Ares and Nike are playing in a feature match at a Legacy Grand Prix. Ares casts Thoughtseize against the tapped-out Nike, who reveals his hand of Brainstorm, Polluted Delta, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Entomb, and Island. Ares says, “Well, I’m going to take Brainstorm, but hold on while I write this down.” He is quickly jotting down the names of the cards as Nike asks, “You’re at 14, right?” Ares checks his notes and says, “No, 16…” “Don’t forget the 2 life from Thoughtseize…” “Oh right, yeah, 14.” Ares finishes writing and says, “Your turn,” and Nike picks up his hand, untaps and draws. He plays Polluted Delta, pays 1 life and sacrifices it to get an Underground Sea, and casts Exhume. Ares asks to see Nike’s graveyard, and notices Griselbrand is below Polluted Delta, and there’s no Brainstorm. He calls for a judge.

Your investigation determines that Nike forgot to discard Brainstorm because he had been waiting for Ares to write down the hand first, then he got distracted by the life total discussion. You believe the error was unintentional. What do you do?

Judges, feel free to discuss this scenario on Judge Apps!

[expand title=”View Answer”]Nike has committed a Game Rule Violation by failing to discard the chosen card. Since Ares controlled the spell that caused Nike to commit that Game Rule Violation, he gets the same infraction, and both players earn a Warning. Now that we’ve determined the infraction, what’s the remedy?

While this situation involves a few decisions, we might consider asking the head judge about backing up: returning Exhume to hand, untapping the lands used to cast it, shuffling the Underground Sea back into the library, undoing the life payment and putting the Polluted Delta back in hand, putting Exhume back on top (since we know it must have been the card drawn that turn based on Ares’ notes), tapping Nike’s lands again the way they were at the end of the turn, then going back to the resolution of Thoughtseize to discard Brainstorm.

Be sure the Head Judge understands everything you’re proposing when seeking approval for a complex rewind like this. It’s easy to miss a single step which can further alter the course of the game.

If you feel that backing up is too complex in this scenario, you should apply the partial fix provided by IPG 2.5:
[quote]If not caught within a reasonable time frame, or backing up is impossible or sufficiently complex that it could affect the course of the game, the judge should leave the game state as it is after applying state-based actions and not attempt any form of partial ‘fix’ – either reverse all actions or none, with the following exceptions:
• If a player forgot to draw cards, discard cards, or return cards from their hand to another zone, that player does so.[/quote]
If you choose not to back up, just have the player discard Brainstorm now, and continue the game from there. (Most of us on the Knowledge Pool team agreed we would not back up in this example.)[/expand]