Hello my friends! Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool! This week's scenario is Silver, so we would like to ask L2+ judges to wait until Saturday to post their ideas and suggestions.

The blog post for this senario can be found here.

You're the Head and only judge of a Standard GPT. Andy is playing against Nick. Andy controls a Liliana Vess and he activates Liliana's -2 ability, searches and finds a card. He then shuffles his library and puts that card on top of it. Andy then attacks with a Grim Haruspex, and Nick blocks with a Bronze Sable. They go to combat damage, both creatures die, then Andy says “draw for Haruspex” and draws a card immediately. Nick reads Grim Haruspex, points out that the card shouldn't have been drawn, and calls a judge.

Seems like GPE-DEC to me. We give Andy a Warning and he must reveal his hand. Nick chooses any excess cards (in this case only 1) and we shuffle it into Andy's library.

Before Reading

Assuming I don't suspect that Andy was trying to cheat by hoping that Nick would not notice he does not get a card for the Haruspex dying, I would rule this a Game Play Error - Drawing Extra cards. For this, Andy would get a warning and Nick would not be issued a penalty as he never gave the okay for the card draw and called me over before any other game actions were taken.

Now, on to the fix. The identity of the card is not known to Nick as Andy was not required to reveal the card before placing it on top of his library. So in accordance with the IPG, Andy should reveal his hand to Nick, Nick selects a card from Andy's hand and that card should be shuffled into Andy's library preserving the position of any cards Andy legally knew.

I had initially considered placing the card Nick selected back on top of Andy's library. However, this gives Nick free information he is not entitled to have. Additionally, the IPG fix does not seem to support doing so.

Originally posted by IPG §2.3:

Otherwise, the player reveals his or her hand and the opponent selects a number of cards equal to the excess. Those cards are shuffled into the random portion of the deck. A simple backup may be used if there have been additional parts of the instruction performed since the illegal card draw, such as discarding or returning card to the top of the
library

The third sentence discusses doing a simple backup. However, it is in reference to actions taken after the illegal card draw. In our case, no additional actions were taken. Andy drew without waiting for Nick to give the okay, Nick read the card and then immediately called a judge.

Ruling: GPE-DEC with a warning for Andy and no penalty for Nick. Andy reveals his hand to Nick who then selects a card that is shuffled back into Andy's library.

After Reading

Only one other reply so far with the same ruling and fix as mine.

Without reading other posts:

This looks like a GPE: DEC. There's a half-dozen possible ways that Andy could dodge the Thoughtsieze fix. Most of them clearly don't apply (assuming his hand was not empty before the draw), but the question is, was Andy's draw “the legal resolution of an illegally played instructions?” Well, Andy drew the card immediately, meaning he didn't put the ability on the stack and he didn't give Nick a chance to response. Since the first chance Nick had to realize something was wrong was when the extra card hit Andy's hand, no “downgrade” (it's not literally a downgrade) can apply.

After reading:
Seems like consensus :-)

GPE-DEC: Warning for Andy.

If he had no cards in hand prior to the draw we simply place the card back on the library.
If he had one or more cards in hand before the draw he reveals his hand to Nick; Nick selects a card from Andy's hand and that card is shuffled into the random portion of Andy's library.

The only possible question is if “draw for Haruspex” counts as a TE-CPV. As i understand it the Haruspex ability here is derived information that has been mis-represented. Had Andy said “draw for Haruspex” and paused for confirmation from Nick I might have ruled this way, however given the op description that he “draws a card immediately” I'm sticking with the above.

While it seems like this is a clear case of drawing extra cards (a card ended in the hand illegally), the fix suggested above seems somewhat punitive in this case. The fix of shuffling the extra card(s) into the deck is clearly fixing the situation where the card drawn was from an unknown portion of the library (therefore returning it to the randomized portion of the library). It seems that in this case the card was drawn from a known portion and by shuffling it back in, we are undoing the Liliana activation as well. If we determine this is to be DEC, however, and the other conditions were not met the “thoughtseize fix,” as written in the IPG, does not allow for returning the card to the top of the deck.

Is it possible, however, that this does meet the other conditions listed under DEC? Can we consider that adding the draw trigger to the stack was actually the error rather than drawing the card? Would this not be a case that “the cards were drawn as part of the legal resolution of an illegally played instruction?” Wouldn't the haruspex trigger be an illegally played instruction and drawing the card be a legal resolution of that instruction? If so, this would allow a backup as the remedy.

“If the cards were drawn as part of the legal resolution of an illegally played instruction, due to a Communication Policy Violation, or were as the result of resolving objects on the stack or multiple-instruction effects in an incorrect order, a backup may be considered and no further action is taken.”

So, in this case we could issue a warning for GPE-DEC with a backup as the fix. To backup the trigger and draw, we would choose a card at random from Andy's hand and return it to the top of his deck. This solution does give us some reason for caution, however, as Andy may end up with the ‘chosen’ card in his hand and a useless card back on the top. This leaves the possibility that Andy still gains an advantage from his error even after our fix. Any fetches for Andy further complicate this fix as he could shuffle away the returned card which could lead to drawing a different card, which we should try to avoid.

“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.”

In summary, I believe this is a “legal resolution of an illegally played instruction” so the only remedy available according to the IPG is that a backup should be considered and no further action should be taken. Although I have some concerns about the backup, I believe it is better than leaving the extra card in Andy's hand. No penalty for Nick, as he called us over immediately.


Second guessing myself: It is very possible that I am misinterpreting the ‘illegal instruction’ clause. The annotated IPG does state that new judges tend to over analyze this clause. It does, however, seem like there was a chance to notice the error before the card when to hand. As soon as he said “draw for haruspex” the error could have been stopped. The announcement of the (illegal) trigger was the first noticeable error. The immediate drawing didn't leave much time to do so, but it does show that there was a separate action that was incorrect before the card going into the hand.

Paul's analysis is very thorough, and hits some key notes - the analysis of the risks of a backup here is great - though I would rule this as a DEC, not a GRV. (As a result, we perform the standard DEC remedy on Andy - and Andy loses the benefit of having activated Liliana Vess's ability.)

The way the scenario is written, it looks to me like Nick did not actually have an opportunity to point out the error before Andy drew his card (note that the scenario says “immediately”). Or, to look at it another way: Andy's actions proceeded quickly enough (and without confirmation from the opponent at any point) that Nick did indeed call out the error at the earliest moment he could have done so - and that moment was after Andy had already drawn the card.

It's easy to imagine a play pointing out an “illegal trigger” and drawing quickly enough that no opponent has a reasonable amount of time to interrupt that sequence - so we know that simply announcing the reason why you're about to draw an extra card is not, by itself, enough to escape DEC. I also don't think that putting a triggered ability on the stack when you should not counts as "an illegally played instruction" (emphasis added); that clause appears to refer to spells or abilities that were illegally initiated by a player (e.g. casting a divination at instant speed). A notable difference is that triggered abilities are invisible, which greatly reduces the ability of the opponent to be able to notice that something is amiss, compared to a spell or activated ability (which are almost always represented by physical game objects).

As many of you determined, the infraction here is Drawing Extra Cards. Andy needs to reveal his hand, Nick will get to choose a card and that card will be shuffled into Andy's library. Even though Andy knew the identity of the card, it was not known to all players, so policy doesn't support a fix that would result in the chosen card ending up on top of Andy's library.

Paul pointed out the possibility of interpreting this as “adding the draw trigger to the stack was actually the error rather than drawing the card.” As Mani points out, the philosophy of DEC is to cover draws which the opponent has no opportunity to prevent. Because Andy pointed out the non-existent trigger and resolved it all at once, there was no such opportunity.

Thanks everyone for participating this week!