There's obviously a lot of text about handling missed triggers, but I can't find any on “missed” static abilities, which are just as common (and just as invisible). I was hoping to find some information talking about this in general, on par with when effects of triggers need to be acknowledged. (For example, if you have a 2/2 which gets +1/+1 when it attacks and on damage you tell your opponent “Take 2” is that different in terms of fixing it to having a 2/2 and an enchantment which gives all creatures +1/+1 and telling your opponent “Take 2”?)

The way this came up, and what I've been trying really hard to understand, is specifically how this works with ascension.

The situation:
AP controls an Arch of Orazca and, at some point, nine other permanents. He says nothing. Several turns later he's down to less than ten and goes to activate the Arch's second ability. NAP tells him he can't as he doesn't have the city's blessing. AP says he ascended several turns ago but NAP is irritated because he didn't notice any point when AP had ten permanents, and he definitely doesn't have ten now.

On investigating you can be fairly sure that AP did in fact control 10 permanents and the Arch simultaneously, but it was several turns passed. Can he activate the Arch's second ability or not?

A hypothetical:
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to add hypothetical situations here as well, but in trying to work out how to handle that I also became stressed out about how to handle a slightly messier version of the same thing. If AP doesn't control the Arch at all, but instead several turns ago cast Pride of Conquerors. He miscounts his permanents and does all his combat math as though his creatures have +1/+1. Then, later, AP realizes he had more permanents than he thought (maybe a Desert's Hold sitting on the other side of the board or something) and says he has the city's blessing. NAP says he doesn't because he failed to acknowledge ascend.

This example obviously also contains an error in improperly resolving the ability of his spell, but that's not the part I'm worried about. This was, again, several turns ago, and now AP has less than 10 permanents and wants to do something that he can only do/is better with the city's blessing. Can he?

Sorry if this is all a bit of an overly newbish question… I know in general static abilities simply are and don't require interaction from the players to make them true, but I'm finding a challenge in ascend since it can affect the board in a non-visible way and then have its conditions no longer be verifiable by time the effects would be visible. Are players allowed to use this to their advantage to “sneakily” ascend and then do things with the city's blessing later?

My memory said we'd covered this in a fair bit of detail, but it seems just lots of thoughts in one thread; some of the posts in that thread went a bit too far down the “OMG What If??!?” road, but there's some relevant ‘O’fficial posts in there - including this one.

The short version for you, Emma: you've described some GRVs, so we're going to follow the remedies associated with GRVs, including possible backups. In the case where several turns have passed, we will not do a backup.

However, if it's a matter of having the City's Blessing or not, the number of elapsed turns doesn't matter - it just makes your investigation a bit harder, perhaps less certain. And in those scenarios, the ‘O’ posts on that other thread should help.

d:^D

Thank you for your response. I also read the article that was linked to earlier in the thread you posted. I just want to double check my understanding if that's alright–

Originally posted by [https://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2018/01/15/policy-changes-for-rivals-of-ixalan/:

So how do we handle ascending? It’s not a trigger, so it can’t be missed. At some point, it just happens. If a player takes an illegal action because they forgot about it (or didn’t notice), treat it like any other Game Rule Violation – consider a backup, or leave the game as is. They still have the city’s blessing, though.

This counts for when Ascend is a spell ability on an instant/sorcery as well as when it's a static ability on a permanent, correct? So in my second example where a player casts Pride of Conquerors as though they did not ascend, despite being at 10 permanents when it resolved, later when they notice this error and call me over to fix it I should tell them that they do indeed have the city's blessing?

Edited Emma Barrett (March 28, 2018 08:49:40 AM)

If you can work out that they did have 10 permanents at a time that an Ascend card resolved or was on the battlefield then you should rule that yes they have the city's blessing.

If you can't work out if they did then you should rule that they do not have the city's blessing.

Perfect, thank you so much for the clarification!

Also, Emma, take a read here with the changes to the policy regarding the status of a player.

this makes it so your opponent has to tell you and have a physical way to show he has city's blessing.

“So we’re tearing out the whole Tracked Totals section and introducing a new type of communication information to go with free, derived and private: status! Status information is metadata about a player, including their life total, all the counters that are attached to them, and any continuous effects that apply to them. Those must all be physically represented, and when a change is made to any of them, it must be announced.”

https://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2018/04/23/policy-changes-for-dominaria/