Why can a missed trigger step over steps?

I can't wrap my head around that basicly a trigger can be “remembered” until the end of dawn..

We had the situation that someone casts a Angel's Grace before the combat step into a Chalice @1 and the opponent goes “Ok” and goes to the combat step and attacks for lethal. Then in the damage step player A says “im on 1 because of the Angel's Grace” and players B says “No, its countered because of chalice”..

Why is the rules on this the way it is? why can't it be something in the line of “a trigger is missed if the step is changed” or “a trigger is missed if the step is not the same as it happened”?

Hopefully someone can help me understand the reasoning better!


Cheers,
Sandro

There's a balance that needs to be struck between keeping the game playing as it “should” (without mistakes), and fixing things, doing that with a huge variety of kinds of triggers/actions/scenarios, keeping the IPG down to something less than 5,000 pages, and still being able to be consistently applied. The Philosophy section of the IPG does a pretty good job at covering what's behind the policy (while also keeping it under 5,000 pages)

In this particular case, I'm not sure I see the problem with the trigger handling at Competitive. The Chalice controller failed to “acknowledge the specific trigger before taking any game actions” (like declaring blockers). “OK” by itself is pretty meaningless. Maybe they were trying to be sly and let the opponent think their spell resolved (and I'm not loving this) or maybe they just communicated unclearly (not loving this either, but not quite as concerning to me). Either way, it's missed.

So what does the IPG say we need to do about this trigger? Not a whole lot. Lets go with “the opponent chooses whether the triggered ability is added to the stack. If it is, it’s inserted at the appropriate place on the stack if possible or on the bottom of the stack.” But it's target isn't there because Angel's Grace resolved several steps ago. So the trigger does nothing. We're not going to roll the game back and counter the Angel's Grace.

This seems like a reasonable result to me. (If the scenario was handled differently, I don't mean to second-guess it. Maybe there was more to the investigation or communication I'm not seeing here that could be relevant)

@chris

Thanks for explaining the part with the IPG not beeing too long and somehow still understandable.. I understand this point, still i feel like some points are strange to me and missed trigger, specially non-visible ones, are still a myth to me :)

you are mentioning “acknowledge the specific trigger before taking any game actions”.
If, in my scenario, we go from casting Angel's Grace to attack to block (there is no creature so no blocks anyway) to damage step where does this comes into play?

And where is this supported that he has to acknowledge it before taking any game actions? i can't find it so far…

Originally posted by Sandro Carlucci:

you are mentioning “acknowledge the specific trigger before taking any game actions”.
If, in my scenario, we go from casting Angel's Grace to attack to block (there is no creature so no blocks anyway) to damage step where does this comes into play?

When Angel's Grace is cast. If he just goes like “ok” and Angels Grace resolves, the player with the chalice failed there.

I'm not entirely comfortable with letting Player B get away with such poor communication, but I'm also not convinced Player B missed his trigger. Policy says that a trigger is missed if it's not acknowledged “the first time the change has an effect on the visible game state.” What visible effect shows the trigger was missed? Countering a spell puts it in the graveyard, which is where it ended up. Angel's Grace has no visible effect on the game; the game after the spell is in the graveyard looks exactly the same whether the spell is countered or resolved. It seems to me that the first “visible” difference between countering the spell and resolving the spell is whether or not Player A dies.

I'd say that the resolution of a spell is a visible effect on the game state.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

I'm not entirely comfortable with letting Player B get away with such poor communication, but I'm also not convinced Player B missed his trigger. Policy says that a trigger is missed if it's not acknowledged “the first time the change has an effect on the visible game state.” What visible effect shows the trigger was missed? Countering a spell puts it in the graveyard, which is where it ended up. Angel's Grace has no visible effect on the game; the game after the spell is in the graveyard looks exactly the same whether the spell is countered or resolved. It seems to me that the first “visible” difference between countering the spell and resolving the spell is whether or not Player A dies.

This is what i came up too, BUT this means that a trigger can be missed over steps or even turns (not clear on what example can be missed over turns but im sure there is one :P )

And this is what i find hard to understand and hard to believe..

Now, is the resolution of a spell a visible effect? it sure would be if it would be a permanent (then it would go to the grave rather then the battlefield), but with an instant the outcome is the same..

Lets change the situation a bit.

Player A casts Spoils of the Vault into B's Chalice on 1. B just says “ok” and doesnt make any further comment. After like 20 seconds Player A thinks B missed his trigger(a situation that can happen) so he names a card. Now B calls a judge. Is the trigger missed?
I'd say yes. 20(or even 15) seconds is imO enough time to say something about the trigger of Chalice and he tried to fish for information.


If it should be fine to go like “ok” and saying nothing that the spell is countered you better hope you never judge a tournament I play in. Because I'll “abuse” the shit out of these things if it's a comp REL event.

Edited Johannes Wagner (July 10, 2016 08:18:07 PM)

From the IPG: “triggers are assumed to be remembered unless otherwise indicated.” This was discussed in this thread in detail. In that thread, I actually was on the other side of the issue–but the high-level judges were generally on the side of ruling a trigger not missed unless it was really, really clear.

Here, “okay” is ambiguous–and absolutely nothing stops the player casting Spoils from asking “resolves?” or a similar question to be explicit. Playing to the out of your opponent missing a trigger is absolutely legal, but assuming that your opponent missed a trigger and trying to rush the game forward to the point past the trigger is not.

Finally, it's important to remember that the IPG also says: “a player who makes a play that may or may not be legal depending on whether an uncommunicated trigger has been remembered has not committed an infraction; their play either succeeds, confirming that the trigger has been missed, or is rewound.” In the situation you've described, the most advantage the Chalice player can gain is a named card; we don't have to worry about penalty fishing.

Edited Eli Meyer (July 10, 2016 09:57:23 PM)

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

From the IPG: “triggers are assumed to be remembered unless otherwise indicated.” This was discussed in this thread in detail. In that thread, I actually was on the other side of the issue–but the high-level judges were generally on the side of ruling a trigger not missed unless it was really, really clear.

Here, “okay” is ambiguous–and absolutely nothing stops the player casting Spoils from asking “resolves?” or a similar question being explicit. Playing to the out of your opponent missing a trigger is absolutely legal, but assuming that your opponent missed a trigger and trying to rush the game forward to the point past the trigger is not.

Finally, it's important to remember that the IPG also says: “a player who makes a play that may or may not be legal depending on whether an uncommunicated trigger has been remembered has not committed an infraction; their play either succeeds, confirming that the trigger has been missed, or is rewound.” In the situation you've described, the most advantage the Chalice player can gain is a named card; we don't have to worry about penalty fishing.

I got hung up on cards moving around as being game state, but on reflection, I agree with you.

Prowess and Exalted are triggers that don't change the game state visible.

But chalice counters a spell. That's also a non visible effect on the game state, but with more impact than Exalted/Prowess. Mb a Highlevel chimes in.

Also: In the first situation Sandro described the player controlling the chalice progressed to another phase/step and attacked, not the player casting Angel's Grace.

I believe chalice makes a visible change to the game state, as you move a card from the stack to the graveyard. It can't move for no reason, so last chance to acknowledge the trigger should be when I try to move it to the graveyard at resolution. This, of course, can't be rushed, but if opponent didn't say anything at the time and he had a chance, it should be missed.

For me its just hard to grasp that a trigger could be remembered till end of dawn..

I have a hard time figuring out why i can remember a trigger that happened a few steps back. It should be that if a Trigger happened not in the step we are now, then it should be missed… but thats not the case. Why?

The thing is how do we tell if you remembered and didn't say anything or if you forgot but remembered between that time?

The triggers than can be remembered later are the ones aren't obvious that they have happened or not, the ones that change the game rules or change power and toughness. It did use to be that you had to state the trigger every time it happened otherwise it was missed but this lead to a lot of needless upkeeping of irelivant triggers needing to be stated in case they became relevant.

Originally posted by Gareth Tanner:

The thing is how do we tell if you remembered and didn't say anything or if you forgot but remembered between that time?

Investigate?

What did happen? “yeah, i just said ok, moved to combat, attacked and then said it was countered…”.

I see now how this ends up anyway in the same situation as if the Chalice controller wants it to happen he can just say “Thats what i meant with ”ok“”..

but that still sounds to me like a missed trigger :D

missed triggers are hard.