Hi!! This situation arose in last FNM in my LGS.

A player just played Pact of Negation last turn. In his next turn, he forgets to pay that Pact (he has a lot of mana to pay it, however), he draws a card and then his opponent notices it and calls a judge.

From JAR, Common Issues:

A player forgets a triggered ability (one that uses the words “when,” “whenever,” or “at the beginning” usually at the start of the ability's text).
These abilities are considered missed if the player did not acknowledge them in any way at the point that it required choices or had a visible in-game effect. If the ability includes the word “may,” assume the player chose not to perform it. Otherwise, add it to the stack now unless it happened so long ago that you think it would be very disruptive to the game - don’t add the ability to the stack if significant decisions having been made based on the effect not happening! Unlike other game rule errors (which must be pointed out), players are never required to point out their opponent’s missed triggered abilities, although they may do so.

The ability of Pact doesn't include the word “may”, although it's a choice done by the player (a rather obvious one if you have mana available, but anyway, a choice :D).

Does the player lose the game, or we add the trigger to the stack??

Thank you!! :)

Edited Joaquín Pérez (March 16, 2014 11:29:41 AM)

I'll add a couple notes, but I'm not attempting to answer this (Regular REL) question!

At Comp/Pro REL, you lose the game. This is an example of taking that default action.

And, because of the severity of the Pacts, we changed the rules back when they were first released, allowing players to put something on top of their library, to remind them of upkeep costs. (Note that the something can't be a card - the Pact - nor can it obscure the top of the library completely.)

Just a bit of fun rules history / trivia for y'all … and now, back to the Regular REL discussion!

d:^D

While it's tempting to have a look at how we handle this situation at Competitive REL, the JAR is very clear on how to handle this at Regular REL: just add the trigger to the stack now. It didn't happen very long ago, not a lot of decisions have been made, so I see no reason to not apply the standard fix per the JAR.
Remind the player to be more careful next time, pay attention to his/her triggers (maybe even suggest to put a reminder on top of the library), place the trigger on the stack and move on.

While normally that's the case, Pact has an action if you don't pay. I'm leaning more towards the player losing the game.

Originally posted by Will Bumgardner:

While normally that's the case, Pact has an action if you don't pay. I'm leaning more towards the player losing the game.

The pact trigger is clearly forgotten, and it doesn't include the word “may”. For these cases the JAR is pretty clear on what to do. We add it to the stack, or we leave the game as it is if adding the trigger to the stack now would be too disruptive to the game. We can't just assume that the trigger resolved and that the player chose not to pay. Actually, the fact that the player tries to move on in the turn proves that the trigger was actually forgotten.

I know that on Competitive REL we just assume the trigger resolved with the default action being chosen, but this is Regular REL and the MIPG doesn't actually apply here.

My understanding is that even in the IPG, ‘may’ in a trigger doesn't imply a default action, so equating those - especially at Regular - is not really sound logic to go by.

But aside from that, think of this from the perspective of an average FNM player. There is a pretty common perspective among players that “if a trigger is may, skip it and you chose not to do it - but if it's not may you HAVE to do it, so just do it”. These players are not distinguishing between whether a trigger has default actions or not, they are literally scanning the text for the word ‘may’.

This philosophy is not a great way to resolve issues all the time (hence the hairiness of missed trigger policy at Comp/Pro REL), but it works fairly well if you're willing to be flexible (like at Regular REL). Certainly getting into the gritty details of missed trigger policy at an FNM is going to be undesirable, so we need to keep it simple. This follows what the players expect, and in case the game state would be excessively corrupted by putting the trigger onto the stack, we can just not put it on as the JAR recommends.


Also, just as a contention for this particular trigger: if we force the player to lose the game to their Pact, what sort of atmosphere does that setup for the players in the game? As Scott mentions, the severity of this trigger is very high, and at Regular we need to make sure people are still having fun while playing the game. How long does the fun last if the players start gaming missed triggers like this? Seems like a pretty bad time to me.

I'm going to put a devil's advocate “education spin” on this Regular REL discussion…

You can have a fun chat with the player about why the Pact of …. cards were invented. They're a cool little specialty case where you get something now and pay for it later. I think the cards are very clear: pay me Tuesday for your Hamburger today, or else!

“You played the card, missed a payment, and now it's here to collect. You lose.” Do you think the player's really going to get that upset? They “missed their trigger” to make their payment!

This follows what the players expect, and in case the game state would be excessively corrupted by putting the trigger onto the stack, we can just not put it on as the JAR recommends.

I'm not exactly sure on Aric's intent of the statement, but he's made an interesting point about how weird it is to put the upkeep trigger whose purpose is to to get you to pay DURING THE UPKEEP sometime later in the turn.

This is arguably a “deviation” at Regular REL, but I think it might be fun and educational for everybody if a person plays a pact and learns their lesson about missing payments! There might even be a life lesson about credit cards here…

I'm usually fairly heavy handed when it comes to Pacts. The player knowingly chose the card and put it into their deck. It's expected that the players know what their cards do. I can understand being confused on how a complex card works at Regular but the Pacts are very clear. This is not somewhere I'd deviate in the spirit of making sure the players are having fun. You chose to include a risky card in your deck. Unfortunately, you got burned.

However, even having said all that, the JAR seems fairly clear that this trigger goes on the stack and AP has the choice to pay.

The IPG has very clear wording on the default action of a missed trigger:

If the triggered ability specifies a default action associated with a choice made by the controller (usually “If you don't …” or “… unless”), resolve it choosing the default option.

If the JAR meant this, it would say it.

Thank you everybody for your answers!! :)

Just to sum up:

The JAR does not call out missed triggers with default actions for special treatment - in general, just go ahead and put them on the stack and let the player make the choice. This can be combined with education - you can explain what would happen at a Competitive REL event and how important it is that the player remembers this kind of trigger in future.

However - the JAR also leaves a lot of flexibility and room for discretion. If you know that for some reason the player could not have paid that cost (they had no cards in hand for their Masticore, they lacked the mana for their pact, whatever), it is not unreasonable to enforce the default action and to explain why you are making that decision! Finally, an obligatory word on Serious Problems: if you think that the player is deliberately skipping their trigger in order to gain some kind of advantage (to get more information, because they don't have the resources to pay it available, etc.) , feel free to investigate and, if you believe that they are cheating, please disqualify them!

EDIT: Looks like I was late to the party :>

At Regular the trigger will go on the stack unless something happened since when it should have been put on the stack, i.e: he doesn't have open mana now as he cast something else -> go on, no trigger and that Pact of Something was a free spell.

Just be sure there is no cheating here as the space for it is vast.

Edited Andrea Mondani (March 17, 2014 11:46:59 AM)

In Regular REL, if the player forgets his Pact of whatever trigger, then cast a spell in his main phase but before casting had enough mana to pay the trigger, is it okay to rewind to the upkeep or before the spell was cast to then put the trigger on the stack?

In Comp REL, if someone forgets his trigger then after the judge told him that he took the default action and lost the game, are any penalties issued because of the GPE-Missed Trigger? What about the opponent?

Originally posted by Samuel Tremblay:

In Comp REL, if someone forgets his trigger then after the judge told him that he took the default action and lost the game, are any penalties issued because of the GPE-Missed Trigger? What about the opponent?

That trigger is detrimental, so a GPE - MT is awarded to its controller.

Edited Andrea Mondani (March 17, 2014 11:48:38 AM)

As a note at Comp REL the ‘infraction’ is the GPE - MT for all missed
triggers and the ‘penalty’ for missing a detrimental trigger is a warning.
On Mar 17, 2014 11:42 AM, “Andrea Mondani” <