Hello everyone :D

Alex and Nina are playing in a Competitive Tournament.
Alex casts a Ponder but, accidentally, he adds immediately the 3 cards to his hand.
Nina calls for a judge.

This is an HCE, but how do we fix it?
I spoke about it with other judges in my area and we came up with different solutions:
1) All the 3 cards are considered to be “excess cards”, so they are shuffled away and Alex re-does Ponder correctly;
2) Alex was supposed to draw just one card, so the “excess cards” are 2: we shuffle them away and we leave everything else as it is;
3) Those 3 cards are considered to be “known”, according to the fact that Alex was allowed to look at them before adding one to his hand. So Nina chooses 3 cards among those in Alex's hand, reconstructing the original Ponder Set, and Alex performs his choices on it, resolving the spell correctly.

I like the third one more than the others but, according to the IPG, it seems that this can not be applied.
This could be possible only if:
- the cards was already known before starting to resolve Ponder;
- the known cards come from the library only and not from another zone/set.

Which is the correct solution?
Thanks for your answers!

Jacopo

Edited Jacopo Strati (March 13, 2017 10:11:05 AM)

Actually I dismiss 1 and 2 immediately since I do not think that it is supported by the IPG in this case. (In addition to this, I is utterly destructive and 2 is even worse)
The error is to put 3 cards into your hand. Technically you know them before putting them to your hand so your first issue does not seem to be applicable here and the 3 cards are knowb to the player who has drawn them (at least for me). previous to the error (the criterion is not before the ponder Imho)

What is interesting is that we can have here 2 reasonnings :

I°) You assume that the 3 cards are in excess
Fix in 2 parts :
- Ask the opponent to chose 3
- Ask the player to perform the ponder with those 3 cards.

II°) You assume that there are 2 cards in excess because you consider 1 card that had to be drawn in the end.
-As the opponent to chose 2
-Ask the player to put the 2 cards back on top in any order
This reasonning bothers me because you assume the player's choice to not shuffle, so I would not do it here.

Choice I°) for me, so your choice number 3

T_O

Edited Théo CHENG (March 13, 2017 11:12:40 AM)

Considering only 2 as excess cards seems wrong to me, since Ponder gives the player the choice to shuffle the deck before drawing if he doesn't like those 3. By going with the “remove 2 fix”, you deny him that option.

This question has some similarities to the topic I started a few days ago. I believe the correct fix would be to redo the Ponder with 3 cards chosen by the opponent but the IPG text regarding this is confusing me (and others).

Both of Theo's choices are viable and supported. Note that the “ponder set” is a perfectly legitimate place to return cards to and is probably the best answer here.

Thanks for your answer, Toby. ^___^

Edited Jacopo Strati (March 14, 2017 01:13:44 AM)