A situation has been raised within the UK community which has been heavily discussed but without conclusion so I'd like to see what other judges think of it.

Player A controls an Aetherling. At some stage, they activate its ability to exile it until end of turn, but forget to return it to the battlefield at the appropriate time.

Later in the game, during Player B's end of turn step, the stranded Aetherling is noticed. This is an example of a delayed zone-change trigger, so Player B has the option to either have the Aetherling enter the battlefield now, or to have it enter the battlefield at the start of the next phase. They choose the next phase and the Aetherling enters the battlefield at the beginning of Player A's Beginning Phase (i.e. the start of their untap step).

Here's the question: Can Player A attack with Aetherling this turn? Why / why not?

I don´t think it could attack. He didnt control it since the beginning of his turn, so it would have summoning sickness as seen in 302.6

302.6. A creature’s activated ability with the tap symbol or the untap symbol in its activation cost can’t
be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since his or her
most recent turn began. A creature can’t attack unless it has been under its controller’s control
continuously since his or her most recent turn began. This rule is informally called the “summoning
sickness” rule.

I would agree with Ricardo. Aetherling's return is still a trigger, so it
still goes on the stack. That means it can't actually return at the true
beginning of the turn, but later in the Untap step.

If we are putting a trigger on the stack, it can't actually happen until the upkeep begins. The IPG remedy doesn't technically say to put the trigger on the stack, but to resolve it. Either way, I wouldn't resolve it until the upkeep because nothing can happen during the untap step other than untapping and Undiscovered Paradise's replacement effect (abilities can trigger, but they don't go on the stack until the upkeep). And even if I did resolve it during the untap step, that's not before the turn begins, so the creature is still sick regardless.

Reference:

If the triggered ability is a delayed triggered ability that changes the zone of an object, resolve it. For these two types of abilities, the opponent chooses whether to resolve the ability immediately or at the start of the next phase.

A paraphrase from my response on said UK forums.

If we let Aetherling attack, it assumes that when the IPG says “do something”, it directly refutes the point in the CR that says “this cannot happen” - that is, things happening in the untap step that should not happen.

If a Mind Control were to phase in - you would gain control of something in the untap step - this is the first thing that would happen in the step, however it is not simultaneous with the turn or phase beginning. If Aetherling's trigger were to resolve in the untap step, this is when I believe it would happen - i.e. not simultaneous with the untap step/turn beginning.

This is a corner case at best, but with a card seeing play at the moment in Standard, it could come up more.

Jack Doyle
L2, London, UK.

Thanks, Josh, I had definitely forgotten that triggers can't go on the
stack (although they can trigger) during the Untap step.

My reading of the IPG was always that the missed trigger that changes the
zone of an object still goes on the stack when it's missed, but it can
either go on immediately or at the beginning of the next phase. It seems
to me that some are interpreting that paragraph to mean that the trigger
simply resolves (either immediately or next phase) without allowing any
responses or use of the stack. Perhaps we could clarify which of those
interpretations we want going forward?

So policy is pretty clear about this, we have to resolve the delayed triggered ability at the beginning of the next phase – the beginning phase of A's turn. By a strict interpretation of the rules, this would make Aetherling summoning sick (the ability resolved only after the turn has begun). I think about that we can mostly agree.

There is some debate about whether this is during untap or as the first thing to happen at upkeep, I can't tell you a case where the distinction between the two would matter.

The question is, is this an appropriate place to use the D-Word: Deviation? Well, is this a special case that policy did not foresee? I'm inclined to think so, the philosophy is we don't want Obzedat's forever in exile or Ball Lightnings that never die. The goal was never to “punish” a player for missing the trigger by making creatures summoning sick.

Of course, Uncle Scott may come by and refute anything and everything I just said.

This is a quite odd one, that actually happened to me at GP Warsaw.

The problem here is: when does Aetherling return? Does the turn start with
Aetherling in play? Does the turn start and then we resolve the ability?
(note the ability does not go on the stack, the MIPG just says to resolve
it)

I don't really see support on the rules for either case, and this seems to
be ambiguous as things are now. The way the MIPG says now to “resolve
immediately” seems to be a bit messy in this particular case, perhaps a
better phrasing would avoid us finding this odd situations where things
happen at a moment where nothing should happen.

What I ruled at GP Warsaw was that the Aetherling could attack. My
interpretation is that there is not a point where we are in the Untap step
and the Aetherling is not in play. What I believe is that the turn starts
simultaneously as the ability resolves.

This ruling is not necessarily correct, is just my interpretation. As I
said I don't think it is supported by the rules. You can argue that the
turn starts, and then the ability is resolved, but I don't think that is
supported either.

Originally posted by Samuel Nathanson:

Uncle Scott may come by and refute anything and everything I just said

Did I hear my name? ;)

The wording in the IPG is not by accident - it says to RESOLVE, not put it on the stack. I know it's not clear, but - at least unless the wording changes - let's not do things in the Untap step that can't normally happen there. That doesn't seem like a very clean remedy to an already mucked-up situation.

The NAP may, in this odd little corner case, get to choose whether or not AEtherling is affected by Summoning Sickness.

This exact scenario came up for me at GP Warsaw, where I checked with the Juergen Bart - HJ at the time - after neither me nor my Teamlead was sure about this.
In Warsaw, the Aetherling was able to attack. The reasoning behind this was as following:

A creature is summoning sick if it has not been under your control since the beginning of your turn.
The ‘phase-in’ ability is resolved at the beginning of the next step, beeing the untap step of player A.
Note that it is automatically resolved, so it does not need to use the stack, which is why it was decided that it actually CAN be resolved at the beginning of the untap step.
Now, as to wether it can attack or not - has there been any point in time during player A's turn where it was NOT under the control of player A? We came to the conclusion that there has not been any such point, hence it has been under player A's control since the beginning of his turn, hence it is not summoning sick.

Was this the correct ruling? I honestly do not know, but it did feel the most intuitive.


EDIT: David was faster I guess :>
EDIT2: ^5 David!

Edited Philip Ockelmann (Aug. 28, 2013 04:01:24 PM)

Originally posted by David de la Iglesia:

that actually happened to me at GP Warsaw.

Correction, this happened to Philip and me ;)

Philip Körte
EDIT: David was faster I guess :>

^5 Philip!

I'm more on the side of the “can't attack”-people since to be NOT summoning sick it has to be under player A's control since the beginning of his turn BUT there happened something in between the turn beginning and the creature being under player A's control namely the creature entering the battlefield from exile. According to my interpretation of the rules nothing can happen AT the “Beginning of a turn” things can happen before (at the end of player B#s turn) or after (in the untap or upkeep of player A) but not at and thus independently of when we resolve the delayed trigger there was some time in player A's turn when it was not under his control.

Edited Christian Genz (Aug. 28, 2013 04:53:31 PM)

Originally posted by Philip Körte:

A creature is summoning sick if it has not been under your control since the beginning of your turn.
The ‘phase-in’ ability is resolved at the beginning of the next step, beeing the untap step of player A.
Note that it is automatically resolved, so it does not need to use the stack, which is why it was decided that it actually CAN be resolved at the beginning of the untap step.
Now, as to wether it can attack or not - has there been any point in time during player A's turn where it was NOT under the control of player A? We came to the conclusion that there has not been any such point, hence it has been under player A's control since the beginning of his turn, hence it is not summoning sick.

But the trigger resolves at the beginning of the untap step. Meaning the turn has to have started before the trigger can resolve. So I'd say there has to be such a time, even if there have been no things like SBEs or priority yet.

Samuel Nathanson
The question is, is this an appropriate place to use the D-Word: Deviation? Well, is this a special case that policy did not foresee? I'm inclined to think so, the philosophy is we don't want Obzedat's forever in exile or Ball Lightnings that never die. The goal was never to “punish” a player for missing the trigger by making creatures summoning sick.

But is “not punishing” players forgetting their triggers a goal? I'd say neither are. It's not about punishing or not punishing, thus neither strongly pulls in favor of a deviation.

I would go with cannot attack. The reason being - the player forgot their trigger.

Would we be arguing the same if on the opponent's declare attackers step the player remembered, now the opponent gets to decide if the creature returns now and can be used to block, or return at the start of the next phase (post-combat main phase). If the player had remembered at the appropriate time, it would be available to block. Same with if they had remembered at the appropriate time it would be available to attack.

As Scott said, let's not open up the can of worms that might allow things to happen during steps that players don't get priority.

I want to say cannot attack, reasoning along the lines of Christian. At the beginning of the turn we are resolving the action of moving Aetherling from exile to the battlefield. That means that we can say that it existed in exile for a brief moment that turn. This means that it was not on the battlefield continuously since the start of turn.

Whether or not it comes in during Untap or Upkeep I agree with Sam that I cannot see it mattering. Therefore I would go with Uncle Scott and say Upkeep since nothing should happen during Untap.