Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool! This week we have a Silver scenario, so L2s should wait until after their FNM to join the conversation.

Alexander and Neena are playing in a PPTQ. Alexander controls two Smuggler’s Copters and two creatures. He crews both of his Smuggler’s Copters and attacks Neena with them. Alexander points at his attackers, announces “Draw two. Discard two.”, picks up two cards from his library and, before Neena can stop him, adds them to his hand. Neena calls for a judge. What do you do?

Edited Eric Paré (Jan. 11, 2017 06:32:47 PM)

It would seem he tried to resolve both triggers at once, so to fix we explain that they are seperate triggers, and he is improperly resolving the first of the two. Give him a warning for HCE and have Neena choose and shuffle into the library one card from Alex's hand, then he must to discard one to complete the trigger, then he gets to resolve the second trigger seperately.

First You ask Alexander to explain the situation, and check if he know exactly the ruling to see if he wanted to cheat or not.
After that, the penalty is “Hidden Card Error”. So you ask him to show his hand to Neena. Neena choose one card and you shuffle it in the library (and be careful if there is any card that we know the location (ex: scry)).

Then Alexander discard a card, then he can resolve the other trigger (draw one and discard one).

And you give a warning HCE to Alexander.

That's right?

Edited Gaël Lafenêtre (Jan. 11, 2017 07:58:28 PM)

So, first of all, I would explain Alexander that each trigger is independent, so he would have the opportunity to draw and discard one card and then another opportunity to do the same. So the penalty is GPE/HCE - Warning and the fix is to let Neena look at his hand, choose one card from it to be shuffled into the random portion of the library, and then Alexander discard one card. Then the ability of the second Copter resolves and Alexander may draw a card and discard a card. Remind Alex to play more carefully and that if he's not sure about something we are there to try and answer his doubts :)

We are missing a piece of information here. Did Alexander have any cards in his hand to start with? If he didn't have any cards in hand, then this is simply out of order sequencing and both cards would be discarded. No penalty.

Edited Peter Davies (Jan. 11, 2017 10:23:35 PM)

Let's avoid the trivial case and say Alexander had two cards in hand before any actions were taken.

Also as always, you can rule out cheating in KP scenarios.

Another issue. Is this a standard PPTQ? If so, Smuggler's Copter is currently banned in that format. He is playing with banned cards in his deck, this is a Tournament Error - Deck/Decklist Problem and he would get a Game Loss.

The intent of this scenario is to discuss the error of drawing cards.

That being said, Smuggler's Copter is still legal in Standard, even though its days are numbered.

Peter, that ban is not yet in effect; also, the scenario as presented is what you should be looking at, not all the variations you might imagine.

d:^D

Sorry, was just trying to cover all possibilities.

Warning to Alexander for HCE. He reveals his hand to Neena and they choose 2 cards to send to the graveyard.

I see three possible scenario's. After ruling out cheating I would need two pieces of information to completely fix this.

1. Were the top 2 cards known to the player?
2. Why did the player think he could draw two cards at once? Did he think the trigger was “draw 2, discard 1(or 2 or whatever)”? Or did he actually try to resolve both triggers at once.

It may be a bit of a corner case, but if both cards were already known due to a scry or something else, we actually do not have a problem here. He already had the information about the cards, so there was nothing gained and he could just apply out-of-order sequencing.

To me the most likely scenario is that he tried to do some out-of-order sequencing where he couldn't. In this case the problem actually is not him drawing the second card, but him not discarding a card after the first draw. This falls under GRV. The fix here is very simple: make him discard. Yes there was a minor advantage gained, but there is no clean backup for this that would remove this advantage without causing other problems. Furthermore give him the warning for GRV, and ofcourse do not give the opponent the warning for FTMGS.

A less likely scenario is that he misunderstood the trigger in a way that he thought he could draw 2 for a single trigger. This would make it HCE. The fix here is to reveal the hand, let the opponent choose a card and shuffle that into the random portion of the deck and then let the opponent finish resolving the first trigger. After that he can completely resolve the second trigger as well. Edit: And do not forget the warning.

Edit 2: If I made any mistakes here and a level 2+ sees it, feel free to email me already to correct me.

Edited Harm Tacoma (Jan. 12, 2017 12:07:31 PM)

Originally posted by Harm Tacoma:

1. Were the top 2 cards known to the player?

They were not.

I don't think that the intent of the player is relevant here. He drew a second card when he wasn't supposed to, which falls under HCE. Specifically, he drew a card before he discarded a card, so I believe it would fall under this section of the additional remedy:

If the error put cards into a set prematurely and other operations involving cards in the set should have been performed first, the player reveals the set of cards that contains the excess and his or her opponent chooses a number of previously-unknown cards. Put those cards aside until the point at which they should have been legally added, then return them to the set.

The fix is to have Alexander discard any card except one of Neena's choice, then discard a second card. He did gain some information here, but that's not really possible to fix and is hopefully offset by Neena's knowledge of Alexander's hand.

Edited Isaac King (Jan. 16, 2017 11:12:23 PM)

Alright! It’s time to wrap this one up! Thank you, judges, for your participation in this scenario.

Although everyone seemed to correctly identify the infraction and penalty as a Hidden Card Error and a Warning, it was Isaac King who identified the correct remedy. As stated in MIPG section 2.3; GPE – Hidden Card Error (in part):

If the error put cards into a set prematurely and other operations involving cards in the set should have been performed first, the player reveals the set of cards that contains the excess and his or her opponent chooses a number of previously-unknown cards. Put those cards aside until the point at which they should have been legally added, then return them to the set.

In this case, the set of cards is Alexander’s hand, and the second card drawn for Smuggler’s Copter triggers was the prematurely added card. To remedy this error, Alexander reveals his hand and Neena will choose one card that Alexander cannot discard for the first Smuggler’s Copter triggered ability. We set that card aside, have Alexander complete the first trigger, and then add it back to his hand before discarding a card for the second trigger. Neena does not receive Failure to Maintain Game state, as she called for a judge as soon as he could have noticed the error.

@Eric: May I ask why we do not randomize the second card drawn? Knowledge of the second card may impact the player's decision of what to discard to the first trigger, knowledge which he is not entitled to. So I would argue that the correct fix would to do as stated, except that we shuffle the second card into the deck (the randomized portion of the deck, to be pedantic) rather than put it back on top (or “set aside”, to be pedantic).