I have a question about whether and how to distinguish the two following scenarios:

Case 1:
Arya casts Zealous Conscripts. When it enters the battlefield, she targets Ned's Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Ned says "In response, I Lightning Bolt my Jace. Anakin calls a judge.

Case 2, from the Knowledge Pool:
Adam is playing against Netta, who is at 6 life. Adam has an Archangel of Thune in play with no +1/+1 counters on it. Adam taps his Archangel of Thune and six lands then declares “Attack, and Sphinx's Revelation, put 3 counters on - I win!” Netta calls a judge.

The answer from the KP was to rewind to the Archangel's triggered ability, so the Archangel was tapped and attacking, with only one counter on it.

What would you do in the first scenario?
If you back up the whole spell, what is the salient difference with the second scenario?
Can Arya ask Ned to go through the motions of his shortcut and appeal the Judge only during resolution?

Thanks for your help!

Case 1 seems to be an issue of an interrupted shortcut (one of the official ones). So we let it get interrupted and walk it through. It seems likely that Arya just pre-announced her choice, so she'd be bound to it unless Ned wants to use his priority to cast the bolt before she actually gets Jace. But we'd need some investigation to be sure of who said what and when, in case Ned did something that passed his priority.

Case 2 was about a GRV, so the rewind was back to the point of the actual error (where counters were put on the attacker)

They're very different scenarios from my read.

EDIT: Yes, I completely missed the point. Eesh

Edited Chris Nowak (Dec. 6, 2013 10:43:44 AM)

chris, you missed the point: your own lightning bolt can't deal damage to
your own jace.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. The bolt is in response to the triggered ability.

The problem is that Ned cannot redirect damage from his own Lightning Bolt to Jave. “Bolt your Jace” is a standard shortcut, “Bolt my Jace” is illegal. The question is whether we backup the whole spell, or if we force Ned to eat his own Bolt to the face.

This has been brought up in the past. On the old DCIJUDGE-L listserv,
Uncle Scott said:

“If a player announces they are targeting their own Planeswalker with a Gut
Shot, there's no need to bring Shortcuts into the discussion; it's simply
an illegal action. The rules lawyers who want to force that player to
target themselves with Gut Shot, and then disallow the redirection, are not
doing a service to the game; please, don't enable that behavior.”

I think that covers the Lightning Bolt issue equally well.

The first thing I'd do would be to ask the player what they knew about how you deal damage to planeswalkers and tease out if they understand that “bolt Jace” is shorthand for “bolt player, redirect to Jace”. If they understand that, then I'd make them eat the bolt because they're clearly targeting themselves with the intent to redirect to their planeswalker (despite that not being an option).

However, if they legitimately appear unaware of this nuance (and many people still are), then I think it's completely appropriate to back up to before the bolt. In this case, they're actually trying to bolt Jace, the permanent. And since Jace isn't a creature or player, it's an illegal target and GRV.

Since you can't redirect to your own planeswalker, I don't think we should approach the situation as “they're trying to use a shortcut” since that shortcut simply doesn't exist.

This might be a bit too nuanced of an approach, but I think it best matches the ruling with the exact intent.

If a player knows he can't bolt his own Jace (and he isn't cheating) why would he attempt to do so?

Attempting to convince yourself the player intended to bolt himself is not going to be a gratifying experience for anyone.

Why does the rule actually exist that you can't direct-damage your own planeswalkers? It's very counter-intuitive.

Earthquake-effects would become quite lopsided if you could redirect them to your planeswalkers.

I can't see anything so complex in the first scenario that I cannot safely full backup (i.e. bolt back in hand, mana source untapped), so the question here would be “why shouldn't I backup?”.

Originally posted by Ward Poulisse:

Why does the rule actually exist that you can't direct-damage your own planeswalkers? It's very counter-intuitive.

I believe the CR philosphy here is you can't use your PW as a life point pool. Think Burning Earth or things like that, you would be able to use your 7 loyalty PW as your extra life points.

Even from a flavour perspective it makes sense you cannot directly damage a PW that's loyal to you.

I was aware of Uncle Scott's ruling, but the KP scenario made me wonder again about the difference between the two scenarios.

Both are, in my mind, a shortcut with an illegal action in it. In one case, we rewind it full, in the other, we do not.

I accept both results, I just want to educate myself about what is the determining factor which should guide us.

If we say that targeting your own planeswalker is an illegal action, because Lightning Bolt does not target planeswalker, what do we do if the player says “I meant the usual shortcut, target myself and redirect” ? I do not really want to make him eat the Lightning Bolt now, but I do not know why I should prevent him for making that play.

I am still a bit hazy on this. What the player actually did was shortcut targeting himself and redirecting the damage to the planeswalker. In actual fact, he had a legal target for the spell: himself. It is upon resolution, where the damage redirection can occur, that the illegal action is taken. So why do we not back up to the point where he had a legal target?
Players play spells all of the time expecting them to do one thing when they actually do something else and unless target is illegal, the spell still resolves no?
For instance, if Ned were to Spell Snare an Abrupt Decay he would not be allowed to put the Spell Snare back in his hand since Abrupt Decay is a legal target.

For the record I prefer allowing him to take it back, I just want to know how to make that determination.

Originally posted by Jared Holder:

I am still a bit hazy on this. What the player actually did was shortcut targeting himself and redirecting the damage to the planeswalker. In actual fact, he had a legal target for the spell: himself. It is upon resolution, where the damage redirection can occur, that the illegal action is taken. So why do we not back up to the point where he had a legal target?
Players play spells all of the time expecting them to do one thing when they actually do something else and unless target is illegal, the spell still resolves no?
For instance, if Ned were to Spell Snare an Abrupt Decay he would not be allowed to put the Spell Snare back in his hand since Abrupt Decay is a legal target.

For the record I prefer allowing him to take it back, I just want to know how to make that determination.

I think the main answer to this is that Magic is not a game of “Gotcha”.

Originally posted by Jared Holder:

he had a legal target for the spell: himself

but that's not the target he named; what he named was an illegal target. Backup illegal actions, untap the mana, assess the GPE:GRV & Warning (unless he's already well down the upgrade path).

(Oh, look, that's almost exactly what Paul quoted from some “Uncle Scott” guy… heh!)

Edited Scott Marshall (Dec. 7, 2013 06:48:17 PM)

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Backup illegal actions, untap the mana, assess the GPE:GRV & Warning

I do not really see how to do that without giving strategic advice, such as “Do not bolt yourself in the face”.

What should I say to the player if he answers my ruling with “Fine, I bolt myself and redirect to Jace”?

Note that I completely agree with the “Gotcha” nature of letting him eat the bolt in the first place. I am just not sure about how to justify it to the players (both of them), and about the location of the border between “Bolt my Jace” and “win through incorrect actions”.

Maybe I just overthink it.