Magic Judges Forum / Regular REL / Interpreting the JAR with respect to CR117.12a

Todd Bussey · Feb. 9, 2017 11:09:38 PM

117.12a Some spells, activated abilities, and triggered abilities read, “{Do something} unless {a player does something else}.” This means the same thing as “{A player may do something else}. If {that player doesn’t}, {do something}.”

From the JAR:
If the ability includes the word "may,” assume the player chose not to perform it.

If a player passes turn without acknowledging his Lathnu Hellion trigger, is he assumed to have chosen to not pay and therefore sac it?

At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice Lathnu Hellion unless you pay (Energy)(Energy).

by 117.12a it means the same thing as

At the beginning of your end step, you *may* pay (Energy)(Energy). If you don't, sacrifice Lathnu Hellion.

A literal reading of the JAR says put the trigger on the stack and let him choose now, but the translation of the trigger by way of 117.12a seems to say he chose not to perform it.

Which interpretation is intended?

Edited Todd Bussey (Feb. 9, 2017 11:26:13 PM)

Yong Ming Lim · Feb. 10, 2017 06:49:33 AM

This is covered in additional remedies of the missed trigger section of the JAR. “If the triggered ability specifies a default action associated with a choice made by the controller (usually ”if you don't…“ or ”… unless“), give the opponent the choice to resolve it choosing the default option. …”

The wording is awkward there but you can see the meaning. The opponent gets the choice to resolve it in the next priority step or at the start of the next phase, with the default as the choice. Lathnu Hellion will be sacrificed.

David Rockwood · Feb. 10, 2017 08:01:54 AM

Originally posted by Yong Ming Lim:

This is covered in additional remedies of the missed trigger section of the JAR. “If the triggered ability specifies a default action associated with a choice made by the controller (usually ”if you don't…“ or ”… unless“), give the opponent the choice to resolve it choosing the default option. …”

That is the IPG, not the JAR :)

Originally posted by Todd Bussey:

From the JAR:
If the ability includes the word "may,” assume the player chose not to perform it.

An opinion on this:

We can assume that the player chose not to perform it because we have arrived at a legal gamestate in most of these situations. I.e. A player may loot off of a smugglers copter. If they forgot, the gamestate is still legal if we assume he just chose not to perform the action. Therefore, we assume he did not forget, but rather made a legal choice.
In the situation you propose, deciding to do nothing is not a legal action. He must either pay the energy or sacrifice the hellion. In the strictest sense, he may pay the energy in order to prevent the sacrifice, but I don't think I would assume someone made a decision here, because they did not resolve the ability correctly for either possible decision.

Dustin De Leeuw · Feb. 10, 2017 12:03:38 PM

Let's first have a close look at the relevant quote from the JAR:

These abilities are considered missed if the player did not acknowledge the ability 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, use your judgement to decide if putting the trigger on the stack now would be too disruptive - don’t add it to the stack if significant decisions have been made based on the effect not happening!

If we just keep it a ssimple as possible: Hellion's trigger does not contain the word “may”, so just treat this trigger like you would any other trigger that doesn't say “may”. While I appreciate your very technical and detailed application of the CR, it's not something I expect the average judge at FNM to know, let alone to be able to explain that to players.

I also belive this doesn't suit the philosophie of judging at Regular: we want to prevent feel-bads and trickery, and this feels too much like that. On Competitive, as Ming pointed out, the player just chose to sacrifice the Hellion… but that line of thinking should be reserved for Competitive, not for the kitchen table, so also not for FNM.

Kenny Dolson · Feb. 10, 2017 01:21:04 PM

I agree with Dustin. The JAR purposely gives us as judges more latitude at Regular REL in order to provide opportunities to educate the players. Because the trigger doesn't actually contain the word “may”, there's absolutely an argument to be made for this not falling under that blanket, and I believe that that argument is correct in this situation. We're still in the end step, I see nothing wrong with simply putting the trigger on the stack and letting AP make the choice.

Dominik Chłobowski · Feb. 10, 2017 03:30:59 PM

I was convinced of your logic earlier, but at this moment, I don't think 117.12a is meant to replace the text of the card, but acts more like an instruction/explanation of how to resolve these abilities.

Like David mentioned above, the decision on these triggers is kind of mandatory one way or the other, so it's very different from a normal may trigger where the default is “do nothing”. As such, I don't think you're supposed to behave as if it were a may trigger in this situation.

On a side note, I disagree that “it's not something I expect the average judge at FNM to know, let alone to be able to explain that to players.” is particularly relevant to providing a ruling.

Isaac King · Feb. 12, 2017 06:47:09 PM

The “may trigger” clause in the JAR is really meant to cover triggers where the choice is between having some effect and having no effect. When the “may” refers to a mandatory choice between two options, I would just treat it as a normal trigger- we either put it onto the stack, or we treat it as missed.

Since we have more leeway at Regular, I would be tempted to rule in favor of the person who didn't miss the trigger. For something like Lathnu Hellion (choice between two bad things) or Entrails Feaster (choice between a good thing and a bad thing), I think I would usually put the trigger onto the stack. For something like Rashmi (choice between two good things), I would probably let it be missed. Of course the game state and time since the trigger was missed would factor into my decision.

Dustin De Leeuw · Feb. 13, 2017 06:04:03 PM

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Since we have more leeway at Regular, I would be tempted to rule in favor of the person who didn't miss the trigger.

This is not a part of the JAR philosophy. While tempting, please don't do this.

Originally posted by Isaac King:

The “may trigger” clause in the JAR is really meant to cover triggers where the choice is between having some effect and having no effect. When the “may” refers to a mandatory choice between two options, I would just treat it as a normal trigger- we either put it onto the stack, or we treat it as missed.
…
Of course the game state and time since the trigger was missed would factor into my decision.

This part I wholeheartedly agree with!

Isaac King · Feb. 14, 2017 05:29:35 AM

Originally posted by Dustin De Leeuw:

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Since we have more leeway at Regular, I would be tempted to rule in favor of the person who didn't miss the trigger.
This is not a part of the JAR philosophy. While tempting, please don't do this.

I didn't mean to imply that this is what we should normally do over all else. However, while not explicitly stated in any official document, it is my understanding that it's part of judging philosophy that we err of the side of the player who didn't make the error if all else is equal. This has been mentioned in several threads here, most recently the one about illegal choices for Lost Legacy.

What I meant by my statement is that if the current game state is such that I could see myself going either way when deciding if the trigger should be put on the stack, I would fall upon favoring the player who didn't commit the error.

Mark Mason · March 21, 2017 04:40:28 AM

Originally posted by Dustin De Leeuw:

Originally posted by Isaac King:

Since we have more leeway at Regular, I would be tempted to rule in favor of the person who didn't miss the trigger.

This is not a part of the JAR philosophy. While tempting, please don't do this.!

I know when I read the JAR there was talk about “upping the strictness” or reducing it depending on the play group. In that respect, couldn't Isaac be quit correct for his particular playgroup, or am I misunderstanding the way play group seriousness and JAR philosophy intersect.

Brook Gardner-Durbin · March 21, 2017 05:05:55 AM

Originally posted by Dominik Chłobowski:

On a side note, I disagree that “it's not something I expect the average judge at FNM to know, let alone to be able to explain that to players.” is particularly relevant to providing a ruling.

I think I'm with Dustin here, and I'd call this relevant.

If we have a possible interpretation of the rules or a ruling that requires a real expert to understand and deliver to players, it's probably not actually correct for FNM. L1s are not expected to be rules or policy experts, and I'm against anything that asks them to be.

Russell Gray · March 21, 2017 11:29:48 AM

Originally posted by Brook Gardner-Durbin:

If we have a possible interpretation of the rules or a ruling that requires a real expert to understand and deliver to players, it's probably not actually correct for FNM. L1s are not expected to be rules or policy experts, and I'm against anything that asks them to be.

While I agree with this sentiment, I don't agree that 117.12a requires a real expert to understand or explain. 117.12a is just an explicit translation of the rule to apply the rules of English to the text of the card. “(Do A) unless (you do B)” is exactly the same as “(you may do B), otherwise (do A)”. Your average kitchen table player will recognize that if they missed a Slaughter Pact trigger, it means they lost the game - because that's the drawback that allows the card to be so powerful. This is the same.

Edited Russell Gray (March 21, 2017 11:31:02 AM)

Håkon Gulbrandsen · March 21, 2017 02:13:34 PM

Originally posted by Russell Gray:

Your average kitchen table player will recognize that if they missed a Slaughter Pact trigger, it means they lost the game - because that's the drawback that allows the card to be so powerful. This is the same.

Then again, if this happened during FNM, what would your fix be? According to the JAR, wouldn't you just put the trigger on the stack?

Marit Norderhaug Getz · March 21, 2017 02:59:43 PM

Originally posted by Russell Gray:

“(Do A) unless (you do B)” is exactly the same as “(you may do B), otherwise (do A)”.

Unless I'm completely mistaken here, 117.12a just exist to help players/judges resolve cards correctly. It's not an errata which changes what fixes we should apply. If JAR was meant to refer to “unless” in addition to “may”, it probably would have said so clearly, or included a phrase like “such as”.

And when it comes to the discussion about interpretations and FNM: It's not that 117.12a is hard to understand if you know about it, but more that we shouldn't expect judges to take a fix that specifically mention just one word, and apply it on triggers with a completely different word with similar meaning. If this was in the IPG, one could at least defend it by the fact that you are supposed to understand the policy behind fixes, but at regular REL, that is not the case. So it is not that we drop this kind of “translation” of the fix because it is too hard for Regular REL, as I don't think we should do this no matter the REL, it is just a rationalization of why it is extra wrong at Regular REL.

In addition to all that, I don't think the fix should be changed to cover this situation either. There is a clear difference between choosing between something and nothing (which is usually the case with “may”-triggers), and chosing between two things (which is usually the case with the “unless”-triggers). At regular, assuming the players to skip something they don't have to do fits with how newer players see the game (where other triggers is still kind of treated as mandatory) and helps speed up games, but having to choose a default option just because they forgot a trigger feels too strict in most cases, and is not supported by the current JAR.

Originally posted by Russell Gray:

Your average kitchen table player will recognize that if they missed a Slaughter Pact trigger, it means they lost the game - because that's the drawback that allows the card to be so powerful. This is the same.

Unless we want to translate the fix, this isn't supported by JAR, we have some leeway of course, but why be this strict? We shouldn't apply IPG-fixes at regular REL, even if we think kitchen table players would “get it”. In some cases, these players can be more strict than we would be at Competetive REL (for instance when it comes to dexterity errors), it doesn't mean that we should adopt this when we judge.

As it is know, triggers without “may” written on them should usually be treated similarly, and that fits with us not requiring the players to play technically correct and not wanting too strict penalties for messing up. I wouldn't force a player to lose the game due to a missed pact trigger at Regular REL, it just doesn't fit with the policy of Regular REL, though I would probably do some kind of backup before resolving the trigger if needed.

Russell Gray · March 21, 2017 03:30:41 PM

The JAR uses non-technical language because it's meant to be understood by people who are familiar with the game, but not really judges. It doesn't have room to list every exception to every rule, but “may” and “unless” are pretty clearly in the same category of “triggers that you can't go back for if you forget about them”. It doesn't really make sense to use a quote from the JAR to justify treating similar triggers differently based on if it literally contains that specific word.

You can be super technical and take both the exact quote from the JAR *and* the exact wording from the CR into account. Or you can interpret it in a way that makes sense to most English speakers, even if it isn't precisely the same. But letting someone get the good choice on an “unless you do” trigger is being strict on one, while ignoring the other.

Now if someone were to draw a card and then try to pay for their pact, because they didn't know that upkeep comes before draw, that allows a little more leeway. But if they've clearly forgotten about it and are moving along in their turn, I don't see the default action as being overly harsh. Anyone who is bringing Pacts to FNM is going to be familiar with the concept that if you forget about it, you lose the game. And they played it knowing that they had to remember it next turn or they'd lose. It might cause a feel-bad moment in the sense of slapping one's head “oh no why did I do that?!”. But it's not going to create a feel-bad moment in the sense that a player feels judges or other players are picking on them.

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Interpreting the JAR with respect to CR117.12a

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