This is a very interesting question, as it relates to a section of policy which is badly drafted and therefore requires some reasonable interpretation.

The problem here is that the official tournament shortcut, as worded in the MTR, simply does not make sense:

Originally posted by MTR 4.2:

If a player casts a spell or activates an ability with X in its mana cost without specifying the value of X, it is assumed to be for all mana currently available in his or her pool.

Let's consider the central case where this shortcut would apply (ignoring the Thalia complication for the present): a player taps out–let's assume he can generate RRR from all his lands–and casts Devil's Play targeting his opponent without specifying a value for X. Obviously, the player intends X to equal 2 (given that Devil's Play costs XR), and this is the result that the shortcut obviously intends to happen. The problem is that, at the time the spell is announced and put on the stack, the player has RRR in his mana pool, which by the strict wording of the shortcut would mean that X is assumed to be 3, not 2 (as RRR is “all mana currently available in his or her pool”). This would mean that, when the time comes to pay the spell's cost, the total cost is calculated to be 3R, the player is unable to pay the cost, and the game rewinds the casting of the spell.

I think it is clear that this result is obviously not what was intended when the shortcut was drafted. It therefore follows that the wording of the shortcut cannot be interpreted literally. Rather, the shortcut ought to be interpreted to mean something like this:

If a player casts a spell or activates an ability with X in its mana cost without specifying the value of X, it is assumed to be for all mana currently available in his or her pool, disregarding any mana required to pay other costs associated with the casting of the spell or activation of the ability

Thus, given that R is another cost associated with casting Devil's Play, the shortcut does not count it when determining the assumed vale for X. X is therefore assumed to be 2, which is as intended.

Now at last we come to the question at hand: what happens when there is a Thalia in play? This essentially boils down to a question of policy which has yet to be answered: how broadly should we interpret “other costs associated with casting the spell …”? Should that only include the non-X portion of the mana cost printed on the card itself? Should it also include mandatory costs like those imposed by Thalia or Sphere of Resistance? Should it also include optional costs like kicker?

Personally, I would choose the first option: by restricting the interpretation only to the non-X portion of the printed cost, we ensure that the shortcut functions as intended whilst reading as little as possible into the text of the rules. If this is the case, the correct answer to this question is that X is assumed to be 2 (because the R in Devil's Play's cost is disregarded, but not the 1 from Thalia's ability, when calculating “all mana currently available in his or her pool”), so the total cost (including Thalia) to cast the spell is 3R. Casting a spell which costs 3R with only RRR is a textbook case of a GPE: GRV. From the question, it seems the error was caught as the spell was going to resolve, so it is too late to do a rewind under the comp rules (which mandate a rewind only when a player finds himself unable to pay the cost at the time costs must be paid). We therefore give A a Warning for GPE: GRV and ask the head judge for permission to rewind. If I were head judge, I would certainly grant permission, as the error was caught immediately with no intervening decision points.

I would, however, find it reasonable if policy makers chose also to include mandatory costs from external sources (such as Thalia) within the interpretation of “other costs associated with casting the spell…”. If that is the case, then the correct answer to this question is that X is assumed to be 1 (because the shortcut disregards both the R from Devil's Play's printed cost and the 1 from Thalia when calculating “all mana currently available in his or her pool”), meaning that the total cost to cast the spell was 2R. The casting of the spell was therefore perfectly legal, N takes 1 damage, and the players are instructed to play on.

TL; DR: the answer depends upon choosing a particular interpretation of a badly worded shortcut; I would personally choose the interpretation which leads to a rewind, because that interpretation preserves the intended function of the shortcut whilst reading into it as little extra meaning as possible.

Edited Robert Hinrichsen (June 5, 2013 05:58:45 PM)

First I would determine if I needed to investigate to make sure Abe wasn't cheating when attempting to cast Devil's Play. Assuming he didn't…..

It's clear Abe's intent was to cast Devil's Play for x=2, so Abe attempted to cast a spell without paying the required resources to cast it. Since that is the cast we'd get permission from the head judge to back up the game to the point before the error occured. Abe would receive a GPE - GRV, and Norman would not receive a penalty since he spotted the discrepency immediatly.

Now it has been argued that we should accept it as x=1 because it states in the MTR that if the player doesn't define X it's assumed that all the mana in the players mana pool is used for x (in this case 1). However X was defined when the player stated they are dealing lethal to the opponent, in this case it's a game rule violation.

As an addendum to my question about the 4th mana source. I don't think it makes a difference to the ruling, but I think it affects the “Customer Service” aspect of how to manage the expectations of either player. If Abe has 3 lands, and the ruling is a rewind, it's very easy to say, “back into hand, untap. Play on.” With a 4th land it needs to be handled much more delicately.

I was pondering this one over lunch and came to the same conclusion that this is Shortcut vs GRV. I don't think there is going to be a clear cut quote that will dictate a black and white correct answer. I think that…. *Okay I just read Robert's post and there's no way I can beat that.*

I'm grasping at edge cases here, but I also feel there should be a little bit of an investigation as to exactly what the intent was. I.e. did Abe have 6 mana open and was playing around Mana leak. When Neils indicates it resolves, he indicates the extra damage? Was the exchange succinct enough that Abe didn't get extra information? I don't actually expect to find any foul play here, but I think it's worth a momentary sidebar.

All that being said, I think Robert and Paul covered it perfectly.

Hi everyone! First off, awesome discussions so far. Second, one big issue I'll put to rest:
There is no cheating in this scenario. Yes in real life we would do some due diligence, however here assume that this is an honest mistake.

Happy discussing!

Originally posted by Mark Mc Govern:

Yes, but at the time that Abe was supposed to say what the value of X was, he didn't, so the MTR shortcut tells us X=2 as at that stage that's the mana left in pool.

That's simply inaccurate. There is only time at which X is paid and the shortcut applies, and at that time additional costs are already factored in. Devil's Play has a total cost of X1R for the purposes of determining X when Thalia is in play whether tournament shortcuts are invoked or not.

A couple of things are jumping out at me regarding this scenario:

1. Abe is the one calling the judge, not Norman.
2. So far, all Norman seems to have done is asked Abe for clarification about what he's doing.

I would first ask Abe (since he's the one who called) what he is doing and let him answer. If he says, “I screwed up and cast devils play for 1 when I meant to cast it for 2”, then that's what he did and we resolve devils play for 1. If he says “I'm casting Devils play for 2, but I forgot about Thalia” then that's what he did, and we issue him a GRV, get permission for a rewind.

I'm going to cite another shortcut that players commonly ask for clarification on:

A player is assumed to be attacking another player and not any planeswalkers that player may control
unless the attacking player specifies otherwise

It's very common for a player to declare attackers without specifying and for the opponent to ask for clarification. If the opponent asks for clarification, I don't believe we hold them to the shortcut if they specify otherwise.

Edited Michael White (June 5, 2013 10:26:24 PM)

First of all, Robert makes a very strong point that from a technical standpoint, the shortcut as written doesn't work, because if X is assumed to be for all mana available in his or her pool, then there isn't any mana left to play for the R required by devil's play. The logical way to interpret that shortcut for me is “you get what you payed for”.

In this case, Abe payed three mana to play a devil's play. devil's play costs at least 2 mana before determining X (one for the spell, one for Thalia), so that leaves X with a value of 1. So following my interpretation of the shortcut, he cast Devil's Play for X=1.

It is also clear to me from his reaction when resolving the spell that this wasn't Abe's intention. He intended to play devil's play for X=2 and wanted to shortcut the announcement, forgetting about Thalia.

I am uncomfortable with forcing Abe to stick to the shortcut. When I'm reading the beginning section of MTR 4.2, the philosophy behind shortcuts seems to be that they allow clear play to the mutual understanding of both players without getting bogged down in the minutia of the rules. If we force Abe to stick to the shortcut, we achieve the exact opposite of what we want to achieve with shortcuts. The presence of Thalia causes the situation to be unclear, with the result that it's no longer mutually understood by both players. One of the players believes he is proposing a different shortcut then he actually proposes. Since that is the case, the shortcut should no longer apply, and the situation ought to be resolved without using shortcuts in order to guarantee more clarity.

Note that I consider this situation rather close though. “I want to attack” “sure, go ahead” “activate my pestermite enchanted with splinter twin 1000x” is a very similar situation, but there I would have the player stick to the shortcut, because the lack of mutual understanding is the result of one player simply not understanding what he proposed rather then that player believing he proposed something different.

Since I'm not going to force Abe to follow the shortcut, my conclusion must then be that he attempted to cast devil's play for X=2, but payed one mana less then he should have because of Thalia. That's a GPE-GRV, a warning, and asking the headjudge permission to back up.

If I recall correctly, the shortcut in question has been created to deal with
a common sneaky trick, when a player would tap many lands,
cast an X spell, and later claim that he still has mana floating to pay for Force Spike.

If preventing this kind of behavior is truly the main intention of the shortcut,
then it's clear that it does not apply to this situation.
In the absence of the shortcut, however, there is no ground to force the player to stick
to a value of X he did not choose.

Using this reasoning, the situation is a GRV with a possible backup.

Edited Denis Sokolov (June 6, 2013 10:58:08 AM)

Suppose this a GRV. That means X=2. Now suppose that in response to Devil's Play, there had been some instants cast and/or abilities activated such that a rewind was not feasible.

Are you willing to rule NAP is dead because AP was not paying attention to Thalia? Because that is the direct consequence of calling the current situation a GRV.

AP legally cast a spell using an established tournament shortcut. Although it did not have the result he wished for upon resolution, it is not our job to make sure a player wins every time he thinks he has his opponent dead on board. Shortcuts are built to disambiguate common forms of sloppy communication and players need to be explicit when they deviate from shortcuts.

NAP is not and should not be required to make sure his opponent is making a tactical choice that will result in NAP losing the game. And it has been stated many times that superior rules of rules and tournament policy is an advantage.

X=1.

I can't support the amount of extra provisos that Robert would read into the MTR as written. Abe has properly cast an X spell using all the mana in his pool, and has implicitly selected X=1. No infraction, and the game continues. The appropriate reading of the quoted paragraph is that he casts the spell for all the mana in his pool, not that X equals all the mana in his pool. The rule would otherwise be otiose.

This solution also serves to promote clear communication between players. Had Abe said “Devil's Play for 2, win” given the amount of mana he had, he would have clearly committed a GRV by not paying enough for his spell; spell goes back in hand, warning, and then he casts it properly.

I don't believe that Abe has proposed any kind of shortcut and would invite those who think otherwise to specify the terms of the shortcut they feel was proposed.

Edited Thomas Ralph (June 6, 2013 11:05:10 AM)

Interesting scenario.
First of all, I don't think that asking Abe about what he's doing will help in any way. He clearly showed that he wanted to kill his opponent with his spell (as he thought that N would be dead), but forgot about Thalia.
Main question (which is quite unclear) is if the spell has been cast legally or not.
(a) - if the play was legal
We assume that, as X wasn't declared, but player paid 3 mana for total costs of the spell, and the spell actually started resolving, X equals 1. That's all that's left in his mana pool to pay for X.
(b) if the play was illegal
We assume that, although X wasn't declared, player's intent was to deal 2 damage, thus the total cost would be 2+1+R, but he paid only 3 mana, so GPE-GRV + permission to back up the game.

Technically, it seems that (b) is more correct (Michel Degenhardt's arguments sound pretty convincing), however, if I would rule this situation, it's quite probable that I wouldn't want to rewind this.
I'd have a following reason: from a gameplay point of view, this situation is pretty close to Nicholas Brown's Grizzly Bear/Shock example. No judge would allow a player on Competitive REL to change his mind and play Lightning Bolt instead of Shock just because the player'd say “Judge, I forgot about that +1/+1 enchant, may I change my mind”.

Let's make this a bit more complicated. Imagine the following scenario:
Abe and Norman are playing a game during a Standard GPT. Norman is at 2 life. Norman has Security Blockade in play, its ability has already been activated, but no damage was dealt to him yet.
Abe taps 3 mountains and casts Devil's Play targeting Norman.
Norman takes his pen and says, “So I go to one?” to which Abe replies, “No, you're dead.” Norman just points at his tapped Security Blockade and says, “Prevention Effect. So I go to one?”. Abe calls a judge.
How should we rule in this scenario? If we rewind here, then why?
If we don't, then what's the difference/borderline when we do rewind and when we don't, if technically in both cases we see a clear Abe's intent to deal 2 damage, and we see, that he forgot about something (Thalia or Blockade's effect) that leads to just 1 damage for his 3 mana?

I think in the scenario as given I would rule X=2 and a GRV occurred. The
intent is revealed close enough to the technical decision point that I can
take that as reality. The shortcut doesn't really apply. It's similar in
thinking to the philosophy behind OoOS.

I think if anything happened with the Devil's Play on the stack with X left
undeclared I would rule X=1, no GRV. By continuing with the game with an
ambiguous X, I have to invoke the shortcut and rule X to be 1.

I don't think these statements are contradictory ;)

Paul Smith

paul@pollyandpaul.co.uk

I'm on the side that the shortcut applies and no infraction was commited. 1 Damage is dealt, continue.

My Reason: The Shortcuts in general are there to resolve situations where we have an unclear gamestate by defining a default gamestate.
So players don't have to ask for clarification and are not bothered with technical details. Players can with the help of the shortcuts assume gamestates and legaly act based on that assumptions.

If I rule that the shortcut doesn't apply here that would mean as soon as any cost changing effect is in play, we would require the opponent to ask for clarification what the value of X is.
I see no reason to make a difference between cost increasing and cost decreasing effects. That would also mean I would have always to step in, if this clarification is not asked because a potential GRV was commited.

Example: Abe cast the with Thalia in play by paying 3 and targeting a 4 toughness creature. Later in the same turn he cast Shock targeting the same creature. Is that creature dead now because he wanted to cast Devils Play with X=2?

In such cases we are denying the other player the assumption he - in my opinion - naturaly would have about the value of X.

And for the cost reduction effects, is there any real reason to treat them differently? If a Goblin Electromancer is in play and Abe casts Devils Play with 3 mana, saying nothing else, what are we doing there if players disagree about the value for X?

So as conclusion, in my opinion denying the shortcut in such situations would create more problematic and unclear situations and requires players to know about technical details the shortcuts usualy tries to hide from the players.
Yes, sometimes players get screwed by a shortcut they didn't expect, but they can always prevent this be communication enough.

I think that we should not take into account if Abe has more lands
available for the ruling except for deciding if Abe was cheating. If Abe
has more lands available it's pretty obvious that he is not cheating but if
he doesn't we should do some questions.

If we follow strictly the rules, I think that there is no infraction, so no
penalty/fix is necessary. Abe has played an spell with an X in its cost
without specifying the value of X. If we follow the shortcut, I think that
the value for X should be 1 since to cast correctly the spell Abe must
spend R1 and so he has only R available in his mana pool.

However, I would not be very confortable giving this ruling since I believe
that Abe casted Devil's Play thinking that X=2 and forgeting about Thalia,
that's why he says that Norman dies. I would prefer to rule that Abe did a
GPE-GRV casting the Devil's Play with X=2 paying R2 (without paying
Thalia's extra mana) and that we should back up to the moment before he
casted it, untap lands and return the card to the hand. In this case Abe
should receive a Warning (unless it should be upgraded because of previous
GPE-GRV).




2013/6/6 Alex Zhed <forum-4502-2ee4@apps.magicjudges.org>

Playing a Shock targeting a Grizzly Bear with Glorious Anthem on the table is a legal play.
Playing Devil's Play with X = 2, when Security Blockade has been activated is a legal play.
Playing Blaze with X = 2 with Thalia on the table for 3 mana is not a legal play.
These scenarios do not really apply, we only debate if X is 1 or 2.

The shortcut has to be clarified, of course.
And the player was, indeed, sloppy.
But not all slopiness is penalized. Just because you played Terror on a black creature does not mean we now force you to choose another creature.