Here are a couple situations from my FNM tonight that I thought were interesting and would like to share with the community, and ask how you would have handled them. They both happened in the same match. Both players are quite experienced and have played in multiple Comp REL events and a couple Pro REL events as well. You may assume cheating is not a factor.

1) Player B casts Pearl Lake Ancient on Player A's end step. Player A turns over Kheru Spellsnatcher and attempts to counter the Pearl Lake Ancient. Player B accepts the counter, untaps, draws, and plays a land. No other game actions happen, and you are called over as a judge. Do you:

a) Rewind at all?
b) What game zone is Pearl Lake Ancient in?
c) Is Kheru Spellsnatcher face-up or face down? For this question assume Player A has said that he would not have flipped over the Spellsnatcher if he knew about the “can't be countered” text on Pearl Lake Ancient, assume you believe him, and assume Player B has no problem with the Spellsnatcher turning back over.

2) Player A attacks with a bunch of creatures. Player B, amongst his blocks, blocks a Sagu Archer with a Morph creature. He confirms damage, changes life totals, Player A confirms the result of the combat (which creatures live or die), and when Player A mentions to Player B that his morph should die, Player B asks you (as a judge) to rewind the game so that he can flip his Morph over and save it. Do you honor Player B's request, and if so why?

Please use Cardlinks…
Pearl Lake Ancient, Kheru Spellsnatcher, Sagu Archer

How do you card link on this board?

I'd be ok deviating in the first scenario but not the second.

For 1), both players want the Spellsnatcher turned face down (presumably without any prodding from the judge), not a lot has happened, and there's a fix at Comp REL specifically dealing with objects that were placed in the wrong zone anyway. I'd re-morph the Spellsnatcher, put the Ancient back into play (since from this game state, we can assume that Spellsnatcher's trigger never went off and thus couldn't be erroneously resolved), and return the land play, but not rewind through the card draw. Giving Player A all his mana back to potentially mess with the library before Player B draws feels more disruptive to me.

For 2), no infraction, no rewind, let Player B learn a lesson in paying attention to the board state and/or understanding the morph rules.

FYI, Ctrl+M to cardlink.

Personally, I would not allow a “back up” in neither of the cases at any REL. Even for the first scenario. One of the skills that are necessary for playing Magic successfully is “reading the cards”. Moreover, do not forget that a card draw has already occured. I would like to press on educating the player and take it as a learning opportunity (that he should read cards more carefully).

I would agree completely with Milan and add that in the first scenario a significant amount of information was revealed (the identity of a face-down morph) which may have an impact on the game if it was rewound.

EDIT:
After rereading the scenario after what Anothony posted I think that we should indeed just apply a partial fix and change Ancient's zone.

Edited Krzysztof Ciesielka (Oct. 6, 2014 09:47:57 AM)

In the first scénario, the only error was that Pearl lake ancien was countered. “Cant be countered” dont mean “cant be the target of spell/ability who countered”.

We have, so, an object in a wrong zone (exile)
Fix by putting it in the right one (battlefield).
Take the time to educate player about the importance of reading cards.

Edited Pascal Gemis (Oct. 6, 2014 09:26:08 AM)

Originally posted by Krzysztof Ciesielka:

I would agree completely with Milan and add that in the first scenario a considerable amount of information was revealed (the identity of a face-down morph) which may have an impact on the game if it was rewound.

You would not be rewinding that far. Flipping the Spellsnatcher is a legal play, as is targeting the Ancient with it's triggered ability. The error was letting it counter the Ancient. You don't need to rewind because the only actual problem is a card in the wrong zone, so you can just apply a partial fix.

Milan Majerčík
Personally, I would not allow a “back up” in neither of the cases at any REL. Even for the first scenario. One of the skills that are necessary for playing Magic successfully is “reading the cards”. Moreover, do not forget that a card draw has already occured. I would like to press on educating the player and take it as a learning opportunity (that he should read cards more carefully).

A single card draw does not make it too late to back up. If we didn't back things up because somebody didn't read a card, we would have close to zero backups. How do you think most GRVs happen? And having this policy for Regular REL is particularly cruel and pointless.

Well, I think there is some misunderstanding among us regarding the first scenario. How I understand it (especially the phrase “player B accepts the counter, untaps, draws, and plays a land”):

1. Player B accepts that Kheru Spellsnatcher's ability targets Ancient and lets it resolve.
2. Player B puts the Ancient on the battlefield.
3. Player B continues with his turn (untap, draw, land…).
4. Player A calls a judge (because he thinks that the Ancient should have been countered).

Looks like, analogically to the “reading the cards” skill, I could also use some work on my “reading the scenario” skill :-)

Lyle, would you be so kind and clarify a bit how was the original scenario meant? By the way, which player call for a judge? A or B?

Thanks,

Milan

Originally posted by Anthony Bucchioni:

The error was letting it counter the Ancient. You don't need to rewind because the only actual problem is a card in the wrong zone, so you can just apply a partial fix.

The category from the IPG is: “If an object changing zones is put into the wrong zone, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it can be moved without disrupting the state of the game, put the object in the correct zone.”

But we're at Regular, so that doesn't apply. We still want to either rewind everything (as far as we intend to rewind), or leave things as is.

We don't protect people from bad plays, so I'm hesitant to rewind turning the morph face-up. (The option is there though, depending on how educational you want your event to be. I don't get the impression they didn't both understand how the triggered ability functions.)

I'm inclined to just rewind the resolution of the counter… so Ancient is sitting on the stack, and they continue from there. I don't see that as disruptive at this point.

EDIT: I forgot we were in the Regular REL forum. Adjusted answer for Regular.

Edited Chris Nowak (Oct. 6, 2014 05:05:11 PM)

So I was a judge who was consulted in responding to these situations, and here is how I ruled, and why:

1) I didn't rewind at all, and said Player B controls the Ancient on the battlefield. Player A wanted to unmorph his Spellsnatcher, which is a legal action to take, because he was under the impression that Spellsnatcher's trigger would counter the Ancient. He ended up bring wrong, but that's not enough reason to intervene in this situation. At Regular REL, we want players to do what they want to do while being communicative and not having to be bogged down in the technical nitty-gritty. We arn't necessarily looking out for players to repeat and retry strategies until they work out in their favor. Even if the result wasn't what A intended, A wanted to unmorph his creature, and he could do so.

Now, I was not informed that Player B was cool with the Spellsnatcher being turned back face-down. If that was the solution that both players wanted and would be most happy with, I'd be willing to deviate and let A rewind their unmorphing.

2) Note that they were in the middle of resolving the effects of combat when B brought up that he wanted his morph face up. It wasn't like combat had resolved and we were moving onto the next turn. As a result, I let player B pay to turn his morph face up. Remember that we want players to be able to do what they want while being communicative and not having to be bogged down in technical nitty-gritty. When it was relevant, B communicated that he wanted to turn his morph face up. For one, this is consistent with Out of Order Sequencing, and no player is gaining additional information by allowing B to turn his morth face up. More importantly though, I think an important question to ask is “If a player completely new to the game was asking me this question, how would I rule?” An important part of the JAR is that we treat both new players and professionals the same and that we expect the same level of technical rules knowledge from each. Given how complicated Morph is, and how B would have had the opportunity to unmorph his dude just before combat was resolving anyway, if B was a new player I'd certainly let him turn his morph face up. Since I'd allow it for a new players, I allowed it for B as well.

Edited Darcy Alemany (Oct. 6, 2014 05:57:57 PM)

I have tended to be pretty liberal about backups, but after having allowed a couple of questionable backups, and having bungled another one, I'm much more cautious about them now. There's the old aphorism, “just because you can, doesn't mean you should.” A key question I'm learning to ask myself is this: “Is the game state better if I backup, or not?”

In this case, the thing wrong with the current game state in scenario #1 is the big dood that countered that shouldn't have been. If we back up, we're backing up a land play and card draw, and the resolution of a creature spell. The land play and card draw would have happened anyway, no decisions have been made based on the incorrect game state, and no information was ill-gained. I say back it up, at any REL.

In both scenarios, we fix rules mistakes, not play mistakes. I'm not backing up the un-morphing, and I'm not backing up through legal game actions like confirming combat damage. In both cases, though, at Regular REL, it's a great opportunity to educate. In #1, about reading cards more carefully, and in #2, about how priority and timing work in combat. I'll toss in personal anecdotes about my own play mistakes I've made in the past, and how I've learned things “the hard way.”

Originally posted by Jack Hesse:

I have tended to be pretty liberal about backups, but after having allowed a couple of questionable backups, and having bungled another one, I'm much more cautious about them now. There's the old aphorism, “just because you can, doesn't mean you should.” A key question I'm learning to ask myself is this: “Is the game state better if I backup, or not?”

Just to add another opinion, I tend to be pretty liberal about backups, too. Rewinding the game state is usually done to prevent an injustice, and I don't think we should be looking for reasons to avoid making those fixes. That said, I've tried to create some criteria for myself that has minimal subjectivity, and this is what I've come up with.

I will default to rewinding unless one of the following is true:

• There have been enough actions between the error and the current gamestate that I doubt the players' abilities to accurately sequence them all. This is pretty much by definition the upper-limit for what can be accurately rewound. Even if something *feels* too complicate, if the players can accurately describe the sequence of events then a knowledgeable judge should be able to execute a rewind.
  
• A player gained a significant edge by revealing hidden information. This would be on the level of Notion Thiefing a Brainstorm or Wild Ricocheting a Bonfire of the Damned. Just learning whether the other player has Force of Will doesn't rise to that level, as Force is likely to trade for the same card whether known about or not. Usually when I disagree with decision not to back up, it's because the acting judge placed a much higher emphasis on a small piece of hidden information being revealed. I'm just not convinced that Merfolk Spy triggers are all that important compared to the improper execution of game rules.
  
• Cards from the hand have been shuffled into the library. While rewinding through Brainstorm + Fetch can be done, it gives an edge to that player on par with a free Ponder. I could only imagine doing this if the error being corrected is even more egregious (such as rewinding to where a player paid for Slaughter Pact off of two Twilight Mire and an Inkmoth Nexus).
  

I'd be very interested to hear if people think I should modify the criteria that I use. This could be because I've set the bar in the wrong place. Or it could be because there's a way to make the criteria less subjective.

Originally posted by Jack Hesse:

In both scenarios, we fix rules mistakes, not play mistakes. I'm not backing up the un-morphing, and I'm not backing up through legal game actions like confirming combat damage. In both cases, though, at Regular REL, it's a great opportunity to educate.

Well put. At Regular REL, this comes up a lot with cards like Chained to the Rocks, Banishing Light, and Polukranos, World Eater. Just because the triggered ability can't behave as desired doesn't mean that casting the spell (or activating the ability) was illegal. This is one of the more common errors I see when a non-judge TO tries to arbitrate an event, so I'll try to be extra certain that the players understand how the end point of the rewind is chosen. It's great if at least some percentage of your player base is aware of how these should be handled, so they can assist if there isn't a judge handy.

@Milan: You read the scenario correctly, although I would dispute the “…” after “untap, draw, land”, as there was nothing that came after the land. It was literally “untap, draw, land, JUDGE!” I'm wondering what you're trying to get at with your question, though, so if you would clarify it might be useful to discuss.

@Darcy: Regarding the first scenario, what happened was the FJ ruled that the Morph stays face-up, and Player B, not Player A, was the one who appealed, in the context of “this doesn't feel right at Regular REL”. I guess the FJ didn't tell you that part.

Regarding the second scenario, the players were not “in the middle of resolving the effects of combat”. The effects of combat had been resolved and Player B was about to continue his turn when Player A pointed at the Morph on the table and said “that should be dead”. At least that's how I read the situation, perhaps the players and the FJ read the situation differently.

EDIT: Mixed up my As and Bs. I really should have gone with A and N…silly me…

Edited Lyle Waldman (Oct. 7, 2014 06:42:30 AM)

Thanks Lyle for the clarification.

Where I am trying to get: the situation on the table is that Ancient is on the battlefield which is the correct zone (where it should be after its spell resolved). So, no rules were broken, no (partial) fix is applicable. Just educate the player who read the Ancient wrong to do better next time…