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Competitive REL » Post: Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

April 11, 2016 02:40:35 PM

Scott Marshall
Forum Moderator
Judge (Level 4 (Judge Foundry)), Hall of Fame

USA - Southwest

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

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? :)
The fact that transforming, Double-Faced Cards (DFCs) are back in Standard (after just 5 years) doesn't change our Missed Trigger policy.

Or: as before, a trigger may be generally detrimental, or not, and the logic that guides us in determining “detrimental or not” has not changed.

d:^D

April 11, 2016 05:24:58 PM

Chris Wendelboe
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

USA - Northeast

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

The biggest issues I see here are consistency as far as if we intervene as if we get it wrong it's 100% outside assistance in a case of a missed non-detrimental trigger. I agree that many are pretty easy to evaluate (it's a 2/2 on the “day” side, but a 4/4 on the “night” side), but the one I ran into at my PPTQ this past weekend was Duskwatch Recruiter / Krallenhorde Howler. It certainly seems that it's advantageous at times for it to be on one side over the other, and that point seems to change based on the contents of a player's hand (the more creatures in hand, the better it is to be Howler, but with nothing to do it's much better to be Recruiter).

April 11, 2016 05:44:09 PM

Dustin De Leeuw
Judge (Level 3 (International Judge Program)), Tournament Organizer

BeNeLux

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

Is it generally detrimental to transform it from day to night or from night to day? Well, that's hard to say… so, it clearly isn't obviously generally detrimental, we don't issue a Warning, and we don't intervene… unless, of course, you expect Cheating. In which case you only step in after the trigger has clearly been missed, so no need to worry too much about the potential of “Outside Assistance”.

April 11, 2016 07:07:28 PM

Lyle Waldman
Judge (Uncertified)

Canada - Eastern Provinces

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

I feel like the point people are missing here is the word “generally” in “generally detrimental”. That is to say, when deciding if a trigger is “generally detrimental” or not, ask yourself about the “general” case: Would I rather have a 2/2 Convicted Killer or a 4/4…whatever the other side is called (I play in Japanese so I know card names even worse than MaRo)?

Regarding Duskwatch Recruiter, since the ability is so situational, I'd just ignore it and go on the raw stats: “Would I rather have a 2/2 or a 3/3?” Trying to enumerate all the cases in which you'd rather have one ability or the other is simply too hard.

Of course, as has been said in this thread ad infinitum already, you may take into account the game state if you want to consider Cheating; if a player has 9 lands but no cards in hand and “forgets” to transform their Duskwatch Recruiter, you may not be looking at a Missed Trigger at all.

April 11, 2016 07:25:04 PM

Trenten Novak
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

USA - Great Lakes

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

There used to be a project that covered all of the triggers in a set. It stopped publishing around Khans block. The project is available on the wiki still. https://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Detrimental_Triggered_Abilities_in_Innistrad_block
If you look at the list from Innistrad block, the majority of the “flip to day side” triggers are generally detrimental. I'd use this guide as a reference point for SOI.

April 12, 2016 01:06:47 AM

Toby Hazes
Judge (Level 2 (Judge Academy))

BeNeLux

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

Originally posted by Trenten Novak:

There used to be a project that covered all of the triggers in a set. It stopped publishing around Khans block. The project is available on the wiki still. https://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Detrimental_Triggered_Abilities_in_Innistrad_block
If you look at the list from Innistrad block, the majority of the “flip to day side” triggers are generally detrimental. I'd use this guide as a reference point for SOI.


Hmm. The night sides of Huntmaster of the Fells and Mayor of Avabruck are not on that list, but the night sides of Daybreak Ranger and Wolfbitten Captive are. Those are the 4 whose day side is not strictly worse than the night side. I'd say Duskwatch Recruiter is most similar to Mayor of Avabruck: 2 sides with very different abilities that are good at very different times. So I would say not generally detrimental.

Edited Toby Hazes (April 12, 2016 09:48:27 AM)

April 12, 2016 01:25:43 AM

Jacopo Strati
Judge (Level 5 (International Judge Program)), IJP Temporary Regional Advisor

Italy and Malta

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

Thanks for your answers, I really appreciate your help!
:D

April 12, 2016 08:45:50 AM

Pascal Gemis
Judge (Level 1 (Judge Academy))

BeNeLux

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

Do we take in the balance between warning or not who control the trigger and who control the permanent who will be transformed?

Exemple:

I take control of Archangel Avacyn with Malevolent whispers. In the same turn one of my non-angel creature die.

Next upkeep I forget the delayed trigger. Do I get a warning ?

April 12, 2016 09:09:30 AM

Riki Hayashi
Judge (Uncertified), Scorekeeper, Tournament Organizer

USA - Midatlantic

Transform triggers - beneficial or detrimental?

Originally posted by Pascal Gemis:

Do we take in the balance between warning or not who control the trigger and who control the permanent who will be transformed?

Exemple:

I take control of Archangel Avacyn with Malevolent whispers. In the same turn one of my non-angel creature die.

Next upkeep I forget the delayed trigger. Do I get a warning ?

No, we don't take game state into consideration. Archangel Avacyn's transformation trigger is not generally detrimental. Period. Based on the game state, you may want to conduct an investigation for Cheating. However, in this specific case, it could just be a case of a player not realizing that it should transform at all or thinking that it is the opponent's trigger (and thus not their responsibility).