As a couple people already said, it is possible that DV did pay the one life, but did not write it down. How do we fix life total discrepancies? We fix the life totals. Just now, both players have the wrong life total down.

Obviously, if Anakin knows he is at 7, he will not pay seven life to draw with Griselbrand. So, if we fix this life-total discrepancy, we should NOT kill Anakin; back up a split second and remove Griselbrand's ability from the stack, Anakin is at 7, continue. If you argue that he would not cast Griselbrand if he was at 7, tell him he's lucky to be alive (and he should remember to keep track of his life total).

This screams partial fix to some people, but remember that I'm not fixing a GRV here, I am solving a life total discrepancy (if that is what it is). How do we proceed if players call us over on turn six and there are two fetch lands in one player's graveyard, but his life total is 19? We know the player is supposed to be at 18, and we fix it. More importantly, both players agree that the person is supposed to be at 18, and they are happy.

Also, still issue a warning (so abusable).

If you still think it's a GRV, see Callum's post.

Niko

PS: We will never force (heh heh) a player to pay a cost. If we back up, we back up the whole casting of the spell (exile, target, everything).
1) If a player wanted to cast Wrath and was at one, but paid 3W for it, but only had Battlefield Forge for the second white, we don't kill the player.
2)If a player Bonfires their opp, but opp has Witchbane orb out, we don't make them Bonfire themselves.

Edited Niko Skartvedt (Oct. 16, 2012 10:04:47 PM)

Personally, I would be very reluctant in recommending a backing up of game state, but rather just issue warnings for GRV and FtMGS to the respective players and maintain state as it is, with Anakin branded to 1 life after paying the costs for activating Griselbrand's ability.

The prime reason being that Anakin has drawn for the turn, and that is very valuable information for Anakin. If a rewind were to occur, Anakin might have played differently with “future” knowledge that Griselbrand would not be the right play. He might or might not have other answers in hand, but we are pretty sure he won't be playing big G the next time he goes back to the future. That is one very major decision point in the game.

In reference to the IPG, the game should only be backed up in the case of a GRV if “the situation is simple enough to safely back up without too much disruption to the course of the game”. In my point of view, a situation is “simple enough” only if the error was noticed right before the next step is to be taken, ie. if Anakin or his opponent discovered the error right before or right after Anakin drew his card for the turn. In such a situation, I do feel it is safe enough to just recommend a simple rewind and issue warnings respectively, as the disruption to the course of the game wouldn't be too great, with neither players knowing what future actions each might take, and not too much information is revealed between players.

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Andrew Teo <forum-1602@apps.magicjudges.org
> wrote:

> with neither players knowing what future actions each might take, and not
> too much information is revealed between players.


That logic extends to not backing up over a single passing of priority
because you learned that the player wasn't going to do anything with
priority.

In this situation we can quickly and accurately determine the actions that
have happened so we can quickly roll back the game state. The
player choosing to not cast Grislebrand is probably how the game should
have gone. All that really has happened is the player revealed a dead card
in hand. Much worse things than this have to be accepted in the name of
tournament logistics (in the sense of us having to have an imperfect set of
rules so that tournaments can happen in the real world not fantasy math
land, not the logistics team logistics).

Allright, still not a discussion, more like a series of statements of thought. (but good work, Gareth.)

Let's try this again:
Many people say that the choice of casting Griselbrand is a huge turning point in the “back up” decision. But isn't a player drawing 7 cards when he shouldn't ALSO a huge disruption? How do you address that?

Also, if the judge let me draw the extra 7 cards and told me to remember to pay the one life in the future, I would not make an effort to remember next time. I would trade warning for 7 cards every time (unintentionally, of course).

Niko

Edited Niko Skartvedt (Oct. 16, 2012 10:42:40 PM)

Originally posted by Niko Skartvedt:

As a couple people already said, it is possible that DV did pay the one life, but did not write it down. How do we fix life total discrepancies? We fix the life totals. Just now, both players have the wrong life total down.

Obviously, if Anakin knows he is at 7, he will not pay seven life to draw with Griselbrand. So, if we fix this life-total discrepancy, we should NOT kill Anakin; back up a split second and remove Griselbrand's ability from the stack, Anakin is at 7, continue. If you argue that he would not cast Griselbrand if he was at 7, tell him he's lucky to be alive (and he should remember to keep track of his life total).

This screams partial fix to some people, but remember that I'm not fixing a GRV here, I am solving a life total discrepancy (if that is what it is). How do we proceed if players call us over on turn six and there are two fetch lands in one player's graveyard, but his life total is 19? We know the player is supposed to be at 18, and we fix it. More importantly, both players agree that the person is supposed to be at 18, and they are happy.

Also, still issue a warning (so abusable).

If you still think it's a GRV, see Callum's post.

Niko

I see the other point from your post.

I wouldn't say it's a partial fix, but rather a fix to a totally different issue. Most posts here (including mine) are looking at the game play error that has occurred when casting Force of Will (and hence being very reluctant in rewinding to that state), while we could also look at fixing the current game state of life totals only.

Fixing life totals, backing up to removing Griselbrand's ability on the stack, and continuing the game, while issuing GRV and FtMGS for their previous errors would be another point that is worth considering.

Gareth Pye
That logic extends to not backing up over a single passing of priority
because you learned that the player wasn't going to do anything with
priority.

True, I might not have noticed the finer details as my main intention was to minimise the amount of information revealed between players. I will keep that in mind for future picky situations.

Edited Andrew Teo (Oct. 16, 2012 11:31:17 PM)

Originally posted by Niko Skartvedt:

PS: We will never force (heh heh) a player to pay a cost. If we back up, we back up the whole casting of the spell (exile, target, everything).
1) If a player wanted to cast Wrath and was at one, but paid 3W for it, but only had Battlefield Forge for the second white, we don't kill the player.
2)If a player Bonfires their opp, but opp has Witchbane orb out, we don't make them Bonfire themselves.

The IPG says only that we “back up to the point of error.”

Yes, the Comp Rules say, “If a player realizes that he or she can't legally take an action after starting to do so, the entire action is reversed and any payments already made are canceled.” But that only applies for illegal actions, and in no way was casting FoW for the alternate cost illegal.

While “backing up to the point of error” and “reversing the entire action” are often indistinguishable, I feel like this is a scenario where the two are different. The CR also says players can pay costs for spells in any order; this suggests to me that the payment of each individual cost is an “atomic” action, and we could in fact reverse the game state to the precise moment when Leviathan has been exiled but 1 life hasn't yet been paid. Moreover, the CR says “Announcements and payments can't be altered after they've been made”; to me, this reinforces that Anakin's choice to exile Leviathan is “locked in” even if the game state is reversed.


P.S. Regarding the two scenarios you brought up…I actually agree with your rulings in both of those, but I think they are different enough from this discussion that mentioning them is quite misleading.

In scenario #1, the ruling is supported by the CR's statement that “Activating mana abilities is not mandatory, even if paying a cost is.”

In #2, the chosen target was illegal, so the standard CR backup for illegal actions applies, which backs up the entire spell.

Neither of these principles applies here, however, as “paying 1 life” is not a mana ability and the FoW was otherwise legally cast.

Edited Paul Baranay (Oct. 16, 2012 10:46:37 PM)

Well, this is an interesting one, that's for sure.

Summarizing the cases for the two options I would consider:

a) GRV & FTMGS - Neither player mentioned the life total change. According to the MTR they are supposed to do this now, which I think lends support to the idea that this is a GRV & FTMGS. If we go this route, then I think we can have a debate about whether to rewind to the point of paying for the Force, but that'd really just be up to the discretion of the head judge as to whether or not we do, and the answer would probably vary from judge to judge.

b) No GRV/FTMGS and the players simple have recorded the wrong life totals. Support for this is that they both agree that Anakin should be at 7 life, so they're not actually disagreeing on the life total, they both believe it should be 7. If we go this route, there is no penalty, they both agree the life total is 7, so the life total is 7.

I think option B is the correct option here. The players agree that the life total should have been 7, we just fix the life totals and continue.

Now, Anakin has announced that he wants to activate Griselbrand ability, which is where it gets tricky. Can I ask some pointed questions here and provide some hypothetical answers as well which will allow me to support one of two directions here?

To Anakin: “When you activated Griselbrands ability, did you look at your life total on the pad before you decided to activate the ability?”

Answer: “No, I didn't look at it.” -> At this point, I think it's clear that Anakin has made a strategic error that, while not illegal, is going to cost him this game. A player should consider their life total and the state of the game before taking an action, but they're not required to, if Anakin didn't look to his life total and made this decision without taking his life total into consideration, then he's made a mistake and needs to live with the results of that mistake.

Answer: “Yes, but I didn't realize it was wrong until afterwards.” -> I can see Nikos point on taking Griselbrands ability off the stack as we want to be helpful, and we're certainly not being helpful to Anakin if we force him to do something he didn't want to do, but on the flip side we're not being helpful to Nute if we allow Anakin we rewind and don't force Anakin to make a payment for an ability he announced that he's able to make.

I think I'm going to disagree with Niko on taking the ability off the stack, even if Anakin did look at it and believe he had the incorrect life total. I'm also going to disagree with Niko on issuing a Warning and ask, what infraction you're issuing the warning for? You've said it's not GRV, someone else mentioned PCV, but I don't think that's what happened here, this seems like general confusion as opposed to an actual communication policy violation.

In reference to Nikos two examples, I think:
1) We have an illegal target, an illegal choice was made, he has to make a new choice, one of his options was not to play that spell. Although we break this down into steps, I really see the casting of a spell or ability as one action.
2) This is different as we do not require players to activate mana abilities, and if they don't have the mana to cast it they back up. Life total payment is different, he has the resources available to activate this ability and it doesn't require him to make any choices to do it, so it's already done.

Sorry Anakin, but you've lost.

Edited Michael White (Oct. 16, 2012 10:56:10 PM)

Originally posted by Niko Skartvedt:

But isn't a player drawing 7 cards when he shouldn't ALSO a huge disruption? How do you address that?

Of course it is, but so is going down to just 1 life. What if Nute is holding Volcanic Fallout and is perfectly happy to see Anakin go to 1 life?

As judges, we could of course look at both players' hands and board states and use that information to make a decision…but the IPG specifically says “These procedures do not, and should not, take into account the game being played, the current situation that the game is in, or who will benefit strategically from the procedure associated with a penalty.”

Sorry, still thinking.

By my own logic, I think of activating an abiltiy (or casting a spell) as one action. If he hasn't paid the life then he hasn't completed the action.

To compare, drawing a card for my turn is an action. If I start reaching for my library to do it but stop before I actually pick up the card I can still cast an instant during my upkeep.

I'm changing my mind. Anakin hasn't activated Griselbrands ability yet. Adjust the life total, no penalty, play on.

Originally posted by Niko Skartvedt:

Many people say that the choice of casting Griselbrand is a huge turning point in the “back up” decision. But isn't a player drawing 7 cards when he shouldn't ALSO a huge disruption? How do you address that?

Also, if the judge let me draw the extra 7 cards and told me to remember to pay the one life in the future, I would not make an effort to remember next time. I would trade warning for 7 cards every time (unintentionally, of course).

I'm not sure which is a bigger disruption - although I do believe that we aren't there to fix it strategically for both players - drawing 7 cards when he shouldn't, or dropping to 1 life when he shouldn't?

Is it fair to look only at the surface of incorrect life totals, when the cause of it stemmed from the casting of Force of Will without paying 1 life?

I'm going by the “they realize that they both forgot to subtract 1 life” portion; as both players have made the mistake of not announcing life totals after losing/gaining life, hence the warnings of GRV and FtMGS.

But I'll be going with the remedy of what you've mentioned, of adjusting life totals and taking one step back.

It looks very similar to the scenario where Sword of War and Peace's trigger ability was halfly resolved: you had damage dealt to your opponent but didn't update your life total as a result of gainning life (or vice verse). We normally handle this situation as: you simply didn't update your note according to the actual life total, so please update it and play on.

Following this pattern, I agree with Niko's way of dealing with this situation, but my reasons based on this very clause found in the CR for activating an ability: If, at any point during the activation of an ability, a player is unable to comply with any of those steps, the activation is illegal; the game returns to the moment before that ability started to be activated (see rule 717, “Handling Illegal Actions”). I perceived this as Anakin announced the Griselbrand's ability, put it on the stack, and was about to pay the cost. He didn't notice whether he was able (or willing) to pay this cost until he checked his life total, and the game rule does grant players the option not to pay the costs (in exchange for a warning for GRV), so I guess we should be handling as such.

I don't like interpreting this as a life total “discrepancy”. Anakin never announced paying 1 life and neither player marked or verbally confirmed the change, so saying that he did so, and no one recorded it is asinine. It's an attractive solution to the problem because it allows judges to implement what feels like the “natural” fix to the problem of just subtracting 1 life from Anakin's total and moving on from there.

This “natural” fix is not, however, supported by policy. In fact, it is explicitly forbidden by IPG 3.6:

If not caught within a reasonable time frame, or backing up is impossible or sufficiently complex that it could affect the course of the game, the judge should leave the game state as it is after applying state-based actions and not attempt any form of partial ‘fix’ – either reverse all actions or none

The reason I feel this is definitely a GPE-GRV, and not a life total discrepancy, is that it so closely fits the example:

A. A player casts Wrath of God for 3W (actual cost 2WW)

Anakin cast Force of Will for the alternate cost “Exile a blue card from your hand” (actual cost “Pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand).

So we return to the issue of whether this situation qualifies as ”sufficiently complex that it could affect the course of the game." I am of the opinion that it isn't the complexity of the backup that would affect the course of the game, but rather the strategic consequences, so I would be fine approving this backup as Head Judge, and would seek it from the Head Judge if I were floor judge.

I will be honest here and say that I am torn on which way to go on this - because i can see either decision (GRV and FtMGS) or just adjust life totals as being the most correct choice.

I do not however feel that rewinding the game to the instant before Force was cast. People have said ‘would you still cast Griselbrand if you couldnt activate his ability in this situation’ (

If there was no griselbrandyness going on, would we actually be worrying about rewinding or a penalty at all?

), and while we are told not to consider board state when making decisions i think this one situation where you do have to consider board state at least somewhat to come to a logical conclusion.
eg. Lets say that in this situation Nute Gunray is actually playing a RUG delver deck and his board state is only lands and Incestile Abberation. Are we still right to say that playing Griselbrand (even without being able to activate his ability) is the wrong play? To me a flying/lifelinking blocker seems at least a somewhat correct play with the ability being a ‘bonus’ This is potentially very differant then if lets say Nute is playing red burn and could say Lightning Bolt in response.

Removing Griselbrand's ability from the stack, returning it to it's owner's hand, returning a random card to the top of Anakin's library (if he drew a card) putting Leviathan and Force of Will back on the stack and going back to paying FoW cost; should be easy and harmless

This to me certainly feels like far to many major play actions have taken place to backup to the point of the error, in the casting of Force of Will, as well as at least two cases of prior hidden information becoming known information to at least one player. You now have Anakin knowing the top card of his library, which cannot be confirmed by the other player, and Nute knowing that Darth's hand contains a threat in the form of Griselbrand.

Personally after reading all of these posts I would be most inclined to use Niko's solution, especially if after a few questions it could be determined that it was more a life total descrepency:

Originally posted by Niko Skartvedt:

As a couple people already said, it is possible that DV did pay the one life, but did not write it down. How do we fix life total discrepancies? We fix the life totals. Just now, both players have the wrong life total down.

Obviously, if Anakin knows he is at 7, he will not pay seven life to draw with Griselbrand. So, if we fix this life-total discrepancy, we should NOT kill Anakin; back up a split second and remove Griselbrand's ability from the stack, Anakin is at 7, continue. If you argue that he would not cast Griselbrand if he was at 7, tell him he's lucky to be alive (and he should remember to keep track of his life total).

This screams partial fix to some people, but remember that I'm not fixing a GRV here, I am solving a life total discrepancy (if that is what it is). How do we proceed if players call us over on turn six and there are two fetch lands in one player's graveyard, but his life total is 19? We know the player is supposed to be at 18, and we fix it. More importantly, both players agree that the person is supposed to be at 18, and they are happy.

Also, still issue a warning (so abusable).

If you still think it's a GRV, see Callum's post.

Niko

PS: We will never force (heh heh) a player to pay a cost. If we back up, we back up the whole casting of the spell (exile, target, everything).
1) If a player wanted to cast Wrath and was at one, but paid 3W for it, but only had Battlefield Forge for the second white, we don't kill the player.
2)If a player Bonfires their opp, but opp has Witchbane orb out, we don't make them Bonfire themselves.

Edited Abeed Bendall (Oct. 17, 2012 04:38:14 PM)

Originally posted by William Stephenson:

It's an attractive solution to the problem because it allows judges to implement what feels like the “natural” fix to the problem of just subtracting 1 life from Anakin's total and moving on from there.
This “natural” fix is not, however, supported by policy. In fact, it is explicitly forbidden by IPG 3.6

While I do agree with William on this point, that this may be more than just a “life total discrepancy”, I feel that too many decisions have happened, with a card drawn for the turn and something exiled to back up further than Anakin having FoW on the stack and backing up to the life total payment.

However, would this be the same if it was done the other way around, with a back up (Anakin forgetting to exile a card, but still paying 1 life)? I would say yes, and argue for the back up.

However, I would also ask the players more on the lines if anyone had announced the 1 life or noted the payment, to be able to argue for just subtracting 1 life and issuing no penalty (other than a GPE for failing to pay Griselbrand's life cost). I too am inclined to use Niko's solution, as it is simply a life total change. But as William said, it's moving into the partial fix territory, and cards have been drawn/played.

In the end, I think I would argue for no back-up, GRV-GPE, with FtMGS to Nute, leave the board as it stands. While this may leave the players not as happy with things as Niko's solution, it holds to the IPG consistently with other penalties, and reminds both players to play more carefully.

Thanks everyone for a vivid and instructive discussion! This is our final verdict on Vader:

It is the shared responsibility of Anakin and Nute Gunray to keep track of their life totals; when Force of Will was cast for its alternative cost, they should have written down immediately that Anakin went from 8 to 7 life points. However, Anakin did not verbally announce that he paid 1 life when casting FoW, which is comparable to casting Wrath of God for 3W (see IPG 2.5). So he committed a GRV, for which he will receive a Warning and Nute will receive the accompanying Warning for FtMGS. Thanks for pointing this out, Callum Milne!
Now it is time to get the Head Judge involved! The decison to back up or not can only be made by him or her, and no partial fixes are allowed; it is not possible to simply adjust life totals and continue from there.

When not backing up, we leave everything as it is; so Anakin is at 8 life, activated Griselbrand and goes to 1, and then likely will continue with drawing 7 cards. Thanks to Michael Swager for his extensive elaboration on the how and why of his choice!
Or the Head Judge could give permission to back up; all actions are rewinded until the illegal casting of FoW. So Anakin does not pay 7 life for Griselbrands activation, untaps the lands he used to cast Griselbrand, puts him back in hand, returns a random card from his hand onto the top of his library, taps all lands that were tapped at the end of Nutes turn, returns the exiled Leviathan and FoW to his hand, and Nute puts Worldslayer from his graveyard onto the stack. Now Anakin has priority and may choose to cast FoW, this time by paying its full price: Both exiling a card and paying 1 life. Thanks Niko Skartvedt for explaining why we do a full back up, and don't force (pun intended) Anakin to cast FoW.

So, the big question remains: To back up or not to back up? The Head Judge can choose to back up, even through a card draw; we have a perfect solution for that in the IPG. Or you could choose not to back up, if you feel it would be too disruptive, or too many decision points have passed to do so safely. As Head Judge, these are the decisions you'll have to make, often based on or influenced by your feeling derived from the situation at the table. (Guess you just had to be there!)

Several people tried to apply a partial fix, by “just correcting the life totals”. Although we know players often do this on their own (and there is no need for a Judge to get involved), this is not an official fix per the IPG. It was also suggested that Anakin is actually at 7 life, but that both players forgot to write it down, so all we have to do is to adjust the numbers on the life pads to what both players agree that they should be. This is really just another way of implementing a partial fix (and by now it should be clear that we don't do partial fixes, except for the specific cases listed in the IPG).
It is true that Anakin did not comply with MTR 2.14: “verbal announcement … of that life total”. When a rule in the MTR is broken, we check the IPG for Tournament Errors, to see if it's one of the specific infractions listed; if not, we simply educate the player(s) and ask them not to repeat the mistake.

So, to make a long story short: You can choose to back up or not, but please, never ever apply a (partial) fix that is not supported by the IPG.