Welcome to another terrific week of the Knowledge Pool!

This week's topic is Silver, which means L0s and L1s should be given the first crack at it. L2s, please wait until Thursday to add your opinions.

At a Constructed GP, Chris calls you over to his table. He has five stacks of cards sitting in front of him and indicates to you that upon mulliganing away his initial seven card hand prior to starting game 1, he pile shuffled, only to discover that he only has 59 cards in his main deck. After confirming that his count is accurate and that the missing card is not in with his sideboard, he notes that Paul, his opponent from the previous round, had identical sleeves and that he may have his missing card. After locating Paul (who is in turn 5 of his first game of this match), you are able to determine that he does indeed have an extra card in his deck. You then return to the original table with the card, where Chris confirms (before seeing the card you have in hand) the identity of the card he is missing.

What infraction(s), if any, will you be awarding to each of Paul and Chris, and what are the appropriate penalties and fixes?

Infraction for both players is TE-Deck/Decklist problem, since both player presented an illegal deck. Fix is bringing both decks to their original composition (removing additional card from Pauls deck and putting it back into Chris's deck). Penalty - game loss. Question is, can we downgrade this penalty for any one of them?

IPG says:

If the player, upon drawing an opening hand, discovers a deck problem and calls a judge at that point, the Head Judge may downgrade the penalty, fix the deck, and allow the player to redraw the hand with one fewer card. The player may continue to take further mulligans if he or she desires.

Paul's situation seems clear. He started playing with an illegal deck, he's in turn 5 of the game. Can't downgrade here.

As for Chris: he hasn't started the game yet, but we can argue if the error was discovered upon drawing his starting hand. However since he's already started mulliganing, I think it's too late for that. IPG sets borderline clearly “upon drawing the opening hand”. Since it's past that, no downgrade here also.

Edited Piotr Łopaciuk (Nov. 28, 2013 01:49:11 AM)

The Comprehensive Rules define opening hand as the cards that you keep after all mulligan decisions (CR 103.4). So I think Chris actually did discover the error in time for the downgrade.
The Head Judge may issue a Warning instead of a Game Loss and have Chris draw one fewer card in his next hand (i.e. 5).

Originally posted by Julien de Graat:

The Comprehensive Rules define opening hand as the cards that you keep after all mulligan decisions (CR 103.4). So I think Chris actually did discover the error in time for the downgrade.
The Head Judge may issue a Warning instead of a Game Loss and have Chris draw one fewer card in his next hand (i.e. 5).

Well, you're 100% right, I missed that. Therefore it is possible to downgrade penalty for Chris.

I agree with Piotr on his assessment of the infractions and I feel his decision on whether to downgrade for Paul is completely accurate.

He raised the one question, and in my opinion what this whole KP scenario will be about, can we downgrade for Chris? I would agree that the “opening hand” is defined as the first 7 cards drawn, and does not extend to any mulligans. But from a customer service standpoint I really dislike handing a penalty out to someone who does the right thing. This looks to be a prime example as a feel bad moment for calling a judge on yourself and can lead to people being hesitant to call for a judge for other infractions. Regardless I would still issue a GL to Chris and explain why I was unable to downgrade and thank him for bringing it to a judges attention: *edit* Thank you to Julien for clarifying the ‘opening hand clause’. I would also agree that a downgrade for Chis is entirely appropriate. My only question is does he draw a hand of 5 or 6 cards now? 1 loss for the mulligan and should he lose for the the ‘fix’ of the DL problem.

If the player, upon drawing an opening hand, discovers a deck problem and calls a judge at that point, the Head Judge may downgrade the penalty, fix the deck, and allow the player to redraw the hand with one fewer card. The player may continue to take further mulligans if he or she desires.

I would say that the player should draw 5 cards.

Edited Nicholas Brown (Nov. 28, 2013 02:14:38 AM)

I agree with a DDLP Game Loss to Paul and a DDLP Warning (Downgrade) to Chris, for the reasons listed above.

Originally posted by Nicholas Brown:

I would say that the player should draw 5 cards.

In all honesty, I would have Chris draw 6 cards after fixing and reshuffling his deck.
Could you please convince me with your 5s? :)

My logic is that the KP states that Chris is currently shuffling his deck and has not drawn his 6-card hand when he notices the problem, as he still has to present his deck to his opponent for the cut.

Originally posted by Stefano Ferrari:

In all honesty, I would have Chris draw 6 cards after fixing and reshuffling his deck.
Could you please convince me with your 5s? :)

I read downgrading, fixing the deck and redrawing with one fewer card all as one package. You either apply all of it or none.

TE-DDP, ask HJ to downgrade for Chris (Warning). He puts his card back into his deck. Shuffles and draws 6 cards. (As noted earlier, he didn't draw his 6 cards yet, so we're not down to 5 yet)

TD-DDP for Paul (Game Loss). His current games ends, with him losing. After fixing his deck, they can start game 2 with him having the option of who goes first.

Pretty much agree with what's been said re: violation and penalty, including downgrade for Chris.

I ask Chris to make sure he gets a real shuffle in after pile counting, then go to five - when he tossed his hand back, he'd already chosen to go to six, so if we let him draw six, we're allowing him to get a free mulligan.

Originally posted by John McCarthy:

Pretty much agree with what's been said re: violation and penalty, including downgrade for Chris.

I ask Chris to make sure he gets a real shuffle in after pile counting, then go to five - when he tossed his hand back, he'd already chosen to go to six, so if we let him draw six, we're allowing him to get a free mulligan.

He may have chosen to go to 6, but he didn't actually draw 6 yet, so I don't see how it's a free mulligan.

I actually had almost this exact situation happen to me in GP Hong Kong last month. Only difference was that the player noticed before he presented.

Ddl/p for both. Downgrade to warning for Chris with the HJs okay and game loss for Paul. Which means Paula current game ends and they proceed to game 2. Chris draws 6 since he hasn't drawn the 6 yet.

Sashi C Loco
Emcee | Host | Broadcast DJ | Hip Hop Entertainer | Level 2 MtG Judge | MCNG | Legendary…

DDLP for both. Game Loss for Paul. For Chris, I would ask a HJ to downgrade the penalty to a Warning because he called a judge before he could benefit from the mistake. This is the downgrade option that appears in the General Philosophy section of the IPG. Then Chris can continue mulliganing to six.

This is pretty textbook in my mind, and I'm in agreement with the D/DLP penalties (and downgrade,) however, because Paul had already started his game, sideboards can be used for this game 2, unlike most times that this penalty would be applied which would be after a deck check.

The above statements sound reasonable, and I have no reason to disagree.

Question: In this scenario, Paul started his game with a 61 card deck, rather than 60, which we consider a disadvantage philosophically as per the M14 sideboarding rules. He had not drawn Chris' card, so by getting Chris' card from Paul you (as a judge) did not break Paul's game state. Assuming Chris' card was not also in Paul's deck (i.e. Paul wasn't playing any copies of the card Chris had accidentally given him, so we can verify that Paul had not gained advantage off of Chris' card) and we can verify that Chris and Paul were not collaborating in cheating by doing this, can we downgrade the GL for Paul to a Warning and allow him to continue playing his game? Assuming the above things are true, I see no reason why it is necessary to break Paul's game state over this problem.

Originally posted by Lyle Waldman:

Question: In this scenario, Paul started his game with a 61 card deck, rather than 60, which we consider a disadvantage philosophically as per the M14 sideboarding rules. He had not drawn Chris' card, so by getting Chris' card from Paul you (as a judge) did not break Paul's game state. Assuming Chris' card was not also in Paul's deck (i.e. Paul wasn't playing any copies of the card Chris had accidentally given him, so we can verify that Paul had not gained advantage off of Chris' card) and we can verify that Chris and Paul were not collaborating in cheating by doing this, can we downgrade the GL for Paul to a Warning and allow him to continue playing his game? Assuming the above things are true, I see no reason why it is necessary to break Paul's game state over this problem.

My answer would be no, as this case is covered by the IPG: “A player has a Pacifism in his deck from a previous opponent.” is example D from the IPG section dedicated to Deck/Decklist Problem (Chapter 3.9).

For how I understand the policy in this case, it's Paul's responsability to track down his own and his opponent's cards during any game, and he failed to do that during the previous round, therefore he's now playing with a deck not matching his decklist. While he hasn't abused of said card in the proposed scenario, there is plenty of space to create an abuse of any kind and therefore I find it right to sanction him with a Game Loss, which is not listed in the cases where I may ask the Head Judge for a Downgrade.