Player A controls a Shambleshark and casts a Clinging Anemones. She passes turn and during Player B's precombat main phase remembers that she missed her evolve trigger. Player B shrugs and says “You missed it”. Later in the game Player A has declared attackers and Player B has spent a great deal of time on deciding how to block. He chooses a tentative blocker and says “Blocks declared” then immediately decides he would like to change how he blocked. Player A says “No, since you didn't let me get my evolve trigger earlier.”

Is the way Player A justifies the blocker an issue?

Players being vindictive seems like something that we should try to curb since it can get out of hand. Or should it be a more “Live and let live” idea where players are more forgiving?

I've moved this from the Rules Q&A forum to the Regular REL forum as that is a more appropriate area for this and other judges can provide suggestions.

My opinion, Player A is being unreasonable and I'd allow Player B to change if it was as immediate as described. The two situations are completely different. One is forgetting an ability and the other is immediately changing their mind. Player A should have called a judge and not just relied on an opponent to decide how a missed trigger is handled. If I was over hearing this I'd be stepping in and pointing this out, or discussing it with the player later if it was brought to my attention. I wouldn't worry too much about the vindictiveness of it as I would always be encouraging the players to call a judge in these situations, allow an independent adjudicator deal with things. That's what judges are there for.

Now on the other hand if Player A played an island, then thought for a second and asked Player B if they could swap it for a swamp instead, and Player B said no, you've played it. Then Player B later wanted a similar take back and Player A said no because you didn't let me. That's perfectly justified, in the same way if Player A allowed a take back and then Player B didn't because you can't expect an opponent to allow take backs just because you allowed it. Decide how you want to play, if you want to allow take backs accept that you may not get them returned.

I appreciate if a player is willing to be forgiving when their opponent makes a tactical mistake, but they by no means are obligated to do so. I am not really concerned with Player A's reasoning for *why* not to allow takesies-backsies.

That's not to say there aren't times when vindictiveness *would* be a problem. If players start to get belligerent, then I would encourage stepping in and talking to them for a moment to help reduce tension and let them calm down. We want to make sure this remains a fun and friendly game for all involved. However that doesn't seem to be the case here, so I don't feel I would intervene.

Nick Short
L2, Chicago, IL, USA

I think the best way to handle this is pre-emptively - if I'm judging a Regular REL event, I like to say a few words at the start of the event just to remind the players about the philosophy at Regular REL, and I generally do this even if I'm judging with a small group of players that know me quite well. Just something brief along the lines of “Please remember this is not a competitive event, we're all here to have a good time, to develop our skills and to help our opponents to develop theirs, let's keep it friendly, help each other out and make sure everyone has fun”. I think that an announcement like that sets the tone for the event and helps to prevent any spiteful behaviour later on.

So, this thread reminds me, I've been wondering about “take-backs” in general, since it's not mentioned anywhere in the rules that I recall. If a player realizes immediately (like, within a second or two) that they'd rather make a different play (e.g., playing a Swamp instead of Island), is the protocol to ask the opponent permissions for the take-back? With the opponent not necessarily being obliged to grant the take-back? Is it different at higher RELs?

Thanks …

If an opponent is OK with a take-back, we will never hear about it, so it's fine (at every REL).

If an opponent is not OK with a take-back, we will be called. Chances are that if it's really a “take-back”, a decision was made with enough time to gain information from the opponent's response, and it wouldn't be allowed. In the case of a player just being “rules-lawyery”, we can allow a player to choose the play he meant to make rather than forcing the player into doing something he said but didn't really mean. (e.g., “Target bird… I mean Angel” or “Block here… wait, no, block like this.” It will be a judgment call every time.

Edited Josh Stansfield (March 11, 2013 09:01:53 PM)

Originally posted by Chris Parham:

Player B shrugs and says “You missed it”.

I'd also be having a conversation with player B about how triggers work at Regular REL.

Originally posted by Toby Elliott:

I'd also be having a conversation with player B about how triggers work at Regular REL.

How do triggers work at Regular REL?

This was asked when the new trigger policy was announced and never really answered.

The only change was that players are no longer obligated to point out their opponents' missed triggers. In particular, the fix did not change. Toby highlighted this in one of his blog articles:

The rule that says you don’t have to remind your opponent about triggered abilities is being extended to Regular REL, bringing the actual rules at all RELs into sync. Of course, the Competitive REL remedy that makes you lose the trigger if you missed it isn’t coming along for the ride. In general, if the controller notices it within a reasonable time frame, and it’s not too disruptive, we’ll resolve the trigger, just like we do now. But, it’s all on the controller to remember, now.

Triggers at Regular REL are “required game actions” and are covered by this section of the JAR:

(As an aside to James Mackay, can we fix this to say "a required game action“ instead of ”an required game action"?) :)

A player has forgotten to take an required game action since the start of their last turn
If the action was optional, assume they chose not to – and no further fix is required. Otherwise, resolve the action now. If several instances of an action have been forgotten, resolve any that have been missed this turn. Any older instances are ignored.

So if the trigger uses the word “may” then we just treat it like we would at Comp REL. Ignore it.

Otherwise, if it was missed since the beginning of the controller's most recent turn, resolve it now. If a player misses his or her upkeep trigger, we'll resolve it if it's noticed before the opponent's turn ends. If you notice in the next upkeep, it's too late.

In the original scenario, the Evolve trigger was missed in the controller's main phase. If it was noticed during the opponent's turn, we would resolve it then.

Toby's quote about “it's not too disruptive” could be applied if it would somehow significantly change game decisions by the time it's noticed that it was missed. This is probably not too common, but maybe if I cast Searing Spear on a 2/3 that missed an evolve trigger, it would be disruptive to add the counter with the spell on the stack… and at Regular, I would probably feel comfortable just resolving the trigger and backing up the Searing Spear. Other triggers may not make sense to resolve later (e.g., I forgot exalted during my attack, and notice on your turn… no reason to resolve it now).

If I was called over in this situation, and I'd heard that Player B had A miss the trigger, I'd tell them that we don't play that strictly at Regular, so I'd give A the counter and let B change his blocks.

If I didn't hear about the trigger, I'd probably still let B change his blocks. But then I'd feel bad when I heard about the trigger.