In the first round of a Standard gane, Astro drops a Bloodstained Mire and a Thoughtseize and says "I fetch a Swamp. Nono reveals her hand, Astro removes a card and notes down the rest of the cards, then picks up his library and says “Go”.

As Nono is starting her turn, Astro calls you: his only Swamp is actually in his hand.

What would you rule?

Verify that the player can't search up a Swamp. If he can't get one, GRV -
Warning. Back up the game to before the Thoughtseize was cast. Have Astro
resolve the Mire and move forward.

This one is an interesting decision on backing up. There's quite a lot of advantage to getting to look at your opponent's hand before making a decision for what to do with your mana on your first turn of the game.

I don't think I agree with this argument, but I'm going to advance it anyway for the sake of discussing another possible alternative.

This should be a GRV upgraded to a Game Loss, as Nono was unable to verify the error. When Astro said he was searching out a Swamp and moved on, he was effectively completing the action of searching and simply delaying the physical resolution. This makes it an action that Nono was unable to verify the legality of, and as a consequence, he should have his penalty upgraded.

But was the error being unable to find a swamp or casting Thoughtseize without black mana?

It seems what we have here is a case of Out-of order-sequencing gone awry. If the player actually had had a swamp in the library… even then I'd have a problem with it, because technically they'd be gaining information that might influence their decision (“oh, Nono has a Wasteland in hand? guess I'll grab a basic swamp rather than a Scrubland”).

That out of the way, let's see what actually happened here. Astro played a land, then put Thoughtseize on the stack, then declared that he was activating the ability of Bloodstained Mire, then resolved Thoughseize, then resolved the land's ability. I see two things that went wrong here. One was resolving Thoughtseize before paying any costs, and two was resolving the fetch ability without paying the costs. I wouldn't have any problem calling the second one OoOS, since there's not really any advantage to be gained from putting the land in the graveyard and writing down the life change after putting the swamp into play. I already mentioned my objections to calling the first OoOS, since the potential to gain advantage is there even if there had been a Swamp in the library. So the GRV was resolving Thoughtseize without the mana to pay for it, and, if we back up, that's what I'd back up to.

(At first I had overlooked that Nono had discarded a card, otherwise I'd have said nothing wrong happened, since Nono is allowed to reveal her hand if she wants to, and since Thoughtseize was neither paid for nor put into the graveyard from the stack, I'd have said the CR would just back up the casting of the spell, and play continues. Sadly, that was not the situation described)

So the question is: Backup, or no backup. The guidelines state that we should only back up when leaving the game state as is is a significantly worse option. So let us compare. Situation a) We back up. Astro has perfect knowledge of Nono's hand and no land in play with a Thoughtseize in hand, and Nono has her opening hand. Situation b) We leave as is. Astro has perfect knowledge of Nono's hand, no land in play, no Thoughtseize in hand, and Nono has her opening hand minus one card. Is b) significantly worse than a)? Discarding a card can have a huge effect on the game. On the other hand, leaving Thoughtseize in Astro's hand means Astro potentially gets to see one more card to choose from when he actually can cast it next turn.

The other guideline regards decision trees, and the ones here are massive, what with the second chance with Thoughtseize and the impact the discarded card might have. So, considering that, I would argue against the backup. I would issue a double GRV, since Astro incorrectly cast the spell and Nono incorrectly discarded, give a warning to both, and instruct to play on and be more careful in the future.

I kind of like the argument that the actual error wasn't fetching a non-existent card but rather trying to cast a spell without the appropriate mana. You could say that he used this shortcut:

If a player casts a spell or activates an ability and announces choices for it that are not normally made
until resolution, the player must adhere to those choices unless an opponent responds to that spell or
ability. If an opponent inquires about choices made during resolution, that player is assumed to be
passing priority and allowing that spell or ability to resolve

…which would mean, his only option for fetching a land would be the Swamp, and since he doesn't have one in his library, he basically “wasted” his land. Too bad for him - return Thoughtseize and the discarded card to hand, GRV - W for Astro.

You do not announce a choice for the Mire, you just search for a land. The
quoted section does not apply, so if you are letting him resolve the Mire's
ability, he is allowed to get whatever land he wants.

Originally posted by Violet Edgar:

If the player actually had had a swamp in the library… even then I'd have a problem with it, because technically they'd be gaining information that might influence their decision (“oh, Nono has a Wasteland in hand? guess I'll grab a basic swamp rather than a Scrubland”).

I feel obligated to point out that we're playing Standard in this example, so the only possible target for the Mire that can cast Thoughtseize is a Basic Land— Swamp.

To me, this feels just fine for out-of-order sequencing. Astro proposes a shortcut of “I'm going to use this land to find a land that can cast this Thoughtseize, but in the interest of saving time, let's resolve Thoughtseize first, and I'll search and shuffle during your turn.” Correct me if I'm wrong on this one, but in general, I'm okay with players doing this.

The MTR guidelines for Out of Order Sequencing apply here instead of Tournament Shortcuts. This is because a shortcut is “an action taken by players to skip parts of the technical play sequence without explicitly announcing them”. In this case, no action is skipped in the resolution of the abilities. Technically, they are also shortcutting to the beginning of Nono's turn, but that's not quite relevant here.

So, in the OoS rules, we see that “all actions taken must be legal if they were executed in the correct order”. So, let's look at the actions in order: Play a land. Check. Activate land's ability. Check. Resolve land's ability, in this case being unable to find a Swamp.

This is where my answer finds a wrinkle. The paragraph “an out-of-order sequence must not result in a player prematurely gaining information which could reasonably affect decisions made later in that sequence” seems to have multiple applications. The first is that in resolving Mire's ability, Astro would learn that he has no available swamps to fetch, which would change his decision. However, I believe he already had access to that information, as his swamp was in his hand, and therefore known to him, and at competitive REL we can reasonably expect players to know their deck's contents. That paragraph's second application might apply to Thoughtseize affecting his decision on what to fetch, but since Mire can only find one target that can cast Thoughtseize in the format, this is also a non-issue.

So, resolve land's ability, in this case being unable to find a swamp. Check, completely legal action. Next: cast thoughtseize with no ability to pay for the spell. Ding ding ding! We've found the point where the sequence breaks down.

If we back up to this point, I believe we damage the game less than if we leave it as is. A backup leaves Astro at 19 life, having essentially missed his first land drop and discarded a card, and Nono with seven (barring mulligans) cards in hand, all of which are known. Not backing up leaves Nono with six cards, and Astro at 17 life. If I'm at the table for this call, I'll back the game up (or, ask the HJ for permission to back it up), issue Astro a warning for GRV, remind both to play more carefully, and move along.


What did I miss? Anything glaringly terrible about this solution/explanation?

Personally, I think a backup is extremely disruptive to the game. NAP has revealed is whole hand, and backing up will leave AP with an “extra” Thoughtseize, used like a free Gitaxian Probe.

If I was the HJ, I would choose to leave the game state as is. Mire failed to find a card, Thoughtseize is cast and put into GY.

Originally posted by David Wright:

A backup leaves Astro at 19 life, having essentially missed his first land drop and discarded a card

I'm not sure I get how we get here, if we back up to the playing of Thoughtseize Astro still gets to find a land (just not the one he wanted) and has Thoughtseize back in hand

RE: Sean's argument. Nono has the ability to verify Astro's action, simply by refusing the shortcut and waiting for Astro to find his land before resolving Thoughtseize. This is unlike misplaying a morph or failing to reveal a searched for card, because the opponent never gets any opportunity to try and verify the action.

Now, a question, is this a GRV? All the actions that Astro took were “legal” at the time they were made, and it seems strange that they can only be deemed against the rules “after the fact.” I feel like this is a situation has no applicable philosophy to guide us.

Let me try to run with what Sean brought up…

In a certain sense, AP has proposed and followed through with this illegal shortcut that he should not have been able to take. It's true that NAP could have just not revealed his hand until the black mana had been paid. However, what the GRV upgrade path is asking for is whether or not NAP could have verified the legality of the error. NAP could not have verified that AP did not have a Swamp in his library at the time the shortcut was proposed. AP was able to gain information based on NAP's response to this shortcut, which he should not have been able to gain.

This is a sort of “misplaying hidden information”. AP would have been fine if he hadn't tried to shortcut this illegally, but the fact that he has now attempted to resolve a spell that he can't possibly pay for is a clear GRV, and by rushing the Thoughtsieze out, he moved past the point where his opponent could verify that a legal land was put into play. This isn't what the upgrade was intended for, but it does fit.

The point where this becomes an upgradeable GRV is when AP casts Thoughtsieze, regardless of whether or not NAP actually reveals their hand. It's just easier to make the argument in this situation since AP has also taken multiple game actions after the error, and therefore he is clearly executing a shortcut and his opponent is clearly not able to verify the legality of that shortcut at this time.

More verbosely, AP has proposed the shortcut “I will play my Bloodstained Mire, crack it for a Swamp, tap the Swamp to cast Thoughtsieze, and pass priority. The game state after this shortcut will be a tapped Swamp in play, a Mire in the graveyard, Thoughtsieze on the stack, I will be at 19 life, and my library will be shuffled.” NAP has two legal options: to accept the shortcut, or to interrupt it at some point with a response. He doesn't have a response, so he must accept the shortcut. He doesn't have to actually reveal his hand until AP finishes his fetch, but this doesn't matter - the illegal action has already occurred, and a judge watching the match would not have been able to tell that there was an error, because the error involves hidden information.

The counterargument is that “NAP could have verified the legality of this game state by waiting for AP to finish resolving the fetch.” This isn't terribly compelling. It's apparent that AP intended to shortcut here, and at the time that the Thoughtsieze was cast illegally, NAP was unable to verify the legality of that action. It would have been fine if AP got a swamp, but since he can't, we have one player who has resolved a spell thinking that it was cast legally, and now discovering that it was not.

This is undoubtedly a GRV, Darcy, likely multiple GRVs. There is the illegal fetch in the first place for AP, and there is the illegal OOOS by resolving Thoughtsieze before the fetchland for both players. If we agree that the first one upgrades, then we only issue that one, since both errors have the same root cause. If we don't agree that the first one upgrades, then we issue both players a warning.

I think that a backup isn't possible: now Astro know too much information of his oponent deck. I would give GRV with upgrade to Astro because Nono couldn't verify the error (casting a spell incorrectly), so game loss.

Originally posted by Gareth Tanner:

I'm not sure I get how we get here, if we back up to the playing of Thoughtseize Astro still gets to find a land (just not the one he wanted) and has Thoughtseize back in hand

We get there by resolving the proposed sequence in order. For the sequence to be legal when played out of order, Bloodstained Mire must find a swamp. Since it can't, it finds nothing. Also, since I'm proposing a rewind, we would rewind to exactly the point before the GRV occurred. That point is not resolving Bloodstained Mire and failing to find, it is casting Thoughtseize without being able to pay for it.

That said, I may be wrong— about all of that stuff. I'm at the point personally where I'm just starting to delve into complex policy, as I have my first large Comp. REL event coming up soon. So, please, pick my comment apart as much as possible— every comment helps me learn.

Dan Collins
This is undoubtedly a GRV, Darcy, likely multiple GRVs. There is the illegal fetch

Dan, what about the fetch is illegal? I may have missed that part. It seems to me that saying “Mire, activate Mire, fail to find” is a perfectly legal line of play. Isn't casting Thoughtseize without paying for it the first error that occurs?