Reveal Discussion!

Of the rulings presented here, this is by far the most complex. Thanks to Matt Karr for sharing it with me, and to Steven Zwanger and Jeremy Fain (among others) for their engaging discussion.

On a base level, Amy has one more card in her hand than she is supposed to, which immediately should prompt us to consider Drawing Extra Cards (DEC). As it turns out, the current iteration of DEC policy contains four sections in the Additional Remedy, each of which handles particular types of errors relating to drawing extra cards, and gives us specific ways to handle them.

The first paragraph handles situations when the identity of the card was known, or when the player’s hand is empty. Neither condition applies here, so let’s just move right along.

The second paragraph covers situations where the extra cards were drawn due to (A) “the legal resolution of an illegally-played instruction”, (B) a Communication Policy Violation, or (C) resolving instructions in the wrong order. There’s only one item on the stack, so this clearly isn’t (C). (A) might fit: was the error that Amy failed to tap her mana correctly? Or is the problem, rather, that Amy misrepresented the number of colors she had tapped? And would that be a Communication Policy Violation, or not? Let’s set that point aside for now. If we decide the issue falls under this paragraph, we can consider a backup or leave the game as-is.

The third paragraph tells us how to approach situations where the opponent confirmed the draw. Is that what happened here? Again, maybe, so let’s discuss this in more detail shortly. Like in the second paragraph, errors of this type can be fixed by a back-up or leaving the game state as-is.

Finally, the fourth paragraph covers any situations that the previous paragraphs don’t handle. This paragraph’s remedy is where we find the new Thoughtseize/Perish the Thought fix.

Overall, I feel that the third paragraph of DEC fits very well here. Amy gave Ned a chance to respond; and Ned had an opportunity to verify that Amy tapped three colors of mana, but failed to do so. Therefore, I next have to consider whether to backup the game or leave things as they are. And in this Standard especially, I lean strongly towards leaving things as they are. When choosing lands to tap for Painful Truths, players often have to make tradeoffs about which colors of mana they leave themselves available — but this choice becomes much easier if you know the top cards of your deck.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree that paragraph three is the best fit? Would you prefer to back up the game instead of leaving things as they are? Is this actually a Communication Policy Violation? Would you take a different approach entirely? Let me know in the comments!