Judge's Den: Drawing Extra Cards

Judge's Den is back! Kinda. Next week Wizardden.com's regularly scheduled Judge's Den articles will be back to finish up our series on layers. This week I will instead be sorting and cataloging many boxes worth of singles from Origins. Come on down to our Thursday Midnight Draft after Proxy Future-Standard and pick up your preorders while you draft the new set. This brings me to our important update. Drawing Extra Cards.

Every time a set comes out three important documents get released. First, the release notes that break down the set and it's mechanics which were fairly simple in Origins. Next, the banned list which had no changes in any format. The final document or set of documents is updates to the judge's resources on what the rules are and how we enforce them. This time we had a huge change on how we handle the Drawing Extra Cards infraction.

In the past drawing additional cards was a game loss with two exceptions. Drawing too many cards at the beginning of the game is a simple warning for Improper Drawing at Start of Game. The other exception was if you drew the card(s) legally due to an illegal action resulting in a Game Rule Violation or Out of Order Sequencing. For example, casting a Serum Visions with the wrong color of mana. Now however Drawing Extra Cards is a just warning.

That's right, no more auto-losses from touching a card to your hand that you weren't supposed to. The alternative isn't much better though. The player who drew the additional card(s) reveals their hand and the opponent selects a number of cards equal to the excess cards drawn. Those cards are shuffled into the random portion of the deck. You may concede if you do not wish to reveal your hand. If other actions we taken along with or after the extra card draw that effect the contents of your deck or hand then a rewind to the point of the extra card draw may be appropriate.

My first question upon reading this update was about what we do if there is known information. In the case of a Courser of Kruphix where the extra card is known by both players, the correct cards are returned to the correct position without revealing the hand. If any other cards were revealed because of the illegally drawn card, they will be shuffled back in. In the case of the additional card being known to the player or players due to prior information such as Thoughtseize, we ignore that information and the opponent is not obligated to consider that information when choosing a card to shuffle back. Only when the card drawn can be uniquely identified without need of deductive reasoning will it be returned to the library without further penalty. 

Drawing an additional card is easily the most abusable infraction commonly committed. This is why it was handled with a game loss for so long. Anything less than losing the game for this mistake gives you at least the chance to continue playing your match and deciding a victor based on a game of magic. Change never comes easy, but Judges like myself are here to help players through it. If you have any questions let us know. Judge's Den returns to its series on layers next week here at Wizardden.com and thank you all for reading.