It's frustrating to see a level 2 judge be so unconcerned with how stupidly unfair the current system for rewinding gamestates and punishing mistakes is.Originally Posted by cdr
I can cheat or "make mistakes" and win because of the rules we have now. People should be given game losses for making such huge, game altering mistakes. Especially when they result in colossally unfair advantages for the person who made the critical error... this seems to be fine with you? Because to me and everyone else (it seems like) it is one of the most backwards and wrong things about this game.
Feel free to ignore this post too though
As someone who's been judging for 10 years, the system we have now is the fairest it's ever been.
There are some number of things to think about when discussing penalties. Just a few:
- Is the penalty overly punitive considering the severity and frequency of the infraction?
- How abusable is the penalty by the player?
- How abusable is the penalty by the opponent?
As the judge program's authority on cheating said, in part:
"We've tried it the other way, and we did see tons of people abusing by waiting to call the penalty to get the player the GL. With the current method we see some players abuse to get a free card draw. The question is really this: which way causes less problems? Data from years ago strongly suggests that the current IPG causes less problems than the former."
I forgot to bring up the aspect of the opponent, but that's also a major concern. We do not want to put opponents in the position of wanting to wait until after it's "too late" to call a judge and get the player a game loss instead of a warning.
The way we handle things now is the fairest we've been able to come up with to all parties and aligns the best with Wizard's goals for tournament play and the game. Is there room for improvement? Sure, I'm sure there always are, but understanding the tradeoffs that have been made is important first.
“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
This isn't some binary thing, though. It's not like the options are the draconian "if you forget to uptap your lands before drawing for the turn it's game loss" vs the current system. This one instance points to a gaping hole in the rules and the IPG: how looking at extra cards/drawing extra cards is dealt with. Information can not be rewound no matter what you do to a game state, and to rewind a game state that brought with it information about the player's deck that he should not have had seems suspect.
Some game states can be rewound successfully, and the information given away to the player(s) is a reasonable side effect to allowing a game to continue. Imagine, a card that read "Return 2 target basic land cards from you graveyard to your hand" but a player casts it only having 1 basic in his yard, or he misread it and tries to get back a non-basic. In both cases, the game can cleanly be rewound to a state before the spell was cast. Information is gained (what color my opponent needs, etc), but the rewind is clean. The board state is exactly the same as it was before as are the contents of both players hands and libraries. Compare to this case where you have the side that made the error be the only side to gain new information, and that information pertains to a hidden zone. Honestly, if he was forced to shuffle 3 cards from his hand into his library instead of put them on top, I think that is even okay, because the result is (basically) the same as it was pre-brainstorm: The player in error has X cards in hand, one of which is brainstorm, and a random library. It is certainly closer than what happened.
So, in this case three cards were randomly returned to the deck. I mean, sure, in such a scenario you want to try and make neither side get an advantage, but it seems silly to me that an error like this should ever give a player who made the mistake the chance to get an advantage. I realize that this is impossible, but it seems like there are some more measures which could be done which wouldn't be out of line for punishing mistakes but would make the game more fair for the opponent of the player who made a mistake.
The simplest change would be to reveal the cards being put on the library to both players, then put them on the library randomly. You could also do something like revealing the whole hand first, then putting things back randomly. At the very least, something to help give some of the information the mistake-making player gets to the opponent as well. Since the person making the mistake knows the cards contained in their next three draws and they normally shouldn't, why does this information remain hidden from the other player? This would be a simple change to the existing rules that I don't think would punish the mistake-making player much, but would help minimize potential advantage that player might get.
As a more extreme punishment, you could also consider having the mistake-making player reveal their entire hand and having their opponent choose which cards go back on top of the library, and even possibly the order. To me this seems like it could be giving too much advantage to the opponent and as such would have more potential for abuse by the opponent by purposefully ignoring mistakes to give them a choice like this. Although I still think I would prefer this approach because I feel like if any advantage would be possible when fixing an error, such an advantage should be given to the player who didn't make the mistake to begin with.
Why not just shuffle the hand, pull three cards at random, then put them into the library and shuffle it. You might end up lucking out and getting what you need on top, or you could end up with the same garbage as before.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I don't really like that very much because it seems very abuseable when you have a low number of cards in hand. Example: Maybe the enemy has a chalice of the void out and you have a brainstorm in hand. You cast brainstorm illegally "forgetting" about chalice and suddenly you have a 3/4 chance to not have a brainstorm in hand anymore.
There's a reason they didn't add a shuffle instruction which I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think it was the added complexity to the IPG section. It is probably worth revisiting adding a shuffle to make GRV at least match up with Looking At Extra, though.
You're off the deep end, unfortunately. Something like that actually happening is one in a billion, so not the type of thing that gets considered. (Plus the fact that the Brainstorm isn't one of the cards getting returned to the library.)
“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
Just curious; how would playing Brainstorm into Chalice of the Void be ruled? Playing the brainstorm is a legal action in the game, but the chalice just counters it. It seems like the Howling Mine case to me because the drawing of cards isn't the result of a GRV, but I'm just wondering how it would get ruled on the tournament floor.
If your at a starcity event be sure to draw the cards quick enough so your opponent doesn't have a chance to do something about it. You will then be allowed to play the brainstorm as is, or if your caught then you will get a slap on the wrist.
You mean like the SCG case, but substitute Chalice for Thalia? A GRV did immediately preceed the otherwise legal draw - not resolving the Chalice trigger - so it would be GRV and not DEC. If you play a Brainstorm into a Chalice and immediately draw, though, that's the kind of thing a judge is going to take a very close look at for intent to cheat.
“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
So, then, how does that work out with the change forcing players to announce all triggers? Is the chalice player now at fault for not blurting out "Wait!Triggerchaliceatone" in the span of half a second? Or does it just not happen because the chalice player "obviously missed his trigger."
The way the rules work out in this situation is not fair.
If McDarby "just" illegally cast brainstorm as a mistake it would be one thing... but he did not pass priority back after he put brainstorm on the stack. If he had passed priority before proceeding to resolve the illegally cast spell, Dimperio would have had a chance to inform him that he cant legally cast brainstorm. At that point if neither player realizes the situation, they should both receive a penalty for not maintaining a legal game state. BUT HE JUST DREW THE EXTRA CARDS... even if he could have legally cast the brainstorm you have to pass priority before resolving a spell! right????
A player does not miss a trigger until they take an action after the trigger should have resolved or pass priority. If the person playing the spell did not give the Chalice player priority, the trigger was not missed. And if a judge is being called, clearly the Chalice player did not forget the trigger. Rewind the game to the point where the Brainstorm and the Chalice trigger are on the stack.
Technically: yes, in practice: no. It's common in actual play to shortcut things and not ask your opponent if a spell is OK when you think they can't have any response, even though you technically should. In many cases this is just fine, like if you see very high level play among players who are friendly (like at the Player's Championship). Play happens really fast with little to no explicit priority passing happening.
“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
What baffles me even more, is that he was reading the text on Scryb Ranger two or even three times and still tried to Submerge it.
Trying to cast Submerge without realizing the opponent has no Forest happens, but trying to illegally cast the same card three times in one game should get you an infraction.
On another note: He would have drawn the Fetchland the next turn anyway.
I don't think that he is unconcerned about the current system, just that CDR's trying to explain the ruling in a way that people can understand even if it's against what fair-minded people would (and are) in an uproar about it.
So why don't we all just stop calling CDR an idiot and either accept that the ruling was the correct one, even though we hate its outcome. Or you can continue being ignorant toward a person who's been judging for over half of Magic's existence.
Cockatrice: EMFry
When you put it like that, it's almost depressing :)
“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
It was not to be depressing, but more of a recognition of accomplishment. I mean really, how many other people can legitmately say that they've been an integral part of Magic (who isn't a only a player) for that long?
Cockatrice: EMFry
I'm still fairly for there being an alteration to how GRV's are handled when they result in a player having more knowledge than they should about the game. I think in this specific case it warrants a game loss. I guess not "this specific case" but, the case in which a GRV that results in a player drawing extra cards should be handled by a game loss. The knowledge given presents an 'unrewindable' game state that no amount of shuffling will properly change.
At the very least, the deck should be shuffled--which presents a lot of shit in and of itself (if the top of your deck is now better than it was previously) but at the very least you're still in the unknown after the deck is shuffled. This presents corner cases of a player illegally brainstorming--keeping what they need, getting their deck shuffled, drawing into better cards than they would have, which is unlikely but possible.
I think if not a game loss, either the player should be given a warning per card drawn (such that brainstorms would result in a game loss) or just make specifically GRV's that result in extra cards drawn be equivalent to 2 warnings. But again, game loss seems perfectly reasonable.
Looking At Extra Cards - like accidentally flipping over the top card of a deck or activating a Top that's no longer in play - is a warning. You think that should be a game loss also?
“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
I'm referring specifically to the scenario whereby illegally drawing cards results in just putting N random cards back on top of your library--you still know what they are and can plan accordingly. Or better yet the ones in your hand are what you needed.
Looking at extra cards results in a shuffling of the deck, correct? You don't just randomize the cards they've seen, you randomize the entire deck--the player's hand and board remain unchanged and their deck is once again sufficiently randomized and unknown to the player. The end result is that you knew previously what the top X cards of your deck were, but you are now completely oblivious to what lies on top.
Drawing extra cards as a result of a GRV results in no shuffling of the deck, just N cards put on top of your deck in a random order where N is the number of cards you drew. The end result is that you know what the top X cards of your library are with a fairly good shot at guessing their order.
I don't see how these two scenarios are comparable unless I'm mistaken about how looking at extra cards is handled.
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