IPG 2.2 Game Play Error — Looking at Extra Cards

Definition

A player looks at a card they were not entitled to see.

Penalty

Warning


This infraction is pretty easy to commit. Any time you touch a library, it is possible you are going to drop a card, or flip a card over; or when drawing you might pick up two cards and see the face of the card below.

Generally, when we are talking about Looking at Extra Cards (L@EC), we are talking about a player seeing the face of some card in his or her own deck. However, you might also see some cards in your opponent’s deck while shuffling it.

Additionally, the Drawing Extra Cards infraction covers situations where you are looking at some number of cards on the top of your library and you look at too many of them. So, in this specific case, you are looking at extra cards, but you aren’t Looking At Extra Cards, you are Drawing Extra Cards. Does your brain hurt? Mine does.

For clarification, dropping a card while shuffling your own library is not L@EC. Just put the card back and continue to randomize your deck.

Observing the face of a card your opponent dropped or flipped is also not L@EC. There are two reasons for this: 1) If I could drop a card and get you a Warning, I’m going to messy-shuffle my way into a top 8. 2) MTR 3.12 allows me to reveal hidden information that I am entitled to know to my opponent.

Players are considered to have looked at a card when they have been able to observe the face of a hidden card, or when a card is moved any significant amount from a deck, but before it touches the other cards in their hand.

This includes errors of dexterity or catching a play error before the card is placed into his or her hand.

This sentence defines the boundaries of L@EC. But it has to be taken within the context of Drawing Extra Cards. As mentioned in the section above, Drawing Extra Cards claims some of the space L@EC used to have. When you are manipulating a set of cards from the top of the library, and you manipulate too many of them, that’s considered DEC now. L@EC covers when you knock over a card, drop a card while shuffling, start to draw a card when you shouldn’t, milling or dredging too many cards. It does not cover looking at 8 cards from dig through time, or a Scry 2 when it should have only been a Scry 1.

If you’ve seen the face of a card you aren’t supposed to, it’s L@EC. The “moved any significant amount from the deck” is there so the judge doesn’t have to deal with the “did they/didn’t they see the card” question. If it’s a “significant” amount away, it’s L@EC.

Sometimes a player will go to draw a card they aren’t supposed to, or pick up two cards to draw when they are only supposed to draw one. In those cases where the player hasn’t put the card in the hand and, fortunately, stops his/her action before the cards enter the hand, the penalty is Looking at Extra Cards and not Drawing Extra Cards (DEC). There is a line, at which it stops being L@EC and become DEC: when the card hits the rest of the cards in the hand. In this case judges have no way to adequately determine which card was drawn, so the penalty must be Drawing Extra Cards. But what if the player has no cards in hand, and makes this draw? When there is no “hand” for the card to hit? If the player notices right away and hasn’t taken any significant game actions, then L@EC is fine. Otherwise, consider DEC.

Once a card has been placed into his or her hand, the offense is no longer Looking at Extra Cards.

As mentioned before, there is a big difference – from an infraction standpoint – between Looking at Extra Cards and Drawing Extra Cards. This sentence is explicitly pointing out that line again. Once the card hits the hand, it is part of the hand. Also, if you draw a card, and keep it separate from your hand, you have still “drawn” it if you take another game action.

A player is not considered to have looked at extra cards when he or she places a card face down on the table (without looking at the card) in an effort to count out cards he or she will draw.

Sometimes players put cards on the table face down before drawing them, for the purpose of counting the cards or for thinking before putting the cards into the hand. This is not forbidden and judges should not penalize it. In this situation the difference is that the player does it intentionally and takes care about not seeing any cards improperly.

This penalty is applied only once if one or more cards are seen in the same action or sequence of actions.

We don’t penalize a player for each card seen if all the cards are seen during the same game action or sequence of game actions.

Examples

  • A. A player accidentally reveals (drops, flips over) a card while shuffling her opponent’s deck.
  • B. A player flips over an extra card while drawing from his deck.
  • C. A player sees the bottom card of her deck when presenting it to her opponent for cutting/shuffling.
  • D. A player activates a Sensei’s Divining Top that is no longer on the battlefield, and sees 3 cards before the mistake is noticed.
Other examples could be: A Player flips over an extra card while resolving a Cascade ability. A Player flips over extra cards when milling his or her deck, and this is noticed immediately.

Philosophy

A player can accidentally look at extra cards easily.

Players touch their decks a lot. They touch to shuffle, they touch to draw, they touch to search. And every time you touch a deck, there is the possibility you are going to see something you shouldn’t. Since it is easy to do, easy to notice, and easy to fix, a Warning is the appropriate penalty.

Drawing Extra Cards is a separate Game Play Error.

We all know that drawing is different from looking but sometimes the line is not easy to see. When you handle this infraction you have to keep in mind the possibility of a different infraction.

Players should not use this penalty to get a “free shuffle” or to attempt to shuffle away cards they don’t want to draw; doing so may be Unsporting Conduct — Cheating.

This point involves judge ability to understand if a player is lying. Some players know that the additional fix for L@EC is a shuffle, so they might “accidentally” peek at a card in order to try to get a shuffle. This is cheating, and helps to emphasise the point that we need to determine if there are any known cards before we apply the additional fix. When you arrive at the table ask both players some questions to get a sense of what is really happening.

Players also are not allowed to use this penalty as a stalling mechanism.

Shuffling a deck requires some time, and players know this. As judges we must prevent players taking advantage of the time limit and understand when a player is trying to do that. This is also considered cheating, but will be very hard to discover. If it is close to the end of the round, stick around and watch if you suspect this may be the case.

The deck is already randomized, so shuffling in the revealed cards should not involve excessive effort.

This means that the player doesn’t have to waste time by shuffling as he or she would for the pregame procedure. A few mash shuffles or 3-5 riffle shuffles should be sufficient. The purpose is to “lose” the seen cards in the deck.

Additional Remedy

Shuffle the random portion of the deck, including any previously unknown cards that were accidentally seen.

See section 1.3 on the details on how to randomize a deck. But a summary is: figure out what cards are legally know from things like Scry or Cascade, and, leaving those cards where they are supposed to be, shuffle any cards left over. If the cards accidentally seen was previously known (like from Brainstorm) you don’t have to do this.