So this question has caused a bit of back and forth on our local boards which I would like to open up to the greater community, the original question:

At FNM Norris and Alesha are playing a game of Modern. Alesha lifts the top card of her deck, flips it over, revealing it to be a Terminus. She taps a plains, puts the Terminus in her graveyard and begins tucking her creatures on to the bottom of her library. Norris says, “Wait, in response to the miracle trigger, I want to cast my Vendilion Clique”. At this point you are called over.

With the additional information: neither player can remember any information relating to the number or names of the creatures that Alesha controlled.

The easiest thing to do is probably to take Alesha's library and look through the bottom cards for all the creatures, which should be in a row. Then, one at a time reveal one, ask her if she had it in play before the Terminus. If she says yes, reveal it to Norris to so that he can confirm. Keep proceeding through the creatures you found one at a time until Alesha says ‘no’. Once she says no, shuffle that card back in to the library (because you've just shown her a card she shouldn't see) (unless it was known from something like scry, or a previous terminate).

While the players may not be able to list off every creature that was in play, seeing the cards will jog memories. And obviously any non-creatures on the bottom weren't just put there by resolving Terminus ;)

Even at FNM, Norris needs to say something if he wants to respond. I have a hard time believing that Alesha managed to put several cards on the bottom of her deck before Norris had a chance to say “wait, I want to do something”. This is a “you had to be there” situation, but it seems to me that Norris has passed priority and let the trigger and the spell resolve.

Edited Isaac King (April 8, 2017 10:20:27 PM)

We need to if confirm NAP was given a reasonable chance to respond or not with a bit of investigating.

It seems like AP may have moved a bit too quickly before giving NAP a change to respond. If that is the case we would need to do a fix. If the players cannot agree on what creatures or how many were in play, and assuming none were tokens; we can look at NAPs deck to see what turn AP is on, and determine how many cards should be in their deck. This is likely the best way to ‘fix’ the current board state.

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Even at FNM, Norris needs to say something if he wants to respond. I have a hard time believing that Alesha managed to put several cards on the bottom of her deck before Norris had a chance to say “wait, I want to do something”. This is a “you had to be there” situation, but it seems to be that Norris has passed priority and let the trigger and the spell resolve.

From reading the scenario my gut instinct was screaming that Alesha was hasty, not that Norris was slow here. Your response seems based a lot on the time that has elapsed between the moment the miracle trigger is announced and the moment Norris mentions having a response. Especially at regular, where people might not be as familiar with the cards and interactions and play patterns aren't as ingrained, elapsed time does not strike me as the best indicator of where in the turn we are. Time can sure be collateral evidence, but I'd look for other indicators first.

I'd look for any indicator that Norris has passed priority past the miracle trigger. Has Norris started picking up his own creatures before realizing he had an alternative option? Has Norris verbally indicated that the miracle (or the miracle trigger) can resolve? Has Norris been reading Terminus and Vendilion Clique while Alesha put away her creatures, or has Norris been nodding on in approval as the creatures were moved?

I don't see anything in this scenario that indicates Norris actively passing past the point he wanted to act, what I do see is a player saying they wanted to act and feeling like they didn't get that chance.

I like both fixed proposed in this topic by Jarrett and Mark. Jarrett's fix looks to be a bit more exact where Mark's fix is a bit more improvisational. Since it's regular I'd want to get these people back to playing magic again asap and I'd go with Mark's fix which I think is quicker to execute.