Hey all, and welcome back to the Knowledge Pool! This week's scenario is Silver, and because the scenario is going up later than usual (sorry about that, real life happens!) we're going to ask L2+ judges to wait until Saturday before contributing to conversation.

The blog post for this scenario is here.

During a Modern PPTQ, Andy casts Collected Company. As it resolves, he puts Murderous Redcap and Kitchen Finks onto the battlefield and says “Two to your face.” He then puts the other four cards on the bottom of his library. Nolan grabs his pen, and at that point Andy realizes his mistake. “I couldn’t have chosen the Redcap. He costs four. Judge!”

What do you do?

Hmm.

It's a GPE:GRV for Andy, for improperly resolving his spell. He's put a CMC 4 card onto the battlefield and progressed to resolving the subsequent trigger.

It's a GPE: FTMGS for Nolan because not only has he allowed the creature to enter the battlefield but he's allowed the triggered ability to resolve and gone to adjust his life total. Also, Andy called the Judge, so Nolan has missed his chance to avoid FTMGS.

Both players receive a Warning.

The IPG says "To perform a backup, each individual action since the point of the error is reversed, starting with the most recent ones and working backwards." Since the point of the error is the resolution of Collected Company you could ask the Head Judge to consider backing up to the point where Collected Company resolves, which appears marginally better than leaving the game state as it is (extra creature on the battlefield, Nolan has 2 less life).

I would not want to back up to before Collected Company was cast because Andy would then know the identity of his top 6 cards. It is also unlikely that he would remember the order they were in.

Edited Steve Ford (July 10, 2015 10:04:42 AM)

I think this looks messier than it is.

GRV for Andy for trying to get a CMC 4 creature with Collected Company. Nolan is probably getting a FtMGS as well, but I can imagine not giving him one if all this happened pretty quickly and Andy just beat him to calling the judge. Warnings for both.

As for what to do here, none of the partial fixes applies, so we're just looking at to back up or not. If I am the head judge, I am inclined to back up to the resolution of Collected Company. We know the exact six cards Andy gets to review (the Red Cap and Finks on the battlefield and the four cards on the bottom of his library) and aside from the ETB triggers, nothing else has happened.

Remove the Red Cap and Finks triggers from the stack, retrieve the four cards from the bottom of Andy's library, put the Red Cap and Finks back with those four cards, tell Andy to resolve Collective Company again (correctly this time.)

This seems better to me than leaving the game state as is (with an illegal Red Cap and Nolan down two life).

Before reading other responses:

First, we thank Andy for catching his error, being honest, and calling us promptly.

Andy made an error while resolving Collected Company. This is a straightforward Game Play Error - Game Rule Violation, and Andy will receive a Warning.

Since this was a quick sequence of actions, and Nolan hasn't actually taken any game actions yet, I'm not inclined to asses a Failure to Maintain Game State on Nolan's part. No infraction, no penalty.

No real decisions were made since the error occurred, and no information revealed. There's no applicable partial fixes, so I would authorize a backup here. The point of error is in the middle of resolving Collected Company. So - remove Redcap's and Finks' triggers from the stack, and move those two cards, plus the four cards on the bottom of Andy's library, on top of his library in a random order. Company moves from graveyard to stack. We're now in the middle of Company resolving, make sure Andy resolves it correctly. Continue play.


After reading other responses:

So far, general agreement on the penalty for Andy, and the fix. There's a bit of disagreement on whether Nolan receives a FTMGS here. It's important that opponent's are vigilant and maintain game state - and it wasn't Nolan who caught this error. On the other hand, there hasn't really been much game progression from the original error, just a trigger going onto the stack. Since FTMGS warnings don't upgrade, whether or not to asses the infraction is a fairly low-stakes decision.

Before Reading

Andy made an illegal choice while resolving Collected Company. This would pretty easily fit in the category of Game Rules Violation - Game Rule Violation in my book. Normally, the penalty would be a warning for Andy. I feel this is a great example on where to downgrade the warning because it was caught immediately and Andy called the judge on himself. Assuming I'm the head judge or the head judge is okay with it, I would only issue a caution.

Nolan's infraction would be a Game Play Error - Failure to Maintain Game State which would call for a warning. Because the scenario states that Nolan was reaching for his pen, it is clear that Nolan had not caught the error. However the way the scenario seems to have played out, things seem to have happened quite quickly. Moreover, it seems pretty inconsistent to me to downgrade one penalty for the player that actually made the error and not his opponent. Again assuming I'm the head judge or after clearing it with the head judge, I'd only caution Nolan.

I think a backup is a good option in this scenario assuming I don't suspect any ill intent by Andy. Maybe he somehow manipulated his library such that the bottom four cards are not part of the four he looked at while resolving Collected Company not currently on the battlefield. This seems unlikely however and the scenario doesn't tell us we suspect anything. We can back up to just before the error by taking the Kitchen Finks, Murderous Redcap and bottom four cards of Andy's library and allow him to resolve the spell properly. While the bottom four cards are hidden information, I see this as no different than removing a card scried to the bottom from a library when shuffling a players library after accidentally flipping over the top two cards during a draw step.

I could see some having an issue with downgrading to a caution. Cautions are only supposed to take a few moments to resolve and anything more than that should be a warning. I don't feel this situation would take long to resolve. The players should pretty quickly be able to tell me nothing else had happened and this should be a fairly easy fix. This should be able to be remedied in less than a minute.

Ruling: GPE-GRV for Andy downgraded to a caution. GPE-FtMGS for Nolan also downgraded to a caution. I would backup to the point of the error in resolving and allow Andy to resolve Collected Company legally.

After Reading

I anticipated that I may be in the minority for downgrading both to a caution. I originally had warnings for both, but then I read this line in the IPG:

If a player commits an offense, realizes it, and calls a judge over immediately and before he or she could potentially
benefit from the offense, the Head Judge has the option to downgrade the penalty without it being considered a
deviation, though he or she should still follow any procedures recommended to fix the error.

No advantage was gained by Andy as he called a judge over right after resolving Collected Company.

As I stated above, I just feel the same penalty should be issued to both players in this situation. I know this need not always be the case, it just seems more consistent here. If I were to issue different penalties to Andy and Nolan, I would go the way Talin did by giving Andy a warning and Nolan a caution. I feel fairly confident I can justify downgrading both penalties however. No change.

Putting the Redcap into play is a Game Rule Violation. Andy called it on himself right away; this doesn't actually let him avoid a warning (the IPG does not support a downgrade) but it means I'd be hesitant to give Nolan a FtMGS warning.

No partial fix applies, but fortunately there is an easy backup since the four cards are on the bottom (this would be much messier if they got shuffled in a la Genesis Hydra). We back up to the point of the error, which was the resolution of Collected Company. It feels a little awkward to me to give Andy a second crack at a legal creature that may be among the other four cards, but forcing him to choose just the one Finks is 1) punitive and 2) unsupported by policy.

I agree with the other judges on GPE:GRV for Andy. IPG tells us to issue a Warning.

I don't think NAP should get a penalty - there was no “maintained board state” immediately prior to the judge call. If NAP had subtraced 2 from his life total, then yes.

Caution: I suggested that when I saw a minor infraction that could easily be fixed but the common ruling was: Warning isn't bad for the player and caution needs very special circumstances. I am a bit in the dark with when they apply but that's fine, since only the Head Judge can do that and I assume we are Floor Judge in this case.

As for the Backup: I am against rewinding the board state to a point where AP can undo a tactical error. Maybe he riealized he needed Anafenza to combo off and accidently took Kitchen Finks. The Redcap doesn't belong on the battlefield. We can't put it in the graveyard because we don't know the deck and there could be a Ananfenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Red-Cap, get creature out of graveyard Combo going on. The Redcap would be somewhere at the Bottom of the library. So I suggest. Take the 4 cards from the bottom of the library, add Red Cap, randomize them, put them back to the bottom of the library. Reasons: Andy made an invalid choice, so only the correctly chosen part resolves. Especially NO other creatures should be allowed to enter the battlefield together with Kitchen Finks or instead of Kitchen Finks.

Continue game which leads us to a subsequent problem: Did Kitchen Finks Trigger or was that Trigger missed… Somehow I believe it was missed. The player said: Two to the head… Normally a player would say. I gain 3 life you get two damage… (or sth like that - acknowledging both triggers). Missed triggers aren't penalized but he doesn't gain life.

Originally posted by Denis Leber:

I agree with the other judges on GPE:GRV for Andy. IPG tells us to issue a Warning.

I don't think NAP should get a penalty - there was no “maintained board state” immediately prior to the judge call. If NAP had subtraced 2 from his life total, then yes.

Caution: I suggested that when I saw a minor infraction that could easily be fixed but the common ruling was: Warning isn't bad for the player and caution needs very special circumstances. I am a bit in the dark with when they apply but that's fine, since only the Head Judge can do that and I assume we are Floor Judge in this case.

As for the Backup: I am against rewinding the board state to a point where AP can undo a tactical error. Maybe he riealized he needed Anafenza to combo off and accidently took Kitchen Finks. The Redcap doesn't belong on the battlefield. We can't put it in the graveyard because we don't know the deck and there could be a Ananfenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Red-Cap, get creature out of graveyard Combo going on. The Redcap would be somewhere at the Bottom of the library. So I suggest. Take the 4 cards from the bottom of the library, add Red Cap, randomize them, put them back to the bottom of the library. Reasons: Andy made an invalid choice, so only the correctly chosen part resolves. Especially NO other creatures should be allowed to enter the battlefield together with Kitchen Finks or instead of Kitchen Finks.

Continue game which leads us to a subsequent problem: Did Kitchen Finks Trigger or was that Trigger missed… Somehow I believe it was missed. The player said: Two to the head… Normally a player would say. I gain 3 life you get two damage… (or sth like that - acknowledging both triggers). Missed triggers aren't penalized but he doesn't gain life.

I don't think that kind of back up is supported by policy. No partial fix applies to this, and i don't think we rewind and force players to make a certain choice.

Also why would we randomize the cards, he got to put them in the order he wants.

Also no game action has shown he missed the life gain trigger (like casting a sorcery) so it wasn't missed yet.

missed trigger: puts the 4 cards on the bottom of his library. well OK an Out of order Sequencing might help there.

my thoughts about randomizing might be wrong but it feels weird that the player should fix the false board state himself and putting the card just on the bottom feels equally weird so my suggestion is an analogy to shuffling the library if anything happened to it in a GPV Shuffling the whole library is very wrong here because the bottom cards would get closer to the top.

And if honestly backing up to recasting collected company is the only solution then maybe (only maybe) the rules don't offer enough possibiloities to fix things. You just can't let a player make a new tactical decision after he saw the opponent was going to take the damage from Red Cap without responding to it.

Edited Denis Leber (July 12, 2015 06:06:02 PM)

Putting the four cards on the bottom happened during the resolution of the spell, so no triggers should have even been put on the stack at this point.

Its not that we are letting him make a new tactical decision, as forcing him to choose a legal one.

I don't see anything in the IPG that would says we should do anything other than rewind back to the choices or let the board stand.

An important guideline to remember:

Sometimes players benefit from errors that occur in gameplay. Sometimes
they benefit from our fixes to those errors. Sometimes those errors are
their own.

Our policies and philosophies were developed with that understanding in
mind. Consistency has been given a higher priority than minimizing player
benefit for an infraction. That's a good thing. Players know what to
expect from judge fixes to situations regardless of the judge, the area,
etc.

While I understand the desire to prevent AP from benefiting from the error
of choosing the Redcap, it is unnecessarily punitive to simply put the
Redcap on the bottom and not allow him to properly resolve his spell.
There is also no policy support for forcing him to fail to choose another
creature along with the Kitchen Finks. There's REALLY no policy support
for not allowing a player to choose the order of cards sent to a zone by an
effect that specifies “in any order.” The reason the library is shuffled
in other cases is because the library is supposed to be in a random order,
and shuffling it restores that order. The cards sent to the bottom by
Collected Company are NOT supposed to be in a random order. Those other
cases don't apply here.

The existing policy gives us a fix for the given situation (i.e. the backup
to the resolution of Collected Company). AP may (arguably) benefit from
this fix. That's how it goes. In a different situation, NAP may benefit
from the fix. Our policies don't care whether one of the players ends up
advantaged from applying our fixes to infractions that occur. That's what
makes them consistently applicable, and why they've been established as our
current policies.

Before:

Since AP failed to properly resolve the spell, he is awarded a GPE - GRV. The penalty is a warning, and in this case, I would back up the game to when Collected Company was resolving by having the bottom four returned to the top of the library along with the Finks and Redcap.

NAP does NOT receive a warning for FtMGS, as it was a short time window before AP realized his mistake, as well as no other game actions having been taken.

After:

Seems like there is a general consensus. Although I was a bit wrong when I said no other game actions have been taken, as NAP technically resolved the triggered ability. Overall though I doubt I would give NAP a FtMGS due to the short time window.

Dustin brought up an interested bit from the IPG about choosing to caution rather than warn. In this case I'm tempted to caution as the fix was easy, the damage minimal, and AP brought it up almost immediately.

Edited Kai Clark (July 12, 2015 11:23:23 PM)

GPE-GRV and a Warning for Andy for the error with Collected Company
No GPE-FtMGS for Nolan - the way the original post is laid out suggests Andy put the Redcap into play and declared the damage at the same time so it isn't really practical for Nolan to have caught the infraction before Andy calls a judge (even if he might have missed it).

I'd request a Backup from the head judge as the decision tree is pretty short. I'd rewind to the point of Collected Company resolving with Andy having the 4 cards from the bottom of his library, the Redcap and Finks to choose from (obviously ensuring the damage from Redcap and life gain from Finks were reversed).

Before Reading other response: This looks to be GPE-GRV for Andy and GPE-FtMGS for Nolan. Andy made an illegal choice for Collected Company, and Nolan appeared to have no response and passed priority when he picked up his pen. The fix would be to back up the game to the resolution Collected Company. Pull the other four cards out from the bottom of his library, put the Kitchen Finx and Murderous Redcap back in with those cards and have Andy make the legal choices. Ask the players to please take more care in resolving their spells and abilities.

After reading other responses: Looks like there is a consensus among us. I don't think downgrading here is the choice. If the player had put the two creatures in play, then called a judge, I would consider downgrading much more. But he announced the trigger, so I don't believe that constitutes the downgrade.

I don't think we've achieved consensus on FTMGS by any means…