best supported option in policy, however I don't feel we end up with a good game state. Anna's opponent used a removal spell on the creature (Wanderer's Strike) to exile it. If we leave the state as is, we have one player who has spent quite a bit of mana on a removal spell that hasn't really done its job, and another player with the chance to cast a creature that should not legally be there.

The fix we ended up applying was to first ensure that there was only one copy of the card in the deck, have Anna reveal the Bloom Hulk and place it into exile, allowing her to draw another card. This deviation felt the most comfortable and least disruptive to deliver, and resulted in a proper game state again.

I understand this may not be the sort of situation you're looking for, as we have a fix supported by policy (Do nothing), however I thought it was worth noting.

A player uses the +1 ability of Nissa, Who Shakes the World to animate a land and give it Haste and Vigilance. Then the players declares the land as an attacker and, without saying anything else, taps the land.

Since the player did not say anything it would reasonable to assume that they just forgot the creature had Vigilance. But, it would be legal for the player to declare the land as an attacker and immediately after the declare attackers step activate a mana ability.

1. Did the player commit a GRV by incorrectly tapping an attacking creature with Vigilance?

2. Since the contents of the player's mana pool is free information (Tournament Rules 4.1) did the player commit a communication policy violation by activating a mana ability without announcing it?

What is the fix to this scenario?

What, if any, infraction has the opponent committed?

Two policy notes; I'm 90% sure I know the answer to both, but I think they're worth including in the docs.

1) If my God dies, can I put it face-up/sideways in my library? (Here is a similar thread about Approach of the Second Sun)
2) If I don't remember to scry for Burning Prophet, have I also missed its +1/+0 trigger? (I believe MTR shortcuts cover this.)