Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

“Check your assumptions, don't act on them.”

I'm a huge fan of this. However, one could say that if Anne phrases her sentence in a certain way, hoping that her opponent would think she was saying the creature is 2/2, then she's clearly indicating exactly that and has therefore missed the trigger. This is in line with previous official rulings. A few years ago I heard a rule of thumb saying “There's (nearly) no way of implying a certain action without actually doing it”. A point could be made for transferring the spirit of this rule to this case. If Anne implies the creature is 2/2, which she does, regardless of her clever wording she knew her opponent would misunderstand, then the creature is 2/2 and she has missed the trigger.

I'm not certain this is the best ruling, but I think it's not completely unreasonable. A huge counter-argument would be that we're playing competitive REL and therefore expect players to have a certain level of technical rules knowledge. Knowing and understanding the term “base power/toughness” is not too much to be asked for.

Edited Jasper König (June 18, 2016 04:04:23 PM)

So, this play of words is ok but we got problems with the combat?-shortcut and people tricking their opponents because they want to get to the beginning of combat step and have priority?
For me that ruling isn't consistent.

Edited Johannes Wagner (June 18, 2016 04:26:57 PM)

Originally posted by Johannes Wagner:

So, this play of words is ok but we got problems with the combat?-shortcut and people tricking their opponents because they want to get to the beginning of combat step and have priority?
For me that ruling isn't consistent.

I think it's important to make the distinct here between attempting to trick your opponent into giving up an action based on the wording of a shortcut (combat phase change) vs. an honest if incomplete answer in a situation that involves derived information (the base P/T vs. current power and toughness) per section 4.1 of the MTR.

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

“Check your assumptions, don't act on them.”

The assumption that “this isn't Magic: the Gotcha, I don't need to worry about linguistic tricks and word games” is one that players shouldn't have to check. From my perspective, Nathan did check his assumptions when he asked for the creature's power and toughness and got told it was a 2/2. I don't understand why “he got fooled because he missed the magic word ”base“” would be a legitimate argument here, when we've categorically disallowed “she got fooled because she missed the magic words ”pass in main phase“” for the combat shortcut.

Allowing Nathan to die here goes against the entire philosophy of the Communications section of the MTR as I understand it. Moreover, if answering with technically true but unrelated information is a legitimate way to win, we open up a Pandora's box of angle-shooting and corner cases. If a player points to my attacking Noble Heirarch and asks for its power/toughness, can I say “Noble Heirarch is an 0/1” and hope he doesn't notice that I'm pointing to my nonattacking one? If I attack with my 3/2 Abbot of Keral Keep, can I say “Bob is a 2/1” and hope my opponent doesn't realize that ‘Bob’ refers to my Dark Confidant and not my Abbot?

Anna's statement was intended to falsely communicate Derived Information. Anna's statement succeeded at falsely conveying Derived Information. In my view, the fact that her statement was technically factual is immaterial; she committed a communications policy violation, and we should back up the game to the point of error.

Edited Eli Meyer (June 19, 2016 02:35:45 AM)

But, Anna's statement did not falsely represent derived information. I think we all agree that Anna's decision isn't one that we would make, and we may not enjoy playing with players who make that decision in a casual environment - but this is a decision that policy allows her to make. She made a statement about derived information, and that statement was true.

If NAP catches this wordplay, then I think it's safe for NAP to assume that AP hasn't forgotten her trigger :P If NAP doesn't, this is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that we simply cannot police every possible case of wordplay, angle shooting, or general spikeyness that we see.

As Shawn alluded to earlier, while it isn't true in this situation, the player answering the question can always answer as though the trigger hasn't resolved yet, until either a sorcery is cast or we clearly move into a new step or phase. But in both of these cases, we can't sanction the player because they arguably haven't done anything wrong.

When players are talking about derived information, they aren't required to give complete answers. Anything they do give must be correct, but it's well established that a player doesn't need to give the complete oracle text when answering “what does that card do”, for example. I see this as falling into the same box - you can't force Anna to choose between answering the question completely as asked and clearly refusing to do so without having a ton of unexpected side effects.

Originally posted by Dan Collins:

you can't force Anna to choose between answering the question completely as asked and clearly refusing to do so without having a ton of unexpected side effects.

What side effects are you envisioning?

I've already explained what I foresee as the consequences of allowing Anna's play as described. By doing so, we allows any number of misleading but technically true answers for edge-seekers to scum their opponents. Would you allow Anna to answer Nathan's question by saying "Barbarian Bully is a 2/2?" (correctly providing derived information, a card's Oracle text). What if her Mage-Ring Bully was in a different language and Nathan couldn't read the name?

What exactly goes wrong if we say that Anna has to either answer or not, and that she can't name a different power/toughness with intent to deceive?

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

The assumption that "this isn't Magic: the Gotcha, I don't need to worry about linguistic tricks and word games” is on that players shouldn't have to check. From my perspective, Nathan did check his assumptions when he asked for the creature's power and toughness and got told it was a 2/22/2.

The way I see it Nathan asked this question either because
- He himself is playing Magic: the Gotcha, hoping Anna's trigger is forgotten
- He has forgotten what has happened previously in the turn, maybe there was a distraction or it took long, in which case the more non-assuming, non-gotchaing, direct question would be “how many noncreature spells have you played this turn?”
- He doesn't know exactly what the card does. At competitive he should know, and if the card is in a foreign language, he should call a judge.

So while I agree this is Gotchaing by AP, I don't see why this NAP really needs protection.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

What exactly goes wrong if we say that Anna has to either answer or not, and that she can't name a different power/toughness with intent to deceive?

Either a whole lot goes wrong if we apply this to all derived information (there have been previous threads about this, “when you attacked with Abbot you said as abilities it had prowess but you forgot to mention it has an EtB ability, warning”) or we have to make a 4th category besides free, derived and private just for this, which I don't think is worth it.

Edited Toby Hazes (June 19, 2016 01:51:40 AM)

Originally posted by Toby Hazes:

The way I see it Nathan asked this question either because
- He himself is playing Magic: the Gotcha, hoping Anna's trigger is forgotten

Where's the “Gotcha” here? I don't see it. He want's to know if the trigger is missed. How is asking P/T different than, say, aiming Disfigure at it and seeing if it dies without saying anything

Originally posted by Toby Hazes:

Either a whole lot goes wrong if we apply this to all derived information (there have been previous threads about this, “when you attacked with Abbot you said as abilities it had prowess but you forgot to mention it has an EtB ability, warning”)

I don't see how this follows at all. Leaving an ability off isn't at all analogous to misrepresenting it's power/toughness. It's easy to draw a bright line between the two, and there is no reason we'd have to issue an infraction here even if we rule Anna's answer illegal. A more analogous situation would be a player asking if Abbot has any abilities aside from Prowess, and the opponent answering “it has no other activated or static abilities.” And I would be 100% fine with issuing an infraction to the responding player there.

Edited Eli Meyer (June 19, 2016 02:47:45 AM)

Let's use the same argument that is always brought up when the combat-shortcut gets discussed:
the Language Barrier

Spanish Player A plays vs czech Player B. B asks A that question in this thread. Both arent able to speak english very well. How would you handle this situation then?

Nathan asked a question poorly, wanting information about whether a trigger has resolved or not without wanting to remind his opponent about the trigger. We see players all the time wanting to know what the magic words are to find out about if a trigger is missed without pointing out the trigger.

The simple answer to that is there isn't. The correct play is to assume the trigger resolved. Nathan was willing to gamble the game result that he thought Anne had missed the trigger because of the wording of the answer - either he missed the word or chose to ignore it because it fit his assumptions.

The more I think about this scenario the more I think that both players have made mistakes in the hope of tricking their opponent into making a poor play decision. Anne has used the word “base” hoping Nathan will miss that and think she missed the trigger. Nathan is asking a question he hopes will get Anne to admit to resolving the trigger or even to trick her into a mis-speak and say 2/2 because that is what is written on the card. Anne could have easily known about the trigger, was going to remember it was a 3/3 at the point of resolving damage, but Nathan asking that question has made her make a mistake and just said 2/2.

I stand by my previous statement and would remind both players of their responsibilities for clear communication and to not assume that a trigger is missed.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

Where's the “Gotcha” here? I don't see it. He want's to know if the trigger is missed. How is asking P/T different than, say, aiming Disfigure at it and seeing if it dies without saying anything

Basically what Mark said.
If he wants to know if the trigger was missed, the direct, non-gotcha question would be “was the trigger missed?”
The IPG says a trigger has been missed if “the player controlling the ability doesn’t demonstrate awareness of the trigger’s existence the first time that it would affect the game in a visible fashion.” so the answer is basically always “no” at this point. He actually wants to know if the trigger was forgotten.
It also says “Triggered abilities are assumed to be remembered until otherwise indicated, and the impact on the game state may not be immediately apparent.” and "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."
It's impossible to talk about something you can't let your opponent remember. As long as the trigger is not missed, it's impossible to confirm that the trigger is forgotten.
Any wording that does try to achieve that is gotchaing in my opinion.

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

I don't see how this follows at all. Leaving an ability off isn't at all analogous to misrepresenting it's power/toughness. It's easy to draw a bright line between the two, and there is no reason we'd have to issue an infraction here even if we rule Anna's answer illegal. A more analogous situation would be a player asking if Abbot has any abilities aside from Prowess, and the opponent answering “it has no other activated or static abilities.” And I would be 100% fine with issuing an infraction to the responding player there.

I'm not 100% on that, but out of curiosity how would you draw the line? How would you write it in the MTR?

Edited Toby Hazes (June 20, 2016 10:46:03 AM)

My last thought about this is: How we must handle when a player ask something and his/her opponent answer another thing??

How F/R this are?? — It´s base F/R 2/2… it´s like answer it´s cloudy… because don´t answer the question…
If i atack with a flyer can u block? — My spider had not fly… it´s like answer my spider have 8 legs… a Yes/No question (because AP isn´t ask “have any flyer?”)

Where the line in make an answer that isn´t an answer of the question to try get advantage???

Originally posted by Mark Brown:

Nathan asked a question poorly, wanting information about whether a trigger has resolved or not without wanting to remind his opponent about the trigger. We see players all the time wanting to know what the magic words are to find out about if a trigger is missed without pointing out the trigger.

Toby Hazes
Basically what Mark said.
If he wants to know if the trigger was missed, the direct, non-gotcha question would be “was the trigger missed?”

There's nothing wrong with Nathan's question.

Nathan hopes Anna missed her trigger, and he isn't going to help her by pointing it out. This is hyper-competitive and not very friendly. But it's not unsporting or “gotcha” Magic because fundamentally, he's not trying to fool her. Is there any reason other than a forgotten trigger that would lead Anna to answer “What is Bully's P/T” with “it's a 2/2”? I can't think of any. Nathan's question can't make Anna miss anything she hasn't already missed.

A “gotcha” question would be intended to get Anna to answer “2/2” even though she knew better. For example, “what was your Bully's Power and Toughness when Divination was resolving?” would be a “gotcha.” In this phrasing, Nathan hopes that Anna doesn't know that Prowess resolves before the Sorcery triggering it and that he can trick her into skipping a trigger that she otherwise would have remembered and acknowledged.

Toby Hazes
I'm not 100% on that, but out of curiosity how would you draw the line? How would you write it in the MTR?

It would probably not be in the MTR, but rather in the annotations. The MTR say that players may not “represent” derived information correctly. We already have quite a bit of discussion, and precedent, on what constitutes “representing” information–using the wrong tokens, using a Tarmo-die, etc. etc. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the annotations to say that “intentionally phrasing an answer in a way that sounds like a false statement is a form of representing that false statement, even if the actual phrasing of the answer was technically true.”

Edited Eli Meyer (June 20, 2016 05:33:00 PM)

I agree with Eli. Put your position into the players.
“What's going on, attack? I don't know what' wrote on the card, though, I can see the card's colour! And what else? The numbers down the bottom. Oh! What creature is that? The power might of change, Hey, what is that (current) power / toughness? ”
"This is a 2/2. Can't you see? (Just don't block! )

Heyyyyy! Active player is trying to gain advantage by state a answer which leads the non-active player in a way that benefit themselves. This do not looks like miss trigger, is more of a communication issues, or even case to upgrade to a DQ.

–John B

Edited john bai (June 21, 2016 12:24:56 AM)

Originally posted by Eli Meyer:

There's nothing wrong with Nathan's question.

I disagree.

Nathan's question could - and probably should - be something more like “for 2?” when Anne attacks. Or “so, I'd take two?” Those are much more likely, and much better questions.

To be blunt, this scenario is a bit silly to begin with - players don't generally ask “what's the P/T of that?” - except, of course, as in this example, where Nathan is trying to trick Anne with his clever wording, which leads to her trying to trick him with her clever answer. Neither player is playing nice, here.

However, the rules favor Anne, here - as quoted and referenced above, Nathan just has to assume the trigger has been remembered, or call attention to it sooner than he might want to.

d:^D