Hi everyone.

I have a question regarding a Game Play Error that when it happens, the offending player ends up with extra cards in his hand.

Lets say Alfred has a Jace Beleren with 4 counters on the battlefield. At the beginning of his turn he activates Jace's -1, confirms no responses with his opponent and draws a card. Plays a creature, attacks, both players do a lot of stuff and then, before passing activates Jace's -1 again, confirms no responses and draws another card. At this point this is not DEC because a clear GRV has happened before putting the extra card in his hand.

Five turns go by and then Alfred (somehow) realizes what he did. Lets say, as usual, no shenanigans on any player's part. Is this rulling GRV no backup? or does DEC clause: “Additionally, it is Drawing Extra Cards if a player has excess cards in their hand that he or she cannot account for.” apply on this scenario?

Thanks!

The infraction does not change over the time it is unnoticed. As a rewind is not possible and no special GRV fix applies, the ruling is indeed GRV no fix.

An interesting side effect to the scenario, is that after so many turns,
the players may not be able to reconstruct back to that point to say “Oh,
he activated Jace twice in a turn.” Instead, we're looking at a DEC that
fits that phrase of cards not being able to be accounted for even though a
GRV did originally cause it. We just might not know it.

I hope that makes sense… it is a Monday after all…

I concur with what George said. If the players remember 5 turns down the road that he did indeed activate Jace twice in a single turn, then it is a GRV/FTMGS. If they cannot remember (and the judge investigating is unable to determine) why the extra card ended up in his hand, then it is DEC.

You can look at Jace's current loyalty to try to re-construct over the past X turns how many cards they should have drawn. If they can agree Jace has one less counter and there's one more card than accounted for 5 turns later, I think you can make the distinction, provided the players vouch for the possibility that Jace was double-activated.

That's a challenge though, and I'm underlining Casey & George's conclusion that it will be difficult to determine and there's a good chance we won't be able to catch it. If we know how to look for evidence of how it originally happened, we're more able to make the GRV call. Without determining the GRV, it is indeed DEC for a card unaccounted for.