A situation came up at SCG Regionals yesterday. Four L2 judges discussed and there were 3 different rationales for why they would do what they would do; luckily there was only one head judge. What would you do?

Ann controls Vendilion Clique and a bunch of lands, including a fetchland.
Ned controls a few artifact creatures, including Etched Champion and 2 Ornithopers, as well as Springleaf Drum, Mox Opal, Darksteel Citadel and another land.

-Judging is watching match.
-Ann attacks with Vendilion Clique and Ned blocks with Ornithopter. Judge is asked a question out side of match and turns away for a short period.
-Ann casts Anger of Gods post combat. Ned puts all of his creatures, including Etched Champion, into exile. Ann pases.
-Ned draws and passes.
-Ann draws, puts Creeping Tar Pit into play. Judge turns back to table, sees exile pile and asks “how did that get there?” Ned explains, “Ann cast Anger of the Gods last turn and it died.” Judge, “but it had protection from red.” Ned. “Ohhh…let's put it back into play then.” Ann, “yeah, whoops, let's just put it back into play.”

You have ruled out cheating and you are the head judge; what do you do?

If I'm issuing a penalty it's Double GRV. Justification being that they both seem at fault for incorrectly resolving anger of the gods. Not much seems to have happened in the game TO ME, but I can definitely see that each player drawing a card, and one of them playing a land are significant actions. It's tempting to just put the etched champion back into play if you're stepping in as a judge, but I don't think that's supported by policy. You'd have to back up. I could be wrong there.

On the other hand this could be viewed as the players fixing a minor violation on their own. We've prodded them and asked the question, but they seem to be fixing the problem themselves. I would probably just do nothing and let the players handle it like they did. The bad part about this solution is that the etched champion being on the battlefield may have changed the player's turn.

Really interested what the HJ ruled.

Edited Jon Munck (Feb. 6, 2017 03:31:21 AM)

I do like double GRV here. The fix is where things get interesting.

The only options we have for fixing things here (no partial fixes apply) are:

- leave things as they currently are, with champion being exiled

- back up the game to just after the resolution of anger

I suppose a third case could be made for saying ‘the players handled it, no fix needed,’ but that doesn't seem very compelling to me. The only reason they have noticed something wrong is once a judge has pointed out the problem, a full turn cycle after things went wrong. I also can't currently find that in the IPG, so I'm not sure if there's some other context there that might weigh into that decision.

Though there is a random element involved (ann's fetchland) I think a good case can be made for backing up here. No significant hidden information has been gained about either player's hand, and few decision points have been passed. I wouldn't fault anyone for thinking that we shouldn't back up though.

Originally posted by IPG1.4:

“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.”

I don't see this being an extreme situation; I would not support a backup. You're backing up through two card draws (including one that can get randomized by AP), and plenty of opportunities to have caught this error.

I see 2 fixes:
GRV to both players, as Jon pointed out. No backup
Let the players resolve it and carry on. This meets my standard for “Players resolving an issue themselves without involving a judge”.

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

I suppose a third case could be made for saying ‘the players handled it, no fix needed,’ but that doesn't seem very compelling to me. The only reason they have noticed something wrong is once a judge has pointed out the problem, a full turn cycle after things went wrong. I also can't currently find that in the IPG, so I'm not sure if there's some other context there that might weigh into that decision.

It's in the General philosophy, 3rd paragraph:

If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene.

One could argue this doesn't apply here since it's supposed to be before a judge intervention as our situation was after.

What worries me the most in this scenario is cheating, but if this is excluded I'm fine with handling the warnings and letting them partial fix it since they easily came to an agreement. If one of them actually asks what to do (by either looking or talking to me) then yeah, leave as it is.

Letting players to agree on putting champion back is not a good idea. Even if AP decisions were impacted by champion not being on the battlefield, I can easily see, how AP would agree on letting it come back just because of ethics (because it is partially his fault that champion got exiled) and trying to be polite.
Drawing two cards is a significant change and after double GRV no back ups.

My understanding is this is not double GRV - it's not the same as swords to plowshares or path to exile. Can someone explain?

Anne this is a double GRV because actions taken by NAP caused Anger of the Gods to resolve illegally.

Originally posted by Àre Maturana:

It's in the General philosophy, 3rd paragraph:If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene.

I like very much this solution to the fix but… is this a “minor violation”, and was it “quickly handled”?

I believe that the paragraph Àre quoted is related to specific circumstances when the players discover and handle the error themselves, not when the judge points it out to them. Especially if some time has passed since the error.

I agree that if the judge is the one who intervened to point it out, this cannot fall under the “If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene.” The judge has already intervened, therefore we look to the IPG for guidance.

I agree with Jeff here in that too much has happened to consider a backup, so the board remains as it is with a double GRV issued.

Originally posted by Àre Maturana:

It's in the General philosophy, 3rd paragraph:
If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene.

Originally posted by Jeff S Higgins:

This meets my standard for “Players resolving an issue themselves without involving a judge”

I wouldn't have thought to not step into this situation, so I want to hear more from those who said they were OK letting the players fix it themselves.

1) I think many players, especially among players who usually play Regular REL, assume that because a judge is watching and not saying “no no wait” at the proposed fix from Ned, the judge is giving it their support. For inexperienced players in Anne's shoes, they'll realize a mistake happened, hear *any* offered fix, and snap off a “yes,” believing it has the judge's tacit approval. Because a judge asked the question that pointed out the mistake and is sitting right there, I don't think any fix can be viewed as “not involving a judge” – in the players' eyes, the judge is involved.

2) What is the cutoff for allowing the players to fix it themselves? Would you have allowed the players to put the Champion back into play if another turn had passed? Two more? What if the proposed fix is going to be breaking the rules of the game in some other way in addition to fixing the issue – like if Ned had said “Oops, lets just put the Champion back into play, and because you made a mistake I get to draw a card” ? Why is putting the Champion back after 2 turns ok, but putting it back after 1 and a player drawing an extra wouldn't be?

I'm not sure I would decline from interfering here, on the grounds that I have already interfered by asking how the Etched Champion got into the graveyard. That said, I agree with Jeff and others above who said that too much game-time has passed to reasonably back the game up appropriately, so I would not fix the game state. I would issue a double-GRV though.

But what if we caught earlier, let's say during NAP's precombat main phase? Would you do a backup now?
What I would like to know is at which point do you say: ‘Too many significant changes have occurred to do any backups.’

Edited Gediminas Usevičius (Feb. 7, 2017 06:20:33 PM)

Originally posted by Gediminas Usevičius:

But what if we caught earlier, let's say during NAP's precombat main phase? Would you do a backup now?
What I would like to know is at which point do you say: ‘Too many significant changes have occurred to do any backups.’

When in doubt, the general guideline is one turn. If something goes wrong is A's Upkeep and we catch it before or during B's following Upkeep, one turn after the mistake, it's probably ok to backup. If we catch it after the Upkeep, ie more than a turn after the mistake, it's probably not ok to backup.
Again, this is a general guideline, not a hard and fast rule.

The bigger (but often harder to answer) question is: have players made choices that would be hard to rewind based on how the game currently is? If you think “No”, it's probably OK to backup. If you think the players have made choices based on where they thought the game is, and it would be hard/unfair to undo those choices, leave the game as is.

If AP taps incorrect mana for a spell, and NAP decides to cast a counterspell based on the mana left over, AP counterspells back…and then I'm called to the table, I would probably not want to rewind – and the spell that caused the problem hasn't even resolved yet.

In this case, the fact one player has a fetchland is an important detail that others have pointed to for explaining why they wouldn't want to backup, and I agree. If the mistake was caught before AP had drawn a card, or AP didn't have the fetchland, that design would make me more inclined to rewind.