Previously, at local FNM:
Andrew play Mutavault, then he attack with 2 Pack Rats and that Mutavault, before damages, Nico cast last breath at that Mutavault, put him into graveyard (along with last breath), then damages happens. Then Andrew want to play swamp but they both now realizes, that he already played land this turn, furthermore, he attack with it!. You are called at this point. No other spells than last breath was cast, we are still in Andrew turn, how do you fix that?

Edited Bartłomiej Wieszok (May 24, 2014 09:55:23 AM)

The illegal action would be declaring the Mutavault as an attacker. JAR
says that if we were to rewind the game, it would be to that point.

So the procedure would be: Have Nico gain life equal to the damage he took
from the Rats. Return Last Breath to Nico's hand, subtract 4 life from
Andrew's total, and untap the lands used to cast it. Then untap the Pack
Rats and the Mutavault; the game is now in the declare attackers step.

The Mutavault would stay animated as a creature.


On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Bartłomiej Wieszok <
forum-10257-85ef@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

> Previously, at local FNM:
> Andrew play Mutavault, then he attack with 2 Pack Rats and that Mutavault,
> before damages, Nico cast last breath at that Mutavault, put him into
> graveyard (along with last breath), then damages happens. Then Andrew want
> to play swamp but they both now realizes, that he already played land this
> turn, furthermore, he attack with it(!). You are called at this point. No
> other spells than last breath was cast, we are still in Andrew turn, how do
> you fix that?
>
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–
For every action there is an equal and opposite distraction.

The important question is would you back up past the activation of the Mutavault and I would not at any REL.

Considering this situation at regular I probably wouldn't back up at all. I feel that it is more likely to create a feel bad moment for the guy who made a mistake of attacking if we backup to right before he did something stupid and the end result pretty much the same.

If there were activations of something like Path to Bravery or if the Last Breath was a Divine Verdict I'd feel differently. But I'm perfectly happy to let the game carry on as it is in this scenario as written.

Are you saying the Mutavault would be Last Breath'd by Nico anyway? While
it's a logical play, it seems like too much of a wild guess to simply
assume backing up wouldn't change anything.

I feel like Antonio gets too much of an advantage out of not rewinding.

Originally posted by Erik Kan:

I feel like Antonio gets too much of an advantage out of not rewinding.

Note, that we as judges do not care if there is a possible advantage coming from the remedy. Both players have screwed up and we should just try to stay as consistent and impartial as possible.

BTW, I would not rewind in this situation. Still, we are all L1 here, maybe some expert L3 would have an other view on it :-)

Originally posted by Erik Kan:

I feel like Antonio gets too much of an advantage out of not rewinding.

(Regardless of whether this is or is not a reason to rewind…) I'd feel Antonio gets a huge advantage out of rewinding. He now knows about the Last Breath and can blank it by not activating his Mutavault. Instead, he can attack with his Pack Rats for 4. If Nico tries to Last Breath one of the rats, Antonio can activate his Mutavault, making his rats 3/3 and causing Last Breath to fizzle. And if Nico taps out for anything before Antonio's next turn, Antonio can safely make a third rat. So rewinding essentially costs Nico the window on his Last Breath.

The moral of this story is probably that we shouldn't even try to determine who gets advantage. In some situations it's almost impossible to tell with any certainty anyway.

I'm more for the backup here. The situation is not too complex to rewind, it just might take a bit more work then other rewinds.

Although there is a information advantage for Antontio, now knowing there is a Last Breath waiting for him. On the other hand, we backup right to the point before the illegal action happened, so we have a animated Mutavault. Nico could still use it to get rid of it. The outcome of the scene might be the same no matter if we rewind or not, but i think its more appropiate here to backup.

I'm in the rewind camp here. The big question is how far. The illegal action was attacking with the Mutavault since it had just been played.

I would rewind at least that far. Depending on the specific event, I might even rewind just before that, and allow him not to activate the mutavault. (There's a difference between pre-release at a more casual shop and game day at a highly competitive shop)

There is small room for advantage, but we're not really in the business of enforcing zero advantage. If Nico is upset about his opponent now knowing about his Last Breath, part of the “please play more carefully” spiel would be in reminding him diplomatically that both players are responsible for the game state and if he'd caught the error when it happened, he'd not have leaked the information.

Simple.

Backup to the beginning of the Declare Attackers Step. Mutavault is animated, Pack Rats are both 3/3s, Last Breath is in Nico's hand.

Nothing else important has happened, and that is the precise moment when an illegal action was taken(the Turn Base Action of declaring attackers, which Mutavault is not allowed to do at that point). Frankly, the smart play here seems to be casting Last Breath on the Mutavault anyways.

Under no circumstances would I back up to the point prior to Mutavault being activated. That was completely legal. Only attacking with it is illegal. And you cannot activate it during Declare Attackers, you have to do it during Beginning of Combat Step, after which priority is passed, and then the Declare Attackers' Turn-Base Action occurs.

I don't necessarily see where there is much room for discussion here, because the rules are fairly clear on this one(at least in terms of where the illegal action took place). And backing this up is extremely simple. Don't get skittish with your fixes just because you think somebody may “gain an advantage.” The simple fact is, everything you ever do as judge is going to give someone an advantage one way or another. That is just unavoidable. What you need to be focused on is making sure that you are consistent. And the way to be consistent is to only do what is necessary to repair the game state and deviate only when necessary. True, Regular REL kind of has a guiding principle of “deviate and focus on customer service,” but when it is something this simple just pull the trigger and fix the game state. Neither player is going to be too upset, I promise you that.

Edited Alan Dreher (May 24, 2014 11:31:24 PM)

Thanks for all answers, backing up to declare attakers was fix that I made.

Alan, Out of Order Sequencing “allows” for a mutavault to be animated in the middle of declaring attackers (seems like a variation on the Treetop Village example in the MTR).

I think it could be argued that animating was part of the overall sequence of “turn dudes sideways”, so depending on the event I think you could rewind that far.

No, the Treetop Village example is for declaring blockers, not attackers.
Not the same. We do not allow players to animate in the middle of
attackers.

The actions would be legal if taken in the correct order (assuming it wasn't summoning sick), he's not trying to gain information from his opponent (presumably), he's not trying to bait a reaction (presumably). And if the opponent wanted to do anything before that, they can just roll things back and do it in the correct order still.

I guess the proximity to the “Declare attackers?” shortcut could make a difference though. Since that's an explicitly defined shortcut, more was implicitly said with those actions.

No un-animating the mutavault then.

Originally posted by Chris Nowak:

Alan, Out of Order Sequencing “allows” for a mutavault to be animated in the middle of declaring attackers (seems like a variation on the Treetop Village example in the MTR).

I think it could be argued that animating was part of the overall sequence of “turn dudes sideways”, so depending on the event I think you could rewind that far.

It is Out-of-Order sequencing but the SEQUENCE to it is just shortcutted/assumed by the rules to be the correct sequence(as in, the player did things out of order, but the game/rules make certain assumptions about what was intended and re-sequences them to the correct order achieving the same result. Also, Out-of-Order Sequencing assumes a legal game-state at the end.

Say a Bedlam was in play, and a player blocked with a creature then animated Mutavault and declared it as a blocker. I wouldn't rewind the activation of the Mutavault there. I think it would be silly to use Out of Order sequencing to protect players from misplays(that isn't even remotely the spirit of the rule). Technically, the first illegal action was the initial block, which happened before activating Mutavault. However, it isn't in the spirit of the rule to use that as justification to rewind through the legal action of animating Mutavault. No information is prematurely gained. And if done in the correct sequence it would have involved animating Mutavault(legally), then declaring blockers(illegally), and the fix would have been rewinding to the declare blockers action(leaving Mutavault animated).

Edited Alan Dreher (May 25, 2014 08:31:51 AM)

Much of the recommendations for backups have already been discussed here: Who gets how much information should NOT be a factor in deciding to rewind. The COMPLEXITY of the rewind should be the deciding factor.

Trying to account for who gets what information is a slippery slope for judges to make calls and be perceived as showing favortism. We are all players and can make guesses as to “best” or “logical” plays, but that is not our job as judges. Observing and hoping/wondering what the players do is a fun side-bonus of observing Magic games.

This topic is discussed in-depth in an article by Joel Krebs & Jack Doyle - Backups: Embracing the Rewind. There is plenty of discussion about why we don't worry about who benefits from the backup.