This is a situation I ran into at a Regular REL event, and I realized I'm not sure how it would be handled at competitive REL.

Player A casts Satyr Wayfinder, and when its ability resolves, he accidentally reveals five cards instead of four. He chooses a land and puts it in his hand. Then his opponent points out that there are still four cards left, when there should be three. Player A realizes his mistake and calls a judge. The order in which the four remaining cards were revealed is still apparent, but neither player is sure whether the land that was taken was the last or second to last card.

What happens here?

I'd issue a GRV - LEC. The standard remedy for LEC is to return the illegally known card to the deck and shuffle the deck, but in this case it is not known which of the cards was illegally known. We know for sure that 3 of the 5 cards are not the illegally known card, so we discount those, and of the remaining 2 we choose 1 at random to return to the deck, and shuffle the deck. The remaining 4 cards will be considered to have been revealed from Satyr Wayfinder, and the game will continue as normal.

That's my opinion.

Edited Lyle Waldman (May 16, 2014 12:14:24 AM)

How is this LEC? It sounds like textbook GPE - GRV, since Active incorrectly resolved Satyr Wayfinder.

*IF* we rewind, we have to take the known land out of the player's hand, “re-create the top 5 cards” (which how do we do this if they don't have the exact order laid out) of the player's library, then resolve the trigger correctly.

I'm not sold on a rewind. There are too many permutations where the game state is arguably worse.

For me, it's a GPE - LEC. That fits pretty well:

A player looks at a card they were not entitled to see. Players are considered to have looked at a card when they have been able to observe the face of a hidden card, or when a card is moved any significant amount from a deck, but before it touches the other cards in their hand. This includes errors of dexterity or catching a play error before the card is placed into his or her hand.

That's a Warning for A, and the fix… well, if both players agree that the land could be only in these positions, I think it's fine to “keep” separated top 3 cards. Anyway, I prefer to shuffle the remaining two (beware of other possibly known cards from previous Scry or whatever!!), then reveal top card and complete Wayfinder's effect normally.

However, if the card order was messed up, or any discrepance arises with it, I'll change my mind to shuffle everything and reveal top four cards again.

Of course, only my point of view on this, others could disagree :)

Originally posted by Jeffrey Higgins:

How is this LEC? It sounds like textbook GPE - GRV

It is GPE-L@EC, because a card was seen that should not have been seen. You can argue that revealing a card is not the same as looking at a card (since it does more), but the player clearly did look at the card. Since the Game Play Error - Looking At Extra Cards infraction is more specific than the Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation infraction, it should take precedence.

Almost all GPE that fall into the first 4 categories are also GPE-GRV. The GRV is simply a catchall for all Game related errors that don't fall in the other, more specific categories.

There's an earlier similar threads about Steam Augury, http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/7000/ where the most correct solution seems to be to shuffle ALL the revealed cards back into the library, then resolve the Satyr's ability with a fresh new 4 cards.

(link edited)

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

It is correct that you rewind to the point of the error, not necessarily to a point where a player has priority.

In the Steam Augury scenario as written, putting back all six and applying the L@EC remedy seems to follow the guiding principles of the IPG, even if there's some interesting details that differ from L@EC as described. I do not believe that any (additional) game actions have been taken - the player is still resolving the Steam Augury (separating the cards into two piles usually involves some reordering).

Now, that player might object to that remedy, claiming that his opponent has gained knowledge just from the way he separated those six cards. My response would be fairly blunt: don't expect your mistakes to work out in your favor, and certainly don't insist on that.

d:^D

Edited Toby Hazes (May 18, 2014 04:18:39 PM)

Originally posted by Toby Hazes:

There's an earlier similar threads about Steam Augury, http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/topic/7000/, where the most correct solution seems to be to shuffle ALL the revealed cards back into the library, then resolve the Satyr's ability with a fresh new 4 cards.

The thread you linked has 404'd, so I can't see the whole thing, but it seems from the quote that in that case, the opponent has begun to re-order the cards, making it more difficult to know the order that they came off the top of the library. In that case, it does seem correct to shuffle all six back in and reveal five new cards.

However, In the case presented in this thread, both players agree on the position of the first three cards, and only the fourth and fifth cards are in contention. That being the case, I like both solutions previously mentioned: shuffle the two cards in contention back into the library and reveal a new card, or randomly select one of the two cards to be shuffled into the library. I think the latter remedy is correct, as it most effectively preserves the state the game would have been in had the error not occurred.

That link inherited a comma at the end, remove that and you'll see the previous thread.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

That link inherited a comma at the end, remove that and you'll see the previous thread.

Got it, thanks! I still support my previous post, though. In the example given in the linked thread, the player has changed the position of the cards in a way that prevents his opponent from being able to give us an answer on which card the sixth one was:

After some sorting within his hand, he presents two piles to his opponent. There are 2 cards in one pile and 4 cards in the other.

In the example in this thread, that did not happen. Five cards were laid out, and one was taken, and we've established that we know that three of the five cards were “supposed” to be there, and which three they were. We have perfect information on the first three, and only the last two are in contention. These are minor details, really, but they do change the way I personally would rule on the situation.


After reading the linked post, I'll also point this out:

The player did something with the card already: He proceeded to use it as part of Steam Augury resolution. That's the reason why it's not GPE-LaEC.

We identify it as a Game Rule Violation.

Seems like the same would apply here— our active player not only revealed five cards, but then placed one in his hand as part of resolving Satyr Wayfinder's trigger. Looks to these humble eyes like a GPE-GRV. With respect to Jasper's post, while extra cards were certainly looked at, actions were taken after that happened. If the Steam Augury example is to be taken as precedent for similar cases, then the fact that the player did something with the cards beyond simply seeing them makes this a GRV.

At least, that's what it looks like to me.