Hi everyone!

I was wondering: wich principles should we use to evaluate a transform trigger according to Missed Trigger infraction?
Are they all beneficial? Detrimental?
Or rather all “day-side to night-side” triggers are beneficial and the opposite ones are detrimental?

Thanks for your answers!
Cheers

Jacopo

Edited Jacopo Strati (April 11, 2016 02:32:12 AM)

For me:

Day->Night beneficial
Night->Day generally detrimental

Edited Andrea Mondani (April 11, 2016 02:55:21 AM)

There is no “beneficial” when talking about triggers the phrase is usually detrimental, and I don't think that any transform trigger is detrimental

The best term I have heard used, and I wish I could remember who said it so I could credit them, is to ask yourself: “If this card didn't have this trigger, would it be more likely to be played?” If you answer yes, then it's a generally detrimental trigger.

It falls down slightly on cards like Howling Mine, but they're a minority.

I think that every trigger should be treated as an independent case and the result (triggered abilities product from the transformation) state should be analized to determine if the trigger was beneficial or detrimental.

#Thomas, I see your point. But I remember that other spoke about a different method to acknowledge a detrimental trigger. It should be: “If I consider just the text of this ability, is it beneficial or detrimental?”
This should be the reason why the first trigger of Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is considered to be detrimental, even if it's basically the reason why people played it.

Am I wrong?

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
{1}{B}{G}{U}
Legendary Creature – Naga Shaman
3/3
Whenever ~this~ enters the battlefield or attacks, put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard.
Whenever one or more creature cards are put into your graveyard from your library, put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token onto the battlefield.

Yup. No method is perfect; each card/triggered ability needs to be determined on its own merits.

As Thomas said

The best term I have heard used, and I wish I could remember who said it so I could credit them, is to ask yourself: “If this card didn't have this trigger, would it be more likely to be played?” If you answer yes, then it's a generally detrimental trigger.

It falls down slightly on cards like Howling Mine, but they're a minority.

Usually, double-faced-cards are used because they trigger abilities are not “generally detrimental”.

Remember, game state will not affect when you answer the question “If this card didn't have this trigger, would it be more likely to be played?”

Originally posted by Jacopo Strati:

#Thomas, I see your point. But I remember that other spoke about a different method to acknowledge a detrimental trigger. It should be: “If I consider just the text of this ability, is it beneficial or detrimental?”

As Gareth suggested, please don't make the evaluation of “beneficial” or “detrimental”. That sets up the wrong dynamic to evaluate the trigger. The phrase the MIPG uses, and we need to stick with the wording of the MIPG and not create new wording unsupported by the MIPG, is an evaluation of “generally detrimental or not”.

While it may seem similar, it is not as binary an evaluation of the trigger (e.g., “benefit” versus “detriment”), and considers it a little more along a spectrum. It's not a broad spectrum, but allows for a little room to consider multiple criteria. Which plays into my next point…

Originally posted by Jacopo Strati:

This should be the reason why the first trigger of Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is considered to be detrimental, even if it's basically the reason why people played it.

Am I wrong?

This isn't wrong, just that it's only one way to evaluate triggers.

Throughout multiple discussions on triggers, there have been a lot of metrics proposed, and I think all are fairly reasonable and get back to the core wording we need to remember, which is “generally detrimental”. The AIPG does a pretty good job of discussing the hows/whys if the upgrade clause in the MIPG…

http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/ipg2-1/#additional-remedy

…and you can also keep in mind that one of the ways WotC likes to design cards is that while it may seem like it has a “downside”, that it gives room to explore the card and see if it can offer opportunities to take something that might be “generally detrimental” in most circumstances (such losing three cards from your library is a depletion of resources), and either mitigate the draw back via some other ability (you get 2/2 Zombies for each creature card) or have it involve a swap of resources (Dark Confidant still being an excellent example).

In that respect, Sidsi's first triggered ability is “generally detrimental” and this can be mitigated by a player building his or her deck correctly to take advantage of putting cards into the graveyard. That doesn't suddenly cause the trigger to “change”, because we don't evaluate the strategic nature of the deck building. That simply considers the trigger itself in a general approach to the nature of the game. Not getting into too specific an evaluation.

But, I think there's always been situations where a single metric evaluate fails. (Certainly it seems that discussions have gone that way when we get hung up and say “Well, what about this card…”) So, the cautionary note is to not focus too narrowly on a single metric and consider that while the metric may work in the majority of cases, you may also need to consider other approaches.

I think this is a card by card decision not one you want to make for every instance of an ability, but in the simplest example of a card like Convicted Killer/Branded Horror I would rule that the Day>Night is not a detrimental trigger and that the Night>Day is a detrimental trigger

Originally posted by Thomas Ralph:

I wish I could remember who said it so I could credit them

That would be Toby Elliott, in one (or more) of his many blog posts about Missed Triggers.

Originally posted by Thomas Ralph:

It falls down slightly on cards like Howling Mine

Well, not really; the IPG has language to cover triggers that are “global” (i.e., affecting each player in turn), depending on who is being affected.

Jacopo Strati
This should be the reason why the first trigger of Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is considered to be detrimental, even if it's basically the reason why people played it.

Magic R&D is quite clear that losing a resource - in this case, cards in your library - is generally detrimental.

Jose Miguel Sanchez Navarro
Remember, game state will not affect when you answer the question “If this card didn't have this trigger, would it be more likely to be played?”

Very true - but it should influence your investigation, as a player might start missing a trigger that is suddenly quite detrimental - e.g., Dark Confidant at a low life total, Howling Mine with a small library, etc.

d:^D

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Magic R&D is quite clear that losing a resource - in this case, cards in your library - is generally detrimental.

I'm not sure this is a coherent approach to take, given our approach to the original Eldrazi titans' shuffle triggers. I understand that these triggers are considered generally detrimental because they foreclose the possibility of reanimation. This suggests that we endorse the view that cards in graveyard are valuable resources just as much as cards in the library (which appears to be the view of R&D as well, given the prevalence of graveyard-matters mechanics like delve and delirium in recent sets). It therefore hardly makes sense to say that Sidisi's self-mill trigger is generally detrimental. It is not so much depriving its controller of resources as much as transforming them from one type of resource to another.

As horses go, self-mill triggers being detrimental is long dead and in notable disrepair.

The Missed Trigger project got official word direct from R&D that they should be considered detrimental. This does not appear to be consistent with actual deck design or most players' and judges' best understanding of what is realistically detrimental, but that's the axiom we've got to work with.

Edited Joshua Feingold (April 11, 2016 01:54:27 PM)

So, talking about transform triggers: should we evaluate them card by card?
Or are there different informations that we should follow? :)

Originally posted by Jacopo Strati:

So, talking about transform triggers: should we evaluate them card by card?
Or are there different informations that we should follow? :)

Something simple might just be to evaluate P/T of one side versus the other. For example, is Branded Howler better than Convicted Killer? Objectively, I think most of us could agree that this is true. So, Convicted Killer's transform trigger might not meet the “generally detrimental” evaluation, since it goes from 2/2 to 4/4. But Branded Howler's transform trigger probably does meet the “generally detrimental” evaluation, since it goes from 4/4 to 2/2.

That might address the majority of situations where you have to consider issuing a Warning at all. (And while consistency is a good thing to consider, the system won't break if someone doesn't issue a Warning that should have been issued.) But, I would go back to and reiterate Scott's bigger point that we also need to keep in mind context when investigating the situation. That's a larger perspective than the Warning, as it might shift the infraction entirely.