Originally posted by Raoul Mowatt:

(snip)

Further, a cheater would definitely try to not bring back permanents if he could get away with it.

In my book, it's therefore detrimental.

The sticky point here though, and the reason this is debated, I think, is that if it's detrimental, then we're also warning the player if they neglect to bring back their own permanent. Which I doubt could be attributed to cheating in the vast majority of cases.

I don't think anyone disagrees that there's cheatyface potential if they “forget” to return their opponent's thing; the bigger question is the line we take on the infraction - whether it's symmetrical and thus we can contextualize who is affected (not likely), or always giving a warning for missing it, or always not.

Edited Rebecca Lawrence (March 7, 2013 10:56:53 PM)

I would rule that the delayed triggered ability is symmetrical.

Then, for me, the fact that symmetrical triggers are called out specifically in the IPG, overrides the “would this card be played otherwise” rule-of-thumb.

Therefore I'd treat this as I would Howling Mine — Warning for the opponent's exiled card, and No Penalty for the controller's exiled card.

On both sides, the zone change happens no matter what… unless of course the Warning causes an upgrade.

Edit: Note that I'm not interpreting any game state here — everything is based on Oracle text only.

Edited Ryan Brierley (March 7, 2013 11:47:59 PM)

I don't think we can ever say symmetrical abilities applies is here.
Although the IPG doesn't go deep into defining what a symmetrical ability
is, its example is Howling Mine and Toby's articles mentions both Braids
and Sulfuric Vortex. These are things that are basically two triggers: They
“do” something different on my turn than they do on your turn.

Flickerwisp does the same thing no matter what's targeted by it. Sure there
are tricks you can do but I'm not taking those into account.

Here is the relevant portion of Toby's article:

“This was one of those “intuitive sense” changes. We don’t want to evaluate
game states, but triggers like Howling Mine (and Braids and Sulfuric Vortex)
are clearly two triggers. One does something good/bad on my turn, then the
opposite on your turn. Someone who forgets their own Howling
Mine triggers is already being suitably handled. Someone who forgets ones on their
opponent’s turns is someone who needs to be reminded to play a little
tighter.”

Edit: The forum did not appreciate my copy and paste

Edited Cj Shrader (March 7, 2013 11:53:34 PM)

I wanted to get an Official ruling on this if possible.

Please read Toby's latest blog

I'm going to fantasize that I've just been brought on to Wizards' design team and, with deadline looming, in a Red Bull and Doritos Locos-induced stupor I've prototyped the following:

Venomous Duck
Creature - Duck
p/t
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose m life.
When c happens, target opponent gains control of Venomous Duck.

Once I've sobered up, I go to the IPG team and ask, out of curiosity, what the values of p and t would need to be in order for the second triggered ability to be considered non-detrimental to its controller. Then they would tuck me away back into the filing cabinet.

The point is, a real design team thinks about stuff like this so these considerations don't fall on the shoulders of us poor L1 judges. Still, there are cards like Jinxed Choker where the distinction between detrimental and non-detrimental isn't as obvious, and it's difficult to separate the trigger's functionality from the card it's printed on. As judges, we still have to make judgment calls. The goal is not to have to make so many such calls that we're battling for consistency. If we need absolute yes/no answers for a trigger's detrimentality, we're going to have to pick our poison between a long list of cases similar to lapsing triggers or waiting for (O)s on every new card. I think the discussion should be focused on struggling for the right balance.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you, CJ.

While yes, Flickerwisp always does the same thing to permanents it targets,
I think Toby's explanation fits philosophically very well. Flickerwisp's
ability does different things FOR YOU depending on what you're targetting
with it. Similarly, forgetting its delayed trigger does Very Different
Things depending on whose permanent was supposed to come back. In that
vein, I definitely see no problem with ruling this similarly to the
symmetrical abilities Toby cites.

-Justin Miyashiro
L1 Fort Collins CO

I think CJ is right, but I also think that it's not as big of a deal as we're making of it. If you give a Warning for Flickerwisp when it would have been bad for the player but not when it would have been good for him, I don't think the balance of the Magic universe would be thrown off. Similarly, if you give a warning every time a Flickerwisp trigger is missed, regardless of the game state (probably more correct), it's unlikely to come back and bite that player who will think the Warning makes no sense, considering how difficult it is these days to actually earn a Warning for a missed trigger.

Also consider, when is the last time you saw a missed Flickerwisp trigger? With the vast majority of triggers, whether it's “usually detrimental” or not is obvious. In many cases, it's less obvious, but those cases are usually on cards that see absolutely no Competitive play. Is Flickerwisp making a comeback? (That's a serious question, as I have no idea… I didn't see any at the Modern PTQ last weekend)

The more material reason to know whether a trigger is detrimental is to know whether to step in when you notice a trigger is missed. So you step in, resolve the trigger, and issue a warning to a player after getting the permanent back, whether it's good for him or not (in this case, it will be resolved immediately or at the beginning of the next phase, at the opponent's discretion). Or, you choose not to step in when you know that the exiled card is good for him, based on your knowledge of the game state… I think “always step in” is the more consistent fix here.

Edited Josh Stansfield (March 8, 2013 03:37:34 PM)

Originally posted by Josh Stansfield:

Also consider, when is the last time you saw a missed Flickerwisp trigger? With the vast majority of triggers, whether it's “usually detrimental” or not is obvious. In many cases, it's less obvious, but those cases are usually on cards that see absolutely no Competitive play. Is Flickerwisp making a comeback? (That's a serious question, as I have no idea… I didn't see any at the Modern PTQ last weekend)

I was the one the asked the original question over on Reddit. This originally came up because I was playing Death & Taxes in a modern PTQ (it runs Flickerwisp with AEther Vial for a lot of tricks). I'm currently looking to test for L1 so I was curious about the delayed trigger and the policy regarding detrimental triggers which is what prompted the question. I hadn't really seen much regarding detrimental triggers and what the general consensus was regarding them so I'm glad to see a lot of discussion on that topic. Another event at the PTQ that prompted this was learning that Emrakul's shuffle trigger is considered detrimental since I was used to seeing it being a benefit to players most of the time. Of course players are always going to find ways to turn detrimental effects into beneficial ones which serves to make it less obvious at times what we should be considering detrimental.

Thanks for the info. :)

I hold that Flickerwisp's “return it to the battlefield” trigger is something to balance the card, and it's something that you could easily abuse by “forgetting.” Just because some people find a way to make it good for them (just like Emrakul's trigger that exists mostly so you can't easily reanimate it), that doesn't mean it isn't a usually detrimental trigger. It's just that most people don't bother running a card with a detrimental trigger (in Constructed events) if they can't somehow use it to their benefit. And when they're using it to their benefit, they aren't forgetting it anyway! :)

I personally will be giving Warnings for missed Flickerwisp triggers if I ever see any, unless I hear some official answer to the contrary.

Edited Josh Stansfield (March 8, 2013 04:26:46 PM)

Originally posted by Josh Stansfield:

Just because some people find a way to make it good for them (just like Emrakul's trigger that exists mostly so you can't easily reanimate it), that doesn't mean it isn't a usually detrimental trigger.

But can't you say the converse?

Just because sometimes a trigger can have a downside (just like Dark Confidant killing you when you're at 3 life), that doesn't mean it is a usually detrimental trigger.

Maybe I spend too much time on EDH with fun enters-the-battlefield interactions and the like, but I don't feel that I would call Flickerwisp generally detrimental. I'd say that it falls in the same camp as Dark Confidant.

The difference between Wisp and Confidant ist that Confidant has only 1 Trigger that does something positive ('drawing' a Card) and something negative (loosing life), while Wisp has his EtB-trigger and then creates a delayed trigger - the one that puts the Card exiled with the EtB-trigger back into play.

We here discuss only the delayed trigger.

It clearly would not be considered detrimental if Flickerwisps ability would be a single trigger that exiles and then brings back immediately, instead of exiling for the first trigger and then bringing back in a second one.

Originally posted by Alex Mullins:

I'm currently looking to test for L1 so I was curious about the delayed trigger and the policy regarding detrimental triggers which is what prompted the question.

I wouldn't worry too terribly much about this for the Level 1 exam; Level 1 judging is largely about judging at Regular REL, rather than Competitive REL. (Judging at that REL is a growth area for Level 1 judges, as they gain experience.) Given the focus at Regular REL is largely about “If reasonable and possible, fix the problem. Otherwise leave as is. Educate player.”, you don't need to worry about a fixed procedure or even the concept of “usually detrimental” with missed triggers at Regular REL.

Originally posted by Alex Mullins:

Emrakul's shuffle trigger is considered detrimental

If not for that trigger, it would be way too easy to “cheat” Emrakul into play. Definitely a drawback, meant to balance that card.

Those who read Toby's blog regularly, and his various “DVD commentary” posts, will remember his explanation of Dark Confidant's ability: in the absence of that ability, would you consider the card more, or less playable? (Ignoring the myriad edges we can push towards in this wonderful and complex game.)

It becomes quite clear that a 2/1 for 2 mana is nothing special, but with that ability, it becomes a 4-of in a lot of decks.

Ignoring that, however, I really don't think this is about detrimental, as much as it is about Cheating. If it would be detrimental to take ANY required action, and a player skips that action, the Warning that may or may not apply is secondary to the investigation to determine if it was an honest mistake, or possibly UC-Cheating.

Oh, and - after reading Brian Schenck's excellent post, I really, really wish there was a ‘Like’ button… :)

Originally posted by Brian Schenck:

Alex Mullins
I'm currently looking to test for L1 so I was curious about the delayed trigger and the policy regarding detrimental triggers which is what prompted the question.

I wouldn't worry too terribly much about this for the Level 1 exam; Level 1 judging is largely about judging at Regular REL, rather than Competitive REL. (Judging at that REL is a growth area for Level 1 judges, as they gain experience.) Given the focus at Regular REL is largely about “If reasonable and possible, fix the problem. Otherwise leave as is. Educate player.”, you don't need to worry about a fixed procedure or even the concept of “usually detrimental” with missed triggers at Regular REL.

Ah yeah, I didn't mean to say I was directly worried about something like this on the L1 test; I'm aware the L1 test doesn't cover the IPG. More that I've been focusing more on the rules lately and this was an interesting case that I thought about and was curious about. Out of everything though it has been very useful just to see the various discussion on what guidelines everyone uses to determine detrimental triggers since that is really the core issue here and something I hadn't seen covered much before (I had missed Toby's post on the topic).