Originally posted by Jon Nauert:

We consider Sidisi's trigger to be detrimental because you're being denied resources despite other cards being able to benefit from it, and yet we consider Emrakul's trigger detrimental because even though it's providing extra resources, it disallows other cards from benefiting from it? To me, this sounds a bit contradictory and double-standardy. If we consider Sidisi's ability in a vacuum regardless of other cards that can benefit from her ability, why not do the same for Emrakul?

Except that I didn't say that.

I said that Emrakul, itself, benefits from being put into the graveyard IF you compare the normal process for getting Emrakul onto the battlefield versus other methods. That has nothing to do with other cards, just Emrakul in-and-of-itself.

You don't even need to consider strategic situations with the card either; simply compare functional aspects of the game. Because many of the arguments being advanced require strategic evaluations versus functional evaluations. Which I feel leads to the wrong conclusions or ideas being advanced.

Is there some grey area here? Yes, as I acknowledged very explicitly in my first post. This is not a strict dichotomy, but rather one that is more scalar in nature. And for me personally, that would have been issuing a Warning for Akroan Horse's first trigger; because I would view that as “usually detrimental” in the absence of the Wiki. I'm not saying the Wiki is wrong, just that my evaluation would be different without that guidance.

And that is pretty okay IMO. It can happen, and has happened. Next time I get it right per Official considerations.

Toby Hazes
That leaves us with self-mill. Beneficial or detrimental? It isn't as obviously good as drawing cards, but it isn't as obviously bad as exiling cards. So I would say, why not let the cards speak for themselves again?
Necromancer's Assistant vs Warpath Ghoul
Armored Skaab vs Wavecrash Triton
Millikin vs Manakin

The cards clearly cost self-mill as something beneficial. If R&D would agree with the theoretical assessment that it's detrimental because it denies resources then wouldn't they cost it as a detrimental ability? This has nothing to do with corner cases or context or other abilities. Standard rule is that self-mill is costed as something beneficial. So why not make it a beneficial trigger? Is there any card with a self-mill trigger that would look really weird as being beneficial?

There are two problems with making this an evaluation of “beneficial versus detrimental” for triggers:

(1) It's not what the MIPG says.
(2) It reduces the evaluation to a binary one, when it clearly is not.

This is not a pedantic argument I am making, but putting this argument forth as “beneficial versus detrimental” is flat out wrong. We do not make that evaluation, and attempting to make that evaluation is part of where I feel a lot of judges go astray with the policy. Because arguing “benefit or detriment” sets up too strongly an evaluation that emphasizes strategy from a player perspective, not an evaluation of game mechanics. Hence why, again, there is grey area when evaluating the trigger on its own.

Yes, the cards you mention clearly make the argument that the triggers aren't strictly detrimental. But I would argue that the policy doesn't say anything about being strictly detrimental, just “usually detrimental”. And in most scenarios I'd say self milling is usually detrimental. Perhaps not always, as there are exceptions clearly, just usually that's the case.

Again, making a judgment on a trigger in terms of “beneficial or detrimental” is a wrong first step. And it does lead to misunderstandings of the policy or even evaluations on the Wiki that are pretty Official in nature. (I don't know if R&D is consulted on every trigger, but I bet someone who does help make the evaluation has the ear of someone in R&D to make certain for these narrow situations as necessary.)

Originally posted by Brian Schenck:

(I don't know if R&D is consulted on every trigger, but I bet someone who does help make the evaluation has the ear of someone in R&D to make certain for these narrow situations as necessary.)

Brian is (again) correct. And I agree with the rest of his latest post, too.

Milling cards from your own library is generally detrimental. While it's true that you probably want to remember Sidisi's trigger, or that of Nyx Weaver, that doesn't change the guideline of “generally detrimental” (or not - this isn't detrimental vs. beneficial, it's generally detrimental vs. not generally detrimental).

If your library is empty, then a trigger that includes “draw a card” is clearly detrimental - but that's applying game context, which is clearly stated as something we don't do.

It's good that people want to understand the underlying principles that lead to what we see in the Missed Trigger Guide. You might not have immediate access to the guide at a critical point, so you do your best with your understanding.
It's not good if people want to replace or even overrule that guide with their own fragile understanding. (I say “fragile”, because some clearly faulty conclusions have been suggested.)

Sam Sherman
This whole thing is completely ridiculous.

Really? I think it's a worthwhile discussion, even if a bit over the top.

Let me retrieve a bit of important context:

Bryan Prillaman
the *worst* that can happen is that a trigger happens that should have happened … the game is played more correctly

If we step in and issue a Warning for a trigger that turns out to be not generally detrimental, we haven't killed Magic. Still, for the sake of consistency, we should try to always stick to the official guidelines we are given, and that Missed Trigger Guide is part of our consistency toolkit.

If this discussion is to continue to be of value, it really needs to focus on “why”, not “that's more right than the guide!”

d:^D

P.S. - no, I can't explain Emrakul…

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Milling cards from your own library is generally detrimental. While it's true that you probably want to remember Sidisi's trigger, or that of Nyx Weaver, that doesn't change the guideline of “generally detrimental” (or not - this isn't detrimental vs. beneficial, it's generally detrimental vs. not generally detrimental).

I think Toby may actually have hit upon a problem with this logic. It doesn't seem that cards are designed in such a way that self-mill triggers are intended as a downside. And they are almost never played when that self-mill would be a downside. You have some odd cards like Arc-Slogger where exiling from your library is a real cost, but this certainly doesn't seem to be the case with the vast majority of self-mill effects.

While milling your opponent is a possible route to victory, I think self-mill is also generally a route to victory. In much the same way that the upside of drawing a card is generally better than the downside of life lost to Dark Confidant's trigger, I think there is a very real possibility we should be saying that the value of having extra resources in your graveyard is generally better than the downside of increased risk of decking. And in the rare cases where decking is a real win condition, the opponent can still make them mill just like they can enforce the Bob trigger.

I really think another look here is merited.

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

It doesn't seem that cards are designed in such a way that self-mill triggers are intended as a downside. And they are almost never played when that self-mill would be a downside.

I'm on this side. The only example I can come up with where a self-mill trigger was designed to be a downside is Deep Spawn, which is a pretty extreme example. Before it there was nothing (still talking about triggers), and after it the cards were specifically designed to support a set/block's graveyard theme. I suppose Loafing Giant could be considered, but really his trigger is generally detrimental for an entirely different reason.

All the talk about Emrakul, the Aeons Torn's triggered ability holds it up as a precedent for using not only the rest of the card but the design intent behind the ability as context to determine its “detrimental” nature. Why would such an approach be used for some cards but not others?

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

While milling your opponent is a possible route to victory, I think self-mill is also generally a route to victory. In much the same way that the upside of drawing a card is generally better than the downside of life lost to Dark Confidant's trigger, I think there is a very real possibility we should be saying that the value of having extra resources in your graveyard is generally better than the downside of increased risk of decking. And in the rare cases where decking is a real win condition, the opponent can still make them mill just like they can enforce the Bob trigger.

I think, again, the argument being advanced here is more about strategic aspects of the game than about functional ones. That is, going to the use of the card and why a player might “want” a drawback. Perhaps not all drawbacks are equal in that respect, yet still remain a drawback. Or even go so far as to push a specific type of deck. A clever card design or wording could even mask the drawback as a positive. (A good counter argument for Emrakul is why does it shuffle back the whole graveyard rather than just Emrakul.)

That being said, it would be interesting to hear some internal thoughts on the evaluation of self mill. I think we all could benefit from it.

Randomly (usually) denying (usually) resources is bad, m'kay?

Building your deck to take advantage of cards in your graveyard - even when it only requires the very cards that denied those resources - is, as Brian noted, a strategic element that doesn't reflect on the “generally detrimental” designation assigned to any one card.

Josh, what Toby identified and you reiterated is actually the source of many judges' confusion re: these triggers; it is not support for change.

And, let me reiterate - this thread needs to be about “why these are (not) generally detrimental” - i.e., an opportunity for global learning. If we instead continue to debate the need for change, I'm going to close this thread and redirect that discussion to a forum like #mtgjudge on IRC, or the Wizards Community Rules Templating forum (as mentioned by Callum Milne, in a few recent Rules Q&A threads).

d:^D

So this is me, when I tried to understand why things are like they are. Note that the following arguments might be stated as facts, but are only the arguments I used to explain this to myself, so they might be horribly incorrect.
There are effects that are considered generally detrimental and other effects that are considered generally not detrimental. Some examples:

Generally not detrimental:
-Card draw
-Lifegain
-Getting tokens/counters

generally detrimental:
-Discard
-Lifeloss
-Sacrifice a permanent

There are always situations which might turn something generally not detrimental into something detrimental and vice versa. E.g. the lifeloss from Embargo might be not detrimental if we also control a Thraben Doomsayerand go to 5 life and a now bigger army of creatures which can attack for lethal. Likewise card draw might be detrimental if we kill ourselves because of an empty library. However, we can't predict this before and it would be very difficult for all judges at the world to give consistent rulings if they should consider the game state every single time.

However, some cards triggered abilities combine a detrimental with a not detrimental effect. An example for this would be Dark Confidant. Here we have to consider all generally detrimental and generally not detrimental effects, but most times this triggers seem to be ranked as generally not detrimental mostly because a player has no chance to only miss the detrimental part of the effect (of course a player can draw a card from Dark Confidant without mentioning the lifeloss, but this would no longer be a missed trigger, so not important for this discussion)

Finally there are some cards which combine two or more triggered abilities, some generally detrimental and some generally not detrimental. To make the confusion complete some of this abilities work together in a way that a generally detrimental effect seems no longer generally detrimental. An example for this is Meadowboon. The first ability triggers if Meadowboon leaves the battlefield which migth be something the opponent tries to avoid and therefore not as easy to achieve as one would like. Thanks god that Meadowboon has evoke! But wait, isn't that a generally detrimental effect because we have to sacrifice a creature? But it works so well with its first ability… True, but there might be also times were it would be good if the creature just stays one turn longer… So it becomes another estimation of the game state which is quite difficult to judge. Besides what was true for abilities like the card draw from Dark Confidant is no longer true for this type of detrimental + not detrimental effects: A player can miss the generally detrimental effect without abandoning the generally not detrimental effect (The Meadowboon still puts counters on creatures even if the evoke trigger is missed)

Sidisi is the same as Meadowboon here. If one argues that selfmill is not generally detrimental because of how it is used on cards, I can see sacrificing a creature becoming also generally not detrimental if more leave-the-battlefield triggers are combined with it. Or any other at the moment generally detrimental could develop in this direction. Therefore the estimation would always depend on current cards and meta and shift in different directions every year.

When considering the status of a trigger, I always recall the rule of thumb arising around the same time as “generally detrimental,” which I remember to be similar to what Jason Lemahieu said in the “Missed Trigger Policy - What is ”usually considered detrimental“?” thread:

“The common rule of thumb is “Am I playing this card BECAUSE of this trigger, or IN SPITE OF the trigger?” Take the classic Dark Confidant, for example. 2/1's for 2 aren't going to be played in Legacy or Modern, so it's pretty clear that Dark Confidant is played BECAUSE of its trigger, meaning its generally beneficial.”

I can appreciate that it may be listed in one category or the other in the wiki, but like Brian, my evaluation may be different without the wiki (which I may not always be able to check when I need to give a ruling). I was wondering if this general rule is still valid, i.e. are we not to consider the card at all when considering its trigger? I am trying to think of an instance in which self-milling is not detrimental, but it ultimately comes back to this question.

Also, consider the Innistrad missed trigger wiki:
http://wiki.magicjudges.org/en/w/Missed_Trigger_Guide_for_Innistrad

Splinterfright (mill two) is not detrimental, but an armored skaab (mill 4) is detrimental…

Originally posted by Wiley Jephson:

Splinterfright (mill two) is not detrimental, but an armored skaab (mill 4) is detrimental…

Interestingly, before Sep. 26th of this year, both of those triggers were listed as non-detrimental. On Sep. 26th, a user changed Armored Skaab to detrimental. Splinterfright was changed to detrimental after you made that post.

So, from the addition of Innistrad to the Missed Trigger wiki (over a year ago) until just a few weeks ago (when Sidisi was revealed to have a detrimental trigger), no one thought twice about self-mill being labeled as non-detrimental.

Where does “self-mill is generally detrimental” leave Curse of the Bloody Tome and Chronic Flooding? Are those cards non-detrimental if I enchant my opponent, but detrimental if I enchant myself?

Originally posted by Ian Edwards:

Where does “self-mill is generally detrimental” leave Curse of the Bloody Tome and Chronic Flooding? Are those cards non-detrimental if I enchant my opponent, but detrimental if I enchant myself?

This is actually not a problem for policy. Although the language doesn't precisely cover these types of situations, you can apply the intent behind this passage: “The current game state is not a factor in determining this, though symmetrical abilities (such as Howling Mine) may be considered usually detrimental or not depending on who is being affected.”

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

Originally posted by Ian Edwards:

Where does “self-mill is generally detrimental” leave Curse of the Bloody Tome and Chronic Flooding? Are those cards non-detrimental if I enchant my opponent, but detrimental if I enchant myself?

This is actually not a problem for policy. Although the language doesn't precisely cover these types of situations, you can apply the intent behind this passage: “The current game state is not a factor in determining this, though symmetrical abilities (such as Howling Mine) may be considered usually detrimental or not depending on who is being affected.”

Speaking for the Missed Trigger Guides project, I actually believe that Curse of the Bloody Tome and Chronic Flooding are not examples of symmetrical abilities. While it's true that this term is not well defined by policy, one of the assumptions that the project has been using since the beginning is that a symmetrical ability is one that meets two criteria:

1. It's likely to trigger multiple times per game for each player, and
2. does the same thing to each player at different times.

This would include triggers that do good things to each player at different points in a game (ex. Howling Mine), ones that do bad things to each player at different points of a game (ex. Sulfuric Vortex), and even stuff that has hard-to-evaluate but nonetheless similar effects on each player at different points per game (ex. Possibility Storm).

Again, policy is not entirely clear on this, but the project believes that the term “symmetrical trigger” does not include abilities that have an effect on both players at the same time, as with Sire of Insanity, nor does it include abilities unlikely to ever effect both players, as with either Curse of the Bloody Tome or Chronic Flooding.

According to the project's understanding, there is a fundamental difference between cards like the above mentioned Curse and/or Flooding, where in the overwhelming majority of cases they only ever effect the opponent, and cards like Howling Mine and Sulfuric Vortex that effect both players equally every time somebody casts them. Thus, we have Curse and Flooding as not generally detrimental within their respective guides.

Note that all triggered abilities that the project has thus far deemed symmetrical are noted within each guide. These are color-coded with a yellow background in the “detrimental status” cell for each entry, along with some explanatory text.

Thanks.


Abe

Edited Abraham Corson (Oct. 15, 2014 02:01:01 PM)

To clarify, I don't think these effects are symmetrical. I was only suggesting that the philosophy could be used to understand why an effect might be treated as generally detrimental when affecting its controller but not in other circumstances. My understanding (which is consistent with your explanation) is that the assumption of the Missed Trigger Guide is that these cards affect the opponent and (this part being my logical extension) could reasonably be treated differently if affecting you in the same way that actual symmetric triggers are.

So, thinking about things a bit -

Thought 1 - if, hypothetically, Sidsi had only a single trigger, that read:

Whenever Sidisi, Brood Tyrant enters the battlefield or attacks, put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard. Put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token onto the battlefield for each creature card put into your graveyard this way

I don't think there would be any debate that the trigger is not usually detrimental for the controller. Would this hypothetical trigger be usually detrimental, or not?

Thought 2

Randomly (usually) denying (usually) resources is bad, m'kay?

I think this might actually be an underlying disagreement in this conversation. Is self-mill denying resources, or creating resources? The only resource being depleted is the number of cards in the library - which in 99 games out of 100 is never an issue. Graveyard recursion effects are so common that it's not hard to see cards in graveyard as a resource to be sought out - Emrakul's trigger is considered usually detrimental, as the assumption is that otherwise a player could make use of those effects.

Thought 3
Why do ‘usually detrimental’ triggers receive a warning, but other triggers don't? A usually detrimental trigger is usually doing something a player doesn't want - so that player is not going to spend as much effort on remembering for it to happen. Also, usually detrimental triggers are, for the most part, added to a card to tweak its power level. e.g. a 6/6 flying demon for 4 is really powerful, so we'll give the opponent the ability to tap it to balance it. If a player is getting the bang without the bite, it creates a more unfair situation (generally) than if they forgot a trigger which is neutral or helpful.

Also,

And, let me reiterate - this thread needs to be about “why these are (not) generally detrimental” - i.e., an opportunity for global learning.

If I understand this correctly, the remaining use of this thread is to come to an understanding on what the current guidelines are for usually detrimental/not usually detrimental, and how they apply to certain examples?

Edited Talin Salway (Oct. 15, 2014 05:05:18 PM)

Okay, so I will focus on an understanding of current rules now and not any need for change, I would like this thread to remain open just a little while longer.

Originally posted by Wiley Jephson:

When considering the status of a trigger, I always recall the rule of thumb arising around the same time as “generally detrimental,” which I remember to be similar to what Jason Lemahieu said in the “Missed Trigger Policy - What is ”usually considered detrimental“?” thread:

“The common rule of thumb is “Am I playing this card BECAUSE of this trigger, or IN SPITE OF the trigger?” Take the classic Dark Confidant, for example. 2/1's for 2 aren't going to be played in Legacy or Modern, so it's pretty clear that Dark Confidant is played BECAUSE of its trigger, meaning its generally beneficial.”

I also love this rule of thumb. So my question is, how does it relate to self-mill triggers?

- Are these cards played IN SPITE OF their triggers?
- Or is it simply the case that this rule of thumb does not apply to these triggers? (Because by defintion rules of thumb are not intended to be strictly accurate in every situation) If this is the case, are there other categories of triggers that the rule of thumb does not work on?


Next to that, something about the grammar of the IPG:

The controller of a missed triggered ability receives a Warning only if the triggered ability is usually considered detrimental for the controlling player. The current game state is not a factor in determining this, though symmetrical abilities (such as Howling Mine) may be considered usually detrimental or not depending on who is being affected. Whether a Warning is issued or not does not affect any additional remedies that may be applicable. Failure to Maintain Game State penalties are never issued to players who did not control the ability.

Shouldn't the first bolded one have the first two words swapped just like the second one: “considered usually detrimental”?
Maybe I'm reading this wrong as a non-native English speaker, but doesn't the first ones make the consideration usual and the second one the detrimentality usual. So the second one more strongly suggests there is an agreed upon consideration which you could look up (on the wiki).

Edited Toby Hazes (Oct. 15, 2014 09:15:06 PM)