To those that are in the line of thought that the card is still on the top of the library - do you still think it's reasonable to call it a GRV in this scenario?

By that logic, he just didn't put the card in the correct *physical* location, however the card is still in the correct *game* location. Or are we saying it's a GRV for not having the library in one pile?

Edited Eric Papaluca (May 19, 2014 10:49:40 PM)

What about a simliar situation where both players already took a few turns or made descisions like fetch where the deck has to be shuffled?

Michael, I think I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusions.

I'm pretty sure the partial fix of “makes a legal choice” was never intended to apply to this situation - but perhaps only because we didn't envision such an odd scenario. I'll agree with those who've said this seems like the cleanest fix - even though I could probably never risk setting a precedent by doing so myself. (Or, in simpler terms: I like that idea, but I don't think it's supported by policy, and this is not Significant nor Exceptional, so I won't deviate and do it that way.)

Given that, I would probably just rewind, and let the player make that choice.

To me, the suggestions of leaving the game state as is (i.e., the card is on top, no choice allowed) or even shuffling the card away seem like creative misapplication of the IPG. If you're going to be creative, please (a) don't let me hear about it (heh), and (b) try to achieve the most organic end result possible - i.e., the one closest to what likely would have happened, had no mistake occurred.

While it's not possible to restore all game states neatly & cleanly after a mistake, let's not add our own mistakes to what's already happened, and thus create an alternate reality.

d:^D

Scott, what would you do if something significant happened after the incomplete scry that you would not feel comfortable backing up through?

Lets say: put the card aside, complex combat, pass the turn, complex combat, “wait, what’s this card doing here?”.

I think a rewind is the best option here. While not ideal for obvious reasons, the current rules don't necessarily support us making decisions for the player in this type of scenario. Scry doesn't have a default action.

Also, I can't find any support for changing what we would do based on possible dexterity errors. In fact, the precedent in GPE-L@EC suggests that dexterity errors shouldn't be treated differently.

So, issue a GPE-GRV Warning, Rewind to the point at which the Scry was improperly resolved, remind the players to play more carefully.

Food for thought. The same situation is found out 2+ turns later? How would you fix it?

• Top?
  
• Bottom?
  
• Shuffle in?
  
• Remove a random from hand place it on top of library. Then place the “scry” card into hand?
  
• Other?
  

Edited Bret Siakel (May 21, 2014 05:20:02 PM)

You put the card back on top of the Library. Scrying gives you the choice of moving the card to the bottom. This means that you may move it or leave it. Leaving it changes nothing. You do not put it back on top. It never left the top. In this way, it is quite similar to performing the default action on a missed triggered ability. Since the player scrying, did not actively chose to put the card on bottom, it should be assumed he chose to leave it on top.

Originally posted by Jeffrey Schlichter:

You put the card back on top of the Library.

But that means that, 2+ turns later, you turn the presumably random top of the library into a card that is known to its owner. (It's debatable whether this gives the owner an advantage, since if the card was really that awesome it would probably not have been forgotten.) Also, as Alan suggested, scry doesn't have a default action, so we're making a decision for the player regardless of where we put the card. We cannot rewind 2+ turns, so I'd shuffle it into the random portion of the library. It's supposed to be in the library, and a random position seems the least arbitrary.

First of all, I want to tell you that I don't know how good my english is and apologize for it beforehand… if this post is literary awful or unreadable, please let me know so I don't make you lose your time again (I mean it, I will continue reading you; I just don't want to be a hindrance)

This is my first comment on the forums and i have just recently started working as a judge, so I would like to share my thoughts about what I have read so far (it might look like too general for the topic at hand, but I think it is related).
Your discussions are always important to me; they help me grasp an idea of what I should do, taking into account that all of you are experienced judges.
I find interesting when there isn't an easy solution: you explain your thougts about the situation, which helps me understand what's expected from a judge and a judge's way of thinking (seriously, it isn't an easy thing to acquire when you lack a guide physically near).
Here I read that it is reasonable to let the player go back to scrying having information he shouldn't have, and then getting the option to recast or not his spell. This point is important for me. I can see that this is a good answer to the problem even though it is kinda bitter to a novice judge like me. Sometimes I find myself trying to restrain a bit of friendliness so it don interfere with the game of the actual players… I can see I shouldn't try too hard to “lessen” the damage when it is too hard to do so (it would be like stepping into the game, right?), that I should try to get the game back on trail with the less disruption possible.
As a new judge, I found the other option more appealing: the one in which I could assume that the card on the table was about to be put on the bottom (considering the choice to had been taken), but something tells me that I should be careful here…

My conclusion is that it would be good to do this assumption as long as it is really easy to determine, but if there is any doubt, I should undo the duress and get to the scry. It surely will hurt more than to simply put the forgotten card on the bottom and keep going, but the game has been damaged. In this case maybe it's not a big deal, but not educating the players about the error -I mean, by softening the situation- could potentially grow troublesome later, in cases like the ones later depicted (discovering the phantom card face down 2 turns later).
The NAP player would surely fill bad, but he will be more careful next time when his opponent is taking actions like looking at his hand; and maybe the AP player get some advantage, but he will be careful too: he saw how his future opponents could be blessed by the fate he had this time. Note that we are talking about a player that is proved not cheating.
Going back to the first idea I liked, I think it's not good to take into account what people “usually do” as they put a card on top/bottom of library, since it would either be A) a strange behaviour-criteria (people tend to do things conventinally, until they don't); or B) based on people we actually do know (which shouldn't interfere with our decissions, since it's not clear to all the people involved).


I am deeply sorry if this is too long and sidetracked… but I wanted to start taking part in the discussions. All that I said tried to be constructive and respectful (I even admire more experienced judges :P); if anything sounds harsh, please know that it wasn't my intention at all: it might be because I just didn't handle english well.

Originally posted by Jeffrey Schlichter:

You put the card back on top of the Library. Scrying gives you the choice of moving the card to the bottom. This means that you may move it or leave it. Leaving it changes nothing. You do not put it back on top. It never left the top. In this way, it is quite similar to performing the default action on a missed triggered ability. Since the player scrying, did not actively chose to put the card on bottom, it should be assumed he chose to leave it on top.

Scry doesn't have a default action:

701.18 - To “scry N” means to look at the top N cards of your library, put any number of them on
the bottom of your library in any order, and put the rest on top of your library in any order

The IPG is pretty clear in what it considers to be “default actions”

IPG 2.1 Missed Trigger (Additional Remedy) - If a triggered ability specifies a default action associated with an choice made by the controller(usually, “If you don't…” or “… unless…”), resolve it choosing the default action.
Edit - Clarification. I am not suggesting that Scry is a trigger, merely citing the only place in which the IPG specifies a default action, and the careful wording that it uses to avoid including “optional” triggers. Optional does not equal default.

The IPG has changed over the years, and I'm 95% certain there was a time when “optional w/o consequences” was part of the rules(meaning that an optional missed trigger that didn't have consequences was simply left without any effect, without any option of putting it on the stack), but that is no longer true. However, even in that case, that didn't apply to triggers that had been remembered, halfway resolved and then forgotten. Absolutely nothing in the IPG, CR, or MTR supports a judge making a decision for the players outside of those immediately necessary to fix the game state(rewinding actions). Everywhere that a player choice needs to be made, the IPG instructs us to have one of the players make that choice(often defaulting to having the opponent make the choice, but still). There is a very good reason for that too. We have to be impartial arbiters. If we are making decisions for players, we are directly having an impact on the game. We absolutely want to minimize situations where we need to directly influence the game.

Edited Alan Dreher (May 23, 2014 01:06:38 PM)

Alan, your post seems to suggest that Scrying is a trigger - it's not, even though sometimes it's the action you perform when resolving a trigger. (I don't think that's what you meant, but it can be read as such…)

However, other than that, you make some very good points. “Back on top” is never defined, anywhere, as a default for an incomplete or botched Scry. Until you complete the Scry action, the cards technically are still on top of your library - and, technically, their order hasn't changed yet, no matter how many times a player flicks them around while thinking! - but that's largely irrelevant, since nothing is *supposed* to interrupt the Scry action. No one gets priority in the middle of a Scry…

"Absolutely nothing in the IPG, CR, or MTR supports a judge making a decision for the players outside of…" - that bears repeating, and emphasis.

d:^D

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Alan, your post seems to suggest that Scrying is a trigger - it's not, even though sometimes it's the action you perform when resolving a trigger. (I don't think that's what you meant, but it can be read as such…)

However, other than that, you make some very good points. “Back on top” is never defined, anywhere, as a default for an incomplete or botched Scry. Until you complete the Scry action, the cards technically are still on top of your library - and, technically, their order hasn't changed yet, no matter how many times a player flicks them around while thinking! - but that's largely irrelevant, since nothing is *supposed* to interrupt the Scry action. No one gets priority in the middle of a Scry…

"Absolutely nothing in the IPG, CR, or MTR supports a judge making a decision for the players outside of…" - that bears repeating, and emphasis.

d:^D

Thanks.

I wasn't necessarily suggesting that Scrying was a trigger, but I do see how it could be read that way.

I am kind of uncertain how I would fix the problem if it wasn't noticed until 2-4 turns later… I suppose that I would probably just tell the AP to finish resolving the Scry and leave it at that, as awkward as that seems. I don't really see what else could possibly be done. I won't rewind multiple turns, the game cannot be left as it is and I won't make a choice for the player, so all that is left is letting the player finish resolving the Scry. Issue a GPE-GRV, and probably a GPE-FtMGS to the NAP.