This coming Saturday I will be judging at the Prerelease. Of the five new guild abilities, four of them involve triggers. Of those four, two say “may” and two do not. I'm already anticipating hands going up calling “judge” for any one of those triggers getting missed. I've read the IPG section many times on missed triggers. But, as documented, the IPG is not for Regular REL. I've read the JAR many times, too. Triggers aren't mentioned there, but “required game actions” are, and they do make mention of actions that were optional, saying to play on as if they were opted out.

Events at Regular are for fun, sociality, education, and yet there are prizes involved. For lack of clearer documentation on the subject, my initial reaction to missed triggers at Regular REL is to give the player a turn to recognize a missed trigger they control, whether it says “may” or not, and allow them to put it on the bottom of the stack. Opponents are also responsible for game state at Regular, but I don't hand out Warnings for those, even if they're detrimental to the controller. I think I would only do this if I detected the player was trying to get away with something over and over again.

So, my question is two-fold: 1) Are there any documents or articles addressing missed triggers at Regular REL and 2) have I been handling this correctly in the past? I want to be a good Level 1 and I want to be prepared to judge the upcoming Prerelease.

I won't try to answer your questions, but I will make a suggestion for anyone running a prerelease (or other Regular REL) event…

At the beginning of the event, include something like this in your announcements: “Players, we're all here to have fun - that's the real goal for this type of event. And we're all learning these new cards, new mechanics, etc. So let's all pitch in and help each other to do just that - have fun and learn, that is. If you see a trigger your opponent may have missed, just tell them - it's Sporting, it helps you both remember it, and you'll both have more fun!”
You could even add “and remember, there's only one (two? three?) of me (us?), so the more you help each other, the more fun *I* (we) can have, too!”

And then enforce that - help the players learn the new cards in a fun atmosphere. If you actually have a player who is too competitive to accept helping his or her opponents - and there's always that one grump in every crowd - then remind them that “prize support today doesn't really reward Competitive behavior, maybe today is a good day to just kick back and have some fun with the new cards”.

And if that still doesn't work, just expect to get more judge calls from that player, and his/her opponents, than the rest of the crowd.

d:^D

I've moved this topic to the Regular REL forum as it is more appropriate than the Rules Discussion forum.

To add to Scott's answer as well, at Regular REL both players are responsible for the triggers, players cannot say nothing if they notice an opponent has missed a trigger.

Those are all very good tips, so thank you. But what do I do when a trigger had been missed by both players? Do I fix it? Do I rewind? Do I insert it at the bottom of the stack? And when is late too late? I'm normally not so nervous; beginning-of-upkeep, beginning-of-end-step, enters-the-battlefield, damage triggers, etc. are part of any new set. But with 4 new keyword triggered abilities, I'm just nervous is all.

The Judging at Regular REL document says the following -

A player has forgotten to take an required game action since the start of their last turn
If the action was optional, assume they chose not to – and no further fix is required. Otherwise, resolve the action now. If several instances of an action have been forgotten, resolve any that have been missed this turn. Any older instances are ignored.

I would remind the players that it's a prerelease, to read their cards a bit more carefully, and if the trigger was optional (it specifically says “may”) then point out that we assume they chose not to use the trigger, otherwise put it on the stack and make any choices at that time.

Sure I suspect there will be quite a few more missed triggers than would normally be at a prerelease, it really isn't any different to any other Regular REL event on how to handle it, the trick at the prerelease is to understand that it's more likely to happen due to newness of abilities.

But two guilds this Saturday have MAY triggers and two don't. I kinda didn't want to see two guilds miss their triggers as if they'd opted out, and two guilds get their missed triggers because of the requirement. However, it's not about what I want, but what the players want. I think if I see a trigger missed by both players, or one is reported, I'll let the trigger resolve. That sounds fair at a prerelease with all these new triggered abilities. But they've got one turn to catch it. And education will definitely be part of the process.

I'm so excited for Saturday! I love being a judge!

While I would probably be a bit more lenient if it was caught very soon after the may trigger was missed.

Exort - I would limit it to no later than immediately after an Exort spell resolves. I wouldn't allow it if it were several spells later or on the next player's turn “Oh I forgot Exort”, I would treat that as normal and remind them that they need to remember when the spell is cast.

Reading up on the Gatecrash mechanics, only 1 trigger is optional, Extort. Cipher while reading like a trigger is just part of the spell resolution, so no trigger involved, so really they have to make that choice as part of resolving the spell. Sure if they put the card in the graveyard and then point it out, no harm no foul, but after another action seems that they really shouldn't be getting the ability. Evolve is not optional, so should be treated like any other missed trigger at regualr rel, Battalion is not optional so again treated like any other missed trigger. Bloodrush is an ability word relating to different activated abilities.

So really it's just Extort that may need some leniency, and I really wouldn't go much beyond the resolution of the spell, given a player may not notice it's a triggered ability and just think it's like Cipher and should occur as part of the resolution.

Cipher has a may trigger once you've encoded a creature. Could see that getting missed somewhat often depending on how players decide to note their encoded spells.

Yes, Mark and Nathaniel. The second triggered ability was from cipher where the copy may be cast upon doing combat damage to an opponent. So, although Regular REL is relaxed, it's also not kitchen table REL.