This one has already started some discussion on the local BeNeLux board. The original poster said this was already discussed on apps, but I could not find the topic, although I do find a number of related topics, but none immediately got to the point I want to get information on.

Scenario: Andreas controls a Birthing Pod and a Brain Maggot, he activates the pod and says he is going to fetch up Restoration Angel to blink the Maggot. At this time Nigel lays down his hand, not seconds later a judge call is made by the players because Andreas does not have an Angel in his deck anymore.

1) What I found disturbing is that this scenario leads to many people wanting to give a GRV, while I feel that no Game Rule has been broken.

2) Also people tend to steer that this is a shortcut, claiming a choice is being made. (According to one of the shortcut examples in the MTR: “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.”

I can get behind that, but I find that searching is something different than “making a choice upon resolution”, which more relates to cards like Cabal Therapy, Meddling Mage, Phyrexian Metamorph,… where the verb “to choose” is literally used.

3) The further problem I have with trying to penalize Andreas, is that his statement in my book is more a bluff (gone wrong). Okay it would be a dirty trick to get to know information this way and we would definitely investigate. The problem I have here is that if you would change the scenario to “get my final piece of the combo and I win” and at that point Nigel would scoop up. Moments later the players find out that the final piece is not available in the library anymore we would deem the game in favor of Andreas saying he was bluffing and educating Nigel not to scoop so soon.

Common sense goes a long way…

To me this is either GRV or an investigation for cheating. Let's look at why I think so:

1. The difference between this and ‘get my combo piece and win’.
The bluff here is real, the big difference is the effect it has on the game. You are trying to make your opponent scoop before you complete the action. So you would never have made an illegal play. The severity of the situation should also prompt the NAP to ‘wait and see’. The little bit of time lost in seeing the win hit the table is infinitesimally smaller than losing the game. Compare this to a completely legal sequence of plays that results in a moderate effect on the game (which this is). I severely disagree we should treat both scenarios the same way.

2. Shortcuts are designed to make the game playable, to make it more fluid.
What you are suggesting completely contradicts this. You are going back to an overly technical way of paying the game that quite frankly is taking back a step. As a judge it may seem tempting to tell the players to play technically more correct, since that makes all our calls easier, but it isn't about the judges. Magic, the mtr, the game, it's all for the players.

3. Making a choice upon resolution.
When going own a very technical route you are correct, policy only calls the examples you have given ‘choices’. But if you look deeper, into the philosophy that drives policy, about ‘why’ the policy was written in a way that it is you can in fact apply this logic. This is about a player dictating a series of decisions assuming his opponent has no responses. All of this is clearly in line with the philosophy of the shortcut of choices. I realize this is grey territory for most judges and perhaps shouldn't be referred to in this discussion, as it requires judges to be familiar with the documents on a much deeper level than is required from even veteran L2's.

But in the end, use common sense. Do you want magic to be a game of ‘gatcha, I didn’t say the magic word' or do you want it to be Magic: the Gathering?

A player doing this by accident gets a GRV and a stern talk from me. A player doing this to trick his opponent will get a stern talk and a possible DQ.

edit: punctuation.

Edited Niels Viaene (Dec. 22, 2014 12:31:09 PM)

I get behind that the game is not supposed to be a “gotcha game”, but say that you investigate and Andreas is deemed on the good side. aka He was clumsy calling it out with no Angels in his Library anymore. For what do we give a GRV than, give me the rule he has broken, still in my book he merely hinted how a possible future board state could turn out…

Is this not basically the same situation as the Thoughtseize while fetching the swamp that's in your hand that was extensively discussed recently?

Thanks, I stated that I did not knew about a possible existing topic discussing this already. The topic with the Thoughtseize is indeed the topic, but I hadn't had the chance to follow the board the last few weeks. But what I'm mostly still after: “is naming the Restoration angel is a choice as defined by the MTR on shortcuts”.

Simple answer: No. The spell doesn't require a choice, so the shortcut
doesn't apply.

The previous discussion can be found here, the “find angel shortcut” is analogous to the “crack fetch find swamp” part in my opinion

The big difference being of course the casting of a spell and the resolving of an ability that never exists.

The difference between this situation and the swampless Thoughtseize is that AP's bluff is still a legal sequence of actions.

I think that calling the wrong card to trick your opponent into not responding is perfectly legal. Letting your opponent show his hand is another problem.

I think I'd rule it as I would rule a premature reveal for a Vendillion Clique. If AP tells his opponent immediately to take his hand back, then nothing. NAP should have been more cautious before he revealed his hand.

If AP writes down the hand, I will investigate to know if it was an honest mistake (there is no Restoration Angel in the deck) or a voluntary trick (I wanted my opponent to believe I was just reseting my Brain Maggot when in fact I am searching for my combo piece / silver bullet).

If I decide that it is an honest mistake, then there has been a communication problem (not a CPV), AP gets another creature, and the game continues without penalty.

If that was a trick, there will likely be a discussion along these lines:
- Why do you think NAP revealed his hand ?
1- I have no idea. I thought he was exercising his right to reveal his hand at any point. -> DQ for lying to a Judge.
2- Because he thought that he was targeted with my Brain Maggot when he was not. -> DQ for Cheating (I deliberately misled my opponent about public information in order to gain advantage).

I agree saying your getting something and then changing it is not a “problem” (not sure how much I like it but it is allowed in policy) but when you start doing things based on that choice, in this case targeting the Brain Maggot with an ability that doesn't exist, I think we start getting into area's I'm not so happy about but again I don't think policy supports doing an. The ultimate lesson here I think is for players to make sure their opponent has the card before moving on the game state

Originally posted by Florian Horn:

(I deliberately misled my opponent about public information in order to gain advantage)

About what kind of public information he was misled? Will it be different if I would say “I will spin pod for haste creature and attack for lethal” while I would have not such creature or lethal dmg, and opponent scoops “in response”? We are allowed to lie about our future actions
Yea, it's fishy play, but I'm not convinced yet, that's illegal. For sure, I would instruct opponent not to jump before proper actions are taken next time.

A player can show his hand anytime, for any reason.

I can't see any infraction in this scenario.

AP “Scapeshift. Resolve??”
NAP “Yeah, sure”
AP “Ok, I search for six Mountains and a Valakut, I win”

NAP scoops while AP is searching. AP doesn't have six Mountains.

It's a perfectly legal mind-trick, not nice nor sportive, but in fact has been used quite a lot of times :)

Can't see the difference with this situation. AP declared he is going to find a card he doesn't have (even on purpose, name it Mountain or Restoration Angel), and NAP acted in the wrong way (either scooping because thought would be dealt lethal dmg, or showing up his hand while he doesn't have to).

Next time, NAP will wait. Lesson learned :)

Originally posted by Joaquín Pérez:

It's a perfectly legal mind-trick, not nice nor sportive, but in fact has been used quite a lot of times :)

Saying you're searching up Resto is a perfectly legal mind trick, but targeting/blinking the maggot with a non-existing ability into making your opponent reveal his hand is something i'm a lot less comfortable with.

Edited Jonas Drieghe (Dec. 22, 2014 04:45:48 PM)

Andreas has predicted a future game state, and Nigel decides Andreas must be psychic or something, and *Nigel* skips ahead to a point that, as it turns out, can't actually happen.

As I noted in that Thoughtseize/oops-no-Swamp thread, when you assume something, bad things can happen - usually to you.

This isn't about Bluffing, nor Shortcuts - arguably, Nigel proposed a shortcut by jumping ahead to the non-existent Brain Maggot's resolution, but that's not where we were headed - this is about honest mistakes and unfortunate assumptions. I am not going to invent an infraction and penalty for Andreas, just because Nigel made an assumption.

d:^D

Originally posted by Jonas Drieghe:

but targeting/blinking the maggot with a non-existing ability into making your opponent reveal his hand is something i'm a lot less comfortable with.

But he's not targeting because there's no ability, he just said what he would do in future. It would be much different situation, if he would make that blink, for example, by returning previously exiled card to his opponent. Then we would have OOOS impossible to resolve correctly.