Originally posted by Riki Hayashi:

Cristóbal Vigar Guerrero

Cristóbal Vigar Guerrero
Is he trying to gain an advantage?
As we read, he's gaining cards and lives. He's gaining an advantage.

Careful with this. Many accidental errors will inevitably favor one player or the other with some advantage. The question isn't whether an advantage was gained, but whether he was trying to do so when the illegal action first took place. Look for the cause, not the effect.

Okey, I see the difference.
In a similar scenario we should look if he was trying to draw these cards and gain that lifes, instead of focus in the drawn cards and the gained lifes as evidence? Right?

There are some situations where there is no ‘evidence’ you just have to make a judgement call based on what your instincts tell you after the investigation. This is clearly one of those cases, where the judge's instinct was that it was an honest mistake.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Matt, if you're certain it's not Cheating, then you have to accept that the Revelation was already in hand.

The opponent already allowed the (invisible) spell to resolve, so we can speed through the backup: put 5 cards on top, put Revelation on the stack, it resolves, those 5 cards are right back in hand. Or, just put the Revelation in the graveyard, and say you did the rest…

d:^D

That's a very good point. I could still see the argument that he mistook a card in hand for Rev. ‘cause they look alike/they had a Rev. last turn/whatever, sort of like the “activate a Top no longer on the battlefield”, but that’s an unlikely hypothetical to an already unusual situation. I agree, I think it's fair that if the investigation turned up no foul play, we can pretty safely assume there actually was a Revelation in hand, which makes the backup easy.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Matt, if you're certain it's not Cheating, then you have to accept that the Revelation was already in hand.

The opponent already allowed the (invisible) spell to resolve, so we can speed through the backup: put 5 cards on top, put Revelation on the stack, it resolves, those 5 cards are right back in hand. Or, just put the Revelation in the graveyard, and say you did the rest…

This argument seems very weak to me and it can easily be applied to almost any situations where a player makes an uncorrectable mistake. For example, let's say a player does not reveal a card for Nissa, Vastwood Seer but only have 1 basic forest in hand. If you are certain they're not cheating, you could easily backup the forest fetch or simply just reveal it. Still, that's not what we do.

In many situations we have punishments even if we can't prove cheating, or even if we don't suspect cheating. Cheating is hard to prove and it's important to take away situations where there is potential for abuse. This particular situation may be different because of the confirmation or because it was correctable by the opponent, but in general we don't simply accept what the offender said even if we don't suspect cheating.

@Mats Törnros

Problem is that you dont have alot of Options given the Situation you are facing.

Revelations:

- Card is in Hand, backup
- Card is not in Hand, investigate (Is a simular Card in Hand and he mistook them for Revs?, is Revs in the GV due to discard and he forgot?)

If its in Hand when they call you to the table then just investigate. If you think its not cheating then what else could it be? a honest mistake! dont punish honest mistake with death! ;)

Your situation with Nissa:

Same thing, go to the table if your called and investigate. If you found out its not cheating then same thing, honest mistake. No death penalty either ^^ (just fix it..)

Most mistakes are just honest ones, dont think of every judge call as “OOOOH A CHEATER, LETS RELOAD THE GUN!”

Edited Flu Tschi (Feb. 19, 2016 11:05:29 AM)

Originally posted by Sandro Carlucci:

Your situation with Nissa:

Same thing, go to the table if your called and investigate. If you found out its not cheating then same thing, honest mistake. No death penalty either ^^

This “do nothing” solution is not supported by policy. If someone fails to reveal what they searched for with Nissa, the fix is to let their opponent choose a card from their hand and shuffle it into their deck. This is the case even if you have no indications that they cheated.

Edited Mats Törnros (Feb. 19, 2016 11:00:57 AM)

Yeah i know, i ment do the same as rev. investigate and fix it.

Im just saying dont go around thinking everyone deserves the worst kind of penalty..

Originally posted by Mats Törnros:

This argument seems very weak to me and it can easily be applied to almost any situations where a player makes an uncorrectable mistake. For example, let's say a player does not reveal a card for Nissa, Vastwood Seer but only have 1 basic forest in hand. If you are certain they're not cheating, you could easily backup the forest fetch or simply just reveal it. Still, that's not what we do.

In many situations we have punishments even if we can't prove cheating, or even if we don't suspect cheating. Cheating is hard to prove and it's important to take away situations where there is potential for abuse. This particular situation may be different because of the confirmation or because it was correctable by the opponent, but in general we don't simply accept what the offender said even if we don't suspect cheating.

These situations are different, so the solutions are different. Fetching a Forest with Nissa but failing to reveal is clear HCE; in the situation I presented, the point of error was GRV (spell was cast legally except for the ‘move to the stack’ part, when the opponent had priority and could have caught the error before confirming the draw). So if we find that they're not cheating, then for Nissa we apply the textbook HCE fix, and for Revelation we apply the only solution under GRV that applies (back up, move Revelation to Stack, start resolving Revelation again).

As for “… we don't simply accept what the offender said…”; As I understand the philosophy, solutions in the IPG are intended to negate any advantage that can be gained by the player who committed the error, not simply to penalize them. Generally the only fair way to negate an advantage without leaning on Judge impartiality is to allow the opponent to fix things, but an example of a non-punitive fix that negates advantage is when a player draws too many cards in an opening hand; we allow the player to choose to mulligan, rather than apply the HCE “Perish the Thought” fix. In the Revelation case, our options seem to be:

(1) Deviate from policy by giving a Game Loss, or by applying the HCE fix, allowing the opponent to shuffle away either 5 or 6 cards (the 5 drawn for Revelation, plus the Revelation itself, or put Revelation in graveyard). Deviating here seems pretty unsupportable, though. This option does negate any advantage the player could have gained, but additionally punishes the player in a manner that does not match other GRV solutions.

(2) Apply a penalty of GRV, and apply no fix because we cannot guarantee that Revelation was in hand when it was announced, and so cannot rewind to that state. This rewards the player, however, as they now have 5 cards in hand, 5 life, and can cast Revelation again next turn. They've clearly gained an advantage over legally casting the spell.

(3) Apply a penalty of GRV, and attempt a back-up to the state in which Sphinx's Revelation was being cast from hand. This results in the same end state (drawn 5 cards, gained 5 life, tapped 8 lands), except that Sphinx's Revelation will be in the graveyard instead of the hand. The player has not gained an advantage over legally casting the spell, nor have they been ‘punished’ for their error beyond the GRV - Warning.

These appear to be the only outcomes to the situation, if we assume that the player was not Cheating, and if we assume that the error committed by the player was in fact a GRV.

Originally posted by Matt Wall:

Deviate from policy by giving a Game Loss … Deviating here seems pretty unsupportable, though.

Exactly - there's nothing Significant, nor Exceptional, about this situation.

Yes, it is unusual that the player forgot to physically place the spell on the stack, as part of casting it - but that's not Significant, and unusual doesn't necessarily equal Exceptional.

IPG
…may not deviate from this guide’s procedures except in significant and exceptional circumstances or a situation that has no applicable philosophy for guidance.

The philosophy in the IPG applies just fine, so - as I noted before - we back up to the point of the error - 5 random cards (but not Sphinx's Revelation) on top of the library, the spell is announced, but the card was never moved to the stack; put it on the stack, and the opponent has priority. If the opponent isn't going to respond the second time, either, then we can save some time by skipping the physical manipulation of randomly moving 5 cards around for all of 3 seconds; instead, just put Sphinx's Revelation in the graveyard, record infraction(s), and move on.

d:^D

Edited Scott Marshall (Feb. 21, 2016 12:44:29 PM)