If an opponent requires information about the precise timing of a triggered ability or needs details about a game object that may be affected by a resolved triggered ability, that player may need to acknowledge that ability’s existence before its controller does.

From reading this, it seems like he doesn't.

The idea that players have to operate as though a trigger is remembered
until such time as it is proven that it is forgotten seems pretty
straight-forward. I see no reason for there to exist stack-clearing or
verbal “tricks” ones can use to preemptively determine if the trigger is
forgotten. I don't see it as being a negative at all that there's no
option for a defending player to finagle a forgotten trigger out before the
rules say it matters.

Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

A attacks with 2/1 exalted, saying nothing except “swing”
N has a 2/2 and a 1/4. Clearly blocking with the 2/2 isn't a bad deal if A has remembered exalted and blocking with the 1/4 is better if they have forgotten. .How is N expected to figure out his optimal play?

The assumption is the trigger is gonna happen. Make your blocks based on that, that's your baseline. If you want to take a gamble, take the gamble that the AP will forget the trigger. If you don't want to gamble and you want to be sure, ‘ask’. Yes, it will probably result in the trigger happening, but then you have the perfect information you want.
Opponents are not “entitled” to benefitting from missed triggers any more than they are entitled to benefitting from creatures that forget to attack.
As far as figuring out his optimal play? How do you figure out if you are gonna top deck the card you need or if your opponent will attack into a trick? You make a decision based on the info available and sometimes you are wrong. This is just another one of those cases

RE: “From reading this, it seems like he doesn't.”

Wait a minute. If my opponent attacks with a 2/2 Exalted creature saying
nothing and I cast Shock, it is automatically assumed to be on the stack on
top of Exalted so I don't see why I couldn't respond to Exalted.

My question: I have an upkeep trigger that says “At begining of upkeep, you
lose 1 life.” If I/opponent remember during my next upkeep, I will lose 2
life at that point, right? (unless my opponent does not want me to lose
life)




2013/2/6 Casey Brefka <forum-2772@apps.magicjudges.org>

Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

If he asks something like “How much damage will that deal?”, N can just respond with “future info, figure it out your self”.

If your opponent starts playing word games and dancing around derived information, then you can probably safely assume that they have remembered the trigger and that is why they do not want to tell you the size of their creature.

Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

Asking about the P/T of the creature doesn't help as N can just answer about what it is before exalted as exalted hasn't resolved yet.

As mentioned above, a ‘oh, but I hadn’t resolved exalted yet' defence of suddenyl changing the power and toughness of your creature after your opponent has asked should probably be treated as pretty sketchy.

Originally posted by Gareth Pye:

How does N get a chance to respond to Exalted without reminding A that exalted exists?

Well, if he just casts the Shock in declare attackers, it is assumed to be in response to the trigger anyway (if nothing has been said to make it otherwise). But, in general, as others have said - he may have to remind his opponent that a trigger exists if he wants to interact with that trigger, and that is fine.

Petr Hudecek
If I/opponent remember during my next upkeep, I will lose 2 life at that point, right? (unless my opponent does not want me to lose life)

If the trigger triggers at the beginning of your upkeep, then the latest it will be put on the stack is your opponent's upkeep: the line is ‘within a turn’, not ‘within a turn cycle’ any more.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

Darcy Alemany
but is it fair to extend this same level of responsibility to a player's opponents

Yep.

This doesn't feel very good to me, because it has the same feel-bad issues with having to remind your opponent to kill you. Except this time, it's having your opponent not telling you how he's killed you until you're already dead. I really don't think that's a better alternative.

Originally posted by Eric Shukan:

Hmm. Toby, what about these two situations?

Would (blocking with a single creature after Pyroheart Wolf attacks and no trigger indication is made) be Fraud?
Would (casting Dimir Charm after blockers on a lone attacking Grizzly Bear with Exalted) be Fraud?

They seem like exactly the same kind of thing to me. Holding the nontrigger player to “assume the trigger resolved until it is shown to have been missed” as a standard for Fraud seems tricky. If latter is Fraud, I don't see how the former can fail to be. They both involve actions which would DEFINITELY be illegal under the assumption that the trigger has resolved.

I agree that they are the same, but I disagree that they are Fraud. While we will rule by default that the trigger is remembered, there's a chance it is not, and it's acceptable for an opponent to try something that might or might not be legal. The alternative creates a bunch of logical conundrums - it's not legal to Dimir Charm it, but I don't have to put my blocker in the graveyard?

Functionally, this seems fine, and it's almost never going to come up - odds of you wanting to give away the existence that Dimir Charm in exchange for confirming that the trigger resolved… seems meh.

As for anyone who is trying to figure out how to “lock in” a missed trigger - you basically can't, and that's by design. Similarly, trying to imply that you might have missed the trigger (obfuscating when you're answering the question so you can later claim Exalted is still on the stack, etc) is likely to backfire and provide evidence that you did, in fact, miss it.

Darcy Alemany
This doesn't feel very good to me, because it has the same feel-bad issues with having to remind your opponent to kill you. Except this time, it's having your opponent not telling you how he's killed you until you're already dead. I really don't think that's a better alternative.

Not having to point out your opponent's triggers doesn't absolve you from needing to pay attention to the game.

Edited Toby Elliott (Feb. 6, 2013 08:13:19 AM)

I agree that they are the same, but I disagree that they are Fraud. While we will rule by default that the trigger is remembered, there's a chance it is not, and it's acceptable for an opponent to try something that might or might not be legal. The alternative creates a bunch of logical conundrums - it's not legal to Dimir Charm it, but I don't have to put my blocker in the graveyard?

I guess that answers my questions. It might come up more then you might think at first glance, though. The situation where one player is doing most of the communication happens reasonably often IMO. In that scenario, there's a similar incentive for a player to treat the trigger as though it didn't happened. (“I block your knight of infamy with my 3/3. Your knight dies?” “Don't forget that your 3/3 dies as well.” “Too bad, I'd hoped you'd forget the trigger.”)

Originally posted by Darcy Alemany:

Scott Marshall

Originally posted by Darcy Alemany:

but is it fair to extend this same level of responsibility to a player's opponents

Yep.

This doesn't feel very good to me, because it has the same feel-bad issues with having to remind your opponent to kill you. Except this time, it's having your opponent not telling you how he's killed you until you're already dead. I really don't think that's a better alternative.

While players are no longer required to point out their opponent's triggers, being aware of those triggers and making strategic decisions based upon them is still a skill that's being tested in a Magic tournament. The feel-bad moment here is a manifestation of failing that skill test.

Originally posted by Carsten Haese:

Darcy Alemany

Scott Marshall

Darcy Alemany
but is it fair to extend this same level of responsibility to a player's opponents

Yep.

This doesn't feel very good to me, because it has the same feel-bad issues with having to remind your opponent to kill you. Except this time, it's having your opponent not telling you how he's killed you until you're already dead. I really don't think that's a better alternative.

While players are no longer required to point out their opponent's triggers, being aware of those triggers and making strategic decisions based upon them is still a skill that's being tested in a Magic tournament. The feel-bad moment here is a manifestation of failing that skill test.

Sure, I'll acknowledge that. I still can't help but feel like the rules handle “your triggers” and “your opponent's triggers” in an uneven and kind of unfair way. If you forget your own trigger, it has no impact in your game play decisions because you still know and understand the nature the game state. There is no situation where the game state will not be what you expect it to be as a result of you forgetting your own trigger. However, every time you forget an opponent's relevant trigger, the gane state will change without any acknowledgment or change to the visual representation of the game state. You are then expected to make game decisions based on an invalid perspective of the game state, a position which will never be enjoyed by someone missing their own triggers. Our philosophy of missed triggers acknowledges that triggers are easy to forget, and that players should be most responsible for how their own cards work. If thats the case, why are we comfortable with a policy that places more disadvantage on a trigger's opponent rather than a trigger's controller given that someone forgets it?

Edited Darcy Alemany (Feb. 6, 2013 04:44:55 PM)

Originally posted by Darcy Alemany:

Sure, I'll acknowledge that. I still can't help but feel like the rules handle “your triggers” and “your opponent's triggers” in an uneven and kind of unfair way. If you forget your own trigger, it has no impact in your game play decisions because you still know and understand the nature the game state.

I don't follow. The Missed Trigger policy is pretty clear that we don't hold the opponent accountable for the player's missed triggers; nowhere does it say that we say they are given a free pass for being completely unaware of those triggers. If the opponent is unaware of those triggers, the player still can have an advantage by recognizing the opponent's lack of awareness in this respect. Again, that goes back to the MTR and the general umbrella that superior awareness of the game state is rewarded.

There's a big difference between not penalizing the opponent (as he or she isn't culpable) versus the opponent simply allowed to be unaware and thus lose any strategic or tactical advantage. We're only allowing the first; the later is something the opponent is also going to have at least some skill with. (Within the bounds of the player also being cognizant and responsible.)

This is even more important to consider that if we just said that the “NVE” triggers were treated as having resolved without allowing the player to miss them by noting something like the wrong amount of damage, which is what the MIPG used to say prior to October 1st, 2012, then BOTH players were held accountable to that. Now, we've removed accountability from the opponent, and put some burden on the player; just not so much that the player has to jump through hoops to recognize the trigger.

Originally posted by Darcy Alemany:

If thats the case, why are we comfortable with a policy that places more disadvantage on a trigger's opponent rather than a trigger's controller given that someone forgets it?

Because the opponent needs to be aware of the game state as well; that has never changed under any version of the policy. The only difference is making clear that we don't hold the opponent accountable or culpable for a mistake that was made via an infraction/penalty. If there is any accountability, it's in the lack of awareness itself.

Originally posted by Kim Warren:

Gareth Pye
How does N get a chance to respond to Exalted without reminding A that exalted exists?

Well, if he just casts the Shock in declare attackers, it is assumed to be in response to the trigger anyway (if nothing has been said to make it otherwise). But, in general, as others have said - he may have to remind his opponent that a trigger exists if he wants to interact with that trigger, and that is fine.

So this policy gives an incentive to announce all of your triggers as late as possible? That way your opponent has to remember them and announce them if they want to interact with them.

This is not that much different from the policy in effect before last year (and as it was for a very long time). Invisible triggers were always assumed to have resolved, and the opponent could make a play error by not being aware of an invisible Exalted trigger, for example. Now, the opponent should still assume Exalted resolved, but has at least some chance to benefit if the opponent actually missed the trigger.

Announcing a trigger in order to respond at the appropriate time doesn't seem like it would matter all that often. The idea is that you have to play as though an opponent's trigger isn't forgotten until you have confirmation that it was actually forgotten. Hoping your opponent is bad at Magic isn't the point of the policy and isn't what it's intended to reward. It just allows you to benefit if your opponent genuinely fails a skill test.

I agree this is not much of a change. But I believe it is a fair point to note some cognitive dissonance in that the game has rules, yet because of the way the game is played some rules become optional depending on observation. Holistically, I don't like it. Practically, I understand and enforce it. Personally, I point out triggers if I notice they are missed all the time. I don't expect others to choose this as a winning strategy, just a choice of play style.

And I actually super dig the new trigger policy. Well done!

Edited Matt Sauers (Feb. 7, 2013 08:11:13 AM)

I'll throw in a quick question I have about the new policy, I hope I'm in the right place :)

In prior IPG editions we had triggers that we “assumed resolved”. That meant that if a player called us when declaring blockers and asked us about his opponent's Exalted triggers, we had to rule that the trigger had triggered and resolved at the appropriate time and that the creature got it's bonus.

Now we have a category of triggers that use the same wording on their philosophy but I believe are fundamentally different:

Triggered abilities that do nothing except create one or more copies of a spell or ability (such as storm or cipher) automatically resolve, but awareness of the resulting objects must be demonstrated using the same requirements as described above (even though the objects may not be triggered abilities).

I don't understand what part of the trigger “automatically resolves” if the player needs to still demonstrate awareness of the effect of the trigger. If we are called when a player casts a sorcery after the trigger should have triggered, we cannot assume the trigger resolved and that the copies are on the stack, that trigger was missed. I am wondering if I am misinterpreting this paragraph or maybe this “automatically resolves” doesn't mean the same than before.

Thanks!