In a M19 Coreset Draft at the Top8 of a PPTQ, Andy plays against Ben. Andy attacks with Poison-Tip Archer which gets blocked by Gargoyle Sentinel. Both creatures die in combat and are put into the graveyards.

Now Andy remarks “Ok, you lose 1 life, ..” and after a very short break he says “oh nevermind, it says other creatures.”. Ben says nothing, but knows there could be on Poison-Tip Archer trigger on the stack, caused by the Gargoyle Sentinel dying.



Andy tried to put the trigger on the stack because of Poison-Tip Archer, thinking it says “whenever a creature you control ..” instead of “whenever another creature …”. Ben was fully aware of what triggered abilities shouldve been placed on the stack, but also knows he isn't responsible about Andy's triggers, unless aknowledged by Andy.

Did either player commit an infraction? Especially, Ben accepted that Andy “removes from the stack” a triggered ability, when the same ability of the same object should've been put on the stack at the same time.. but because of a different reason.

Sounds to me like Andy acknowledged a trigger that didn't exist (the one caused by Poison-Tip Archer dying) and then corrected himself. He never mentioned any trigger caused by Gargoyle Sentinel dying, making it missed. I see no problem here.

For me it's the other way around. From the text, Andy acknowledged a trigger from the archer and just that “a” trigger, he did it from the wrong creature but the origin it's correct

For me Ben it's very close to cheating, from my point of view and for me Andy didn't miss any trigger

If I had this call at a tournament, I would probably have ruled that Andy acknowledged the trigger, so it's on the stack.

But after thinking about it I'm inclined to agree with Isaac. There are two triggers involved here, the one Andy acknowledged from the Archer dying, which doesn't exist. And the one he never acknowledged from the Gargoyle dying. The first one he acknowledged incorrectly, but corrected himself. That's fine. The second he didn't acknowledge, and so is a missed trigger, which we handle as normal.

The problem here is that this isn't super clear from the judge who gets this call and is told “I said trigger, pointed to my archer, realized it doesn't, then realized it does, does he lose a life?”, and isn't super obvious from the opponent's point of view either. Assuming he knew what SHOULD have happened (trigger for gargoyle), he hears “trigger” thinks “yup”, then his opponent goes “no wait” and he's now not sure if he's cheating if he doesn't correct him.

IMO the trigger was acknowledged by saying “you lose one life.” If I was presented with the argument that he didn't acknowledge the correct trigger, I would ask what trigger that statement could possibly refer to. If there is another triggered ability that refers to “another creature dies” I would accept that its possible Andy missed his trigger. If there isn't, the trigger is on the stack, and the players needed help to correctly resolve it. Infraction would be GRV FTMGS only if we have moved past the point where the trigger could still be on the stack.

Edited David Rockwood (July 11, 2018 02:30:16 AM)

I'm with Isaac here – sounds to me like Andy tried to acknowledge a non-existent trigger, corrected himself, and never mentioned the trigger that exists at all. I'm not issuing any penalties, and I'm not stepping in if I'm watching the match and see this happen.

If AP has a Dark Confidant and, at the beginning of their upkeep, points at it and says “I gain 5 life? … Oh wait, nevermind” and then goes to draw their card, that situation seems pretty similar to this one. AP has a trigger available to them, but didn't acknowledge it in any way. Instead, they pointed at the relevant card at a relevant point in time to try to put a non-existent trigger on the stack, realized it wasn't a thing that actually existed, and moved on without trying to resolve the non-existent trigger. That's not a problem.

My question is:
How can someone (either a judge or a player) know which trigger belongs to which creature based on Andy's words “Ok, you lose 1 life, ..” and “oh nevermind, it says other creatures.”??

From the text we know what Andy's thinking in the scenario, but in the real world scenario, we are not Professor X, so we cannot know what other people are thinking.

If

“Ok, you lose 1 life, ..” and after a very short break he says “oh nevermind, it says other creatures.”.

is said in such a way that they could be considered as part of the same statement then I agree with the idea that a trigger that wasn't actually created was acknowledged.

However if there was enough of a break that the two can be considered separate statements I would say that there is a trigger on the stack, Andy just isn't clear himself where it came from. “Ok, you lose 1 life” has to be classed as acknowledgement of a trigger at a point a trigger would be on the stack. We shouldn't remove the trigger from the stack later just because it turns out the player didn't quite understand why it's there.

Originally posted by Tony Tong:

From the text we know what Andy's thinking in the scenario, but in the real world scenario, we are not Professor X, so we cannot know what other people are thinking.

We can't know, but we can ask the player what they were referring to. If Andy says “I thought poison-tip archer said ‘another creature,’” I would be unlikely to rule he acknowledged something separate that doesn't exist.

Asking the player removes ambiguity. You either get a direct answer about what the player meant by their words, or they are cheating.

Originally posted by Tony Tong:

How can someone (either a judge or a player) know which trigger belongs to which creature based on Andy's words “Ok, you lose 1 life, ..” and “oh nevermind, it says other creatures.”??

From the text we know what Andy's thinking in the scenario, but in the real world scenario, we are not Professor X, so we cannot know what other people are thinking.

I disagree here. From these sentences, I believe we know exactly what the player was thinking – they announced a trigger, then realized what they'd announced didn't exist. There's no indication they ever acknowledged the actual, real trigger.

I don't see much use in trying to figure out whether the two phrases were one thought, separated by a pause, or two separate phrases. Our missed trigger policy is pretty clear that the player needs to clearly acknowledge the trigger before moving on, but that doesn't have a connection to whether their spoken words were one or two sentences. We don't want tournament Magic to be about that kind of Gotcha. The player saying “Oh, nevermind” negates whatever they were just talking about, regardless of whether they used 2, 4, or 24 sentences.

Originally posted by IPG:

A triggered ability that causes a change in the visible game state (including life totals) or requires a choice upon resolution: The controller must take the appropriate physical action or acknowledge the specific trigger before taking any game actions (such as casting a sorcery spell or explicitly taking an action in the next step or phase) that can be taken only after the triggered ability should have resolved. Note that passing priority, casting an instant spell or activating an ability doesn’t mean a triggered ability has been forgotten, as it could still be on the stack.

I think we have seen a phantom trigger try to go on the stack, and then the mistake was caught. There's no reason the actual trigger can't be on the stack right now, but it hasn't yet been acknowledged, and there are no penalties for either player so far.

From the mind of the players:

Andy first thought Poison-Tip Archer says “whenever a creature you control dies, ..” and thus announced one trigger for itself dying. Right after, he read parts of Poison-Tip Archer where it says “another” so corrects himself on the trigger.
It never occured to him that Poison-Tip Archer would ever trigger because of Gargoyle Sentinel dying.

Ben is a very competitive player always looking for an edge. At the same time, Ben is very aware of the IPG and MTR and obligations he has. He thinks that because Andy didn't announce the specific trigger: “Archer triggers” instead of “Archer triggers because of Gargoyle dying”, the correct trigger was never acknowledged. Andy could've been about to commit a kind of GRV resolving “Archer triggers because itself dying” so of course, Ben lets Andy correct this mistake.

A follow up question: If Andy said „You lose a life for the Gargoyle dying. Oh, it‘s only for my creatures dying, nevermind.“, what would happen? Can he forget the trigger in this case at all?

Markus - That sounds to me like Andy is not trying to put his trigger on the stack because he doesn't know how his cards work. If he proceeds with the game from that point, I'd rule he had missed it, and I wouldn't step into the match if I saw this happen in a match I was watching.

I'm also very much along the lines of that it's a missed trigger. Basiclly with the though of they tried to put a trigger that was not there according to there own actions that followed.
But What also comes to mind then is did that same player in turn commit an infraction.
Can we not argue that the player tried putting a trigger on stack that did not exist and there for commited a GRV?

Originally posted by Patrik Fridland:

Can we not argue that the player tried putting a trigger on stack that did not exist and there for commited a GRV?

Yes, that could be argued, but I'd say this line from the IPG tells us it's fine:

Originally posted by IPG:

If a minor violation is quickly handled by the players to their mutual satisfaction, a judge does not need to intervene.

Since Andy committed an infraction but then caught himself, with no damage to the game state, I would not issue a penalty. If he had attempted to resolve the trigger, then his opponent caught the mistake and called a judge, I would issue the Warning.