The situation is - Player A plays a scryland and says “scry”, Player B mishears what Player A said (in Polish the word “scry” is very similar to our version of “go”) and begins his turn, drawing a card without confirmation. What should be done in a situation like this? This bears the likeness of DEC and a game loss, but it is really harsh to penalize it like this in my opinion. I have also been told that it might not be DEC as player A probably untapped first and that would mean that Player A commited a GRV first and DEC does not apply. Or can we consider beginning a turn a GRV also so we don't have to apply DEC.

I would be very grateful if someone could clarify this for me.

Edited Krzysztof Ciesielka (Sept. 15, 2014 04:01:07 AM)

I don't know how to justify it within rules, but I'd feel as bad as you applying a DEC here, particularly if language and translation issues are involved (in Spanish, in Theros block, we had a similar one with Bestow mechanic, since in Spanish it sounds exactly like concession, with players potentially scooping up…).

We have some scope to back up for situations like this. It's not unreasonable to return a random card from the hand to the top of the library, and let A continue with his turn. Warn players about the similarities of these words, go from there.

Check out this article by Joel Krebs and myself for some more information: HERE.

Jack.

I'm aware that I CAN backup, the question is if I SHOULD backup and is there any justification for this.

The fact that you even had the motivation to post the question to JudgeApps shows that you don't think that this is a cut and dry Drawing Extra Cards situation. N would not have thought it was his turn if A had not said anything, which sucks.

However, we should not be punishing A for making an effort to communicate more clearly, nor should we be punishing N to the degree of a Game Loss for interpreting A's attempt at communication; especially when in the language, there is room for confusion with the two phrases ‘scry’ and ‘go’.

At the end of the day, our penalties boil down to a way of tracking specific behaviour, and discouraging that kind of behaviour. Giving a Game Loss for DEC here accomplishes neither of these things.

Jack is correct. This is an infraction that is common enough, and that has low enough potential for abuse, that we habitually downgrade and back-up.

Thank you very much Jack and Thomas, you have cleared some things for me :)