Scenario 1:

A player attacks with Hero of Bladehold, puts two tapped tokens on the table and says nothing. When resolving combat, he says to his opponent, “You take 7 damage.” The opponent says that the active player forgot to trigger and did not specify in which order the triggers go to stack and that he should take 5 damage.

The active player says he doesn't know how the stack works, he just saw other players dealing 7 damage with Hero of Bladehold so he assumed it works.

What happens?

Scenario 2:

A player attacks with Hero of Bladehold and the opponent demands that the active player specify the order of the triggers on the stack. The active player calls a judge and says “I don't know how the stack works. I want to deal 7 damage to my opponent. Can you advise me on how to order the triggers?”

What should the judge say?

Scenario 1: you dont have to point a trigger befor it have an impact on the state of the game. By saying “you take 7” you show that you're knowing there is a trigger. NaP take 7.

Scenario 2: No probleM with helping ap as you dont give him any strategical advise but you Just answer to his question. Btw as ap Just say “I want to have my creature deal 7 damage to my opponent ” sounds a correct shortcut for me. NaP is allowed to interupt this shortcut at any time.

Edited Pascal Gemis (Jan. 18, 2015 03:58:23 AM)

Originally posted by Pascal Gemis:

No probleM with helping

Are you sure? What if in a different scenario player A has 10 creatures ready to attack, player N has 8 creatures to block. Player A calls you and asks you to tell him how to order his activated abilities and triggers so he can do 20 dmg to the oponent?

What if he calls you and says "i just saw someone on stream cast a turn 2 titan. I have a amulet of vigor and summer bloom and titan in hand.will you show me the order?

Originally posted by Petr Hudeček:

Scenario 2:

A player attacks with Hero of Bladehold and the opponent demands that the active player specify the order of the triggers on the stack. The active player calls a judge and says “I don't know how the stack works. I want to deal 7 damage to my opponent. Can you advise me on how to order the triggers?”

What should the judge say?

My response would be something about the following:

Me
I am sorry, but I am not able to answer your question, since it is not a rules question. You might want to rephrase your question in a way that it is a rules question.

This way I give the player the opportunity to still get his question answered without couching him.
Just giving him the correct stacking is obviously not an option, but I made good experience with giving the hint to the player that he might phrase is question as a rules question, because this way he needs to demonstrate that he has fundamentally understood what is going on and I just confirm the output.

Player
If I put the battlecry trigger on the stack first and then add the token trigger, will my token get the bonus?

Me
Yes

If he just is not able to figure it out how he should formulate the question in a way I can answer it, he at least clearly knows that the problem is not with me not trying to help him, but with him not knowing how his cards work.

Another thing that comes to my mind regarding this question:
It is quit important to not predict a possible future game-state as a judge.

Player
If I put the battlecry trigger on the stack first and then add the token trigger, will I deal 7 damage?

Me
I do not know how many damage you will deal, but your tokens will get the bonus.

To me it was a big pitfall in the past, since it is so easy just to shortcut to a possible future game-state in my head and then just answer: “Yeah sure, you will deal 7 damage”.
On the one hand, the opponent might have blockers or tricks and by stating that he will deal 7 damage the player might assume, for some reason, that he will deal 7 damage even after blockers and gets upset because the judge told him he would deal the lethal 7 damage, but instead gets blown-out by a deathtouch blocker or something, and, on the other hand, there might be some permanent which might affect/modify the amount of damage dealt.
Also it is couching again :D.

Maybe I am just stating the obvious here, but I just wanted to give a detailed answer to the question.

Just because we are at it and I was always kind of wondering:
If exactly this player approaches me between rounds and ask me how he should have stacked his triggers for maximum damage, can/should I then answer his question?

Edited Jan Gräfen (Jan. 18, 2015 10:27:45 AM)

A is fairly straight forward. NAP takes seven.

For B I would probably say. “You have two triggers, one will put two 1/1s onto the battlefield, the other will give all of your other creatures +1/+0, which one would you like to have happen first?”

A player doesn't need express knowledge of how things on the stack work in order to declare his intent. His intent is that Battlecry will happen after the 1/1s are on the battlefield. If he can tell me that I'm not immediately concerned with making sure he knows how to put it on the stack right.

Just because we are at it and I was always kind of wondering:
If exactly this player approaches me between rounds and ask me how he should have stacked his triggers for maximum damage, can/should I then answer his question?

I'd note that you definitely ‘can’ answer questions like this for players that aren't currently in a game. It's no different than a friend coming up to you saying “I just totally picked Juggernaut over Soul of New Pherexia in a draft. Was that a good pick?” Answering his question is fine because he's not in a draft deciding which to pick.
The ‘should’ question depends on your understanding of what he was trying to do and your ability to give a clear answer, your other duties at the time, and how long explaining this is likely to take. That is where you use your own JUDGEment.

Originally posted by Petr Hudeček:

“I don't know how the stack works."

Sounds like a rules question to me. Explain LIFO (Last In, First Out), and that one player who has two or more triggers fire at the same time gets to choose the order they go on the stack. (You could mention that it's a bit different when two+ players have triggers at the same time, but that's not immediately relevant, so don't linger long on that point.)

Given that rules answer, a reasonably intelligent person - i.e., most Magic players! - should be able to stack their triggers correctly; however, I'd watch to make sure. And if the player gets it all buggered up, you're there to see that they resolve things correctly … and then say “you may want to chat with me between matches, about the intricacies of triggers”.

d:^D

To add a bit onto what Scott says, and taking part of Marc's explanation, once I explain that Hero has two triggers if the player says “I want to resolve the soldier trigger then resolve the battlecry trigger” I'm not going to force them to convert it to FILO. The player has made their strategic decisions, so let's help them play Magic.

Edit: I've been in too many LIFO work environments. edited to be correct.

Edited Jeff S Higgins (Jan. 21, 2015 02:50:24 AM)

Sometimes it can be a bit confusing for players the fact that the Stack
works as a stack (FILO). As long as the player knows in which order he
wants the triggers to resolve, it would be ok to me, since that's the
important part. In case the situation 2 happens, I'd simply ask “in which
order do you want the triggers to resolve?” if I see he's having a problem
with how the stack works.

2015-01-20 6:14 GMT+01:00 Jeff S Higgins <