I'd just like to talk about the new Hidden Card Error. There are plenty of threads about specific scenarios, that isn't this thread, I'd like to discuss the overall infraction.

Originally posted by IPG 2.3:

A player commits a Game Play Error that cannot be corrected by only publicly available information and does so without his or her opponent's permission.

This infraction only applies when an unknown card is in a hidden location both before and after the error. If cards are placed into a public zone their order is known and the infraction can be handled as a Game Rule Violation. Order cannot be determined by card faces only visible to one player unless the zone in question contains only a single card.

This new policy section has obviously caused a lot of confusing and misunderstanding. Simply reading through the text of the infraction shows that there are some ambiguities. To prove it, one needs only to look at his follow up blog post where he adds the new test: if the HCE remedy would be “ridiculous”, then it isn't HCE.



Player looks at the top 3 cards believing he has a top in play. Player does not have a top in play. Toby's answer here is “I don't think there's any need to involve the opponent here”. I think that means he's saying this is LEC -> Shuffle. What if some or all of the top 3 cards are known? Players spin top to reorder a known top 3 all the time. What would we do if the top 3 cards were all known before the illegal top? *this* seems to meet HCE! We can't correct it with publicly available information, because the order of the top 3 before the activation is not publicly available. Is it HCE yet? I'd argue that it is if any number of cards on top were known to the top player before the activation.



This one raised some interest on the forums. If a player shuffles after resolving their Collected Company, they have committed a GRV. Between 4 and 6 unknown cards were in a hidden location (the library) both before and after. We cannot restore those cards to the bottom of the library with publicly available information. The opponent didn't grant permission, and nothing was placed into a public zone. However, Scott provides us with a new rule - if it would not have been a Game Loss before, and no backup or partial fix is reasonable, leave things as they are.



So now we'll look specifically at “publicly available information”. Can resolving this spell, putting a card on top of your library without revealing it, be corrected by publicly available information? Is the identity of a card in the library publicly available? As much as I'd like to just reveal the top card and move on, it really seems like the IPG is telling me to shuffle here. I prefer the good old “uniquely identifiable position”, the top card of your library is information that a judge can use to prove to all players that your actions were legal, or that we're fixing the situation correctly, but it isn't “publicly available information” by any stretch of the imagination.

—

OK, get to the point

I do like the way this new infraction “condenses” a bunch of different issues under one infraction and fix. I like the way that we can teach one intuitive fix that will probably solve most problems. However, I think we've gotten too greedy. In an effort to catch as much as possible in this infraction, in an effort to shoehorn DEC and Failure to Reveal into the same infraction, we've gone too far and are left questioning what even falls into this infraction. Cards on the top and bottom of the library are part of the problem, but not the only one. Just have a look at the situations and comments on Toby's blog post to see other sources of confusion.

So let's still look only at the definition. Here is my attempt to draft something (almost as) broad, but which is a bit more heuristic. I'm wondering why this format wouldn't work better, or if this language was considered.

Proposed text "A"
A player commits a Game Play Error by doing any of the following:
* moving unknown cards between zones or within the library at an incorrect time
* moving unknown cards between zones or within the library without revealing them first when required to do so
* when instructed to perform an action to a set of cards on the top of the library, adding too many cards to that set

If the information required to correct the error was ever in a uniquely identifiable position after the infraction became apparent, reveal that information if possible, and take no further action.

We infract what used to be DEC, we also infract what used to be an upgraded GRV. Tutoring to hand without revealing is covered, so is tutoring to the top of the library (but the simpler fix - just reveal that information - is explicit rather than assumed). Shuffle after CoCo is a plain GRV. Improper drawing at start of game is still covered (both drawing 7 on a mull to 6 and taking a mulligan at an incorrect time involve moving unknown cards between zones at an incorrect time). Misplaying morph (casting a spell that does not have morph for {3}) is covered, as is “accidentally picking up a face down card”.

Since this definition is clear, a lot of the corner cases that people have come up with clearly don't apply. Activating a non-existent Top is clearly still LEC, skipping Dark Confidant entirely is clearly still MT, but drawing for Dark Confidant without revealing is still HCE. Bouncing a morph to hand without revealing it is a bit awkward - by this draft, I think you would end up just revealing the entire hand. Technically the opponent would choose a card to put into play face down and it would then get immediately bounced again, shortcutting that to “reveal your hand” is something judges and players are generally good at understanding.

Sure, this definition isn't quite as elegant - it doesn't manage to fit everything into one clause. If that's the objective, this is best I have:

Proposed text "B"
A player commits a Game Play Error by adding unknown cards to a hidden zone or to a set of hidden cards without revealing them first, does so without his or her opponent's permission, and immediately after the error becomes visible, the cards are not in a uniquely identifiable position such as the top of the library or the only card in hand.

A “set” of hidden cards is created when a player is instructed to “look at the top X cards of your library”. This infraction applies only if cards were added to the zone or set of cards when they should not have been, or if they should have been revealed before being added to that zone or set.

If there are other things that should be covered, let's talk about them - I understand that there are a lot of different situations that we're trying to handle in certain ways, and I understand that it's tough to do that without making the IPG into an encyclopedia or requiring a telepresence Toby Elliott at every Competitive event, but I'd legitimately like to know why we can't be clear and specific about what is getting this special fix. Let's assume that we're making no change to the HCE additional remedy, including the morph upgrade, I'm really just looking at the definition of the infraction, and the line between HCE and GRV - that seems to be the biggest area of confusion.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

This new policy section has obviously caused a lot of confusing and misunderstanding. Simply reading through the text of the infraction shows that there are some ambiguities. To prove it, one needs only to look at his follow up blog post where he adds the new test: if the HCE remedy would be “ridiculous”, then it isn't HCE.

It's not a test to clarify ambiguity. It's guidance that with a new rule, there may be some misunderstanding and you might want to be conservative here. There certainly may be weird corners where this provides a bad answer, and those will get worked out.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

Player looks at the top 3 cards believing he has a top in play. Player does not have a top in play. Toby's answer here is “I don't think there's any need to involve the opponent here”. I think that means he's saying this is LEC -> Shuffle. What if some or all of the top 3 cards are known? Players spin top to reorder a known top 3 all the time. What would we do if the top 3 cards were all known before the illegal top? *this* seems to meet HCE! We can't correct it with publicly available information, because the order of the top 3 before the activation is not publicly available. Is it HCE yet? I'd argue that it is if any number of cards on top were known to the top player before the activation.

This works out the same either way, and there's really no good fix here.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

This one raised some interest on the forums. If a player shuffles after resolving their Collected Company, they have committed a GRV.

This one has been clarified to be HCE (with no applicable fix). There was apparently a second discussion in that thread that confused the situation, which is unfortunate.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

So now we'll look specifically at “publicly available information”. Can resolving this spell, putting a card on top of your library without revealing it, be corrected by publicly available information?

Yes. “You need to reveal the top card of your library.” Everyone has full knowledge of everything needed to fix the situation.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

Is the identity of a card in the library publicly available?

No, but the existence of a card in a specific position in of your library is.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

OK, get to the point

Where's the fun in that? ;)

Your proposed text looks reasonable on the surface, and we'll certainly be looking at all kinds of ways to make the infraction more understandable. You've identified the core balance - between making it long enough to be understandable but not too long to be a burden. The key is to get the core right, then polish off the weird corners. That will continue to happen, including based on feedback here. Thanks!

Edited Toby Elliott (Jan. 27, 2016 09:45:10 PM)

Dan: Is there a reason you continue to use the language: “perform an action to a set of cards on top of the library”?

It seems to me that at some point there may be cards that specifically manipulate the bottom of the library. Or there may be cases where a strange error comes up.

Example: A player correctly resolves Fertile Thicket's ability. They put the 4 on bottom but then second guess the order and remove the cards to alter it. They then discover there are 5 cards there.

In this case they are not being asked to perform an action to a set of cards on the bottom of their library. They are just looking at extra cards.
Sean

Subject: Re: Hidden Card Error - philosophy and language (Competitive REL)
From: forum-24278-b25c@apps.magicjudges.org
To: sean_crain14@hotmail.com
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 03:30:14 +0000

Dan: Is there a reason you continue to use the language:
“perform an action to a set of cards on top of the
library”?

It seems to me that at some point there may
be cards that specifically manipulate the bottom of the library. Or
there may be cases where a strange error comes up.

Example: A
player correctly resolves Fertile Thicket's
ability. They put the 4 on bottom but then second guess the order and
remove the cards to alter it. They then discover there are 5 cards
there.

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Originally posted by Dan Collins:

Player looks at the top 3 cards believing he has a top in play. Player does not have a top in play. Toby's answer here is “I don't think there's any need to involve the opponent here”. I think that means he's saying this is LEC -> Shuffle. What if some or all of the top 3 cards are known? Players spin top to reorder a known top 3 all the time. What would we do if the top 3 cards were all known before the illegal top? *this* seems to meet HCE! We can't correct it with publicly available information, because the order of the top 3 before the activation is not publicly available. Is it HCE yet? I'd argue that it is if any number of cards on top were known to the top player before the activation.

In order for this error to be HCE, the player must do more than just activate a non-existent top; he must do so without any sort of acknowledgement from his opponent. As soon as the opponent acknowledges the activation at all, we are solidly in “be careful not to apply this infraction in situations where a publicly-correctable error subsequently leads to an uncorrectable situation” territory.

I believe the “perform an action on a set of cards on top of the library” is meant to handle cards such as Dig through Time, Anticipate, and Collected Company (the part about looking at cards and putting 2 into play). I don't think it's intended to handle effects like Sensei's Divining Top. I think the situation you described, both before and after the fix, would be handled as LEC; as I would say it's LEC and not HCE I'm not going to enter into the discussion of how to fix it since that's beyond the scope of this thread (I think so anyway).

I think the interpretation of HCE which includes Sensei's Top, while reasonable, includes by definition flushing a very large portion of LEC under HCE (a specific example being that, if you assume the Sensei's Top example to be HCE, I think a reasonable argument can be made that drawing a card and accidentally seeing the card underneath could also be ruled HCE rather than LEC); since LEC still exists largely unchanged from before, it appears to me that this change was unintentional. For that reason, I like your “Proposed text B”, although I'm unsure if it covers everything intended to be covered by HCE.

Possibly because I'm a bit tired while writing this, but also possibly due to the actual content of the document (I'm unsure as to which), the definition of HCE seems a bit hard to read to me. I wouldn't mind a tightening up of the language if such a thing can reasonably be done. Specifically, a clear line between where HCE ends and LEC begins (or vice-versa) would be nice.

I'm a bit confused about the shuffling after a Collected Company example. Toby says this is GPE-HCE, with no applicable fix. I can get behind the idea that it's HCE, since 4-6 cards that should be on the bottom of the library are no longer there. I don't understand the no applicable fix part. In the IPG, under “Additional Remedy”, there's the “Rummaging Goblin” exception, followed by “Otherwise, the player reveals the complete set of cards that contains the unrecoverable information…”

In this case, isn't the library the complete set of cards, and the opponent chooses 4-6 cards to put on the bottom? Now I don't agree with this as a fix - no applicable fix feels better - but how does this fit the IPG?

Originally posted by Christopher Wendelboe:

Dan: Is there a reason you continue to use the language: “perform an action to a set of cards on top of the library”?

It seems to me that at some point there may be cards that specifically manipulate the bottom of the library. Or there may be cases where a strange error comes up.

Lyle is correct. This is almost the same language previously used to call out effects like Dig Through Time, CoCo, and yes, Fertile Thicket.

Huw Morris
I'm a bit confused about the shuffling after a Collected Company example. Toby says this is GPE-HCE, with no applicable fix. I can get behind the idea that it's HCE, since 4-6 cards that should be on the bottom of the library are no longer there. I don't understand the no applicable fix part. In the IPG, under “Additional Remedy”, there's the “Rummaging Goblin” exception, followed by “Otherwise, the player reveals the complete set of cards that contains the unrecoverable information…”

In this case, isn't the library the complete set of cards, and the opponent chooses 4-6 cards to put on the bottom? Now I don't agree with this as a fix - no applicable fix feels better - but how does this fit the IPG?

The “bottom of the library” is not a “zone”. The IPG requires, when executing the “perish the thought” fix, that the opponent choose cards and return them to the correct zone, and that we shuffle the library if we're returning cards to the library. (Toby's follow up blog post addresses this with respect to returning cards to the top of the library.) So, if we were to apply the Perish the Thought fix as written, we reveal the library, and the opponent selects 4-6 cards and shuffles them into the random portion of the library. Toby's “if you don't like the fix, just issue the GRV” is a bit vague, but I think we can agree it applies here. I'd rather just remove any ambiguity and call this a GRV in the first place. *shrug*

This new HCE is extremely confusing to me. I'm really hoping some Tournament Reports come out with some specifics of how situations are handled. Thank you for the examples Dan.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

The “bottom of the library” is not a “zone”. The IPG requires, when executing the “perish the thought” fix, that the opponent choose cards and return them to the correct zone, and that we shuffle the library if we're returning cards to the library. (Toby's follow up blog post addresses this with respect to returning cards to the top of the library.) So, if we were to apply the Perish the Thought fix as written, we reveal the library, and the opponent selects 4-6 cards and shuffles them into the random portion of the library. Toby's “if you don't like the fix, just issue the GRV” is a bit vague, but I think we can agree it applies here. I'd rather just remove any ambiguity and call this a GRV in the first place. *shrug*

This is what I'm struggling to understand. If we call it a GRV (which also seems reasonable), then the fix is to issue the Warning and move on. However, Toby clarified that this is a HCE, but his fix doesn't appear to be supported by the IPG. If you were to follow the IPG, the opponent would get to see your library before shuffling, which feels wrong. If the “perish the thought” clause, as you call it, was optional, then it wouldn't matter either way.

Reading through the Collected Company thread, I'm starting to get an inkling of where the ‘problem’ might be (or, at least, one of the problems). When an opponent is picking-and-moving multiple cards (especially four or more), the swing in advantage is huge.

Example 1: Shuffling after Collected Company. Some people feel that the intuitive HCE fix would be to have the opponent pick and choose 4-6 cards to move to the bottom of library (as appropriate), and shuffle the remainder of the library. This, of course, would be a huge advantage for the opponent, who can put all 4 copies of a win-con on the bottom of the deck.

Example 2: Accidentally shuffling hand into library. It's been semi-officially stated that the HCE fix for this rare situation is for the opponent to look at the library, and pick cards to make up the player's new hand. While this is not as bad for the player as the previous fix (do nothing), it still leaves the game extremely one-sided, since that player will presumably have a hand of 5-7 basic lands, and the opponent will know it.

The other problem is that, intuitively, it feels like certain ‘known’ positions in library (like top or bottom of library) should be a place we can ‘thoughtseize’ cards to, but this is not at all supported (and, language to support it would probably make HCE quite convoluted)


—-

On an unrelated note, another scenario that might be falling between the cracks.
A player resolves Domri Rade's ability, and puts a card in their hand without revealing it. When we go to apply the HCE fix, it's revealed that the player has no creature cards in hand. Assuming that this is not cheating, the appropriate fix is still to just shuffle one card of the opponent's choice away.

Under the old rules, merely having drawn without revealing off of Domri would have been a game loss. Under the new rules - two violations have been committed. Failing to reveal, and drawing a card when the game rules would not have allowed it. Due to the first error, the opponent wouldn't have had the chance to verify the legality of the second error. Neither of these brings a game loss.

On Sat, Jan 30, 2016 at 11:50 AM, Talin Salway
<forum-24278-8bda@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:
> On an unrelated note, another scenario that might be falling between the
> cracks.
> A player resolves Domri Rade's ability, and puts a card in their hand
> without revealing it. When we go to apply the HCE fix, it's revealed that
> the player has no creature cards in hand. Assuming that this is not
> cheating, the appropriate fix is still to just shuffle one card of the
> opponent's choice away.
>
> Under the old rules, merely having drawn without revealing off of Domri
> would have been a game loss. Under the new rules - two violations have been
> committed. Failing to reveal, and drawing a card when the game rules would
> not have allowed it. Due to the first error, the opponent wouldn't have had
> the chance to verify the legality of the second error. Neither of these
> brings a game loss.


Yeah the new rules are pretty awesome in many many situations. With
the HCE fix there is still very little chance at benefiting from
mis-resolving Domri Rade but we don't have to end the game
premeturely. Win-win!

–
Gareth Pye - blog.cerberos.id.au
Level 2 MTG Judge, Melbourne, Australia

Originally posted by Talin Salway:

It's been semi-officially stated

Huh? as Wikipedia might say, “citation needed”.

Also, re: Domri Rade and similar effects - remember that the HCE remedy doesn't restrict the opponent to only choosing a card of the type referenced by the instruction that was misplayed. If I +1 Domri Rade and put a card in my hand without revealing it, the judge has me reveal my hand, and you see 2 creatures, 1 land, 2 spells - you can take the land, you can take either of the spells, or you can take either of the creatures. The HCE fix is non-specific; it's only looking for the number of excess or unverified cards.

Yes, it's suspicious if someone +1's Domri, and the revealed hand has no creature cards. That hasn't changed - an investigation is in order, no matter the contents of the hand.

d:^D