Allison and Nelson are playing in a competitive Modern tournament. Both mulligan to 5. Allison grimaces and says “I can't really play with this either, but I don't want to mulligan to 4.” Nelson is in the same position and suggests “You know what, let's just both draw 7 again?” Allison agrees. As they are about to re-shuffle and redraw, a spectator stops them and calls a judge.

Did the players commit any infraction? If so, how? If not, why not?

As a corollary, what if the players argued that “we decided to call the
first game of the match a draw and start game 2”? Is that allowed?

Thomas Edgar
L1, Sindelfingen, Germany
On Mar 7, 2014 6:32 PM, “Benjamin Bandelow” <

Players may draw at any time. We do not really want to police their ability to draw. What they have done is perfectly legal, no penalty.

That being said they can not sideboard for the next game. I refer to the line in the mtr regarding pregame procedure, “1. If game actions were taken during a previous game of the match, players may exchange cards in their decks for cards in their sideboards.”

Sent from my iPhone

Thomas is correct. The players should record a drawn game on their results slip.

I think the larger question is, have the players committed an infraction by
resetting their mulligans? Certainly, choosing to draw the game is a valid
and legal way to reach the end they want. Is it clear that they have done
that, though? I don't necessarily think so.

If they stated that was their intention, then fine, no harm no foul, record
the drawn game and carry on. However, if they thought they could just
agree to mulligan to 7 in game 1, is there an infraction?

I think we do a lot of customer service in this situation by interpreting their actions, not their intent. It is largely irrelevant to the majority of cases that they happened to play an extra game. I would have no issues approaching this situation and going “Okay guys, this is what you did. This is not strictly allowed, but here is something that is allowed - we're going to assume you did that, please report it as such.”

We just educated two people on how to deal with this situation using technically correct language, much the same way we can help players out when they just don't know what to say when they want to offer a split without stepping into Bribery and Wagering.

Jack Doyle
L2, London, UK.

Justin, I've come to the opinion that if players do something that is technically legal but aren't aware of how to legally accomplish it, our job is not to stick it to them for not knowing the MTR backwards and forwards but to explain the protocol to accomplish their goal. Assuming I'm called over and asked if they can legally both draw seven, I would not feel that it is beyond my scope to inform them that, “At any time both players may agree to draw the current game a begin a new one.” Leave it at that, and hope they fill in the pieces.

If I'm feeling super vindictive and am called over at the worst possible time (they've both drawn up to seven instead of mulling to four without agreeing to draw). I COULD issue them both a Warning for improperly drawing at the start of game and randomly remove cards from their hands until they each had three. But at that point the question will probably arise if there is a way to do it properly, and I would drop the hint above.

Edit: Jack beat me to it. :)

Edited Casey Hanford (March 7, 2014 12:10:29 PM)

They can use another trick, just mulligan to 4 and pact to do nothing during their three first turns, only draw.

Notice that in this case they can't do mulligan to 6 and it can be relevant for card like Serra Avenger or Chancellor of the Annex.