Hi all - this came up in a discussion today and I'd really love to hear what some of your thoughts are! :)

Player A is playing against Player N (competitive REL).

During Player A's upkeep, he removes the last time counter from Lotus Bloom, then proceeds to his main phase and sacrifices it for mana. Player N calls a judge and indicates that Player A removed the last time counter, but did not cast Lotus Bloom.

My best guess:

Suspend cards have 2 potential triggers, removing a time counter and, “when the last time counter, play this card without paying it's mana cost”. Since there are no time counters on it anymore, you can't satisfy the second trigger's condition. An argument could be made that if you miss the second trigger, the card sits in exile indefinitely.

Player a did not miss the trigger. He's clearly demonstrating awareness of it by treating Lotus Bloom as a permanent. If player B wishes to respond to the spell, I'll gladly rewind the game to the point where Lotus Bloom is on the stack, but he'll have a very hard time convincing me that player a missed the trigger.

It's not very common that a player removes the last counter from suspend then “forgets” to play it but it can happen (I witnessed a player casting Bloodbraid Elf then attacking with it forgetting the trigger that makes it potential ban target :wink:).

We know by experience that 99% of times he just assumed it was cast and there was no response. But what about the other 1% of situations?

Suppose you DID forget that the bloom would go into play in the upkeep and only remembered later in the turn? Some players would do the right thing, ie, call a judge and tell they forgot the 2nd trigger. Most (imo) players would try to sac it for mana hoping the opponent assumed it was cast during the upkeep.

@Carsten: he did treat it as a permanent but do we know when he realised it was in play?

AP removing the last trigger from the Lotus Bloom (And perhaps re-positioning the card on the playmat?) is a clear indication that he demonstrated awareness of both suspend triggers. If the NAP is unhappy with the shortcut, and has actions to take, as Carsten said a rewind may be in order, but from this scenario it seems clear that AP did not forget his triggers.