So I encountered an interesting situation at my Pre-release today that I wanted to share, god love new players. I was called over to a table and one of the players asked if he could sideboard, after accepting his hand because his opponent was muliganing to 5. I informed him that he needed to keep his hand and then realized he had his library in his hand and there was no “hand” to be found. I asked him where his hand was and he informed me that he put it back in his library….

I want to make sure I handled this right. Improper Drawing at Game Start seemed like the right infraction. Now what to do… I figured I would shuffle his deck, have him draw 6 and stay with that hand.

Was this correct? How would this work at a COMP REL tournament?

Moved to Regular REL.

Daniel Kitachewsky
L4, Paris, France
Rules NetRep

Originally posted by Sean Johnson:

Improper Drawing at Game Start seemed like the right infraction.

That infraction does not apply in this case because prereleases are run at Regular REL, which means that we need to use the Judging at Regular REL document (a.k.a. the JAR), and not the Infraction Procedure Guide to address this error.

The paragraph titled, “A player makes an in-game error not mentioned above” is the section in the JAR that you want to use to help guide you through fixing this kind of error at a prerelease.

Originally posted by Eric Paré:

The paragraph titled, “A player makes an in-game error not mentioned above” is the section in the JAR that you want to use to help guide you through fixing this kind of error at a prerelease.

I think that this leads to an insanely harsh solution at a prerelease. Congratulating your new player on their lack of hand is not exactly going to convince them to come back, or even to keep playing. I'd suggest that the line that you want in this case is actually in the opening paragraphs:

'If your situation isn’t covered here, use common sense to make the best ruling you can.'

Letting him redraw 6 seems like a fine solution, though generally you should let the player make mulligan decisions from their new hand if you do something like this. Though as Eric says, the ‘Improper Drawing at Start of Game’ infraction is in the IPG and thus does not apply at Regular REL - the JAR is the appropriate document to be using at prereleases.

As it is a regular REL tournament you confirm that it isn't a serious error
(it isn't) and then fix it the best you can. Saying that he has incorrectly
decided to resume muliganing and should complete that process is the only
reasonable course of action. Clearly you don't want him to get a new hand
of 7 (way to abusable) so he draws 6.

At Compeditive REL it falls squarely in ID@SoG. Example D is:
A player chooses to not take a mulligan then takes a mulligan seeing his
opponent choose to take a mulligan.

So follow the procedure as outlined there for how to proceed.

Hi all,

As per a question that came up today, how would this differ if the player shuffled his hand into his library in the middle of the game?

Assume for the purpose of the question that cheating has been ruled out

The same philosophy applies: fix it the best way you can. While we can't fix this in a perfect way (we can't restore the game state as it should exactly be), we can get pretty close by letting the player shuffle his library and redraw as many cards as he had before. Make sure to check is any cards in his hand were known!
Letting the player lose his entire hand is a valid, but not very attractive option. You can also be very creative and let him draw a number of cards smaller than his original hand, but determining this number seems pretty arbitrary and is something I would not recommend.

Originally posted by Thomas Wood:

As per a question that came up today, how would this differ if the player shuffled his hand into his library in the middle of the game?

Assume for the purpose of the question that cheating has been ruled out

I remember handling this case once during a recent FNM; casting Genesis Hydra, revealing cards then shuffling everything revealed with his hand back into his library. As both players could not verify what was in that player's hand (no Thoughtseize/Duress/etc), I had to leave the game state as-is and tell the unfortunate player to be really careful for future plays. I would say it's a “feel bad” moment for that player, but my justification for doing so would be that the game state is too messed up to reconstruct/back up regardless of how crazy I can go with the rules at Regular.

"A player makes an in-game error not mentioned above
This will cover the bulk of player errors, and we will usually leave the game as it is."

First of all, always tell him to be more careful in the future. If a card was known to both players, i would always return that card to he hand. Now for the (additional) fix:

The question is, are you able to fix the game state?
If a player uses a ramp spell on turn 2 and accidently shuffles away his hand, letting him redraw that many cards seems like a good fix, as the game state will be somewhat the same, both players will be ok with this decission, they will both be able to keep enjoying their game.

Another example, it´s turn ~15 both players have plenty of lands in play, the board is empty/stalled, both players were likely just keeping ~3 lands in hand, they don´t needed in play anyways. Now a player accidently shuffles his hand into his deck, giving him 3 fresh draws seems like no fix at all. His opponent is likely in a disadvantage now, if he loses the game he will be very upset. I would grant him an amount of basics out of his deck equal to the number of cards he had.

The ability to apply a fix here seems to be depending on the entire situation, there is no universal way to fix this problem, as you always have to care about how good you are fixing the game state at all.

Edited Thomas Ludwig (July 30, 2014 11:34:32 PM)

Originally posted by Thomas Wood:

how would this differ if the player shuffled his hand into his library in the middle of the game?

Actually happened in a Denver PTQ a few years ago, in the finals. The ruling at that time, which has been supported since, was “gee, too bad you no longer have a hand; carry on as is.” Seems harsh, but - as I've said many, many times - Players need to “own” their decisions/actions/mistakes.

I like Dustin's intent, but it's absolutely perilous to apply that fix. It's also unsupported by policy - not because we don't want that fixed, but because we don't feel that's a situation that needs special consideration - and we're OK with the highly infrequent application of the default “leave things as is”.

d:^D

Scott, I have to respectfully disagree. At Competitive+, my proposed fix definitely isn't supported by policy, but I believe at Regular, it is.

'If your situation isn’t covered here, use common sense to make the best ruling you can.'

At a PTQ, I have no trouble explaining the player that he has to continue without any cards in hand, as the potential for abuse is extremely high. At a prerelease/FNM, this is just a mistake that can happen because of clumsiness, and I do want my players to have a fun experience (and come back for a future event). While leaving everything as it is seems like a fine solution that is supported by policy, common sense allows us to fix it as good as we can, and redrawing a hand of equal size seems reasonable to me; of course, depending on the exact situation and the players involved. Luckily, Regular REL allows us for some leeway in using our judgement, and it is possible for different judges to come to different solutions!

I have to say that I am with Scott on this one. While I think you should 100% let a player redraw a hand accidentally shuffled away at the start of the game, as stated above, I am far less comfortable with this mid-game. The disruption of the fix is much higher at that point, and I do not beleive that it would lead to a net positive player experience payoff when you consider the opponen, too.

From what I understand about regular REL, I think I'd honestly make a bit of a strange ruling for this if it happened at a local FNM.

Assuming we're mid-late game, and for the heck of it, let's say it happened off Genesis Hydra, I'd probably ask how many cards the player had in hand before the error, have them shuffle their deck, and draw less cards based on how many they had. If they had 5, I'd say take 3. 3 cards, take 2.

While this is entirely out of the book, it seems like a reasonable way to preserve the game state, with the player in question having another hand of randomly chosen cards, and the opponent doesn't (rightfully) get upset by their opponent getting a mid-game wheel.

I realize this would risk setting a precedent for this situation that some players MIGHT try to exploit in the future, but in general it seems a lot more fair than re-drawing the same number of cards, of losing their hand because they were nervous in game 3.

I think a good question would be how much would your ruling change based on the situation? (ie: g3 of the final round, both players playing for first vs round 1, game 1)

I think it's a good example of a bad ruling if you think you'd change the
ruling based what game, round or table it is. Rulings that you change on
these things are much too easy to look like favouritism.

Plus you could be greatly improving that player's situation if he had plenty of lands in hand and now has plenty spells.