Aram draws a card for his turn, sees that it is Wolfir Silverheart and slams it onto the table in excitement.
He pairs it with Lightning Mauler and attacks with both; Nadine takes 14 damage. Aram passes the turn, Nadine untaps, and then she asks: “Weren’t the two red creatures paired with each other?”.
They both realize they have forgotten about the existing soulbond and agree that Wolfir Silverheart could not have been paired with Lightning Mauler and call a judge. After investigation, you are convinced that the mistake was unintentional.
What are the infraction, penalty and fix?
View Answer
Soulbond is a keyword that represents two triggered abilities. “Soulbond” means “When this creature enters the battlefield, if you control both this creature and another creature and both are unpaired, you may pair this creature with another unpaired creature you control for as long as both remain creatures on the battlefield under your control” and “Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, if you control both that creature and this one and both are unpaired, you may pair that creature with this creature for as long as both remain creatures on the battlefield under your control.”
The soulbond trigger from Lightning Mauler doesn’t trigger, because it was already paired with another creature when Wolfir Silverheart entered the battlefield. The soulbond trigger from Wolfir Silverheart doesn’t trigger, because Aram doesn’t control any unpaired creatures at the time. While it is unfortunate that this all came from an unclear representation of the existing pair between Hanweir Lancer and Lightning Mauler, the root infraction is a Game Rule Violation.
No triggers were missed; just a non-existing trigger was unjustly resolved. This is treated as a GRV, for which Aram receives a Warning and Nadine receives the accompanying Warning for FtMGS. No Player Communication Violation is involved here: That only happens when there is a violation of the Player Communication policy (MTR 4.1); Jeremy Granat wrote an excellent article about PCV, which you can read at http://www.internationalmagicjudges.net/article-1659
Now for the fix… not a whole lot has happened, and more importantly, no information was truly gained by either player, so you might get permission from the Head Judge to back this up to the point where the GRV was committed: Wolfir Silverheart entering the battlefield was perfectly legal, only the pairing was not.
Please remember that only the Head Judge is allowed to decide whether to back up or not (or at large events like Grand Prix, your Team Leader), but he/she is very interested in hearing your opinion and advise!
At the Knowledge Pool we think that if we were the Head Judge we would restore the game state as it was: Tap Nadine’s tapped lands, her life total becomes what it was before she took 14 damage from the attack, the creatures with which Aram attacked become untapped again, and we are in the precombat main phase, right after Aram cast his Wolfir; the Lancer and the Mauler are still paired at this point.
In case the Head Judge would decide not to back up, we just check State Based Actions and leave everything as it is: The Wolfir and Mauler are paired, we don’t do partial fixes. Although the pairing was an illegal action, the resulting game state is legal.
Now what are useful guidelines for deciding whether to back up or not, in case you are the Head Judge?
For us, the key thing is what we call “decision points”; the more points in the game where one or both players have had to make decisions based on the game state; the less likely we are to back up.
How does that apply to this scenario?
- It seems as though taking the damage was relatively immediate for Nadine. This means that she likely did not make strategic decisions based on the game state. The same can be said for Aram.
- There is no point of randomization. Nadine has not drawn her card for the turn, meaning this is particularly easy to rewind.
- Fortunately, neither player has revealed any extra information. Nadine did not respond with any spells/abilities and Aram did not do anything after the pairing/combat. This means that again no cards will need to change zones, and more importantly no player benefits from extra information.
- Rewinding does not allow Aram to change his course of plays greatly. The error here really occurred when Aram paired to creatures due to a trigger which did not exist. We only really need to rewind to the point of the creature entering the battlefield.
Since no players happened after that and action was fairly swift we feel comfortable in rewinding this situation (for the reasons listed above).