In a recent PTQ report, a situation was described where a spectator (perhaps inadvertently, but that's not really the issue here) pointed out a trigger that was about to be missed during a match between two players. We will assume that the trigger in question is mandatory and non-detrimental.

According to the definition of OA:

A player, spectator, or other tournament participant does any of the following:
• Seeks play advice or hidden information about his or her match from others once he or she has sat for his or her match.
• Gives play advice or reveals hidden information to players who have sat for their match.
• During a game, refers to notes (other than Oracle™ pages) made before the official beginning of the current match.

While we have, over the past few years, changed how we look at missed triggers, and have been treating them as a skill-testing element of the game, the fact remains that missing a trigger is not, in some sense, a part playing of the game, but rather a part of the structure that surrounds it. That is to say, missing a trigger is a Game Play Error - something that the game of Magic does not allow for within its rules - it's just one that we, in most cases, neither penalize nor correct.
In that sense, it seems to me that, if a spectator points out that a trigger is missed, they aren't exactly giving “play advice” in the sense of what actions the player should or shouldn't take, but rather they are ensuring that the rules of the game are being properly followed.

I compare this to the situation described here: Outside Assistance?
As in the example above, the spectator isn't explicitly giving play advice or revealing hidden information, merely completing incomplete derived information. In that case, the official decision was that the actions of the spectator did not constitute Outside Assistance, even though they may have had the effect that a player could make a potentially better play.

The disparity between this example and pointing out a missed trigger confuses me, as they both seem to deal with the same concept on the surface. Granted, in both cases, the spectator has clearly done something that we would prefer they didn't do, and we would prefer they fetch a judge instead. But in both cases the spectator's actions have the intent of ensuring the game of Magic is being played according to its rules (even if the result may be in one player or the other's favor).

I certainly understand the reasoning for treating this as OA, since we don't want people watching over players' shoulders to make sure they don't miss their triggers. I would appreciate if someone could demonstrate to me where this philosophy is described in the documents, since I can't seem to find it on my own.

Players are allowed to miss their triggered abilities (by accident, of course). A player continuing the game without having resolved a triggered ability is legal and according to the rules. As such, pointing out a Missed Trigger to a player is not ‘ensuring the game of Magic is being played by the rules’ - it is giving strategic advice ('Remember your triggers') to the benefit of a player. As such, it should be treated as Outside Assistance.

A player continuing the game without having resolved a triggered ability is legal and according to the rules.

So, if I understand you correctly, even if the CR don't allow for triggers to be missed, in a tournament setting we modify that portion of the rules to allow it? Or have I misread/misunderstood the CR?

I mean no disrespect, I'm just trying to understand the difference between this and the Derived Information example from the other thread.

Hi,

this PTQ report has started quite a discussion in the German-speaking subforums.

Kim, you mentioned continuing the game without having resolved a triggered ability is legal. Then why is it mentioned in the IPG, and (at least sometimes) we give a Warning for missing a trigger?

I too mean no disrespect. In the IPG it says about missed triggers “Triggered abilities are common and invisible, so players should not be harshly penalized when forgetting about one”. It doesn't say it's legal to continue the game, it only says the opponent is not required to point it out, and it says Judges do not intervene in a missed trigger situation unless they give a Warning or suspect cheating. So I would think not remembering/resolving a non-optional trigger is illegal.

Then in the MTR it says "If spectators believe they have observed a rules or policy violation, they are encouraged to alert a judge as soon as possible. At Regular or Competitive REL, spectators are permitted to ask the players to pause the match while they alert a judge". I underlined the important part here. The spectator believes by not remembering the non-optional trigger he observed a rules violation, and alerts a judge and pauses the game.

Would you give a ML for TE-OA in the following situations:
1) AP controls Dark Confidant and draws a card. Right after he puts the card in his hand with his other cards, without revealing it first, a spectator calls a judge and asks the players to pause the game, pointing at the Dark Confidant.
2) AP controls Dark Confidant and wants to draw a card. Just before he puts the card in his hand, a spectator calls a judge and asks the players to pause the game, pointing at the Dark Confidant.

Would there be a difference if the spectator just pauses the game, without pointing at the Dark Confidant?

I should have been more specific in what I said. Missing triggers is not legal in that a player is not allowed to intentionally do it, and it is in the IPG with a penalty in specific situations and a set of fixes. However, it is legal to continue the game without a trigger having been resolved, as the IPG allows for the opponent not to draw attention to it if the opponent has forgotten it and absolves a judge from having to get involved if they notice the error in the majority of situations.

I would not give a match loss to a spectator who asked the players to pause the game and alerted a judge that there might be a problem. The issue is if the spectator says to the players in the match something to the effect of ‘Hey, don’t forget about Dark Confidant.'

The point I mentioned in the german speaking subforum was the spectator pausing the game before anything went wrong. The player will likely remember his trigger now that he is surely thinking about why a spectator stops the game and he will have the time to do so, during the pause until the judge arrives.

It´s very easy to abuse and give OA this way and I don´t see the reason why spectators should pause legal games, because someone could make a mistake in the future. In the given example the Spectator even points at the source of the “likely to be missed trigger”.

My oppinnion here is a ML for OA to the spectator.

OA for pausing a match and calling a judge? This seems like a very dangerous line of reasoning.

Joshua, you shouldn´t just blank out the context.

I really like spectators being able to help keep the games clean and I will encourage them to call a judge when they see an eror took place and I will rarely to never be upset if they are wrong and everything is ok in the game, they tried to help after all.

But this is much different story.
There has been no error! (So don´t pause the game and don´t call a judge.) If someone knows that a spectator is allowed to pause a game and to call a judge I assume he knows when and why.

The error that maybe will happen is a missed trigger, the spectator tries to prevent this from happening or at least does a good amount of work by pointing towards the source of the trigger so the player can actually remember the trigger.

It would be a different story if the spectator just stops the game and calls a judge, w/o interfering any more with the game. Still he would have to convince me that he really didn´t knew that he isn´t supposed to stop the the game until an error occured and that he thought it would be better to call me in advance and that he really didn´t meant to help the player (note that while the game is paused to player will think about what could be wrong and remember his trigger, an opportunity he shouldn´t have).

Edited Thomas Ludwig (Aug. 1, 2014 09:44:13 AM)

Not having read the original report (I don't speak German) I don't claim to have the full context. And if the player directly intervened in the game rather than simply pausing and calling for a judge, that's different. But even if a player could potentially infer the existence of a trigger from a player pausing a match, I am not at all comfortable giving OA if the only actions are pausing the match and finding a judge, no matter how “valid” that pause turns out to be.

Judges are a resource. If you feel a judge might be required, especially as a spectator, it should not feel like a risk to seek one out.

From MTR 1.11 (Spectators): If spectactors believe they have observed a rules or policy violation, they are encouraged to alert a judge as soon as possible. At Regular or Competitive REL, spectators are pertmitted to ask the players to pause the match while they alert a judge. At Professional REL, spectators must not interfere with the match directly.

If a spectator just asks players to pause the game while he or she gets a judge because he thinks there is an infraction, that is fine. The spectator should not let them know why he or she thinks there's a problem, as that can provide strategic info to the players. Still, it's true that often just the pause is enough to make a player realize a playing mistake. That's why spectators aren't permitted to pause matches at Professional REL.

Spectators will often be wrong about a supposed error, but that's why we ask them to just pause the game and get a judge. That way, they won't commit Outside Assistance without intending to. If a spectator honestly believed that there was an error and paused the game to get a judge for that, please do not assess an OA penalty, even if the players got strategic information out of pausing the game.

I totally agree with you Carlos. We discussed this a bit (I was present at he PTQ but not involved in the scenario). We also do not want to send the message to someone who did the right thing. However as far as I remember how the situation was forwarded to me later in the day, the spectator pointed at the confidant while asking them to pause. If he had just stopped the game and the player had found out themselves I would have not given OA.

Hi all,

basically the situation in that PTQ was like the scenario (2) I posted earlier.

The problem in this case, that the spectator was apparently a friend of the AP, and he paused the match before the trigger was missed (ie. as he was about to draw his card for the turn), and he pointed to the Dark Confidant as he drew a card.

So, you're saying pausing the match is fine (even if this might be enough to make the players think about any triggers they may have missed), but pointing out why they paused is closer to TE-OA.

I realize it can't be generalized, because every situation is a bit different, but my standpoint is like Joshua said in his first post: “OA for pausing a match and calling a judge? This seems like a very dangerous line of reasoning.”

I understand the case we discussed in the German forums wasn't as simple as that, just because of two things: The match was paused before the trigger was missed, and the spectator was even pointing out the missed trigger.

Thank you all, and thank you Carlos for the detailed explanation.

I overthought my oppinion and I now agree that giving TE - OA seems like a bad idea, thanks for pointing that out to me.

In the special case though, I would like to investigate if the intention of the spectator was to help his friend, so I would ask him “if he intended to help his mate or if he just did a mistake pausing the game at that moment, because he accidently thought there was an infraction”.

Edited Thomas Ludwig (Aug. 4, 2014 10:21:50 AM)

We had a similar situation at GP Boston and I am wondering where people stand on it.

Judge is called over to a match. The players are shuffling up, and both players agree that a spectator said to player A at the end of the game “you forgot your <insert card name here> trigger in that game” as he thought the match was over. However the players were shuffling for game 3.

How do you handle this?

RE: Chris' Question.

Is the trigger detrimental, or not? If the trigger is detrimental, I investigate to see why the players and spectator didn't call for a judge when a detrimental trigger was missed. Who knows where this might lead, but it most cases it's a great teaching opportunity about how detrimental triggers work in Competitive+ events, and the role of the spectator. Informing a player of their obligations in the rules is not outside assistance, so this is likely no penalty.

If the trigger is not detrimental, then we have to look to the definition of OA. Reminding players of their missed triggers is the same as reminding that player not to forget said trigger and is therefore play advice. Whether or not players are in a game, and the specific details of that game, do not matter for determining whether or not something is play advice. Since the players have sat for the match, the spectator has committed OA. If my investigation shows nothing more, I will give the spectator a match loss, enrolling them in the event if necessary, and then we will have a nice chat about the role of the spectator in Competitive+ events and how they can avoid this infraction in the future.