Greetings Judges! And welcome to this week's Knowledge Pool scenario. This week we have Silver scenario, so L2 judges should wait until Saturday before they reply.

Blog post for the scenario

You are the Head Judge of a Standard PPTQ. Albert casts Languish to kill Nathan's Dragonlord Ojutai and Mantis Rider, then ends his turn. Nathan untaps, draws and looks at his lands to cast a Siege Rhino, when he finds his Rattleclaw Mystic between his lands and realizes the error. They call you.

What do you do?

This would be a GRV GPE for Nathan and FMGS for Albert so both players would get warnings and told to play more carefully. You would ask a few questions to rule out this being intentional and to ensure no other warnings exist that would require an upgrade.

The fix would be to move the rattleclaw to the graveyard per the IPG.


If an object is in an incorrect zone either due to a required zone change being missed or due to being put into the wrong zone during a zone change, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it can be moved with only minor disruption to the state of the game, put the object in the correct zone.

The Rattleclaw should have died when Languish resolved, and didn't. Even though it died because of Albert's effect, it's Nathan's responsibility to move his creatures to the graveyard (this is one of the examples under GRV), so I would warn Nathan for GPE-GRV and Albert for FtMGS. No double GRV because “put the dead creatures in the graveyard” isn't part of Albert's effect, just part of the game rules. Nathan has improperly resolved an proactive effect controlled by Albert, so I would give each of them a GRV. (Revised this in response to discussion below.) If Albert complains that he couldn't tell the Rattleclaw was over there under some lands, I'd express sympathy but remind him it's still his responsibility to know what's on the battlefield. (I'm assuming, as always for KP, that we have already ruled out the possibility that Nathan was intentionally hiding the Rattleclaw or doing anything else untoward.)

Edit: Oh right, I checked to verify there's a partial fix available and forgot to write it down! Yes, we can put the Rattleclaw in the graveyard now, because the problem was a required zone change being missed. I see no reason to resort to a backup.

Edited Finn Ellis (Feb. 22, 2016 04:14:31 PM)

Nathan gets a warning for GPE:GRV, Albert gets a warning for GPE:FtMGS as he resolved the languish correctly.

Move the Rattleclaw Mystic to the correct zone (the graveyard) to fix and remind both players to play more carefully next time.

I over-complicate things. I read the scenario three times and I was trying to figure out what the problem even was! :P

Anyway, I'm hesitating giving Albert the FtMGS because the Rattleclaw was “between his lands.” Now, that either means that it was between a land on the left and a land on the right; or it could mean it was in between vertically, like physically in a pile stacked between two cards. If so, it couldn't have be seen by Albert so I wouldn't penalize him for that. But because this forum uses text instead of video, I would know from the players' description how visible it was.

I wonder if they would actually call a judge, though, and just resolve it themselves without any warnings. Nathan didn't use the Rattleclaw's mana ability to cast the Siege Rhino so they'd probably just agree on a quick fix, wouldn't you think? But if they called me over, that's what I'd do.

GRV and Warning for Nathan
FtMGS and Warning for Albert - even if he couldn't see the physical card he is expected to keep track of the game state

Per the additional remedies for GRV we can either process a simple back up (I'm against this due to the draw) or use the prescribed fix of placing the Rattleclaw in the graveyard (which is what I'd do) as this was a required zone change being missed.

Game play error for Nathan, for not moving the creature to the graveyard.
Failure to maintain for Albert for not checking.
I'd just move the Rattleclaw to the graveyard.

Originally posted by Finn Ellis:

No double GRV because “put the dead creatures in the graveyard” isn't part of Albert's effect, just part of the game rules.

Are you saying that if I Lightning Bolt my opponent's 1/1 and they don't bin it, I've correctly resolved my spell because Lightning Bolt says “deals 3 damage” and not “destroy”?

Originally posted by Marc DeArmond:

Are you saying that if I Lightning Bolt my opponent's 1/1 and they don't bin it, I've correctly resolved my spell because Lightning Bolt says “deals 3 damage” and not “destroy”?

That's a good question. I DO think you've resolved it – if, say, you've forgotten that the 1/1 is an indestructible Creepy Doll, I'm not going to let you take it back – but assuming it should actually have been destroyed and wasn't, yeah, I agree that this looks like a clear double GRV. The differences between this and the original scenario are the card being hidden (doesn't matter, they're responsible for knowing it's there) and multiple affected creatures (doesn't matter because nothing says that it does matter). Rereading my original logic and the relevant bits of IPG, I'm no longer convinced, so I'll revise it.

I think you were correct originally Finn.

The damage or the -x/-x do not ‘destroy’ the creature. This is the old classic: “damage doesn't destroy creatures, state based actions do”

The full resolution for the bolt scenario is a 1/1 with three points of damage marked on it and the lightning bolt in the graveyard - that spell has fully and correctly resolved. Then (prior to either player gaining priority) we check state-based actions and find that CR704.5g applies - a creature with more than 0 toughness has more damage than toughness and is therefore destroyed. Languish would be covered by CR 704.5f - a creature has 0 or less toughness - it isn't destroyed but is moved to the graveyard.

Both the Lightning Bolt and Languish are fully resolved and complete before the error occurs, this rules clarity is most often brought up with Tarmogoyf where the goyf becomes large enough to survive a spell because by the time the goyf's status is checked the spell has resolved and is in the graveyard changing its characteristics.

However if the player had cast Damnation the spell's correct resolution requires all creatures to be put in the graveyard (Destroy effects are discussed in CR 701.6) so the error happened before the spell finished resolving.

As interesting as all that is I don't think it changes the outcome here. The double GRV is detailed under this clause:

Originally posted by IPG:

For most Game Play Errors not caught within a time that a player could reasonably be expected to notice, opponents receive a Game Play Error — Failure to Maintain Game State penalty. If the judge believes that both players were responsible for a Game Rule Violation, such as due to the existence of replacement effects or a player taking action based on another players instruction, both players receive a Game Play Error – Game Rule Violation. For example, if a player casts Path to Exile on an opponent’s creature and the opponent puts the creature into the graveyard, both players receive this infraction.

Both players need to be responsible, but when you read the examples it's clear Albert would have needed to be more active in this mistake. He didn't tell Nathan the Rattleclaw survived, nor were there complexities involving replacement effects. If you take the line that any error is partially the opponent's fault (which FtMGS states) then you have to apply double GRV all the time. I believe it's only for situations where an opponent's effects or instructions actively create the error.

Good job judges! As many of you have detected, this scenario was about a small modification in GPE-GRV partial fix.

Nathan has comited GPE-GRV and Albert GPE-FTMGS, they will both receive a Warning for their infractions. As for the fix, here we have a current IPG partial fixes extract:

If an object is in an incorrect zone either due to a required zone change being missed or due to being put into the wrong zone during a zone change, the identity of the object was known to all players, and it can be moved with only minor disruption to the state of the game, put the object in the correct zone.

So, we have a partial fix that can be applied in this situation with minor disruption to the game state, there's no need to think about a backup. We will just apply the partial fix putting Rattleclaw Mystic in the graveyard and then we should ask Nathan and Albert to take more care of the game state.
See you in our next scenario!