Greetings!
The question is as follows:
Is letting the owner of a Not-Naming-Anything- Meddling Mage name something later on correct/fair?
Let me explain myself. For the sake of the example, noone is cheating. Alice casts Meddling Mage on Turn 2, passing the turn forgetting to name anything. Two turns later, Nicolas casts Swords to Plowshare on Meddling Mage. Alice, realizing at that point that Meddling Mage isn’t naming anything and calls a Judge. As the IPG states:

IPG 2.5 Game Play Error — Game Rule Violation
If a player made an illegal choice (including no choice where required) for a static ability generating a continuous effect still on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.

Alice receives a GRV and Nicolas receives a FtMG. Game goes back to before Nicolas declared casting Swords, Alice names Swords and the game moves on.
The above example was discussed in great extend on last Sunday’s mini Conference of Athens, as it has come to the attention of one Judge that, Meddling Mage, as well as Iona, Shield of Emeria and Painter’s Servant, are causing problems to the LGS where Legacy is played. It has been observed that in almost all cases choosing later than sooner is extremely beneficial for the owner of the cards in question, due to knowing more about the opponent’s deck. Is it okay to punish the NAP for not being observant enough? In most cases, it ends up being a complete game changer, resulting in NAP finding himself in a situation that should not be.
One proposed solution to this was to give the NAP the choice of whether or not the AP gets to choose a name. With full understanding of the illegal state of game it would create for the AP to not choose a name, it is not fair to punish the NAP for the sloppiness of the AP.

Originally posted by Spiros Katsiavrias:

it is not fair to punish the NAP for the sloppiness of the AP.

NAP shares responsibility.
We really want NAP to tell AP “please name a card” as soon as possible, as opposed to simply thinking “they did forget, nice for me”.

Edited Francesco Scialpi (July 31, 2018 08:32:13 AM)

Regardless if I agree or not, it's what the rules say.

On annotated IPG it says:

While this could lead to the perception of advantage for one player, such errors always occur publicly, so it is in both player’s interest to be attentive.

Well.. maybe it NAP is more disadvantaged in that case, but it is actually both players “fault” (and both receive a warning) and rules don't take into account who gets advantage over the other when both players do a mistake.
Instead, they try to fix an illegal game state that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Of course, if a player purposely “forgets it” to gain advantage, it is cheating. And if a GRV like this is recorded a million times for the player we will have some data to prove it at some point.


Finally, to me it sounds like the Meddling Mage example you said, is different than the examples in annotated IPG.

A (now named) spell on the stack targeting Meddling Mage isn't illegal if it's already on the stack (e.g. NAP completed casting the spell). On the contrary a Doom Blade on a Voice of All naming black is illegal (and would fizzle). So maybe we wouldn't backup in this case?

Why is this situation being rewound? You have the player make the choice at that point in the game, so while the spell is on the stack.

Gareth is correct.

“So, if Nick casts Doom Blade on Albert’s Voice of All, we can have Albert chose a color now. If Albert chooses Black, Doom Blade is now illegal. Then, we can do a simple backup to just before Doom Blade was cast.”

Not naming with meddling mage, and fixing this with a card on the stack won't rewind the game. Only do a simple backup if doing your partial fix will lead to problems otherwise.

Originally posted by Gareth Tanner:

Why is this situation being rewound? You have the player make the choice at that point in the game, so while the spell is on the stack.

The IPG says “For each of these (Ed: partial fixes) fixes, a simple backup may be performed beforehand if it makes applying the fix smoother.”

I'd argue that doing a simple backup of the Swords makes the fix cleaner. “Swords was never played” vs “Swords was played through Meddling Mage and still resolved”.

Originally posted by Spiros Katsiavrias:

The above example was discussed in great extend on last Sunday’s mini Conference of Athens, as it has come to the attention of one Judge that, Meddling Mage, as well as Iona, Shield of Emeria and Painter’s Servant, are causing problems to the LGS where Legacy is played.

How much of a problem is this? Is this a case of “half of the players keep forgetting the same thing every week” or “it happens once in a while”?

I ask because it's one of the rarer fixes that I've needed to use. I think I've only used that partial fix a couple of times in the past couple of years.

In either case, diplomacy and player interaction are better tools to fix this issue than changing the partial fix.

Originally posted by Spiros Katsiavrias:

One proposed solution to this was to give the NAP the choice of whether or not the AP gets to choose a name. With full understanding of the illegal state of game it would create for the AP to not choose a name, it is not fair to punish the NAP for the sloppiness of the AP.

The reason that partial fixes exist is to get games to a point that the game state is legal, and back close to where they should be. The “name a card” gets the game to a more correct state.

There's two problems with the proposed fix:
1) This would be the only GRV fix where the opponent makes a choice. Everything else is “Backup”, “Partial fix”, or “Don't backup”. This would match Missed Trigger, but this change would make it less clear to players as to what's a trigger and what isn't. Some of my locals use trigger for activated abilities, and I caught one using trigger on a static ability once.
2) It creates a huge incentive for NAP to Cheat in a way that's tough to detect. This is Failure to Maintain, and when the fix is “my opponent's card is a generic dork”, the +EV play is to put your head down and not pay attention to the game going on. That's really bad from a Policy perspective, as we want players to be engaged in the game and making sure that it's being played in a legal fashion.

When you combine the two, you get into a really nasty territory where Meddling Mage is treated as a Missed Trigger, but it's not a trigger at all. If a judge believes that NAP knowingly allowed AP to not perform the naming so that they could get the partial fix and DQs them, the player could become upset (and rightfully so) that other triggers can be missed with no penalty, but they are being DQed for their opponent missing their Meddling Mage trigger?

Just to be clear, NAP isn't being punished for AP's mistake. They also missed it, and so we are applying a proscribed fix. If they don't want the disadvantage of giving up information, they should verify that Mage names something.

Originally posted by Jason Riendeau:

The IPG says “For each of these (Ed: partial fixes) fixes, a simple backup may be performed beforehand if it makes applying the fix smoother.”

I'd argue that doing a simple backup of the Swords makes the fix cleaner. “Swords was never played” vs “Swords was played through Meddling Mage and still resolved”.

I would argue otherwise. We have spell that is on the stack at the point when error was caught. I see no reason to back it up. Furthermore, I would find more unhealthy for the game state (because Medling Mage Player would have extra information on cards in his opponents hands if you back it up). If we would back it up then it would be more beneficial to Medling Mage Player to “forget” to name a card.

Originally posted by Jason Riendeau:

How much of a problem is this? Is this a case of “half of the players keep forgetting the same thing every week” or “it happens once in a while”?
I ask because it's one of the rarer fixes that I've needed to use. I think I've only used that partial fix a couple of times in the past couple of years.
In either case, diplomacy and player interaction are better tools to fix this issue than changing the partial fix.

Yep, I agree with all that…

Originally posted by Jason Riendeau:

I'd argue that doing a simple backup of the Swords makes the fix cleaner. “Swords was never played” vs “Swords was played through Meddling Mage and still resolved”.

…but not that.

There's nothing illegal about the casting of Swords to Plowshares at that point; the only illegal thing - not naming a card for Meddling Mage - is clearly addressed by one of the partial fixes.

So, back to the original question:

Originally posted by Spiros Katsiavrias:

Is letting the owner of a Not-Naming-Anything- Meddling Mage name something later on correct/fair?

Yes, in my opinion, and in the collective opinions of those who contributed to that policy change (it's several years old now, but it was a change). This leaves the burden exactly where it belongs - equally on both players. Either player could benefit or lose as a result of inattention, and that is, IMO, exactly as it should be. You don't like the outcome of not paying attention? Simple enough: PAY ATTENTION.

d:^D

I will provide a bit of additional context as to why this is problematic (the same that was discussed in the conference). (I will use the “AP” “NAP” terminology for describing the owner of the card and their opponent respectively):

We have a card like Dark Confidant. It provides a bonus attached to a penalty. There are situations when the bonus is greater than the penalty an vice versa. As such, after MANY changes in how we handle said card, we have come to a “fix” that would be fairer to the NAP player: allowing said player to choose. In such a case, the NAP player reaps all the benefits of having forgotten to maintain a proper game state together with the AP player, but this is only fair as we understand that the AP player is the owner of the Dark Confidant card and should face more “dire” consequences for forgetting. After all, it is they who put the card in their deck in the first place and should pay more attention to how their deck functions.

Similar to Dark Confidant's situation, the amount of attention to the card and the “punishment” to be received for not doing so by the NAP player, should be the same, as the mistake is of a similar nature. However, as it stand right now, when the AP player forgets their Painter's Servant, Meddling Mage, opr any other similar card, once it is discovered (which is usually when it is detrimental for the AP player), according to the rules, the AP player gets to make a more “relevant” choice to the situation at hand. The first immediate problem one could see with this is that the NAP player has absolutely no incentive whatsoever to call a judge if they notice the problem later on, as the “fix” will work against them. And as judges, we don't want that. We want to encourage players to call a judge at all times that a game state is broken, if possible.

The counter-argument offered was that during all that time, the AP player did not reap the benefits of their card… But the same stands for Dark Confidant, yet we still allow the NAP player to make the choice of whether or not the trigger will be put on the stack.

As such, what I proposed was that we provide the same choice to the NAP player for ALL situations in static abilities that have a specific timing when a choice should have been made. The principle behind this is that this will, similar to Dark Confidant's case, provide the same bonus/penalty to the NAP player for forgetting to mention the problem to the AP player. In short, the card belongs to the AP player and they should be more greatly affected by their lack of responsibility to maintaining the proper game state.

We either follow the same philosophy for all our rules in the game, or we crate double standards for players to start “rules-lawyering”. If the philosophy of the infraction remains the same, the consequences of such, should also. So far, after more than a year of weekly Legacy play at the store, the overwhelming majority of players would prefer the situation being handled like is is with Dark Confidant. And all of them have exactly this example in mind. To me, this indicates a pattern, and as such, I believe we should at least pay more attention to it and start collecting more data from players (as we did with Dark Confidant).

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

There's nothing illegal about the casting of Swords to Plowshares at that point; the only illegal thing - not naming a card for Meddling Mage - is clearly addressed by one of the partial fixes.

Scott, would you do a simple backup + partial fix on Rory's similar Voice of All + Doom Blade scenario? Why or why not?

The reason that I ask is because a Doom Blade targeting a Voice of All with pro:black is also a legal game state. The rules address what happens (specifically, the “fizzle” rule).

I view my position on the Swords + Mage scenario to be one of consistency with my rulings. If I would do a simple backup in one scenario, I should really think about why I wouldn't do the same simple backup in a similar situation. The difference between the Swords + Mage and Doom Blade + Voice scenarios is effectively “will the spell do something when it resolves?”; I don't find that a compelling reason.

The partial fix can create a slightly messy scenario - a spell now would have been cast illegally. A simple backup makes that cleaner, as there is no longer a spell that would have been cast illegally. The game state is closer to correct if that mistake never happened.

I'm not worried about AP's advantage, as NAP can easily foreclose AP's advantage by asking “Naming?” In fact, this is what we want to encourage with Policy - player attention and asking questions to make sure that the game state is clear.

Originally posted by Edward Zinger:

We either follow the same philosophy for all our rules in the game, or we crate double standards for players to start “rules-lawyering”. If the philosophy of the infraction remains the same, the consequences of such, should also. So far, after more than a year of weekly Legacy play at the store, the overwhelming majority of players would prefer the situation being handled like is is with Dark Confidant. And all of them have exactly this example in mind. To me, this indicates a pattern, and as such, I believe we should at least pay more attention to it and start collecting more data from players (as we did with Dark Confidant).

I would be really cautious in comparing Dark Confidant with Meddling Mage. Indeed, applied philosophy *is* different.

When a player commits an infraction, judge applies a fix and delivers a penalty.

In most cases, fix is intended to “repair” the state of the game as much as possible, so that the game can continue with minimal impact - almost as the error didn't happen.
Example: a player accidentally flips over the card on top of their deck. Infraction is LEC, fix is shuffling away that card.
Before the error, top card was unknown and random. After the error, top card is unknown and random. This is a good fix.
(On occasion, we have to deal with a disappointed opponent. “My opponent was about to draw a land, now they can draw anything, you're helping them” - not so. Random is random).

In HCE case (e.g. Dark Confidant), the fix is admittedly not intended to repair the game, i.e. nullifying the advantage - it is intended to offset the advantage with a roughly equivalent advantage. Game is considered corrupted beyond repair.

From IPG:
“Though the game state cannot be reversed to the ‘correct’ state, this error can be mitigated by giving the opponent sufficient knowledge and ability to offset the error so that it is less likely to generate advantage.”

Originally posted by Jason Riendeau:

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

There's nothing illegal about the casting of Swords to Plowshares at that point; the only illegal thing - not naming a card for Meddling Mage - is clearly addressed by one of the partial fixes.

Scott, would you do a simple backup + partial fix on Rory's similar Voice of All + Doom Blade scenario? Why or why not?

The reason that I ask is because a Doom Blade targeting a Voice of All with pro:black is also a legal game state. The rules address what happens (specifically, the “fizzle” rule).

I view my position on the Swords + Mage scenario to be one of consistency with my rulings. If I would do a simple backup in one scenario, I should really think about why I wouldn't do the same simple backup in a similar situation. The difference between the Swords + Mage and Doom Blade + Voice scenarios is effectively “will the spell do something when it resolves?”; I don't find that a compelling reason.

The partial fix can create a slightly messy scenario - a spell now would have been cast illegally. A simple backup makes that cleaner, as there is no longer a spell that would have been cast illegally. The game state is closer to correct if that mistake never happened.

I'm not worried about AP's advantage, as NAP can easily foreclose AP's advantage by asking “Naming?” In fact, this is what we want to encourage with Policy - player attention and asking questions to make sure that the game state is clear.

Hey Jason,

If I can chime in real quick. I feel like the difference for me is “creating an illegal game state”. Yes, we have the fizzle rule to “fix” this. But doing so instead of performing a simple back-up will create an big advantage for the person forgetting to name a card. By solving it that way you actually CREATE incentive not to call a judge when you catch this as a player. Calling a judge when a spell is on the stack is suddenly way better for the player because they get a “counterspell”.

I think that as judges we should strive for fixes that want players to call a judge as soon as they notice the error. In case with the meddling mage? you call a judge as soon as you notice because it is positive for you to have a card on lockdown. With voice of all, you call a judge, because waiting doesn't create an advantage for you. Why? Because we backup the “secret counterspell mode”.

Originally posted by Rory Tans:

If I can chime in real quick. I feel like the difference for me is “creating an illegal game state”. Yes, we have the fizzle rule to “fix” this. But doing so instead of performing a simple back-up will create an big advantage for the person forgetting to name a card. By solving it that way you actually CREATE incentive not to call a judge when you catch this as a player. Calling a judge when a spell is on the stack is suddenly way better for the player because they get a “counterspell”.

I don't agree with the premise that the Doom Blade + Voice creates an illegal game state. It creates an incorrect game state, but not an illegal one. If it were illegal, cards like Apostle's Blessing are meaningless. I agree with the rest of your point, and support a simple backup + partial fix.

I think that as judges we should strive for fixes that want players to call a judge as soon as they notice the error. In case with the meddling mage? you call a judge as soon as you notice because it is positive for you to have a card on lockdown. With voice of all, you call a judge, because waiting doesn't create an advantage for you. Why? Because we backup the “secret counterspell mode”.

I agree with that, in part. Your point about Mage being proactive prevention vs Voice's reactive prevention illustrates the incentives for AP vs NAP to wait. If we're going to talk about Cheating, I generally find GRV to be an easier infraction to investigate than FtMGS, as it's easier to falsify. The GRV player also has no answer to an attempted FtMGS Cheat (other than awareness of the GRV happening, which leads to either the GRV not happening or some kind of next-level corner case), whereas the FtMGS player's answer to an attempted GRV Cheat is “Naming?”

Another important point is that Policy states that we should apply fixes without account on who benefits strategically from the procedure associated with the penalty. I believe that looking at who gains advantage on Voice + Doom Blade and using that to rule differently from Swords + Mage violates that principle. In one case, the game state is (mostly) correct, and in the other, the game state is less correct. Both NAPs have given up info (the source of incorrectness between correct and partial fix); however, in one, there's an incorrect action being taken, whereas there's no incorrect action in the other.

By using a simple backup + partial fix for both Doom Blade + Voice and Swords + Mage, both situations are roughly at the same correctness (Mage has a larger theoretical space of options vs Voice). By our being consistent between scenarios, we have followed Policy's advice on applying fixes to make the game more correct while not taking strategic considerations in the game at hand into account.

Originally posted by Jason Riendeau:

Another important point is that Policy states that we should apply fixes without account on who benefits strategically from the procedure associated with the penalty. I believe that looking at who gains advantage on Voice + Doom Blade and using that to rule differently from Swords + Mage violates that principle. In one case, the game state is (mostly) correct, and in the other, the game state is less correct. Both NAPs have given up info (the source of incorrectness between correct and partial fix); however, in one, there's an incorrect action being taken, whereas there's no incorrect action in the other.

I would disagree on that point. Let's go deeply in our scenario:

#1 We have an APs effect requesting name of a card/colour chose, that was not resolved.
#2 We had a situation NAP is cast something.
#3 With that something on the stack, someone realised that effect from #1 was not resolved.
At this point in time, ignoring missed-effect, we have totally legal board-state. When we get complications is when AP choose for that effect characteristic that meets NAP spell. (Colour or name)
Key element for me is that AP is NOT forced to choose that characteristic.

In Meddling Mages scenario - when AP cast them, they might think about naming “that piece of combo” but they forgot to name that cart (because it might be bluntly obvious for them). In Iona scenario - when AP cast it he might be more worried about naming red for “Splinter Twin” rather than black for Doom Blade that is currently targeting Iona.

As a judges we aim to deliver consistent rulings along every tournaments. If we decide to back up in one of that situation and not in other, then we do not deliver consistent rulings. We can't anticipate what card or colour players would name. In my opinion, not performing backups is less detrimental for flow of the game “overall” in this situations.

TL:DR: my main point is, when we arrive at the table, we have legal board-state. APs choosing characteristic might make that board-state illegal but they might not. I see no reason to backup legal board-state.

This has been an interesting discussion, for the record I'm on board with not backing up Swords + Mage, it seems we are rewarding AP too much for forgetting their card's ability.

Lets go to an extreme. AP casts Iona, passes the turn. NAP untaps and casts a Lightning Bolt. NAP controlled four mountains and it's game three, he has only played red spells. Apon investigating, AP says ‘Its obvious I chose red, I didn’t think I needed to say anything'

Do you rewind, or just let AP choose with the bolt on the stack?