Per the new “Missed Trigger” policy, no physical action (life total or card reveal) happened, to the trigger is considered missed even though it was acknowledged. Since the trigger is not detrimental, there is no penalty. I ask the opponent if he wants the trigger to go on the stack; then, the players play on.

Originally posted by Jackson Moore:

Also, I wouldn't call this a strictly beneficial trigger: Ari can lose life to it.

But we don't have “strictly beneficial” triggers due to IPG. We have detrimental ones and the rest, and we don't use board information to determinate trigger status.

Ari missed trigger, even after acknowledging it at the beginning, because he didn't took proper physical actions (revealing and putting top card). Since it's not detrimental trigger, we don't issue any penalty, and Ned decides if we put that trigger on the stack.

We could assume, that Ari resolved trigger incorrectly, but since we have in scenario sentence “Ari draws his card for turn” that indicate, it was in draw step, I don't think it's proper assumption.

Edited Bartłomiej Wieszok (May 25, 2015 05:11:42 AM)

Before reading the thread:
Ari had demonstrated awareness of the trigger and put it on the stack, but failed to resolve it properly. Issue Ari a Warning for GPE-GRV.

If the card drawn could still be identified, then a backup is easy to perform: just put the card back on top of the library and resolve the triggered ability.

I'm assuming, however, that it's not easy to identify the card anymore, and Ari has already seen the card. Backing up the card draw would involve picking a random card from Ari's hand and placing it on top of the library. I think backing up is the right thing to do even in this case, because otherwise Ari might get an advantage from avoiding the loss of life.

A small investigation may be required for Ari, since there's a small possibility of cheating here: For example, what if Ari only called a judged after he had seen the drawn card which had a small CMC?

Ari had demonstrated awareness of the trigger and put it on the stack, but failed to resolve it properly. Issue Ari a Warning for GPE-GRV.

If the card drawn could still be identified, then a backup is easy to perform: just put the card back on top of the library and resolve the triggered ability.

I'm assuming, however, that it's not easy to identify the card anymore, and Ari has already seen the card. Backing up the card draw would involve picking a random card from Ari's hand and placing it on top of the library. I think backing up is the right thing to do even in this case, because otherwise Ari might get an advantage from avoiding the loss of life.

A small investigation may be required for Ari, since there's a small possibility of cheating here: For example, what if Ari only called a judged after he had seen the drawn card which had a small CMC?

After reading the thread:
Aha! Didn't know about the “physical action” update to missed triggers… So is it a missed trigger after all? I'm waiting for the official answer. :)

Edited Mihai Bîrsan (May 25, 2015 08:02:45 AM)

For those who haven't seen this one yet: Toby Eliott's blog post about March IPG changes: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2015/03/23/dtk-policy-changes-for-judges/

It contains link to the latest IPG as well.

In my opinion this situation is a clear example for the recent change: no physical action was taken, thus trigger is missed. Don't issue a penalty, do the standard stuff (ask an opponent if they wish trigger to be put into the stack, etc) and instruct players to continue playing.

What was the error here? A trigger was not resolved, or not resolved correctly.

Was the trigger missed? Maybe, just calling our “trigger” or similar to triggers requiring you to do some physical change to the game state (drawing a card, putting tokens or counters into play, etc) is not enough to consider the trigger “not missed”. I would ask Ari a few questions to determine if he thought he was drawing for the turn, or for the trigger. If we determine that he was drawing for the turn, he missed his trigger. If we determine that he was resolving his trigger he's committed a Game Rule Violation.

Was the trigger detrimental? Pain Seer is a bear with no other abilities. You play Pain Seer because of the trigger, not contrary to the trigger. So the trigger is not detrimental. This means no Warning to Ari if we rule it as a Missed Trigger.

What is the fix?

If Missed Trigger. No Warning to either player, but there is a Missed Trigger here. Let Ned decide if Ari puts the trigger on the stack or not. Continue playing.

If Game Rule Violation. Then we have a Warning for a GPE - GRV. He has failed to reveal his card, but since the Ari would have drawn the card no matter what the card was, the revealing of the card was not for Ned to verify the legality of the draw, but rather to get the right number for Ari's life loss. So no upgrade to a Game Loss. If would backup the draw (with permission from the HJ), as I would consider he game state more damaged by Ari not losing life and revealing his draw than the possibility of him revealing and losing life from another card. The backup is done by taking a random card from Aris hand and putting it on top of the library. We rewind the game to when the Pain Seer trigger is on the stack, and the Lightning Strike has resolved.

No FtMGS to Ned, as the he had no time to respond to the eventual trigger being resolved improperly, and in addition Ned could have believed that Ari missed his trigger.

I would say it's a Missed Trigger, since it would involve a physical action that was not taken. I don't think any penalty needs to be applied, since I wouldn't call Pain Seer's trigger generally detrimental. I would apply a fix by giving Ned the choice as to whether or not it goes on the stack.

Based on the new policy I'd say this was GPE - Missed Trigger with no option for it to be a GPE-GRV. Ari failed to take the appropriate physical action associated with the trigger, therefore despite declaring it, he missed it.

It is beneficial (game state aside you play this card for this ability) so Ned gets to put the ability on the stack if they want to and no warning for Ari. Play on.

Thank you all for your participation this week! Rules changes can be minor and sometimes easy to forget, and this one is no exception.

Pain Seer has a trigger which requires a physical action on resolution. As such, simply acknowledging the trigger is not sufficient for the trigger existing - if you forget to take the required action as it resolves, you have still missed it. In this scenario, despite pointing out the trigger, Ari did not take the required action (revealing the top card of his library, potentially losing life, then putting the card into his hand), and instead moved right to his draw step. Therefore, he has missed the trigger. Because this trigger isn't generally detrimental, there is no penalty associated with the infraction. Ned will be given the choice whether to have the trigger placed on the stack, then play will resume.