Carpet of Flower
Daze

I was watching the Legacy Open from Texas this weekend and I saw the ANT player pointing out Carpet of Flowers triggers after casting things on his turn. I have a bunch of questions, all really revolving around: When is it too late to point out this trigger?

-The CR states that if a player passes priority with mana in his or her pool, that player must announce what mana is currently in the pool. If you cast (and resolve) a Thoughtseize, is it too late to gain mana from Carpet in this main phase?
—My belief is yes, because mana in the pool seems to me to be a visible change in the game state. Especially since one would be required, by the CR, to announce that there is mana there. So in this situation, I'm really wondering if the infraction is Missed Trigger (no Warning), or GRV with a Warning for not announcing how much mana is in the mana pool (Warning, and… what kind of fix?)

A more specific example that I fully expect to encounter in DC this weekend:

-I untap, draw, use my two mana to cast Cabal Ritual. You respond with Daze. I say “Pay for it with Carpet mana” JUDGE! …Again, based on what I posted above, I'm inclined to believe the trigger has been missed because you passed priority to me, or at the very least didn't object to me casting Daze (implying that I had priority to do so). Does that sound accurate?

I appreciate any and all thoughts/answers - looking forward to some fun times in DC this weekend! :D

Carpet of Flowers is a weird card. Here's the Oracle text:
At the beginning of each of your main phases, if you haven't added mana to
your mana pool with this ability this turn, you may add up to X mana of any
one color to your mana pool, where X is the number of Islands target
opponent controls.
Carpet of Flowers can trigger on your post-combat main phase and still add
mana, if you didn't choose to get mana from it during your precombat main
phase. That's exactly what happened in this case, and the player was very
clear about advancing to their post-combat main phase and adding mana from
the Carpet of Flowers trigger.

Kevin Binswanger

I figured he communicated that. You were the judge on camera right? I assume you'd have stepped in if something went wrong ;)

I just wondered about policy as it pertains to that trigger. I'm sure it will come up this weekend

It sounds like you're asking what to do if a player claims they drew mana
from the Carpet, but failed to properly announce that mana was floating in
their pool; i.e., they failed to announce the trigger's existence in any
way. In general, I would rule that this is a Missed Trigger, not a Game
Rule Violation. Carpet of Flowers requires a choice upon resolution (the
color of mana produced), and falls very cleanly into the second type of
Missed Trigger from the IPG:

“*A triggered ability that causes a change in the visible game state
(including life totals) or requires a choice upon resolution:* The
controller must take the appropriate physical action or make it clear what
the action taken or choice made is before taking any game actions (such as
casting a sorcery spell or explicitly moving to the next step or phase)
that can be taken only after the triggered ability should have resolved.
Note that casting an instant spell or activating an ability doesn’t mean a
triggered ability has been forgotten, as it could still be on the stack.”

(Of course, merely casting a non-instant spell doesn't always mean the
trigger has been forgotten. Suppose my opponent controls one Island,
whereas I have a Bayou and a Carpet. I could untap, draw a card, and then
announce “cast Tarmogoyf, using Carpet mana” while also tapping my single
Bayou. Out-of-order sequencing saves me from having actually missed my
trigger.)

Every one of the judges in the Top 8 had to look up the oracle text for Carpet of Flowers.

As Paul points out, when a player demonstrates awareness of the CoF trigger, they need to make a choice when the ability would go to resolve. Our player was extra-attentive to detail throughout the top 8 (and deserved to make it as far as he did for meticulous skill), but you could run into a situation such as this:

Cast Toxic Deluge with the 3 black mana in my mana pool paying ____ life.
What black mana?
From Carpet of Flowers.
Uhhhh….. judge?

Would you step in at this point to rule it a missed trigger? While not technically correct sequencing and not communicating the exact sequence of events properly, they've communicated a choice before they could gain advantage from making it ambiguous and demonstrated awareness of the trigger at the point it affected the gamestate, when they're wanting to use the mana to cast a spell. Casting a sorcery indicates a point at which we're past the beginning-of-main phase trigger but uses the invisible game state component of mana in the pool.

The missed trigger definition is pretty clear:

"The controller *MUST* take the appropriate physical action or make it clear what the the action taken or choice made is before taking any game actions (such as casting a sorcery spell or explicitly moving to the next step or phase) that can be taken only after the triggered ability should have resolved."

I'd also apply OoOS here, but I can see someone making a case that the IPG has already made it quite clear and the trigger is missed.

Originally posted by Evan Cherry:

Cast Toxic Deluge with the 3 black mana in my mana pool paying ____ life.
What black mana?
From Carpet of Flowers.
Uhhhh….. judge?

That's fine, they're just shortcutting the trigger at that point. Although they should indicate the mana is coming from the trigger in some way just to be clear. There's no OoOS in this case. And again, they also need to indicate if there is any mana left floating from the trigger. Paul is spot on about the original scenario and the potential for a missed trigger.

Thanks, guys. Should be a fun weekend!

The problem I have with considering this Out of Order Sequencing is that a Carpet Player could be holding onto some sort of protection spell and have a limited base of lands in play.

In this scenario the player could be forced to either choose to take Blue or Black mana. (Say Blue to protect himself, Black to develop further). He will have to make that choice upfront. If he doesn't make his choice upfront, judges will be called.

Players can make use of this:
Carpet Player says: Cast Toxic Deluge with 1 black mana from my mana pool, tapping 2 lands, paying X life (and I'm waiting for your visual reaction to decide if I'm going to add further blue or black, wait less than a second), and I still have 2 blue mana in the pool. *pointing to carpet of flowers*


The NAP in this scenario has 3 points where he can raise his arm and call a judge:
- Just at the time where the Carpet player makes his casting intention clear, preventing the player from casting the spell, claiming a trigger has been missed. (I believe some judges would even have the “sorry, but magic is not a ”gotcha“ game, but after all he ”saw something wrong“, so he should call a judge) The NAP will need to be playing very rule technicly tight to call this in time also.
- The moment the Carpet player declares only 1 black mana in the pool, arguing with a judge that he might or might not have seen that his opponent is trying to reel in extra information with the casting of Toxic. (This will become a famous ”you can't satisfy both players judge call").
- After the whole casting has been made, the NAP could argue that he found himself in the wrong. The NAP will have a very difficult time trying to explain to a judge what he believed was wrong and most judges won't be able to do something about it, maybe giving the Carpet player a bit of a talk.


I'm not saying that every Carpet Player is playing like this, but I believe technical play is considered above calling something OoOS. Especially when it protects players from players who have wrong intention.

The MTR tells us that “Players may not try to use opponent's reactions to
some portion of an out-of-order sequence to see if he or she should modify
actions or try to take additional ones.”

If a player with dubious intentions is casting spells with Carpet mana in
this manner, let's have a Serious Talk with that player. But let's not
punish other players that are actually using using out-of-order sequencing
in the manner it was intended – arriving at a legal game state without
being bogged down in all of the minutiae.