I was recently judging at a Modern GPT, my first event as a judge after a long hiatus.

- In the first round, a player (Aaron) used a fetch land to search for an Overgrown Tomb, untapped, and used it to cast Birds of Paradise and passed the turn.
- His opponent (Neville) drew (card unknown), cast a creature, and passed the turn back.
- Aaron untapped, drew his card, surveyed his board, at which point Neville called for a Judge, having noticed that Aaron had NOT searched for an Overgrown Tomb, but rather for a visually similar Verdant Catacombs on his previous turn, a card that he both could not have searched for, and could not have used to play his bird.

So he has made an error in his search, another in playing the bird, and complicated things further by drawing a card before the errors were noticed.

I'm interested to know how this should have been resolved?

What happened was that I spoke to the Head Judge, who:

1. Swapped the Verdant Catacombs for the Overgrown Tomb in Aaron's library, and had him shuffle.
   
2. Gave a Warning - GPE GRV to Aaron.
   

The reason I am posting, is that while I can't think of a better way to fix the situation, it didn't sit well with me (what if he had drawn the Tomb in the mean time?) so I wanted some more perspective.

Additionally, I feel like Neville should have received a Warning - FtMGS. In discussion with the judge after (and well away from the play area) he said he did not want to discourage Neville from calling a judge later in the day if he made another mistake. I maintain that we also do not want Aaron to be discouraged from calling the judge on himself, which he might be if he thinks he will get a penalty himself, and not his opponent, and also we don't want to encourage Neville to sit on a penalty until it is unrecoverable, thinking he will avoid a penalty (though that falls under cheating, which is not under consideration here). Am I on the right track?

Thoughts?

(Also, is this the correct place to post this?)

Edited Sam McKoy (Sept. 17, 2013 08:04:40 PM)

If you read the IPG as pertaining to GRV's, this is not one of the situation where you can correct the error when it is noticed. In this situation either the game state should be rewound to the point where the error occured, or it should be left as is.

Based on this scenario would I have given a FtMGS to the opponent? Yes I would have, however if I was afraid the player may not call a judge in the future I would explain to the player that FtMGS is almost never upgraded. FtMGS is really just a penalty to remind players that they share the responsibility to make sure the game state remains legal.

Edited Cris Plyler (Sept. 17, 2013 08:18:24 PM)

Story Time!

Once, a long long time ago, I was playing in the ninth round of a PTQ. It had been a several hour drive before the event and I was exhausted. I was playing UB faeries, as was my opponent, who was equally exhausted. In game three of the match, we had to call a judge over and explain that this here Mana Leak on the battlefield had managed to get in for two points of damage over the past two turns… Awkward.

After some questions, both my opponent and I could recreate the game for the past couple of turns. His suspended Ancestral Visions had ticked down to 0, and I has announced a Spellstutter Sprite to counter it. We each had some amount of knowledge about the opponents' hands, due to Thoughtseizes and Vendilion Cliques. We each agreed that I had one too many Spellstutter Sprites and one too few Mana Leaks in my hand. The ruling ended up being a simple switcheroo, and a GRV for me.

Was that fair? I think so. The important parts of this interaction are that both players had the same understanding of what happened in the game, and that that series of events could have happened (based upon cards in hand, resources, etc.). Where possible, I'm a big fan of trying to find organic solutions; making the fix that is intuitive to players, and that the players would have done had they been playing at the kitchen table. This fix, putting the right cards in the right spot, is absolutely the organic fix for this situation.

Your scenario has an added wrinkle in it; Aaron has drawn a card from a library that contains an incorrect set of cards. Is this issue sufficient to change the fix? I don't think so. There are other options here. We could back up through the turns. However, this is going to damage the game state, since Aaron will put back a random card from his hand and then not draw that card because of the shuffling. We could simply leave things the way they are, but then Aaron is down an additional one to three life at the least, and may actually gain an advantage by being able to find something different (like a basic Swamp to avoid Blood Moon). I think that a GRV is more than sufficient to outweigh the potential damage of Aaron drawing a different (but functionally very very similar) card.

From the IPG:

2.5. Game Play Error — Game Rule Violation

It is tempting to try and “fix” these errors, but it is important that they be handled consistently, regardless of their impact on the game.

(…)

If not caught within a reasonable time frame, or backing up is impossible or sufficiently complex that it could affect the course of the game, the judge should leave the game state as it is after applying state-based actions and not attempt any form of partial ‘fix’ – either reverse all actions or none

@Arthur Halavais: Basically, the IPG is not a big fan of finding organic solutions. I certainly agree it feels wrong not to apply such organic fixes, but the IPG wants us to be consistent rather than tailor-made. Do you feel the situation is exceptional enough to deviate from the standard fix, or do you simply disagree with the IPG's philosophy?

(We had a similar situation recently: Cryptic Command countering a spell and drawing a card, after that one is fully resolved it is discovered one of the lands tapped is a fetch.)

(EDIT: wasn't clear who I was posing my question to)

Edited Toby Hazes (Sept. 17, 2013 10:40:33 PM)

Toby is correct, the choice is to reverse all actions or none except when -

• If a player made an illegal choice or failed to make a required choice for a permanent on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.
  
• If a player forgot to draw cards, discard cards, or return cards from their hand to another zone, that player does so.
  
• If an object changing zones is put into the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it is within a turn of the error, put the object in the correct zone.
  

Searching for the wrong (or illegal) land is not an illegal choice.
Casting a spell with the wrong mana is none of these.

Cards being drawn is often a line drawn by some judges on whether to reverse or not. The reverse would require a random card from hand on top of the library, then reverse the actions to the point of the search, now find the correct type of land, put it onto the battlefield and shuffle. This results in the random card from hand being shuffled away, which is a much more likely reason that a lot of judges won't want to reverse this. Some will consider this a reasonable consequence.

Either way, reverse all actions or none. If none, the cards stay as is, both players are responsible for maintaining the game state, so there is partial responsibility on both sides, which is why we have the GPE - FtMGS infraction.

Originally posted by Toby Hazes:

Do you feel the situation is exceptional enough to deviate from the standard fix, or do you simply disagree with the IPG's philosophy?

Neither. With some reading after the fact, I came to the correct solution, but it felt wrong. On the other hand, the fix provided by the other judge didn't mesh with what I understood from the IPG.

I think this is just one of those situations where the game has broken, and there is no fix, and that is unfortunate, and I have to learn to accept that there isn't always a perfect, or even good, fix. I just wasn't confident in my conclusion at the time (confidence with players is something I need to work on (something pointed out to me 6 years ago by, coincidently, Mark)). Sometimes the correct answer just doesn't feel good, apparently.

I'll discuss it further with the other judge next time I see him.

Edited Sam McKoy (Sept. 17, 2013 09:53:50 PM)

Just want to add a couple observations here.

First, the L4s have examined the idea of Partial Fixes, many times, and we simply can't implement a policy that would allow for “creative” remedies and yet maintain consistency for the player experience. Without that consistency, then players begin to form (or reinforce!) a perception of judge bias. Things quickly spiral out of control, and … well, Don't Cross the Streams.

Second - it really doesn't need to be a “feel-bad” fix. Something to keep in mind: the players put themselves in this position, first by making the mistake, second by allowing it to persist to the point that you're considering a deviation. Just knowing that you're following policy, which was carefully crafted to be the optimal solution in as many (likely) scenarios as possible? and knowing that other judges, in different countries, speaking different languages, would apply the same fix? That should actually feel pretty good.

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

Toby is correct, the choice is to reverse all actions or none except when -

• If a player made an illegal choice or failed to make a required choice for a permanent on the battlefield, that player makes a legal choice.
  
• If a player forgot to draw cards, discard cards, or return cards from their hand to another zone, that player does so.
  
• If an object changing zones is put into the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it is within a turn of the error, put the object in the correct zone.
  

Searching for the wrong (or illegal) land is not an illegal choice.
Casting a spell with the wrong mana is none of these.

While not an illegal choice, I would say that the OP's situation fits exception #3 pretty well: We have two objects that are in the wrong zone, their identities are known to both players, and the error was caught within a turn. Why shouldn't we attempt a partial fix by putting the lands in the zone they should be?

Christos,

The “If an object changing zones is put into the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it is within a turn of the error, put the object in the correct zone.” partial fix applies to when a card is moving from zone A to zone B, but is accidentally put in zone C instead of B.

The “poster scenario” is a creature is put in the graveyard from the battlefield when it was supposed to be exiled.

It is *not* meant to handle the case where the card was supposed to stay in zone A, but was put in zone B OR where the card was supposed to go to zone B but stayed in zone A. This includes leaving creatures on the battlefield when they should have died, (or putting creatures in the graveyard when they didnt die) and fetching the wrong land with a search spell.

The old wording of the “wrong zone” partial fix implied what you are suggesting, but that wasnt the intent. So the language was made more strict so that the intent is more clear.

-Bryan