Player A says Gush, returns 2 islands to his hand and draws 2 cards.
Player N says “What Gush?”.
Player A says “oh sorry! forgot to reveal it, here it is” and places it from his hand into the graveyard.

There was no knowledge of the top cards of his library and the cards in hand were not identifiable.

How would you rule? DEC or something else?

I would say GRV that gets upgraded.

DEC. As the annotated IPG tells us,

Originally posted by Annotated IPG:

An easy way to remember the correct infraction is: if the first opportunity an opponent had to possibly notice a problem was when the card hit the hand, it is DEC.

I think GRV with upgrade would be fine, except that GRV specifically notes that it's for times when you don't have another infraction that fits better.

Wouldn't returning 2 islands to his hand be the first opportunity for the opponent to notice the problem?

Originally posted by Toby Hazes:

Wouldn't returning 2 islands to his hand be the first opportunity for the opponent to notice the problem?

Well, that depends on how fast the active player was moving. Players don't always cast spells by following the steps in the exactly correct order, and the fact that AP seems to have drawn here without pausing for a response or even a “hey wait what Gush” implies that there wasn't an opportunity to notice the problem before the cards hit the hand.

How is this different from using Domri Rade to +1 and not revealing? That has been ruled a GRV with upgrade, though it seems to be DEC from the quoted statement on the annotated IPG.

Christopher: Failing to reveal a card when instructed to do so, and failing
to put a card you're casting from your hand onto the table are two
different things.

I realize that. But in both cases the first opportunity to stop a player from “drawing” is when the card(s) go to the hand.

Originally posted by Christopher Wendelboe:

I realize that. But in both cases the first opportunity to stop a player from “drawing” is when the card(s) go to the hand.

Practically speaking, it's just a matter of what you write on the slip, since they both result in the same penalty. So I wouldn't stress this too much at an actual event.

More technically, in the case with Domri, the thing the player did wrong was not reveal the card to prove the legality of adding it, which is a GRV. In the case of Gush, it's that the player drew a card without having an effect resolve that would allow him or her to do so, which is DEC.

But, once again, if someone ruled the other way at an event and called it GRV with upgrade, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I just think that DEC fits better here.

Edited John Brian McCarthy (Dec. 30, 2014 06:18:44 PM)

With Domri Rade's +1, you're not drawing an extra card, you're supposed to end up with that card in hand (assuming it is a creature, of course). However, you failed to reveal hidden information to verify the legality of what you did - perfect match for the upgrade clause.

As to the Gush, here's my “spanner-in-the-works” question for y'all: why isn't this Out of Order Sequencing? (or, is it OoOS?)

d:^D

I always considered this an attempt at out of order sequencing. However we can't verify that the player had the Gush prior to drawing 2 unknown cards, which is why I went with upgraded GRV.

Originally posted by Magic Judge Rules Blog: Understanding OoOS by Paul Baranay:

In order for OoOS to be valid, a few criteria have to be met:

The actions actually have to be a batch or block of actions, which means there’s no substantial pause between the individual actions in the batch.
An out-of-order sequence can’t result in any player prematurely gaining information that would reasonably affect decisions later in that sequence. So using OoOS as a way to “game” an opponent’s reactions isn’t permitted.
OoOS doesn’t let you retroactively take an action you missed or forgot to do at the appropriate time. In other words, it’s not a “get out of jail free” card.
An opponent can request that I perform the out-of-order actions in the correct order, so that he/she can respond at the appropriate point.

Magic Tournament Rules, 4.3
All actions taken must be legal if they were executed in the correct order, and any opponent can ask the player to do the actions in the correct sequence so that he or she can respond at the appropriate time (at which point players will not be held to any still-pending actions).

To answer Scott's question, the highlighted areas are what is relevant. Player A needed to place the Gush on the stack before drawing the cards, because the opponent needs to verify that they indeed have the Gush in their hand to perform the action of drawing two cards. OoOS doesn't apply because it is not legal to resolve the spell before it has even been cast! That would just be silly.

(Edited for typos)

Edited Kevin Wellens (Dec. 30, 2014 06:38:03 PM)

Yeah, it's not OOOS. OOOS is when you do a bunch of legal things in the wrong order. AP forgot to put Gush on the stack.

(Thinking out loud here…)

The first thing AP did incorrectly was put two islands into his hand. This would normally be DEC, but he did also commit a GRV by not putting Gush on the stack. So it's a GRV, right? How do we fix this?

This is where it gets hairy in my mind. AP could set the two islands in his hand aside (it should be known which two cards those were), and then put two random cards back on top of his library. But … what if Gush is one of the cards he puts back? How do we know that Gush wasn't one of the cards he drew off of a non-existent Gush? I'll assume that we don't think AP is cheating.

So, which game state is more broken–as-is, or rewound with AP potentially having a weird hand? I think I'd have to look at the current game state. Could NAP reasonably-potentially have a response to Gush? Err on the side of not allowing AP to rush through the resolution of his spell, and giving NAP the opportunity to respond. If NAP doesn't reasonably-potentially have a response, I'd leave it as-is and err on the side of a slightly cleaner game state.

Either way, a Warning to AP for GRV.

I think this depends too much on the circumstances at play.

A number of judges are pointing to “not putting Gush on the stack” or “picking up the Islands” as the first illegal action here, but is that really the case?

Suppose you see this snippet of a match:

Alvin: “I'm casting Gush.” Alvin picks up two Islands and then draws two cards
*Alvin picks up two Islands."

Has anything illegal happened? Does your answer change if the next thing that happens is this?

*Alvin puts a Gush from hand face-up on the table.*

There is no reason to intervene at any point in this interaction; it's a textbook case of OooS. So if the next thing that happens is, instead:

*Alvin draws two cards.*

then this is the first point at which we cross into illegality, and we should be looking at a DEC penalty. But, that depends on the specifics of the interaction. By contrast, if you see this, with no prior context:

*Alvin picks up two Islands.*

You may determine that this should be viewed as an illegal action since there is nothing to indicate that he's got a gush or is going to play it. In that case, it's… still DEC. However, we are able to downgrade in this scenario as we can return the Islands to the battlefield with minimal disruption.

Determining which of these scenarios applies is very context-specific and there is no one-size-fits-all answer.

Edited Alexis Hunt (Dec. 30, 2014 08:40:38 PM)

Originally posted by Christopher Wendelboe:

I always considered this an attempt at out of order sequencing. However we can't verify that the player had the Gush prior to drawing 2 unknown cards, which is why I went with upgraded GRV

Even if we cant be 100% sure, it seems very unlikely that someone would announce Gush without having one in hand and that's why I considered this an interesting situation to post here. The risk of getting DQ for Cheating if you didn't draw the Gush in those 2 cards is too high.

The judge called gave an GL - DEC but I was wondering if we could let the player go without such an harsh penalty with an OoOS or GRV.