A player plays a face-down creature as though it had morph, but it doesn't. (The player mistakenly thought it had morph.) Several turns later, the creature dies, the player reveals it and it is discovered it doesn't actually have morph.

What is the appropriate penalty for the player?

If, after an investigation, you decide that the player really did make a mistake and truly thought that creature had morph, I think the only penalty possible is GPE:GRV. The wouldn't be an infraction for the opponent, as they had no way to make sure that creature had morph.

So, if it's a GRV, it's a Warning?? :)

“An error that an opponent can't verify the legality of should have its
penalty upgraded. These errors involve misplaying hidden information, such
as the morph ability..”

Originally posted by Joaquín Pérez:

So, if it's a GRV, it's a Warning??

Hmm… If a warning is the penalty for playing a card face down when it doesn't have morph, then there's going to be a strong inclination for players who are losing the game to try this on purpose, win the game dishonestly, and then claim their play error was an accident when the opponent sees the face down card is not a morph.

Competitive players will be less likely to cheat if they're aware that intentionally performing an illegal action has an upgraded penalty even if the judges think it was still an accident.

Edited Eric Paré (Oct. 20, 2014 12:09:22 PM)

Since it hasn't been stated explicitly yet, the appropriate penalty here is a Game Loss. Many players and judges find this penalty to be very harsh but it's policy. Here is a link to the section of the annotated IPG that explains the philosophy behind the upgrade: http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Annotated_IPG/Game_Rule_Violation

Apologies for hi-jacking the thread, but may I ask what the penalty would
be at Regular REL? I hear a lot of talk about Game Losses flying around in
my LGS but I haven't found confirming sources yet.

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 6:44 PM, Heidi Sitten <
forum-13414-de52@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> Since it hasn't been stated explicitly yet, the appropriate penalty here
> is a Game Loss. Many players and judges find this penalty to be very harsh
> but it's policy. Here is a link to the section of the annotated IPG that
> explains the philosophy behind the upgrade:
> http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Annotated_IPG/Game_Rule_Violation
>
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–
For every action there is an equal and opposite distraction.

Hrm. That section could use a little more beefing up in light of morph coming out.
I'll work on that in the next few days.
(But thanks for the plug!)
-Bryan

———————————————
This space intentionally left blank

Erik - hijack attempt thwarted! :)

Please direct Regular REL queries to the Regular REL forum - there's both a different audience, and different Moderators (that focus on answers there, anyway; all Mods dabble in all forums).

d:^D

I looked at Annotated IPG but it does not deal with morph. Rather, it deals with what used to be Failure to Reveal.
I'm not talking about that.

Of course, the opponent could not verify at that time that the creature had morph. However, this sentence immediately follows the one that prescribes the Game Loss:

If the information needed to verify the legality was ever in a uniquely identifiable position (such as on top of the library or as the only card in hand) after the infraction was committed, do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.

It's definitely in an identifiable position. And a player could theoretically call a judge and ask him to check whether the creature really does have morph.

Originally posted by Petr Hudecek:

I looked at Annotated IPG but it does not deal with morph. Rather, it deals with what used to be Failure to Reveal.
I'm not talking about that.

Of course, the opponent could not verify at that time that the creature had morph. However, this sentence immediately follows the one that prescribes the Game Loss:

If the information needed to verify the legality was ever in a uniquely identifiable position (such as on top of the library or as the only card in hand) after the infraction was committed, do not upgrade the penalty and reveal the information if possible.

It's definitely in an identifiable position. And a player could theoretically call a judge and ask him to check whether the creature really does have morph.

While my gut instinct is that this certainly must also be a Game Loss, I'm looking at the same information and equally unable to point toward a definitive reason for that.

It would be a little bizarre if the penalty for a play with unverified legality is a Game Loss while the penalty for a play with verified illegality is just a Warning. However, with the verified illegal play, the potential for abuse doesn't exist that is the basis for many Game Loss policies.

Let's take a step back and look at the big picture. As Shawn already quoted:

“An error that an opponent can't verify the legality of should have its penalty upgraded. These errors involve misplaying hidden information, such as the morph ability..”

The moment you put that Island or whatever on the stack face down, you have committed this error.

Before Failure to Reveal was rolled into Game Rule Violation, this line also already existed in the IPG (It was moved to GRV when FTR was as well):

“An error that an opponent can not realize has been committed should have its penalty upgraded. Such unnoticeable errors are rare and involve misplaying hidden information (such as the Morph ability). An unpreventable or irreversible error is not sufficient grounds for such an upgrade.”

There was no provision for uniquely identifiable because it is a completely separate situation. Uniquely identifiable means “Oh I Mystic Tutored up a Cancel, put it on top, and didn't reveal it.” In that case, we misplayed hidden information *but the opponent could still catch it immediately.* The difference with Morph is it is impossible for the opponent to catch it immediately, there is no way for them to know. And we certainly don't want players calling a judge every time their opponent plays a face down card.

The potential for advantage here is huge too, of course. Once again, the opponent can't catch the error. Game Loss is the correct fix.