I haven't read the new documents directly yet--I'll have to go through them, but Toby's blog has a summary of the changes.

It looks like the new Magic Origins fix for Drawing Extra Cards has been a success, because it's being expanded for use in other situations with a similar underlying problem: a player has gained access to a card they shouldn't have, either because they picked up too many or because the opponent was supposed to see it first.

Previously, in cases like that--not revealing to Domri Rade or Digging for eight--a random card from the set was put back, which is straightforward, but potentially not enough to deter opportunistic cheating. After all, if the card I see off Domri is something I really need, just putting it into my hand "on accident" would get me a chance to keep it--sure, it might be the random card I put back, but it also might not. Same for Dig--if I don't see anything at all at a glance at the top seven, grabbing an eighth is a very low-risk ploy. Heck, the player could even call the judge on themselves to make a Cheating DQ way less likely while still benefiting from their cheat.

But now? The new fix means your opponent gets to Thoughtseize you (or for Dig-type cards, Thoughtseize the cards you're looking at), which gets rid of pretty much all potential benefit. If you picked up something good you shouldn't have off Domri, at best you're going to end up in the same position you were before, and you'll likely be worse off because now the opponent knows your hand. Digging for too many can't possibly find you the card you want, because even if the card shows up, it's disappearing into your library before you choose. And best of all, calling a judge on your own cheating can no longer ever be a plus-value play.


Also, new shortcut for scry, since it's evergreen! If you don't scry when something tells you to, we assume you just left things as-is. Much nicer for those previously-awkward situations where you Titan's Strength for lethal but don't bother scrying because the game's over.


Thoughts? Comments? Good? Bad? Ugly?

Seems fine, although the DTT change could still make cheating beneficial, because your opponent doesn't know what it in your hand. I mean, all of these changes give your opponents more opportunities to misplay, but DTT feels particularly tricky. Still, it seems like a good step.

The scry rule reminds me a judge call that happened near me once. A guy targeted a Battlewise Hoplite with two Defiant Strikes, and he drew the cards before he had placed the counters on the Hoplite, which his opponent called a judge over. However, the guy had scryed before he drew, so they couldn't just call a missed trigger, they eventually rewound. This judge call was notable to me because it took a long time for the fact that he had scryed to be brought up, and it was very distracting for me as I tried to play my own match, which was actually getting to a very complicated line of play, but I find judge calls irresistibly interesting.

I think that this change is the best of both worlds.

That said, I think in a case with Domri, if I accidentally forget to reveal it: I think I could convince a judge that revealing my entire hand of applicable cards (say, I have 3 creatures in my hand, then put a 4th there) I might be willing to reveal my entire hand to my opponent and/or have one revealed at random. Definitely something I would appeal for in some situations.

I think that this change is the best of both worlds.

That said, I think in a case with Domri, if I accidentally forget to reveal it: I think I could convince a judge that revealing my entire hand of applicable cards (say, I have 3 creatures in my hand, then put a 4th there) I might be willing to reveal my entire hand to my opponent and/or have one revealed at random. Definitely something I would appeal for in some situations.

Right but what if the card you "forget" to reveal isn't a creature. Your scenario allows me to keep a noncreature I drew with Domri.

It does give your opponent an opportunity to misplay, but I'd say the likelihood is ridiculously low--you'd have to be in a situation where you need something specific and your opponent doesn't know what that thing is, you'd have to find what you need as the 8th card, and you'd have to have found something else in the first seven your opponent is likely to guess is what you need. In any other situation, the fix would always provide negative value over just playing things straight.

The success of an opportunistic cheat depends on making and acting on decisions at lightning speed. The more information a player has to process in order to determine if cheating could be beneficial, the less likely a cheat is to happen at all, because by the time the player finishes thinking, their window's already gone.

Not sure why they couldn't just call it a missed trigger--the opponent would get to decide whether or not the ability goes onto the stack. Or maybe this was under an earlier, less-good trigger policy.

I'm fairly sure Jman means a situation where his entire hand consists of nothing but creatures--in such a situation, it's not possible for the card to have been a noncreature, because there are no noncreatures in his hand.

The they'd-all-be-legal situation is raised fairly frequently whenever policy for these kinds of infractions comes up, but any judge at a Competitive-level event who ruled that you could just reveal everything would be deviating from policy; it's explicitly not a supported fix, so in most cases you'd actually be less likely to get that fix if you appeal to the (presumably more-experienced) Head Judge.

It wasn't a missed trigger because he scryed, unless you can miss half a trigger. (For reference: Battlewise Hoplite).

Oh, okay, that makes more sense then. When you said he "had scried before he drew" I thought you meant that there had been some other scrying going on before the incident occurred.

Why does it matter if he actually put the counters on the hoplite or not before drawing? I mean, as long as he doesn't actually try to respond to putting counters on. He obviously resolved the trigger (since he scryed), so the counters are "there in spirit".

Probably I am missing something or don't play enough compet REL.

If he does everything he's supposed to do, just in a technically incorrect order, that's fine as long as being done in the wrong order doesn't make a difference--it's what's known as Out of Order Sequencing.

The issue arises when the player doesn't do everything they're supposed to do, which is what I assume happened here. They cast the spells, scried, drew, and then went on to do other things without putting the counters on. That's where the problem potentially occurs.

Tournament policy gives me the heeby-jeebies. I prefer to play by the seat of my pants until someone calls me out.

What if you announced that the dude got the counters but didn't physically put them on?

That would definitely give you more leeway, but it's still something I'd avoid. In general, as long as both players are aware of and playing by the "true" game state, the physical representation not quite matching up isn't all that big a deal. As long as the players play correctly as though the counters are there, and are having no issue tracking everything, it's fine.

But that depends on both players being able to accurately track the game and mutually understand the correct game state. As soon as confusion arises--someone forgets a counter somewhere, a creature dies that shouldn't (or vice versa), someone calculates life totals incorrectly--we have a problem. And that's infinitely more likely to happen when the physical representation doesn't match up to the actual game state, which is why you should make sure to keep the physical representation of the game accurate.