Player A casts Collected company, looks at five cards, makes two valid choices and puts the remaing cards on the bottom of the library then passes turn. Player B then untaps for turn then draws a card. During Player B's Main phase, they realize Player A looked at five cards from collected company instead of six.

This definitely falls under the first sentence of the definition for Hidden card Error, but it feels more like a GRV. How would this be resolved if enforced as a Hidden card Error?

Edited Anthony Hullings (Feb. 13, 2016 08:17:46 PM)

Originally posted by Anthony Hullings:

Player A casts Collected company, looks at five cards, makes two valid choices and puts the remaing cards on the bottom of the library then passes turn. Player B then untaps for turn then draws a card. During Player B's Main phase, they realize Player A looked at five cards from collected company instead of six.

This definitely falls under example A. for Hidden card Error, but it feels more like a GRV. How would this be resolved if enforced as a Hidden card Error?

First, remember that the examples don't define the infraction, the definition does. Example A is:

A player draws four cards after casting Ancestral Recall

I don't understand what you mean by comparing drawing an extra card with looking at one card too few. But regardless, the definition?

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.

I'd actually argue that this *can* be fixed using publicly available information. The information needed to correct this error is the top card of A's library. Had this been caught immediately, we would have “fixed” this by having A look at the 6th card and then placing it on the bottom of his library. Since this isn't one of those situations that is impossible to correct even when caught immediately, it isn't HCE. (That doesn't mean we'll actually fix it that way - too much time has passed for even a rewind, and no partial fix is appropriate. However, a GRV does not become HCE simply because too many subsequent actions were taken.)

Edited Dan Collins (Feb. 13, 2016 08:21:23 PM)

Fixed grammatical error.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

First, remember that the examples don't define the infraction, the definition does. Example A is:

A player draws four cards after casting Ancestral Recall

I don't understand what you mean by comparing drawing an extra card with looking at one card too few. But regardless, the definition?

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.

I'd actually argue that this *can* be fixed using publicly available information. The information needed to correct this error is the top card of A's library. Had this been caught immediately, we would have “fixed” this by having A look at the 6th card and then placing it on the bottom of his library. Since this isn't one of those situations that is impossible to correct even when caught immediately, it isn't HCE. (That doesn't mean we'll actually fix it that way - too much time has passed for even a rewind, and no partial fix is appropriate. However, a GRV does not become HCE simply because too many subsequent actions were taken.)

OK, I see. I'd be interested to see if anyone else is interested in calling this HCE - even if we agree to, I don't believe there's an allowable fix. We can reveal cards to the opponent and allow them to return cards to the “correct” zone - arguably there's one card on the top of the library that should be on the bottom of the library - but we've discussed this in other contexts and decided that the HCE remedy doesn't allow moving cards to the bottom of the library, as “bottom of the library” is not a zone.

So, I'm inclined to answer “no fix” either way. Anyone have a better idea?

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

OK, I see.

It looks like something in Anthony's post disappeared. I don't see anything there other than “Fixed grammatical error”.

Put me in for not-HCE, for the reasons you mentioned. But also, the fix seems like it would have to be “have the player look at the card then shuffle it into random portion of the library”, which is a bit silly and seems like a clue that HCE is probably the wrong tool since its intended to be intuitive most of the time.

I like GRV, no rewind here.

I typo'd on a line that stated that example “A” was an example of this, but it was only the first line of the definition.

Originally posted by Chris Nowak:

Dan Collins
OK, I see.

It looks like something in Anthony's post disappeared. I don't see anything there other than “Fixed grammatical error”.

Put me in for not-HCE, for the reasons you mentioned. But also, the fix seems like it would have to be “have the player look at the card then shuffle it into random portion of the library”, which is a bit silly and seems like a clue that HCE is probably the wrong tool since its intended to be intuitive most of the time.

I like GRV, no rewind here.

It's pretty clear that there was a public error (looking at 5 cards, not 6) fixable by public information (the location of the top card is known, even if its identity is not).

This is a GRV. Partial fixes don't apply here, and I'm not gonna back up, so I'd leave the game state as-is.

I'm going to toss in two cents here, even though it seems as if the Collected Wisdom (heh) of the group so far is that this is a GRV. I met Krug that night after the situation happened and we talked about it a bit. At issue is this language from the definition in the HCE:

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.

Breaking that down … there is an unknown card - #6 - in a hidden location both before and after the error. Only two of the five cards drawn are ‘placed into a public zone’. At all other times the remaining cards were in hidden locations (Private).

So is the wording of the HCE at fault here? I can see calling it a GRV (Krug and I discussed this and we both saw that as a possibility) but it really felt like the HCE was written to address this, even if no example is listed.

I'm sure you can see the confusion this infraction would allow for in a situation as described.

(I'll now go about my business - Krug, if you see anything I've misrepresented here, feel free to give me a homework assignment (semi-private joke)).

Charles, I read the paragraph you quoted as restricting the definition of
HCE, not expanding it. We have the opening paragraph, with the publicly
available information wording, and then we have this paragraph, which says
“this infraction *only* applies”, which restricts the definition a bit
further. The first paragraph - about being unable to correct the error
using publicly available information - still needs to be true in order to
call something HCE.

Dan,

Thank you for the clarification from your end. So your point (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that even though that #6th card is ‘unknown’ as to what it is, it is still ‘known’ because of the placement of the card in the library? As in, we all know what card it is through publicly available information.

How would you assess this penalty? GRV or HCE? I assume from your other post you don't believe a fix is warranted. I can see the logic in that to some extent - although I do feel that fixing it does not harm the overall game state. I feel inclined to argue that moving the card from the top of the library to the bottom is actually what would have naturally happened with the resolution of the spell anyway - and that there is no benefit lost or gained by doing so beyond maintaining the game state correctly.

I feel that this discussion is starting to border on corner case territory here (even though the situation seems very plausible to repeat) so I'll end my contributions to this discussion unless directly asked a question.

Charles

So your point (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that even though that #6th card is ‘unknown’ as to what it is, it is still ‘known’ because of the placement of the card in the library? As in, we all know what card it is through publicly available information.

Correct. cf. http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/24274/

How would you assess this penalty? GRV or HCE?

GRV

I assume from your other post you don't believe a fix is warranted. I can see the logic in that to some extent - although I do feel that fixing it does not harm the overall game state.

Sure, but more importantly, I don't believe a fix is prescribed. A rewind to partway through the resolution of the spell will be probably too disruptive, and no partial fix allows us to move a random card from top to bottom.

Edited Dan Collins (Feb. 14, 2016 12:23:43 PM)