I was watching a bit of coverage of the SCG Providence this morning, and saw something that it took me a minute to understand, and when I figured it out, I felt kinda icky about it and wanted to know if others felt that way too.

Player A controls an unflipped Delver of Secrets. Player N control a Jace, Architect of Thought. On Player N's previous turn he had activated Jace's +1 ability which reads “Until your next turn, whenever a creature an opponent controls attacks, it gets -1/-0 until end of turn.”

Player A moved to combat and attacked with the Delver of Secrets, and had no combat tricks in hand.

It took me a moment to figure out why Player A would bother to attack with Delver, since Jace was just going to make it a 0/1, and then I figured it out. He was hoping his opponent would fail to mention the delayed trigger and end up taking the damage (player N didn't, so it worked out for him anyways).

But I thought about this, and if I'm player N in that situation I'm thinking my opponent probably has a trick of some sort, and I might be inclined to tentatively say “OK, no blocks”, waiting to see what kind of trick was going to come and what I could do about it. And it seems to me that if I do that, I've moved us to the declare blockers step without mentioning Jaces trigger, which is past when the trigger should have happened, and so my opponent could then say “OK, you take 1 damage”, and I could say “No I don't, Jace made him a 0/1”, and then the judge would be called and should probably rule that I missed the trigger and take the damage.

But that feels like some pretty serious rules lawyering to me and really icky. Is it just me that thinks this feels wrong somehow?

Lesson: Remember your triggers.

Originally posted by Michael White:

But that feels like some pretty serious rules lawyering to me and really icky. Is it just me that thinks this feels wrong somehow?

What feels wrong about this? If Player A controlled a creature with exalted and Player N was hoping Player A would forget about the trigger, would the situation “feel wrong”?

The missed trigger policy is designed such that a player who controls a beneficial triggered ability needs to point that trigger out; in this case, that would be the delayed trigger from Jace's first ability. Player N is responsible for pointing that trigger out, and certainly has to announce the effect of that trigger. Player A has no responsibility for the trigger, and could certainly play in such a way to take advantage of it. Whether a delayed trigger (Jace, suspend, rebound, etc.), casting into a Chalice of the Void, or exalted/bushido.

This is especially critical at Competitive REL, where you do have to be aware of triggers or other interactions (rules or policy) and “superior awareness” of what is going on. That is an advantage that we're okay with in a CompREL setting. If Player A wanted to bluff to see how Player N would respond (correctly), that is his ability in that setting. Absent making Player A again responsible for pointing out triggers (i.e., FtMGS), he can either play in such a way that he won't take advantage of Player N's potential lapse, or even proactively point out such triggers. Or, he can put that responsibility on Player N and play a bit more “competitively”. (Edit: In case my comments aren't clear or potentially confusing, this is only true at CompREL. At RegREL, you do need to point out your opponent's missed triggers and can't let them forget those triggers.)

Edited Brian Schenck (Oct. 14, 2012 10:33:19 AM)

Just to make sure it's clear, it's not okay at Regular REL to knowingly ignore opponent's triggers. At FNM, for example, players have a responsibility for all trigger, theirs or not.

Topher
L2, Richmond

Edited Topher Hickman (Oct. 14, 2012 09:48:20 PM)

Maybe it is just me. I played in Provincials today and came up against Jace a few times.

In each of the cases where his +1 did something, I would attack and my opponent didn't mention the trigger until we started assigning combat damage. He then used the amounts as if the trigger had happened, so clearly he remembered it, but he didn't do anything before that to indicate his knowledge, and once we leave declare attackers and blockers have been assigned, it's a missed trigger.

It seems to me like in those cases my opponents didn't forget, but they didn't make any indication that it was happening. And it's something that I knew and understood should be happening as well, neither of us needed any communication to know that it happened, we're just experienced enough with the game that we got that with no acknowledgement of the trigger from either of us.

To have said “No no, my guys are at their full power, you didn't mention the Jace trigger during declare attackers, so you missed it”, when both of us knew it was happening seems like it would have been pretty rude to the person sitting across the table from me.

Maybe that's just me though who thinks that feels pretty wrong though.

You are free to propose a shortcut, “Can we assume triggers that just change power and toughness in combat always happen?” If you both agree to this, playing this way for the rest of the match is fine.

I think this is a player education issue.  I'm happy that you and your opponent were able to agree on “the right way” to handle this (as it seemed to both of you) - but for every sporting player like you, there's some number (hopefully a small fraction) of players who will insist that they failed to acknowledge the trigger, and that the -1/0 doesn't happen … and then we get to intercede and sort out a player disagreement.


Not only is that not fun for judges, it usually leaves both players unhappy.

So, to help avoid that, let's teach players to take the extra second or two and be clear about Jace's delayed trigger.  (And in some cases, we'll be educating players on how delayed triggers really work, and that's not a bad thing, either.)

Thanks! – Scott Marshall <scott_j_marshall_jr@yahoo.com>
DCIJUDGE-L NetRep, L5, Denver
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>________________________________
> From: Michael White <forum-1579@apps.magicjudges.org>
>To: scott_j_marshall_jr@yahoo.com
>Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 11:15 PM
>Subject: Re: New Missed Trigger Policy, re: The New Jace (Competitive REL)
>
>
>Maybe it is just me. I played in Provincials today and came up against Jace a few times.
>
>In each of the cases where his +1 did something, I would attack and my opponent didn't mention the trigger until we started assigning combat damage. He then used the amounts as if the trigger had happened, so clearly he remembered it, but he didn't do anything before that to indicate his knowledge, and once we leave declare attackers and blockers have been assigned, it's a missed trigger.
>
>It seems to me like in those cases my opponents didn't forget, but they didn't make any indication that it was happening. And it's something that I knew and understood should be happening as well, neither of us needed any communication to know that it happened, we're just experienced enough with the game that we got that with no acknowledgement of the trigger from either of us.
>
>To have said “No no, my guys are at their full power, you didn't mention the Jace trigger du
ring declare attackers, so you missed it”, when both of us knew it was happening seems like it would have been pretty rude to the person sitting across the table from me.

I think the advantage to be gained here is realistically pretty minimal, since it can only really occur once per match (or, more likely, once per player).

The first time my opponent “gets” me on Jace triggers, I am going to know to be careful about that from then on. And if he has just been implicitly accepting the -1/-0 without announcing the trigger for the whole match (which has been the case with 100% of players I've seen for the past two weeks), it's not likely he can suddenly spring it on me on some critical turn and claim that no functional shortcut had been established in all those prior turns.

Originally posted by Joshua Feingold:

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, and I (as a judge, not a player) walk over to a player who has called me due to a “missed trigger” on the Jace and I determine that the trigger has been assumed to have resolved without the opponent mentioning it earlier in the match, then I can rule that an established shortcut and that the trigger did resolve?

I didn't know I could do that, I feel much better about that than I did before, I thought I had to rule missed trigger in those cases, but it's nice to know that if it's happened before without mentioning that it continues to happen without being mentioned.

That definitely sounds reasonable, but is there anything in the MTR to support that ruling? I'd certainly have no problem making a similar ruling, as long as I could point to a specific section of the rules to back it up…

The first sentence in Section 4.2 Tournament Shortcuts is sufficient. Even though the description that follows focuses on priority passes, the key is the idea of skipping parts of technical play and not getting bogged down in minutiae. So long as there is clarity and both players agree to a shortcut as demonstrated by play so far in that game (or match) it is fine so long as no other explicit rules are violated.