Adam and Nathan are playing against each other in a PTQ, format being standard. It's the second game of the match, and Nathan has won the first game. The second game has been very long and grindy, and Adam activates the second ability of his Jace, Memory Adept once more, and mills the last cards of Nathan's library. Adam asks Nathan “So your library is empty, isn't it?”, and Nathan confirms.

Adam then quickly collects all his cards and begins to shuffle them. Nathan asks “What are you doing?!”, to which Adam replies “Well, I just won the game, so we're playing a third one, aren't we?”. Nathan: “But I didn't draw a card since.”

They call for a judge. The easy part now is to explain to both players that indeed a player doesn't lose the game when his library his empty, but when he tries to draw from an empty library. But how do we fix this situation? Obviously, Adam states that he “would have won the game anyway in the next draw step”, to which Nathan just answers “No”, pointing at a Psychic Spiral in his hand.

Did Adam “accidentally concede” the game? Do we just try to reconstruct the game state? The game has been long and grindy, many cards have been on the battlefield, in the graveyards and in the exile, so it could be very hard to reconstruct the exact situation. Do we rule that Nathan has won the game, because that would have happened most likely (but we don't know that for 100%)?

Right now, I can't think of a solution that really feels right to me. Adam obviously didn't want to concede the game. He just thought that he did win the game. So I would have a hard time ruling that he accidentally conceded the game. On the other hand we can't rule that he actually won the game, for obvious reasons. We also can't reconstruct the exact game state. Do we still try to reconstruct it as good as we can? Doesn't feel right to me as well.

MTR 2.4 says “If a player refuses to play, it is assumed that he or she has conceded the match.”, but I would have a hard time applying this, because Adam didn't actually refuse to play, but was under the impression that the game was over.

Am I missing an obvious solution to this problem?

A player “scooping” their cards is a concession. This is going to be a very painful lesson for Adam to make sure the game is over and he has won the game before picking his cards up but I dout he'll make the mistake again.

There's another story about A attacking with his Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, N scooping up his board, then A scooping up his cards too, then N saying “what are you doing, I'm just sacrificing to annihilator?”

October, 2005, in Los Angeles, Pro Tour Head Judge Gijsbert Hoogendijk had to decide a similar situation, near the end of Day 2. Two players, one thought he'd won, or at least that his victory was certain; when he scooped his cards, the opponent claimed that was a concession.

There were a number of other factors, and the discussion among the high-level judges present led to Gis deciding that the act of scooping, without any prior communication, was a concession.

That decision set a precedent, and that's held for nearly 8 years.

It's also, as Gareth noted, an easy explanation for players: don't scoop until you confirm that you've won.

Err, not the best sentence in the middle of that. There were a number of other factors, and the discussion among the high-level judges present continued for an extended time, but finally led to …

Yeah, that makes more sense, and is what I had in mind before getting interrupted…