At what point does rules lawyer-ing go too far?

[Bunbury]

I'm not, nor have I been, a rules lawyer. In fact, I'm probably nicer than most. So, this is more for the sake of discussion than anything, but let's consider for the following situations:

1.

Player A casts Harrow (or any tutor with conditions. I just chose Harrow since there's one on my desk next to me), places it in his graveyard and starts searching. Player B states that since placing a spell in to your graveyard is the last part of resolution, Player A had chose to let Harrow resolve without getting any land and thus was improperly looking through his deck. Would that fly?

2.

Player A plays any card that requires him to make a choice on casting (Like Story Circle, for example). He goes "I chose Red-er I mean Black", correcting himself quickly. Can player B hold him to his choice? Or for that matter, if there's no judge around, is there any proof if a judge is called regarding the dispute?

I'm sure both of these are discretionary, but thought I'd ask for my own enlightenment.

[Anusien]

Every judge I know would let Player A do what he wanted in both cases. We don't expect perfection from players.

[Delha]

Every judge I know would let Player A do what he wanted in both cases. We don't expect perfection from players.

I remember hearing the "if you put it in your grave, you auto-fail the search" thing going around a few years back, and had a couple friends get nailed by exactly that. That said, I could've sworn I also read on TMD at some point that the rule didn't work like that anymore. I'll try to find it, and add in a link if I come up with anything.

As for the second, I've never heard of any issues with that. If someone was doing it constantly, I'd be suspicious that they were trying to get a read off me (ie. the "no string betting" rule in poker). In practice, it's never come up for me or anyone I know personally.

[Yare]

Regarding the first one, the classic article is this. It specifically mentions the Harrow case.

[Delha]

Regarding the first one, the classic article is this. It specifically mentions the Harrow case.

Looks like my buddies got bad calls. We mostly played smaller events, so I'm guessing the judge wasn't familiar with the article. That said, looks like I screwed a guy playing Rector/Tendrils also, since he hardcast then flashed a Therapy and I held him to not being allowed to search because he forgot the Rector trigger until Therapy resolved.

[Nazdakka]

Therapy/Rector is also covered in that article. It's viewed as different, because you can potentially gain an advantage by searching after seeing his hand (you could get a different enchantment, or if you were getting Bargain and you saw that he had Krosan Grip, you'd know that you'd need to put as many Bargain activations as you want on the stack rather than drawing 1 at a time).

[Delha]

I brought it up becuase it's specifically covered in the article.

This would be a different case if A had hardcast the Therapy right before he Flashed it back. In that case, A wouldn’t have received an advantage and should be allowed to search.

At the time, I didn't realize that hardcasting Therapy right before made a difference. What my opponent did fell under this second case, and I didn't realize that it was any different from the first.

Regarding your point concerning removal: The article doesn't address it specifically, but I'd assume that if the player rewinds to handle the Rector trigger, you get back the card and Therapy goes back onto the stack. Intent is one thing, but it'd be ridiculous if forgetting a trigger allowed one to reverse the order of resolution. You should still get a window to cast Naturalize (Grip wasn't printed yet) between Bargain hitting and Therapy resolving.

Edit: Cropped out a redundant "specifically". I use that word too much.

[Anusien]

Ruling by Intent has been superseded by Out of Order sequencing. Try this article.

[Delha]

Ruling by Intent has been superseded by Out of Order sequencing. Try this article.

Ah, helpful. Thanks.