SOI is the first time the new Standard rotation schedule has an effect, so there are some irregularities. With SOI now in, KTK and FRF have rotated out. Eldritch Moon will not see anything rotate out when it’s released, but the next big set will take the place of DTK and ORI when it becomes legal. From then on, all blocks will by default be two sets, and Standard will rotate twice a year. Standard will contain all the sets in the most recent block as well as all the sets in the two blocks that preceded it.

Note: The answer above is actually incomplete. There is an auxiliary set of cards included in decks and other products intended for new players that is also legal in Standard [MTR 6.3]. These cards are marked with the “*16” expansion symbol and are legal for play as long as SOI is legal. Fortunately, this probably won’t come up very often since most of these cards are either printed in other Standard-legal sets or are unplayable for reasons not related to format legality.

A sentence was added to the IPG this time around that applies here. “Similarly, a player demonstrating awareness of an optional trigger with no visible effect is assumed to have made the affirmative choice unless the opponent responds” [IPG 2.1]. There’s no plausible reason that Amy would have pointed out this trigger if she weren’t planning on using it, and this assumption is now codified.

Note: Frivolous judge calls like this one should be discouraged. This may be done by a simple cautionary word or, in the case of repeated or particularly egregious offenders, an Unsporting Conduct penalty.

Is this LEC? or HCE? The old IPG was rather ambiguous in cases like this, but now we have clear guidance. The new IPG specifies that an infraction is to be considered LEC up until the point where the extra card touches cards in another set, at which point it becomes a HCE [IPG 2.2]. A set is a physically distinct group of cards defined by a game rule or effect. The cards in your hand, each pile when resolving Fact or Fiction, and the seven cards you “look at” when resolving Dig through Time are all examples of sets. In this case, the set in question is the group of cards Amy is looking at when scrying. This set is supposed to contain 2 cards, but instead contains 3 here. The extra card is already part of this set, so the appropriate infraction is HCE, for which Amy will get a Warning.

The fix is the same “super-Thoughtseize” that we’re used to. Amy’s opponent will pick one of the three cards and shuffle it into the random part of Amy’s library.

Because the Jeskai Ascendancy trigger was supposed to resolve first, the correct sequence is to draw, discard, then draw for Reach through Mists. Therefore the infraction happened at the point where Amy drew her second card. This is a case of a card moving from one private set to another, so Amy gets a Warning for a Hidden Card Error [IPG 2.3]. The discard can be undone as a simple backup to return the game state to the point where the error occurred. Since a card was prematurely put into a set (the hand) before another action (discarding) was supposed to be done on that set, the additional remedy is for Amy to reveal her hand, then let her opponent pick which of those cards is the one that was accidentally drawn. This card is set aside while Amy performs the appropriate actions to get to the point where it is supposed to be in her hand.

Amy’s failure to reveal the card she got is not possible to correct using publically available information. Thus, she gets a Warning for a Hidden Card Error. The procedure for a HCE where a player failed to reveal a card is to reveal the set of cards that contains it, then have the opponent specify which card in that set should be treated as the one that wasn’t revealed. One additional wrinkle is that Nicole knows that Amy couldn’t have gotten Containment Priest; both players agree that card was already in her hand before this happened. Because of this, Nicole cannot choose Containment Priest. She must choose either Plains or Stony Silence.

The card that’s picked is treated as the card that was searched for. If Nicole picks Stony Silence, that’s a legal card for Enlightened Tutor to get, so there’s no problem. If Nicole picks Plains, because that isn’t a card you can get with Enlightened Tutor, it’s shuffled into Amy’s library. Amy doesn’t get a chance to pick a legal card for Enlightened Tutor.

Note: For the purposes of “known” cards, it’s now possible to take into account information that was previously revealed to the opponent. For example, if Nicole Duressed her opponent the previous turn and saw both Plains and Containment Priest, the judge could use this information to exclude these cards from the ones that Nicole could pick to be treated as the revealed one.

Note: In general, it’s permissible to perform a simple backup to make a HCE fix more smooth, but we can’t do that here because we don’t know which card in Amy’s hand should go back, and simple backups can’t contain random elements [IPG 2.3, 1.4].

Note: Suppose that we have the same situation, except that Amy had cast Congregation at Dawn instead of Enlightened Tutor. The infraction and penalty are the same, but the fix is complicated by the fact that the “set” that contains the cards that weren’t revealed includes two zones: Amy’s hand and the top two cards of her library. These should be considered separately. The top two cards from Amy’s library should both be creatures; if either isn’t, it is shuffled back in. Then, the same fix described above is performed on Amy’s hand.

Note: This change is particularly significant because it opens up an avenue for opportunistic Cheating that didn’t exist under the way these cases were formerly handled. Nicole is incentivized to wait until Amy draws the card she searched for so that it will be treated as a HCE (where she will see Amy’s hand and strip away a card) rather than a GRV (where she will just flip the top card of Amy’s library to verify it was a legal choice). The judge taking this call should investigate to determine at what point Nicole realized that Amy hadn’t revealed her card.

Amy looked at too many cards for Collected Company. This is a Hidden Card Error, since only she got to see those cards. We can perform a simple backup to get us to the point where the error occurred. This is performed by taking the bottom 5 cards of Amy’s library in conjunction with the two creatures Amy put into play and reforming the set of cards Amy chose from. Amy’s opponent will choose one of these cards to be treated as the excess card; this one will be shuffled into Amy’s deck. Then, Amy can resolve Collected Company correctly.

This isn’t a HCE because the cards are revealed (not hidden) [IPG 2.3]. It also isn’t LEC, since the cards are a part of a distinct set [IPG 2.2]. This leaves just GRV for the appropriate infraction. Back up through the illegal action (revealing an extra card) by shuffling a random card from the six back into Amy’s library.

Amy’s opponent is correct in saying that you can’t mulligan after your beginning of game scry. This rule prevents players from deferring their decision of whether to keep or mulligan until after looking at the card they will scry into. For this reason, our assumption is that a player who looks at the top card of her library after mulliganing intends to keep unless they clearly indicate the contrary, for example, by verbally declaring a mulligan or by looking at more than one card. Amy’s actions to the contrary are thus against the rules. In the latest IPG, the new Mulligan Procedure Error handles this and other errors made during the mulligan process. Amy will get a Warning and will be forced to mulligan again.

Note: The new MPE does not apply in cases where no advantage can be gained, for example a player declaring a mulligan before an opponent who is supposed to decide first makes this choice.

This is another example of a Mulligan Procedure Error. Amy will get a Warning. One possible remedy is for Amy to mulligan again (going to 5). However, there is another way to remedy this situation that also mitigates the advantage Amy can gain from this mistake. Amy may allow her opponent to choose one card from her hand to be shuffled back into her deck. Amy gets her choice as to which of these will apply.

Note: Cases like this were handled in old versions of the IPG by an infraction called Improper Drawing at Start of Game. In addition to handling what would now be considered Mulligan Procedure Errors, this infraction handled cases where a player on the play accidentally drew a card on the first turn. Mulligan Procedure Errors can only happen before the game starts. Drawing on the first turn is now handled the same way as a player drawing extra cards at any other time: as a Hidden Card Error.

Due to an error on her part, Amy has been playing with an illegal deck. Ordinarily a Deck/Decklist Problem carries a Game Loss, but there’s an applicable downgrade to a Warning here (a deck is missing cards, and these cards can be located) [IPG 3.5]. Because the missing card is in her sideboard, Amy can’t just pick which card goes back into her deck. That could easily lead to abuse. Instead one of the 16 cards is selected at random, and this card is shuffled back into Amy’s deck.

Note: Because players can look at their sideboards during a game, there is no problem with showing the affected player which card is being shuffled in. There is no provision that supports showing that player’s opponent, so don’t pick the card in a public way.

Deck check someone else. In the past, the practice was to go ahead with the deck check, make sure to keep the hands separate, and re-present. The decision has now been made that this is too much hassle and too much of a chance for something to go wrong [MTR 2.8]. Hit a different table and maybe try to target these players for a mid-round deck check.

Note: Pregame procedures, such as deciding who plays first and resolving mulligans and scries, may be performed before the round clock starts [MTR 2.3].

Note: The MTR specifies that a “full deck check” should not be performed in these conditions. On the other hand, a full deck check isn’t necessary in cases where it is known that one player will get a Game Loss, for example from handing in a 59 card decklist. Such errors should always be corrected at the start of the round after they were discovered for consistency [IPG 3.5]. In a case like this, stop the match and deliver the bad news, then enlist the player’s help (away from the table) to correct the decklist. The resultant Game Loss will stop the current game and put the players into game 2. Note that in the case of Game Losses given after the start of the match, the use of sideboards is permitted in subsequent games [IPG 1.1].

The difficulty of a judge’s role is, in my opinion, most exemplified in cases like this. The players have differing stories, and there’s no hope of solid evidence for favoring one story over another. It’s relatively certain that Amy meant to play this correctly, but there’s no way to know that she did, rather than carelessly untapping a Mountain and realizing there was a difference only after her opponent pointed it out. This situation came up at a recent GP, and sparked some discussion from the high-level judges about how it should be handled. The [O]fficial guidance is that when two identical permanents are on the battlefield and there are non-visual differences between them, if a player needs to know which is which, he needs to ask for clarification. This follows the philosophy in the Missed Trigger policy which stipulates that a player who needs to know whether a trigger is on the stack cannot just assume his opponent missed it; he needs to ask for clarification [IPG 2.1]. For more about the application or philosophy behind this ruling, please see the article here.

Note: This lemma applies only in cases where the permanents are visually indistinguishable. For example, if one of Amy’s Mountains was foil, and this is the one she played and later tried to activate, she would be out of luck.
Note: The ease of confusion and potential high stakes in cases like this are one reason why effects of this type on recently printed cards typically grant the affected permanent haste. See, for example, the awaken mechanic.