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Competitive REL » Post: Keranos Discussion

Keranos Discussion

April 29, 2014 03:57:03 PM

Joshua Feingold
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Midatlantic

Keranos Discussion

While you should not take advantage into consideration, it may be worth taking the added complexities of hand size into account when assessing the complexity of rewinding a card that should have been revealed.

In fact, there may even be a recent Knowledge Pool scenario and solution regarding exactly this type of rewind.

April 29, 2014 04:12:09 PM

Adrian Strzała
Judge (Uncertified)

Europe - Central

Keranos Discussion

I don't think you understood what I meant. Rene said, that he would
hesitate to do the rewind, because it gives an advantage in case, where
there's only one card in hand. I told him, that policy clearly states, that
this shouldn't be a concern.
My thought is: when there is only one card in hand, I'd backup, because
there's no drawback in doing so. In other cases, it really depends on REL.
At Regular I'd put a random card on top of library and make player draw it
properly. At Competetive and Proffesional I think there's no fix, as rewind
would cause too much damage and leave more potential to abuse.


2014-04-29 21:58 GMT+02:00 Joshua Feingold <

April 29, 2014 04:18:10 PM

Evan Cherry
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Southwest

Keranos Discussion

The one thing that wasnt sitting well with me was that if the NAP noticed GRV and didn't say anything because they didn't want their opponent to gain the advantage they would be guilty of cheating and thus the DQ. This feels like a trigger and most players will think it is a trigger and thus refer to the missed trigger policy. if they do we can educate them that they cannot let their opponent forget this ability because its a static ability not a triggered one. If they didn't know the difference they then didn't realize it was illegal, and thus no cheating, but it feels almost like a gotcha trap for NAP.

That is a good point, and I'll bring up a similar discussion that generated some buzz: the opponent having to point out a “Scry” effect on an opponent's spell. Everyone is hopefully aware how the L4s ruled to handle it- back up or don't, and that stands here as well.

The ruling for someone not pointing out the scry and not pointing out the reveal because “it feels like a trigger” and is to the detriment of the player pointing it out is cheating if they are aware that it is indeed NOT a trigger. Some investigation will be required, and it will be our job to explain how the reveal is not a trigger, and the opponent is partly responsible for reminding the player that they have to do it, even if it's a feel-bad. A player can always hope that reminding their opponent to reveal will also result in them forgetting to do damage/draw a card from the reveal, but it's not likely and they're just stuck with having to remind them to reveal in order to maintain the game state.

May 27, 2014 03:43:11 PM

Juan Agustín Cuch
Judge (Level 1 (Judge Academy))

Hispanic America - South

Keranos Discussion

I am note getting this straight. I had been considering this situation recently, and I'm not sure what would be the best thing to do here, so I ask for a specific answer, please.
The IPG state that the head judge can give permission to back up the game if that is not too much disruptive. Even though putting a card at random from AP's hand on top of library isn't really disruptive on its own, the abilities it will trigger certainly are. I know I shouldn't consider this (strategic game-state advantage) when deciding to back up, but isn't this scenario kinda special?
It creates a situation in which not all players know the drawn card; but one of them DO know the rest of cards in his hand… and he is getting again a supposedly random (or scry-made) chance to bolt or draw. It is not considering the game state as advantageous to one or another, but it looks like an obscure development.
Doing this “error” on volition should be treated as cheating; but still if it wasn't: isn't this Keranos something special? Should I back up or not?

May 27, 2014 08:10:34 PM

Chris Nowak
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

USA - Midatlantic

Keranos Discussion

Thinking about disruption mechanically, this doesn't seem all that disruptive to rewind to me (assuming we haven't progressed the game very far since then). Random card back back on top, and move on.

Thinking about the overall “course of the game” (to use the IPG's phrasing), this doesn't seem all that disruptive to me either on the face of it. A card was supposed to be revealed, that card was supposed to be drawn, and a trigger was supposed to happen. Those things still happen, the only difference is that the opponent gets to see one random card instead of another random one. (And the active player is probably going to remember his trigger now)

I can see arguments for not rewinding, but by the IPG criteria it looks quite like a rewind to me if caught quickly. (We do have GRV's going with this, which should help stop it from being abused)

If he scried something to the top in order to make sure he could bolt his opponent, he probably shouldn't have committed the GRV then. But that doesn't factor into my decision to rewind, that's just kind of how I feel better about rewinds sometimes. It shouldn't be an excuse to be sloppy in our thinking, but it is valid =)

As for being special? It's a little funny in that it's almost a way of sneaking an instance of “you have to remind your opponent of their trigger” in there. But it really isn't that. That funny or feel-bad feeling that come with this seems like a good way to remember that policy is there to protect us (and the players).

I'm intrigued by Nick's comment about Miracles and how they're ruled in the past, but I wasn't a judge back then. I looked through the Comp REL forum for mentions of Miracle but wasn't able to find any discussion about it. I'd really like to use that in calibrating my response here. Having said that, they do look quite different to me. With “Miracle” there is a “May” in the static ability, so it's much easier to consider the rewind disruptive, since you could be presumed to have chosen not to reveal, then changed your mind. We're not so much repairing a broken game state, we're being asked to let someone rewind a mistake. And that sounds MUCH more susceptible to perception of bias to me.

May 29, 2014 01:12:32 AM

Alan Dreher
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Southeast

Keranos Discussion

Yeah. It is very easy to rewind this if it is caught immediately, so I feel like it should be done.

Regarding someone abusing this… Just keep a note of it, issue the warning and if it happens multiple times, do an investigation and slam a DQ on them if they are doing it to gain an advantage(which would be Cheating).

I feel like there is just as much more “advantage” to be gained out of an opponent letting his opponent just not reveal off of Keranos(thus never trigger), as there is in someone trying to “reroll” the trigger.

A rewind to before the GRV, repairing the game state to the best of your ability. It is the most consistent way of handling this, in my opinion.

Edited Alan Dreher (May 29, 2014 01:17:28 AM)

Feb. 12, 2015 09:51:04 AM

Brad Brown
Judge (Uncertified)

USA - Great Lakes

Keranos Discussion

So this came up last week. The head judge looked at AP's hand, and could easily figure out what card he drew (his hand was 1 spell and 3 lands). He took the one card and asked AP if this was the card that was drawn (privately). AP confirmed. The card was placed back on top of the library and revealed. At this point, since the trigger was originally missed, NAP got the choice to put the trigger on the stack.

This seems like a good ruling to me, but I wanted to ask everyone to continue the discussion. All three judges spent about 20 minutes afterwards trying to find an official ruling on this card, but couldn't.