On Mon Jun 17 21:14, Eric Shukan wrote:
> ***Here the opponent is clearly not disadvantaged - he got to see the creature that was drawn. Thats all he's _entitled_ to.***
>
> While much of the rest of your argument seems reasonable, the sentence above does not. The opponent is also entitled to know WHICH card you just searched for, which info could be useful to him as he attempts to think about your future intentions. If AP shows his own hand, NAP will not know which card was searched for.
>
> I'd like to point out that while he can see the creature drawn with Domri's ability, he cannot identify it as such. Therefore, the above statment appears to be quite false. Of course, this might not affect your argument about why we should not upgarde to GL.
>
> I think it would be awesome if Domri read “…reveal it and put it into your hand. You may play that card this turn without paying its mana cost.” Lots of fun now…

Thank you Eric, this is a good argument as to why there may be a disadvantage. In your proposed wording we clearly can't simply fix the game state. This is not necessarily a reason to change my view on the actual wording that exists here, and certainly different situations are often treated differently, but it's something to think about.

Matt

The value of knowing the exact identity of the last card drawn will so rarely be of actual tactical value once the identities of all cards are known that I believe it can safely be disregarded by policy. (It matters vastly less often than putting a random card back on top for a GRV rewind through a drawn card, for example.)

The only situations where it matters are extreme corner cases where players took no action on previous turns because they were waiting to draw a specific answer, which has not yet been drawn but can now be played around differently because of some tangentially related card that was just drawn, thus potentially misleading the opponent about the nature of the answer due to the combination of future and past plays. I think if you asked Pros “would you rather know the last card an opponent drew or see his entire hand including that card, but not knowing which one he drew last,” 10 out of 10 would see the whole hand.

Edited Joshua Feingold (June 18, 2013 12:09:54 AM)

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

I'll admit, I'm more than just a bit surprised that this is getting so much traction. I understand not enjoying the side effects of applying the correct infraction and penalty - that Hall of Fame player I mentioned is one of the nicest, most upstanding and sporting people I've encountered in all my years as a Judge. Having him lose a game he was about to win is not a happy moment - but it's still the right decision, and the correct ruling.

Go back and re-read Jeremie's post: he makes a critical point about the importance of consistency.

Having read and followed this conversation for a while, I think that there is a critical misunderstanding between both sides of this argument. It seems that, for the most part, the upper-level judges are of the opinion that allowing a player whose hand is only creatures to reveal their hand to avoid the upgrade is a deviation, but are not explaining why this is so. Your first post explained that you did not deviate when awarding a GL to a Hall of Fame player, but does not at all address the question of whether the “reveal the hand” fix is a deviation or not. This thread has turned into one side arguing that judges should not deviate, while the other side is arguing that they are not deviating.

I will throw in that I'm firmly of the belief that uniquely is the intended word in the IPG and that it should be applied literally, because I do not think that the IPG would use that word if it meant something else.

Edited Alexis Hunt (June 17, 2013 11:57:20 PM)

If the concern is verifying that the card put into the player's hand was a
creature card, why do we need to reveal any cards to the opponent? The
judge can confirm that the there are only creature cards in hand.

The opponent is also entitled to know which card was drawn. And that could
be ensures without doubt only by revealing all cards in hand.


2013/6/17 Shawn Doherty <forum-4642-2a20@apps.magicjudges.org>

To expand further:
If we are going to rule that the infraction is a GRV (with no upgrade), then there is not reason to apply any “fixes”. GRVs are handled by rewinding the situation or leaving the game state. There isn't any “entitled” information. The game ended up different than it was supposed to, but that's why there is a penalty. We don't try to “balance information” or “make things more fair” by applying fixes or differences to the current game state.

It seems to me as though there are a few things here of note:
First, from the ipg, “These procedures do not, and should not, take into account the game being played, the current situation that the game is in, or who will benefit strategically from the procedure associated with a penalty. While it is tempting to try to “fix” game situations, the danger of missing a subtle detail or showing favoritism to a player (even unintentionally) makes it a bad idea.” While it is tempting to try and negotiate a fix outside of what the ipg calls for, doing so will absolutely give the appearance of favoritism, and is not something endorsed by the ipg.

Going with that, we have the reason for the upgrade itself, the AP committed an error that the NAP can not verify was legal at the time. Let's look at what information is needed to avoid the upgrade clause. In order to not upgrade this infraction the identity of the card must be uniquely identifiable, or have been in such a position. Revealing a power set of cards from the hand is not the same as being able to explain to the NAP precisely which card caused this rule to be violated.

Perhaps a look at why that exception to the upgrade is even there. There are many judges here who are trying to use it to “protect” the AP from getting a game loss through their negligence. In reality that clause is there to keep the opponent from being able to sit on an infraction and cause a more grievous penalty. Example, I'm playing someone and notice that they have not revealed for a Mystical Tutor even though the card is sitting on top of their library. That clause keeps me from getting to decide if they get a warning or a game loss. The ipg is designed so that players do not get to decide the penalty for an infraction. To do anything other than a game loss here would be against the spirit, and in my opinion letter of the document.

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:54 PM, Sean Hunt <
forum-4642-e870@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> Your first post explained that you did not deviate when awarding a GL to a
> Hall of Fame player, but does not at all address the question of whether
> the “reveal the hand” fix is a deviation or not.


There is specific text in the IPG that says to upgrade an action that the
opponent could not verify. There is only one exception.
From the IPG:

“An error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of should have its
penalty upgraded. These errors involve misplaying hidden information, such
as the morph ability or failing to reveal a card to prove that a choice
made was legal. If the information needed to verify the legality was ever
in a uniquely identifiable position (such as on top of the library or as
the only card in hand) after the infraction was committed, do not upgrade
the penalty and reveal the information if possible.”

The fact that the judge can verify a legal action was taken is not an
exception. Revealing the whole hand is not an exception. In short, there
is currently nothing in the policy to support showing the hand instead of
issuing the upgrade. Ergo, using the “show the hand” fix and skipping the
upgrade is a clear deviation from our policies.

It's conceivable that there's a way to write policy to provide an exception
for cases where the opponent cannot verify the legality of an action but a
judge–who can see the whole situation–is able to do so. It's also
possible to come up with a remedy for this case. The difficulty is in
making this change in a way that is not scenario-specific, is not confusing
as to when it can be applied, and does not cause a cascade of unintended
consequences. I think the real question is whether this is a frequent
enough issue as to make the pain worthwhile.

–David

–
Ab ovo usque ad mala. – Horace

Shawn, I don't think that we, as the judge, can reveal this information. However, the player can reveal even more information than is strictly required, which I believe bypasses the “opponent cannot verify the legality clause” which trips us over into special upgrade territory. I'm not looking to re-downgrade an upgrade. I'm looking to avoid the initial need for an upgrade altogether by making the legality verifiable.

Can we compare this to a situation where a player has 3 face down creatures with Morph as his only non-land permanents, and at the end of the game he scoops up all his permanents without revealing anything? Then he says “OH!” and lays down some appropriate number of lands and three creatures that all have Morph without the cards from the battlefield becoming mixed with any other cards.

And if not, why not? Although we lose the specific identity of the face down creatures (which we should technically maintain), we can determine that each one was legally played at some point during the game, ensuring that the actions taken were legal even if we can no longer determine their exact order. To me, this seems extremely similar to the original scenario. Or am I just completely off base and we should actually be giving a game loss for Morph situation too?

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

Shawn, I don't think that we, as the judge, can reveal this information. However, the player can reveal even more information than is strictly required, which I believe bypasses the “opponent cannot verify the legality clause” which trips us over into special upgrade territory. I'm not looking to re-downgrade an upgrade. I'm looking to avoid the initial need for an upgrade altogether by making the legality verifiable.

If we start using Kung Fu and slicing the words of the IPG (I definetly saw a few post with “It's not written but between the lines we can found”) we can argue more or less anything you want. If he shullfe two cards in his library, will you also downgrade a DEC? It might be interpreted that way (wtih the right slices).

The IPG is not written the same way the CompRules are where every case is defined and (should) fit together. It does leave room for interpretation and a good understanding of the underlying philosophy helps in doing just that. It also, sadly, allows for those kind of discussion where we try to find meaning in the separate words without thinking about the meaning of the penalty itself.

Is it a deviation? Yes it is. The player did an error that an opponent can’t verify the legality of and the information needed to verify the legality was ever in a uniquely identifiable position. Not upgrading here is a deviation because there is just no way we can uniquely identify the card that was drawn. Showing the hand full of creature doesn't tell the opponent which card it was and even if it's tactically better to know all the cards than just the one he drew. It also doesn't change the basic infraction we have to deal with at this point.

Greets
Jeremie

Edited Jeremie Granat (June 18, 2013 12:42:27 AM)

Jeremie, this post popped on the lightbulb for me. You are saying that the intent of this passage is something more like "An error where hidden information is lost should have its penalty upgraded.“ (Of course, ”lost" hidden information is a nonsense phrase. It's just the best way I can express how I'm now understanding this.) So the language about the opponent being able to verify threw me off because that isn't really what we care about. We actually care about the information loss, not just that we can know the action was legal.

I am now on board. Big thanks all around. Philosophy understanding upgraded.

On Mon Jun 17 22:15, Benjamin McDole wrote:
> It seems to me as though there are a few things here of note:
> First, from the ipg, “These procedures do not, and should not, take into account the game being played, the current situation that the game is in, or who will benefit strategically from the procedure associated with a penalty. While it is tempting to try to “fix” game situations, the danger of missing a subtle detail or showing favoritism to a player (even unintentionally) makes it a bad idea.” While it is tempting to try and negotiate a fix outside of what the ipg calls for, doing so will absolutely give the appearance of favoritism, and is not something endorsed by the ipg.
>
> Going with that, we have the reason for the upgrade itself, the AP committed an error that the NAP can not verify was legal at the time. Let's look at what information is needed to avoid the upgrade clause. In order to not upgrade this infraction the identity of the card must be uniquely identifiable, or have been in such a position. Revealing a power set of cards from the hand is not the same as being able to explain to the NAP precisely which card caused this rule to be violated.
>
> Perhaps a look at why that exception to the upgrade is even there. There are many judges here who are trying to use it to “protect” the AP from getting a game loss through their negligence. In reality that clause is there to keep the opponent from being able to sit on an infraction and cause a more grievous penalty. Example, I'm playing someone and notice that they have not revealed for a Mystical Tutor even though the card is sitting on top of their library. That clause keeps me from getting to decide if they get a warning or a game loss. The ipg is designed so that players do not get to decide the penalty for an infraction. To do anything other than a game loss here would be against the spirit, and in my opinion letter of the document.

(From the IPG 1.2 under General Philosophy) “A Game Loss is issued in situations where the procedure to correct the offense takes a significant amount of time that may slow the entire tournament or causes significant disruption to the tournament, or in which it is impossible to continue the game due to physical disruption. It is also used for some infractions that have a higher probability for a player to gain advantage.”

It won't take long to fix it (reveal the hand), it won't cause significant disruption to the tournament (ditto) and it's not impossible to continue the game due to physical disruption. That's leaves us ‘a higher probability for a player to gain an advantage’. If you reveal a hand consisting of only creature they are gaining minimal, if any, advantage. I think it's a bit of a stretch therefore to say that not giving a game loss is against the spirit of the document.

As judges we should be trying to let games of magic play out as they should as closely as possible. Any time we give out a gameloss we are stopping people from playing magic and therefore should be the last not the first resort.

Matt

Originally posted by John Temple:

William Anderson
From a practical perspective:
If the player who committed the error simply went “oops! Look at my hand- it's all creatures,” and the opponent was cool with that then we never would have received a call in the first place.

At the point where we arrive at the table for a judge call, it is time to go by policy.

This is by far the best post I have seen on this. Players have a tendency to just fix things in the way that makes sense but if they get a Judge involved well policy needs to dictate our actions!

The fact that the fix that makes sense and the “fix” dictated by policy aren't the same is the glaring indicator of the problem with the policy.

For those arguing consistency, we don't have it. Let's say I am playing in a CompREL event and the player next to me does this and says, “Oops, here's my hand, you can see it was legal,” but the judge comes and Game Losses that player anyway. Next turn my opponent activates his Domri, looks at the card, smiles and moves to Combat. I call the Judge. This judge says, “This is a warning because you can verify the action was legal, since that's the only card in your hand. Let's reveal it.” How is THIS consistency? Consistency would be not upgrading in situations when legality can be definitively determined after the fact.

Edited Topher Hickman (June 18, 2013 05:15:35 AM)

Ben has pointed out that we don't look at the game being played at the moment when looking for a infraction. The contents of the players hand is actually not relevant at all, how we should be looking at it when we are called:

What is the problem? The player failed to reveal a card
What infraction does this fit? An upgraded GRV
Was the card ever in a position it was uniquely identifiable? No
What is the penalty? Game Loss

Just because when the looking at the game state there seems to be a simple fix doesn't mean the fix is as simple as appears or even correct. There are a lot of situation for different infractions where you are against applying the fix required by the IPG but just because you don't like the fix doesn't mean it's not the correct one.