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

You are the Head Judge for a Modern PPTQ. On her first turn, Andrea plays a Swamp, then casts Inquisition of Kozilek. Naomi reveals her hand: three Plains, two Path to Exile, and two Thraben Inspector. Andrea writes down each card in Naomi's hand, and when finished, says “pass the turn.” Naomi picks up her hand, draws a card for turn, plays a Plains, and casts Thraben Inspector. At this point, Andrea realizes she forgot to pick a card for Naomi to discard, and she calls for a judge.

What do you do?

Edited Joe Klopchic (Aug. 2, 2017 01:54:48 PM)

As part of the resolution of IoK, a player MUST choose a 3cmc card if able, even if they don't want to. The “fail to find” solution does NOT apply here, because Andrea is choosing rather than searching, so something bad has happened. I would issue warnings to each – GPE-GRV to Andrea and GPE-FtMGS to Naomi. Very little has happened here, so as an additional fix, I would rewind to the point of resolving Inquisition and have Andrea make a choice. I would instruct them to return the Thraben Inspector to Naomi's hand, return the land to Naomi's hand, and **return the card that we KNOW Naomi drew** to the top of her library. Now we can finish resolving Inquisition correctly, and expect Naomi's turn to play out exactly as it did originally.

Andrea has committed a plain GPE-Game Rule Violation, by incorrectly resolving Inquisition, and will receive a warning. Since Naomi is also responsible for it, I would issue a GRV-Warning to her as well.
As for the fix, since none of the partial fixes apply and we're still in the 1-turn-distance window, we backup the game to the point of error, which is the resolution of IoK. Return the drawn card (the one that's not one of the 3 plains, 2 Paths or two thraben) to the top of the deck and let the game run as is.
As always, remember both players to pay attention and play carefully.

Edited Yurick Costa (Aug. 3, 2017 10:28:02 AM)

First, I think this is FtMGS for Naomi, not GRV, since she didn't do anything wrong herself – no card was chosen, so there was nothing for her to discard. What she failed to do was remind Andrea to choose a card.

Second, I think we have to stick to backup procedure and return a random card to the library, meaning that Andrea might get to see (and even choose) the card Naomi drew. The IPG section on backing up says

Originally posted by IPG 1.4:

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.

It doesn't make any provisions for the judge being able to identify it, or the player being able to help us do so by process of elimination, even if they agree.

This feels somewhat jarring in this case, since it seems so easy to “just fix it”, but as the GRV Philosophy section reminds us,

Originally posted by IPG 2.5:

It is tempting to try and “fix” these errors, but it is important that they be handled consistently, regardless of their impact on the game.

In this case in particular, it's important not to rely on Andrea's memory. This example is kind of funny because there are duplicates of all the cards, but let's say there was only one Path, Andrea misremembers the hand as four Plains and two Inspectors, and Naomi has in fact drawn a fourth Plains. Upon hearing this, Naomi can agree, thus guaranteeing that she gets to hide her Path on top of the library.

Edited Jake Eakle (Aug. 3, 2017 02:45:04 PM)

Although I understand one could argue for FtMGS, I will disagree with you here, Jake.

Originally posted by Jake Eakle:

In this case in particular, it's important not to rely on Andrea's memory

You know, for a fact, that Andrea has written down all the cards in Naomi's hand beforehand, so we're not relying in memory here.

Originally posted by IPG 1.4:

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.

When using the elimination process, we're choosing a card at random from the possible candidates, that is, the card that wasn't in Naomi's hand last turn.

Firstly, Naomi could be given one of two penalties; either FtMGS or UC - Cheating. Purposely failing to point out a GRV to a judge in order to gain a benefit would be cheating. However, because Naomi did not receive any instructions on which card to discard, she could not be considered as “taking action based on another players instruction”. As such, I'd choose to issue them both a Warning, one for Andrea's GRV and for Naomi's FtMGS (as long as we can determine she did not avoid calling a judge on purpose or for her own advantage).

Originally posted by IPG 2.5 GRV:

For most Game Play Errors not caught within a time that a player could reasonably be expected to notice, opponents receive a Game Play Error — Failure to Maintain Game State penalty. If the judge believes that both players were responsible for a Game Rule Violation, such as due to the existence of replacement effects or a player taking action based on another players instruction, both players receive a Game Play Error — Game Rule Violation.

Originally posted by IPG 2.6 FtMGS:

A player allows another player in the game to commit a Game Play Error and does not point it out immediately. If a judge believes a player is intentionally not pointing out other players’ illegal actions, either for his or her own advantage, or in the hope of bringing it up at a more strategically advantageous time, they should consider an Unsporting Conduct — Cheating infraction.

I am not sure if a backup as described under 1.4 would be wise at this point; the issue with an unknown card being in Naomi's hand would be difficult, given how Naomi could end up with a different card being discarded (say she drew a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben that turn and it wasn't placed on top of her deck). I would feel uncomfortable giving Andrea the chance of gaining an advantage in this case, since both players are receiving Warnings already. It might be better instead to determine if Andrea's notes are accurate by examining Naomi's hand and asking them both about it. If I could determine the notes are accurate, I would ask Naomi to return both the Plains and Thraben Inspector to her hand, instruct Andrea to select a card she wrote down, have Naomi discard it, and then let her continue from her main phase. This way, neither player can gain a further advantage from the situation. Lastly, I would remind them to play more carefully, and give an extension due to the length of the fix.

Edited Brayden Worrell (Aug. 4, 2017 03:08:57 AM)

Originally posted by Yurick Costa:

Although I understand one could argue for FtMGS, I will disagree with you here, Jake.

Can you say why? In your original post you just say “Naomi is also responsible for it”, which I think is untrue.

Originally posted by Yurick Costa:

You know, for a fact, that Andrea has written down all the cards in Naomi's hand beforehand, so we're not relying in memory here.

While I had indeed forgotten about this aspect of the scenario when typing, I actually don't know if it's relevant. We can't verify that Andrea took accurate notes, even if all the cards match - as in my example, Naomi might have drawn the one Andrea mistakenly noted down.

However, this might be being a little pedantic. In a case where we have a written record and no disagreement from the players, it's probably reasonable to identify the set of possibilities by elimination, as you say.

On the other hand, this is another case like the recently discussed one about backups with fetches in hand – in the counterfactual case where we see that Andrea has mistakenly written down the wrong cards, we'd be forced not to identify the card in this way. If Andrea understands that, and also understands the we would have identified the card if she had written the cards correctly, we'll have leaked private information about Naomi's hand by choosing not to back up (that is, Andrea will know she wrote the cards down wrong). Therefore, it could be argued that we should choose consistency, and never identify the card by elimination in cases like this, so that mistaken!Andrea can't make this deduction.

Originally posted by Jake Eakle:

Can you say why? In your original post you just say “Naomi is also responsible for it”, which I think is untrue.

In my understanding, this case involves an action by Naomi - discarding the chosen card - which is part of the resolution of IoK, that she didn't perform. Then, she's also responsible for the full, correct resolution of the spell.

Originally posted by Jake Eakle:

On the other hand, this is another case like the recently discussed one about backups with fetches in hand

There's no ‘random generation’ element, such as a fetch land, in this scenario. Naomi couldn't even cast thraben and path it before drawing due to timing and mana restrictions. I get where you're coming from, but I'm not sure if in a real world situation the possibility of letting Andrea deduct she wrote cards wrong would come to me, nor I would think it is really relevant. She could come to this conclusion by using her memory alone, after all.

Originally posted by Brayden Worrell:

It might be better instead to determine if Andrea's notes are accurate by examining Naomi's hand and asking them both about it. If I could determine the notes are accurate, I would ask Naomi to return both the Plains and Thraben Inspector to her hand, instruct Andrea to select a card she wrote down, have Naomi discard it, and then let her continue from her main phase.

Be careful to not apply partial fixes where they're not due. The choice partial fix only applies to static abilities, not to resolving spells, therefore it is not applicable here. The choice was never made (this IS the source of the error after all), so the draw/discard/return cards partial fix doesn't apply as well.

Remember the IPG:

Originally posted by IPG 2.5:

It is tempting to try and “fix” these errors, but it is important that they be handled consistently, regardless of their impact on the game.

Originally posted by Jake Eakle:

While I had indeed forgotten about this aspect of the scenario when typing, I actually don't know if it's relevant. We can't verify that Andrea took accurate notes, even if all the cards match - as in my example, Naomi might have drawn the one Andrea mistakenly noted down.

However, this might be being a little pedantic. In a case where we have a written record and no disagreement from the players, it's probably reasonable to identify the set of possibilities by elimination, as you say.

This is from the HCE section

Originally posted by IPG:

Information about cards previously known by the opponent, such as cards previously revealed
while on the top of the library or by a previous look at the hand, may be taken into account while
determining the set of cards to which the remedy applies.

And as you mentioned earlier, the section on backing up specifies to only choose from “the possible candidates”. None of the cards which were in Naomi's hand could possibly have been the card she drew.

Originally posted by Yurick Costa:

In my understanding, this case involves an action by Naomi - discarding the chosen card - which is part of the resolution of IoK, that she didn't perform. Then, she's also responsible for the full, correct resolution of the spell.

She did perform this action, the same as she would have had there been no cards in her hand when IoK resolved. There was no chosen card, so she didn't discard anything.

She did fail to ensure that there be a chosen card, which seems like textbook FtMGS.

Originally posted by Russell Gray:

This is from the HCE section <rule snipped>

Thanks! I had missed that.

I'm a bit nervous about this part of policy, though. It seems like players have room to pretty easily angle for advantage my strategically forgetting what they saw.

Originally posted by Jake Eakle:

I'm a bit nervous about this part of policy, though. It seems like players have room to pretty easily angle for advantage my strategically forgetting what they saw.

It's possible, but it's a remote possibility, since it usually involves a player needing their opponent to commit an error. In this instance, AP being able to take advantage by conveniently “forgetting” would require AP to fail to choose a card, require NAP to not notice until after having drawn a new card, require randomly putting back a different card than was drawn (where the drawn card is an “important” one and not another duplicate or land), and require convincing a judge that all of this is accidental. At least half of these are things that are beyond AP's control, so trying to take advantage of them in such a premeditated way seems unlikely.

Thanks for all the participation this week. We had some good discussion that ultimately led to the correct answer. Russell Gray pointed out the correct answer first: we need to rewind to allow the correct choice to be made.

Inquisition of Kozilek requires selecting a card if there is a legal choice, so Andrea has committed a Game Rule Violation for failing to make a legal choice. Naomi has committed a Failure to Maintain Game State infraction for failing to point out this choice was not made.

Although the IPG provides a partial fix in the case that a player has not discarded a card when they were supposed to, the infraction here is not that Naomi failed to discard a card, but rather that Andrea failed to make a choice. Therefore, this partial fix does not apply.

In this case, because the Plains and Thraben Inspector were both cards known to Andrea from the Inquisition of Kozilek's effect, backing up is appropriate. To do so, return the Thraben Inspector and Plains back to Naomi's hand. Then pull aside the card Naomi drew for turn, the only card not listed on Andrea's list of Naomi's hand, and put that card on top of Naomi's library. Finally, we will put Inquisition of Kozilek back on the stack, and reveal Naomi's hand again, to have Andrea select a card for Naomi to discard.