Welcome back to the Knowledge Pool, this week we have another Silver scenario. L2s should wait until Friday to jump in.

Andy is playing against Nole in a Competitive REL Legacy tournament, and controls a morph and a Grizzly Bears. During Andy's declare attackers step Nole casts Murderous Cut targeting Grizzly Bears. Andy responds by paying Grim Haruspex's morph cost and turning it face up. Andy puts the Grizzly Bears into the graveyard and says “draw trigger”. Nole casts Collected Company in response, putting two creatures onto the battlefield. After Collected Company has resolved Andy passes the turn to Nole who realizes during his draw step that Andy forgot to draw a card and calls for a judge. What would you do?

Edited Joe Klopchic (Sept. 13, 2017 10:23:19 AM)

Well, Andy definitely acknowledged his trigger, so MT is right out the window.

Instead, he resolved his trigger improperly. Fits right into GRV, which happens to have an additional remedy that's perfectly suited for this:

Originally posted by IPG 2.5:

If a player forgot to draw cards, discard cards, or return cards from their hand to another
zone, that player does so.

Andy gets GRV - Warning. Nole gets FtMGS - Warning. Have Andy draw a card now.

We have a Game Play Error - Game Rules Violation. This is not a missed trigger, because the trigger was acknowledged. And as the Missed Trigger policy says, "Once any of the above obligations has been fulfilled, further problems are treated as a Game Play Error — Game Rule Violation.“

Then within the policy we have an additional remedy reading, ”If a player forgot to draw cards, discard cards, or return cards from their hand to another zone, that player does so.“

Nole, while doing the right thing to call a judge, will also receive a ”Failure to Maintain the Game State" warning because it was caught a little too late. Note a time extension, mark the warnings on the match slip, and encourage the players to have a great time and play carefully.

I would not be so quick to dismiss the Missed Trigger. The player needs to take the physical action to not miss the trigger.

Originally posted by IPG 2.1:

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 acknowledge the specific trigger before taking any game actions (such as casting a sorcery spell or explicitly taking an action in the next step or phase) that can be taken only after the triggered ability should have resolved.

Originally posted by Annoted IPG 2.1:

As it turns out, this is by far the most common type of triggered ability in the game. Most triggered abilities involve obvious visible actions such as drawing cards, moving objects from zone to zone, or modifying the state of permanents.

I think this is a MT and we should treat it as such.

No penalty. Rapidly check how many cards Andy has in his library (for cheating purposes). Ask the opponent if they want Andy to put the trigger on the stack.

Edited Jaurès Chabalier (Sept. 13, 2017 11:47:05 AM)

Jaurès, I would not be so quick to dismiss the Missed Trigger. The player needs to take the physical action to not miss the trigger.


According to the definition of Missed Trigger -

Originally posted by IPG 2.1:

A triggered ability triggers, but the player controlling the ability doesn’t demonstrate awareness of the trigger’s existence the first time that it would affect the game in a visible fashion.

Andy acknowledged the trigger, but did not complete the required action (drawing the card, aka resolving the trigger on the stack), which is why it's considered a game rule violation / FtMGS (the effect on the stack was ignored, and while players don't have to help other players remember their triggers, both players are responsible for proper resolution of the stack).

(edited after the fact; something weird happened with my post - bad paste of a quote block, it looks like. Thanks.)

Edited Bernie Hoelschen (Sept. 14, 2017 06:32:33 AM)

Jaurès, your own quote contradicts you: "The controller must take the appropriate physical action or acknowledge the specific trigger"

Yeah, I reread it and I think you are right. I didn't think we could go from a MT to a GRV just by clearly announcing what the trigger does.

ERROR:

Although Andy declare the trigger ability of Grim Haruspex, Andy did not draw the card as the ability resolved. So it is obviously miss trigger.

FIX:
Nole determine whether the trigger ability will be put on the stack. No matter what the decision Nole makes, the game will be continued.

Thanks everyone again for the discussion this week.

Savvy Knowledge Pool readers might have recognized this scenario as a slight twist on one we ran last March https://blogs.magicjudges.org/knowledgepool/2016/03/04/cutting-through-the-grizzle/

The key difference here being that in this incarnation, the Andy specifically acknowledges the “draw trigger” rather than just the “trigger.”

Jaurès Chabalier points us to the right part of policy, and Jake Eakle chimed in with some excellent emphasis.

The controller must take the appropriate physical action or acknowledge the specific trigger before taking any game actions (such as casting a sorcery spell or explicitly taking an action in the next step or phase) that can be taken only after the triggered ability should have resolved.

Since this isn't Missed Trigger, the infraction becomes Game Rule Violation for not resolving the trigger correctly. We have an approved partial fix, so Andy will draw the card now.

Andy receives a Warning for Game Rule Violation, and Nole a Warning for Failure to Maintain Game State. Use the approved partial fix from GRV to have Andy draw the card now.