Player A sacrifices a Scalding Tarn, says "Sac Tarn"
Player B says OK
Player A searches through his deck, finds a Tundra, places it on the battlefield, picks it up, puts it back I his deck, then finds a Volcanic Island, shuffles his deck.
Player B says Tundra should be on the battlefield. Player A claims he never announced what land was being searched and that the Volcanic should stay.
Who's in the right?
This is a case of "you had to be there."
How much time passed between Tundra and then the Volcanic Island? Was the player fishing for information? Did the player present his deck to be shuffled by the opponent?
Very likely: he gets his Volcanic Island.
♀
Not much time passed, enough for the Tundra to be seen by both players, maybe a 1 second pause and then re-search.
Deck wasn't presented for shuffling to Player B.
I think it's a pretty close call, but I'm curious if anyone else has experience in this situation.
Yeah, he gets his Volcanic Island. Very reasonable course of action for someone to fetch the wrong land and then realize straight away and fix the error. Nothing could possibly have happened in the game (no one has priority) so the only cause for pause is if the player is fishing for information from their opponent.Originally Posted by pnutbutr
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Getting a different land is fine at that point. The point of no return comes when another action is taken (like significant shuffling or presenting for a cut) or information could be gained (like an opponent's reaction).
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
That's what I thought. Thanks guys!
I was told by a L1 judge that you are technically still searching until you present your deck to opponent for cut/shuffling. That seems like a logical, clear-cut line drawn in the sand that everyone can point to. The "information gained" part seems far more ambiguous and not something I've ever heard of. Is there a rule you could point me to re: searching library?
It's difficult for things like take-backs to be clear-cut.
It's a general judging philosophy, and a L1 (L1s do regular REL judging only) may not have been exposed to more advanced judging philosophy. Basically, players are never allowed to gain information by "messing up". Doing so deliberately is obviously cheating, but even in the case of honest mistakes, once you've given your opponent time to react to something you are not allowed to take it back. Regular REL is pretty loose with rules, but this is definitely enforced at competitive REL.
You can see the Out of Order Sequencing rule for an example of this philosophy: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/mtr4-3/
Players may not try to use opponent’s reactions to some portion of an out-of-order sequence to see if he or she should modify actions or try to take additional ones.
“It's possible. But it involves... {checks archives} Nature's Revolt, Opalescence, two Unstable Shapeshifters (one of which started as a Doppelganger), a Tide, an animated land, a creature with Fading, a Silver Wyvern, some way to get a creature into play in response to stuff, some way to get a land into play in response to stuff (a different land from the animated land), and one heck of a Rube Goldberg timing diagram.”
-David DeLaney
There's no rule that stops you from exposing cards to your opponent, you can show cards in your hand as well if you feel like it, and you can share your decklist. So the fact that the opponent saw the Tundra normally shouldn't have an impact. It would be downright stupid, but completely legal, to take every possible target out of your deck, putting them out, and then select the one you want, if you do it without wasting time obviously. The dividing line becomes when one of the cards selected is an illegal target, or if he leaves enougyh time in between to make you think the action was completed.
Stuff like this can get frustrating as there aren't clear cut rules - or if there are, they are difficult to enforce uniformally.
Anecdote from a tournament a few years back: a friend of my was playing a deck with Natural Order. He was resolving Natural Order and was searching his library for Progenitus. While he is leafing through his deck he accidentally drops a card - a Birds of Paradise - which falls onto the table face up. As he picks it up his opponent calls a judge, argues that he had searched for, and found Birds of Paradise with Natural Order and the judge sides with the opponent and my friend was stuck with a Birds of Paradise.
Now whether that was down to a weak judge, a smooth tongue on the part of the opponent or whatever that certainly was a case much clearer than the fetchland example imo.
Sheesh, that sucks. It seems like an odd ruling. He hadn't shuffled his deck nor had he presented it to his opponent to be cut. If he'd done that, it'd been another story entirely.
Some people are such bastards. Such conduct should be a punishable offense.
Yeah that's just a dick move by the opponent.
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