Howdy folks, and welcome back to the Knowledge Pool. This week we have another Silver scenario, so L2s should wait until Friday to join in the discussion.

In a Modern PPTQ where you are the head judge, Alex calls you over to his match. He explains that during his turn, he had attacked with a Celestial Colonnade. Nathan responded by activating a Mouth of Ronom targeting the Celestial Colonnade. Alex responded by casting a Sphinx's Revelation for 4. He gains 4 life and draws 4 cards. After considering his options, he picked up the Celestial Colonnade and moved it to the graveyard. Alex then played an Island and passed the turn. Nathan has just drawn his card for the turn when Alex noticed that Nathan did not put the Mouth of Ronom into his graveyard. You determine that Nathan forgot he needed to sacrifice it because of Alex’s immediate response with the Sphinx’s Revelation. What do you do?

Edited Joe Klopchic (May 24, 2017 12:31:28 PM)

GRV for Nathan
FtMGS for Alex

I believe this falls under the zone change partial fix for GRV
>If an object is in an incorrect zone either due to a required zone change being missed …

It is also minimally disruptive to the game state to remove this land as NAP has not yet cast any spells after untaping

Therefore, I would move the Mouth of Ronom to the graveyard immediately and instruct the players to continue playing

It feels silly to write the same answer, but my fix is the same as Daniels. Issue a GRV for Nathan and a FtMGS for Alex. While this was caught fairly quickly, actions have been taken between when Mouth of Ronom should have been placed in the GY and when the error was caught. Moving the card into the proper zone would cause minimal disruption at this point, so I would move the Mouth of Ronom to the graveyard, make sure nothing could have triggered off of it being placed in the graveyard, and then instruct the players to resume play.

I'd issue Nathan a GRV and Alex a FtMGS. The Mouth of Ronom should have been placed into the graveyard upon activation of the ability since it is part of the cost, since neither player caught it they'd both be given warnings

It seems to me the ability wasn't fully paid for so it should not happen. The process for activating an ability is the same as casting a spell and in this case wasn't completed although the intent was there.

However backing up to the point of error (the ability going on the stack) would be too disruptive to the game so the partial fix of simply moving Mouth of Ronom to the graveyard is likely where I would go - but this is hard for me to be satisfied with this and I am very interested in seeing what “actually” should be done.

If the partial fix is the answer then GRV for N and FtMGS for A. Warnings with reminders to play more carefully.

The question is whether ‘forgetting to sacrifice’ qualifies as ‘a required zone change being missed’, or merely an incorrect cost being paid. I.e., did they forget to sacrifice, or merely forget to move it to the gy as part of sacrificing it. (The question reads as if we have ruled out cheating, so I will take it as assumed.)

If we assume they had sacrificed it and merely forgot to move it to the gy, then the additional remedy of moving it to the gy with GRV+FtMGS makes sense. (“Pay 5 tap and sac, deal 4 to colonnade.”)

On the other hand, if we assume the sacrifice itself was forgotten entirely, then there is no zone change being missed. Our options are the standard back up to point of error/leave the game state as is. (Or of course, ask the HJ about a deviation to move the Mouth to the GY.) If we backup to the activation of Mouth: we would put the Island back in hand, Colonnade to the battlefield, random 4 from hand on top of library, and then Sphinx back in hand.

While I personally would like to see the Mouth go to the GY, I am not seeing anything warranting a deviation. Specifically from the IPG, it mentions that things need to be handled consistently “regardless of their impact on the game”. Giving Nathan the chance to use the Mouth again has a significant impact on the game, but Alex was also responsible for noticing this.

Now, to back up or not. We use backups when leaving the game state as is, is worse (keeping the Mouth). A good backup results in gained information makes no difference (minimal decision trees). Unfortunately, Sphinx's Rev allows for numerous decision trees (value of X knowing the cards you may draw) as well as the chance to keep a different card in hand and save the Colonnade, or Rev for less and hope to get the card they want with enough mana (knowing it's one of the top 4).

My ruling: GRV+FtMGS, no additional remedy or backup.

(Edit: I didn't realize Nathan had drawn - this is yet another reason not to backup, as it provides both players with potential access to cards they did not have at the time, as well as knowledge.)

Edited Brian Ross (May 27, 2017 12:33:33 PM)

Originally posted by Brian Ross:

Now, to back up or not. We use backups when leaving the game state as is, is worse (keeping the Mouth). A good backup results in gained information makes no difference (minimal decision trees). Unfortunately, Sphinx's Rev allows for numerous decision trees (value of X knowing the cards you may draw) as well as the chance to keep a different card in hand and save the Colonnade, or Rev for less and hope to get the card they want with enough mana (knowing it's one of the top 4).

One of the top 4?

Should we back this up - would each player not reveal their hands to for the opponent to choose which cards are returned to the library? - and these would be shuffled into the unknown portion of the library. They wouldn't just get to go on top.

I think this is another reason that a back up here is too disruptive.

Originally posted by Brian Ross:

On the other hand, if we assume the sacrifice itself was forgotten entirely, then there is no zone change being missed.

I think you're over-thinking this. Whether there was a required zone change that has been missed or not is determined by what the game rules actually require, not what the players intended to have happen. We have a zone change (sacrifice ) that is missed (Mouth wasn't moved to the appropriate zone) that results in Mouth being in an incorrect zone.

Likewise, in either case an incorrect cost has been paid to activate the ability, since Mouth remained on the battlefield. this is the root of the GRV, but isn't very relevant to how we determine what the fix should be now.

In general, we should look at what went wrong (an incorrect cost being paid) to determine the infraction (GRV), and then look at the gamestate subsequent to the error to determine what fix is appropriate. The only thing currently wrong with the gamestate is that Mouth is on the Battlefield when it should have been moved to the graveyard, so this scenario qualifies for the partial fix.

Originally posted by Bryon Boyes:

Originally posted by Brian Ross:

Now, to back up or not. We use backups when leaving the game state as is, is worse (keeping the Mouth). A good backup results in gained information makes no difference (minimal decision trees). Unfortunately, Sphinx's Rev allows for numerous decision trees (value of X knowing the cards you may draw) as well as the chance to keep a different card in hand and save the Colonnade, or Rev for less and hope to get the card they want with enough mana (knowing it's one of the top 4).

One of the top 4?

Should we back this up - would each player not reveal their hands to for the opponent to choose which cards are returned to the library? - and these would be shuffled into the unknown portion of the library. They wouldn't just get to go on top.

I think this is another reason that a back up here is too disruptive.

'Have opponent look at and determine which N don't belong there' is only done as the result of a Hidden Card Error - no HCE in this case, since both players were okay with the cards being drawn, it's just that there was an error earlier. In the case of backing up, unknown cards are dealt with randomly

If the identity of a card involved in reversing an action is unknown to one of the players (usually because it was drawn), a random card is chosen from the possible candidates. Shuffles are reversed by a single shuffle of the random portion of the library after the rest of the backup is complete. A card that became legally known to only one player after the error was committed is not considered random and is returned to the appropriate location after the shuffle has been completed.

(Emphasis mine.)

Edited Brian Ross (May 29, 2017 11:31:05 AM)

Originally posted by Andrew Keeler:

I think you're over-thinking this.

Very possible. (I must admit I kind of enjoyed delving into it assuming partial wasn't feasible…)

This fix is the one that would satisfy me the most - and you're unlikely to find much resistance from either player applying it.

Thanks everyone for participating this week. Some of you may have noticed that this scenario is a repeat from early 2014. Interestingly enough, the answer has changed since then.

Daniel Woolson quickly pointed out that this falls under one of the Game Rules Violation partial fixes. That partial fix has been changed since the last time we ran this scenario, and now reads:

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.

(emphasis mine)

The answer is therefore, Nathan receives a Warning for Game Rules Violation, and Alex a Warning for Failure to Maintain Game State. We don't need to consider the complicated rewind, as many of you pointed out, that rewind is certainly very disruptive. We apply the partial fix and move Mouth of Ronom to Nathan graveyard.

Edited Joe Klopchic (May 31, 2017 10:54:05 AM)