The Worst Rule in Magic Today - and How to Fix It

This past Sunday, I played the Hunter Burton Memorial Open. I was looking forward to playing this wonderful event for quite some time. The recent unbannings of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Bloodbraid Elf added to the anticipation. Despite playing ten rounds of a fresh Modern format, hanging out with friends all day, and winning $100, I came away with a bad taste in my mouth. Unlike other times I’ve been cheated in the past, the sting isn’t dissipating as time goes on. The more I think on it, the angrier I’m getting.

What Happened

After I won game one against Human Aggro, my opponent started game two with Unclaimed Territory into Aether Vial. His turn two play was Seachrome Coast, Vial in Champion of the Parish, cast Kitesail Freebooter. His turn three play was to deploy two Meddling Mage naming the cards he saw in my hand with Freebooter. At this point I noticed he had three cards in hand, along with seven permanents in play. Ten total cards on turn three, having played first. So an extra card appeared somewhere in three turns. Either he started with eight, drew an additional on turn two or three, or had an Aether Vial in his lap or something.

My opponent was a player who I know has been disqualified in the past. When I called a judge to ask a question away from the table, the first thing I told the judge was “My opponent has a history of being disqualified, I think my opponent is cheating, he has an extra card in his hand.” The details of the rest of the investigation don’t really matter to this because I knew despite my best effort to clue the judges in and actually catching him in the act of cheating, they would be mostly powerless to do anything.

By the end of the judge call, the head judge had determined that there was indeed an extra card in his hand, and no one could explain how it got there. The remedy was to have me look at his hand and shuffle a card back into his deck (I will call this the “Thoughtseize Solution” for the rest of the article). I chose a card, he shuffled it into his library. I continued the game but being unable to play the spells in my hand, I was dead in another turn.

The Worst Rule in Magic Today

The current penalty for drawing extra cards is covered in the Magic IPG under Hidden Card Error. The penalty is a Warning with an additional remedy that “If a set affected by the error contains more cards than it is supposed to contain, the player reveals the set of cards that contains the excess and his or her opponent chooses a number of previously-unknown cards sufficient to reduce the set to the correct size. These excess cards are returned to the correct location.” I believe in most cases this remedy is simple enough and corrective enough to be fine. The Hidden Card Error lists six examples:

A. A player draws four cards after casting Ancestral Recall.

B. A player scries two cards when he should only have scried one.

C. A player resolves a Dark Confidant trigger, but forgets to reveal the card before putting it into her hand.

D. A player has more cards in his hand than can be accounted for.

E. A player casts Anticipate and picks up the top four cards of her library.

F. A player, going first, draws for his turn.

One of these things is not like the others. Examples A,B,C,E,F are things that can happen due to brain farts, dexterity errors, or sticky sleeves. Option D by comparison is much more suspicious. We don’t know where this card came from, but we are okay with that? All my opponent had to say to avoid further penalty was “I don’t know how this got here.”

Without getting too much into Uncle Ty’s Old Timey Magic Stories, this penalty wasn’t always this way. The “Thoughtseize Solution” was only implemented in 2015. Prior to that, Drawing Extra Cards had its own entry in the IPG with a penalty of Game Loss (with some situations for downgrades).

The powers that be do a great job writing the IPG and keeping it up to date for an ever evolving game. They have priorities of ensuring a fun experience for everyone that plays. As a competitive player, I understand that my focus (or paranoia) about cheaters is not shared by those at the DCI, so we may disagree fundamentally about the philosophy behind this penalty. Still, I think with regards to example D, they are way off base.

A Confusing and Contradictory Philosophy

The IPG exists to provide a reliable consistent response to common situations. When you implement the “Thoughtseize Solution”, it is anything but reliable or consistent. At one extreme, the removal of a key card can make a game lost on the spot. In other situations, the card removed might not matter at all (as in my situation). And when it comes to Example D, we can’t even be certain the extra card is in the zone  we think it is.

The philosophy behind this remedy says “Though the game state cannot be reversed to the ‘correct’ state, this error can be mitigated by giving the opponent sufficient knowledge and ability to offset the error so that it is less likely to generate advantage” (my bold for emphasis). They are acknowledging the rule can generate an advantage, and they seem to be okay with that. They know they can write the IPG to prevent advantage generation (because it worked this way before), but they choose not to. They are okay with you getting a “feel bad” when you get cheated if that means you don’t get a “feel bad” when you make a mistake.

An Oversight of Incentives

As the rule is currently written, the player has no incentive to report a discovery of a mysterious extra card. The penalty will be a “Thoughtseize” the turn he catches it, and it will still be a “Thoughtseize” five turns later when the opponent happens to catch it. Obviously, knowingly hiding it is cheating, but as you can see by now this is next to impossible to prove, or even consider it possible. Good Magic players will know the advantage of waiting as long as possible to get the best option.

Through all those years and events, I’ve accidentally drawn seven cards after a mulligan, I’ve had sleeves stick together when casting Ponder, and I’ve eagerly untapped and drawn a card when I thought my opponent had said “Go” when really nothing had been said at all. But I’ve never had a situation where I had a mysterious card appear in the count on my side of the board. The current penalty does nothing except protect cheaters.

My Suggestion

I think the rule should be changed to have a separate penalty when there is no known source of the extra card. Example D should have a penalty of a Game Loss, with a possibility to downgrade if self-reported.

Let’s Discuss 

At the event, I had a conversation with a level three judge whom I respect a great deal about my concerns, including much of what I've said here. He dealt with my frustration at the time (which has only increased in the past twenty-four hours) and heard me out. He too had an experience similar to mine that had him questioning the way the penalty was written. If you are also concerned with not being cheated at your next event, share this post and have these conversations with other players and judges in your community.

Thanks for reading,

Ty