I had an interesting situation come up last weekend. Alice (AP) cast a Necrotic Wound on Ned (NAP)'s House Guildmage, and Ned put it into the graveyard by accident. Alice doesn't notice the mistake. Five turns later, Ned casts a Necrotic Wound of his own on Alice's Swarm Guildmage. After the second Wound is cast the players look at Ned's graveyard and see that he has two creatures, but one is the House Guildmage which should have been exiled several turns ago. This is the point where the players call a judge.

In GRV, one of the partial fixes states:

Originally posted by 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 current state of the game, put the object in the correct zone.

I consulted with another judge on this call, and we agreed that removing the House Guildmage from Ned's graveyard while his Necrotic Wound was on the stack, with the result of his spell not killing the opposing Swarm Guildmage, would not be “minor disruption.” We left the creature in the graveyard.

The question is right after the Necrotic Wound resolves - should we then apply the partial fix? Once the stack is clear and the decisions the players made based on the current board state are finished, moving the creature would now cause “minor disruption” - but it will also feel very weird to the players.

Would you apply the partial fix once the stack was clear? If we decide not to apply a partial fix at one point in the game, is that decision “locked in” for the rest of the game or would you consider applying it later?

Edited Brook Gardner-Durbin (Jan. 9, 2019 06:32:54 PM)

Hi Brook,

There's one small but important sentence easy to miss right after the partial fixes are listed :

For each of these fixes, a simple backup may be performed beforehand if it makes applying the fix smoother.

So backing up the Necrotic Wound (the simple backup) then applying the partial fix seems the way to go.

Never thought about your last question though, my personal understanding is that yes, once I decided a partial fix isn't the way to go I won't just come in later and say “alright, now that the problem is out of the way let's apply it”. My impression is that it would be causing further damage to a game that is already not going how it should normally go.

Interesting discussion topic!

I'm inclined to leave things as is, since the players accepted things as they are for five turns. It's possible that Ned's Necrotic Wound is the first decision affected by the extra creature in Ned's graveyard, but we (as judges) can't know that.

d:^D

P.S. obvious disclaimer about investigating Ned, since he deinitely got an advantage from this mistake…

Scott, outside of this call, as a more general question, how do you feel about applying a partial fix after deciding not to do so at an earlier point? Do you think we should make one choice about applying a partial fix or not and let that be that, or would you consider saying No at one point and later saying Yes?

Originally posted by Brook Gardner-Durbin:

how do you feel about applying a partial fix after deciding not to do so at an earlier point

Well, the immediate reaction is No, I wouldn't - but it's never that absolute in real life, is it?

Let's tweak your scenario just a bit, where fewer than five turns have elapsed - if we adjust that parameter enough, we might get to a point where more judges would consider the idea of a “delayed partial fix”.

However, I don't think this matches the intent of partial fixes, so my answer remains no.

d:^D