This occurred at the Legacy Open in Indianapolis this past weekend. The situation was as follows: Player A on her main phase cast a Council's Judgment. Player B responds to Council's Judgment by casting a Brainstorm. Player B draws his three cards from the Brainstorm and then the players realize that Player A tapped the wrong lands to cast Council's Judgment. What is the appropriate penalty/fix?

Edited Scott Marshall (Sept. 29, 2014 02:20:05 PM)

Seems like a Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation for A, Failure to Maintain Game State for B.

I would not recommend, nor approve, a rewind in this situation. I understand that others might disagree with me there, but I'm hanging my hat on the Backing Up concepts in the current (latest) IPG - the game is better off leaving it as is, than it would be were we to rewind the Brainstorm.

d:^D

Well, the penalty is easy, GRV/FtMGS.

As far as a fix, I would consider this “sufficiently complex” to warrant leaving the game as is, and instructing the players to continue play. Knowing what your opponent's response to a spell would be is huge in legacy, and I feel like trying to rewind here makes it easy to take advantage of the situation, as it basically gives a free brainstorm to Player B.

(of course this is assuming no cheating, etc.)

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

I would not recommend, nor approve, a rewind in this situation. I understand that others might disagree with me there, but I'm hanging my hat on the Backing Up concepts in the current (latest) IPG - the game is better off leaving it as is, than it would be were we to rewind the Brainstorm.

Interesting. Under the new 1.4, I suppose a Brainstorm involves 2 decisions of which cards to put back, which may be considered “decision tress” that we ought to avoid backing up. Also, the entire last paragraph:

Backups involving random/unknown elements should be approached with extreme caution, especially if they cause or threaten to cause a situation in which a player will end up with different cards than they would once they have
correctly drawn those cards. For example, returning cards to the library when a player has the ability to shuffle their
library is not something that should be done except in extreme situations.

Historically we've looked at the complexity of the backup, and I'd feel comfortable actually physically backing up the Brainstorm. According to the new section of the documents, it would appear that (rather than complexity) the amount of information and potential for a split from the original contents of the hand take precedence in determining whether to backup.

Since this is about a change in policy and interpretations, I'll throw my thoughts out there as well. Calibration's a good thing, right?

Originally posted by Evan Cherry:

Interesting. Under the new 1.4, I suppose a Brainstorm involves 2 decisions of which cards to put back, which may be considered “decision tress” that we ought to avoid backing up.

I think 1.4 is talking about changing external decision trees, not so much trees internal to the illegal action that we'd be rewinding anyway. ie, if after the Brainstorm they bounced a permanent, and then Council's Judgement resolves and they make choices… and then we're looking to rewind the Brainstorm? I think this is what this clause addresses.

Also, the entire last paragraph:

Backups involving random/unknown elements should be approached with extreme caution, especially if they cause or threaten to cause a situation in which a player will end up with different cards than they would once they have
correctly drawn those cards. For example, returning cards to the library when a player has the ability to shuffle their
library is not something that should be done except in extreme situations.

Historically we've looked at the complexity of the backup, and I'd feel comfortable actually physically backing up the Brainstorm. According to the new section of the documents, it would appear that (rather than complexity) the amount of information and potential for a split from the original contents of the hand take precedence in determining whether to
backup.

I think this is the key bit here. We're setting the hand up to be potentially destroyed (either at the player's desire, or their opponent's) As mentioned in http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Annotated_IPG/Backing_Up … ‘Shuffling away a random card from a players hand is pretty much the definition of “disruptive”’

I'm also not terribly uncomfortable with the idea of rewinding card draws on its own, but 1.4 changes that outlook for me.

As a side note: I feel like there's going to be some potentially uncomfortable player education that comes in with this… they're probably used to certain amounts of rewinds taking place that won't be anymore. So they'll need to pay more attention to what their opponent is doing. And I suspect some will sense a gap where they suppose someone would be more willing to try “mistakes” intentionally, so we may get more flak for letting cheaters cheat. But that's not a new problem, and this probably leads to simpler messaging.

I should probably elaborate a bit.

The decision to cast Brainstorm at that point is based on (a) the opponent's action, and (b) the cards currently in hand.

Rewinding means changing both of those factors; yes, there's a small chance that we'll randomly pull the two cards he just drew, but a much more likely outcome is that his hand looks different.

Note that Player B also decided not to pay close attention to Player A's casting of Council's Judgment… but that's not really a “decision point” that I consider, when thinking about whether or not to back up. :)

While the original scenario doesn't mention anything about B having a shuffle effect available, it's certainly quite common in Legacy. If B controls a “fetch” land (e.g., Polluted Delta), there is no way I'm going to back up. However, that's a tangent to the original scenario - and, in the original scenario, I'd choose not to back up, but I also understand that others might disagree. (If I didn't think there was room for disagreement, and discussion, I'd have marked this as ‘O’fficially answered, and close it - heh!)

d:^D

Indeed, when Jonathan came to me to discuss a back up for this, I asked him if the player had any fetch lands in play, which he did. I was already leaning towards not backing up, but that sealed the deal for me since backing up the Brainstorm might have given the player a free Brainstorm in a sense and the option to crack the fetch and reset the top of his library.

I've always been described as a “back up determinist” in that I like players to make the same decisions after we restart “the time stream” after a back up as they did the first time through. Having new cards on top of the library with a fetch land can really mess with such determinism, and I'm very happy that IPG 1.4 now adds some validity to how I've always looked at these situations.