Disclaimer: this article was written before the announcements on 12/22. The focus should be read as being on the philosophy that drives to policy, which still explains why policies are shifting the way they have been and what you can expect in the future.
Along with the Banned and Restricted list changes earlier this week, Wizards announced changes to the IPG, basically, the tournament rules. You’ve probably heard about this, and you probably know roughly what changed. The short version is that you don’t have to point out when your opponent misses a trigger. There’s a lot more to it, but it’s essentially all intended as an expansion of that idea.
Apparently, making this change in practice is nowhere near as simple as it looks. While many people commenting on the changes get right into nitpicking the (somewhat arbitrary-looking) list of beneficial abilities, I think it’s better to try to understand what’s happening in these changes and why.
Let me run you through the history as I know it.
At Worlds, Erik Lauer (and probably others) asked for feedback on how players would react to a rules change that said players are no longer responsible for pointing out their opponent’s missed triggers. After he asked me, Alan Comer wandered by, and we had a discussion about it. I was immediately in favor of such a change, and Alan was strongly opposed. Why?
To me, the rule is essentially unenforceable. If my opponent misses something, like an Angel of Despair trigger, it’s my responsibility to say something. If I do, it will likely make me lose the game; if I don’t, I can always claim I didn’t notice, or I assumed it was a may ability, and really, nothing relevantly bad is ever going to happen to me.
Fortunately, Magic is a game, and most people playing want to play fair. Most people are honest enough that they will point out missed triggers of their opponents because the rules say they have to, even if they don’t have any fear of retribution.
Unfortunately, this means that unscrupulous players will simply win more games than honest ones.
That sucks for the good guys.
It also puts people who genuinely forgot or didn’t know if a trigger was mandatory, like Brian Kibler, in an awkward position where some people might suspect he cheated. If the rule was different, he’d be in the clear. Score another one for the good guys: honest mistakes don’t make you look dishonest.
That’s why I like the change. Why didn’t Alan?
Basically, he sees this rule as saying that the rules of the game don’t apply in tournaments. On Magic Online or in FNM, the game will be played the way it’s supposed to, and cards will do what they say. He feels like this rule itself breaks the rules, if you accept that that’s possible. (Alan, I apologize if I’m misrepresenting your case, not that I expect you’re reading this.)
I might be getting ahead of myself with that aside about FNMs, but I might as well address it now. The changes made this week only apply at competitive events. The reasoning, I assume, comes from the above, when I said that the problem with the old rules was that they helped cheaters. Apparently, the governing body feels that everyone is friendly and playing for fun, and people wouldn’t cheat at FNM, and it’s a better environment for new players if their opponents have to help them out with their triggers. I don’t really agree with a lot of different parts of this view, but I think it’s the reasoning. I’ll get back to this.
Note that above, what I said about how this rule helps take away the advantage that dishonest players have over honest players is why I supported the change. It is not, I think, the primary reason R&D wanted to make the change.
For them, it’s about making cards and templating. Apparently “may” is an extremely problematic word. It may sound odd to you, as an experienced player, but there are actually players who find the wording confusing. If a card says, “whenever a creature enters the battlefield, you may gain one life” is that card just letting me know that it’s possible that there are creatures in the game that give me life when I play them? Thanks for the heads up, card, but I didn’t really need to know that. I’m not sure that what I’m saying will be clear to you because you’re so used to reading “you may x” on a Magic card to mean “you have the option to perform the following action,” but, from what I’ve heard, their research indicates that there are people who read that as saying something more like “this event might happen,” and we have no way to know if it will or not.
That’s only one small problem. There are several others. Needing to click yes over and over on Magic Online is one of them. Frustration over forgetting is another. But basically, they want to be able to stop using the word “may” because its meaning is linguistically ambiguous. Switching everything to must is easy, but, for anyone who’s ever played with Selhoff Occultist, you probably know that it can quickly create game states that are hard to rectify when both players forget a mandatory trigger and then remember later.
If the rules say it’s okay to forget, you don’t need to back up to maintain or establish a legal game state; you just accept that it didn’t happen and move on. That’s a lot cleaner.
So, if, moving forward, Wizards stops printing cards with the word may, making all triggers mandatory, and rule 3.1, the rule on missed triggers, includes the following line, which was just added to it:
“Players other than the controller of a trigger are under no obligation to point out that a trigger has been missed, though they may do so if they wish.”
What’s the problem?
When a missed trigger is caught, a warning is given, and then one looks to the “additional remedy” section of the guidelines to see what else happens. I’ll quote that for you for easy reference:
“Additional Remedy
If the trigger event occurs during the upkeep of a player other than the trigger’s controller and that player has drawn a card before giving the controller a chance to resolve the trigger, but no other actions have been taken, put that trigger on the stack and issue no penalty.”
This rule is simple; it just says they can’t rush you past their upkeep by drawing a card if you had a trigger then.
It continues:
“If the trigger instruction is optional (“may”, or “up to X” where zero is a valid choice) and specifies no consequence for not doing it, or the trigger is an optional ability (section 1.4), assume that the player has chosen not to perform the instruction and issue no penalty.”
Simple, if you forget a may, you just chose not to do it, and nothing illegal happened; there’s no penalty, same as always. Awesome.
“If the trigger requires no choices to be made and has no effect on the visual representation of the game, assume the ability resolved at the appropriate time and issue no penalty. The visual representation consists of elements the players are able to see happening or on the battlefield, such as zone changes and adding counters to permanents, as well as life totals.”
This would be for something like Stigma Lasher’s ability. If players forgot to say that it happened, it doesn’t matter; just assume it happened anyway because nothing was supposed to change at the time anyway, so the game state is already correct. Another clean solution, no problems.
“If the trigger has an instruction that specifies a default action associated with a choice made by the controller of the trigger (usually “If you don’t …” or “… unless”), resolve the default action immediately without using the stack. If there are unresolved spells or effects that are no longer legal as a result of this action, rewind the game to remove all such spells or abilities. Resulting triggers generated by the action still trigger and resolve as normal.”
This is where things can start getting complicated because we’re changing game states based on things that were supposed to happen in the past and didn’t. If you have a creature with an upkeep cost, and you forgot to pay it, and you attack me with it, and I suddenly notice that you didn’t pay for it, we call the judge, you get a warning, and we put your creature in the graveyard. If I notice immediately after I try to Doom Blade that creature, we back up, and the Doom Blade goes back to my hand.
Where things get even more complicated is if you attack with the creature and another creature, and I have one creature in play, and I block your other creature with my one creature, then notice that the creature you didn’t pay for should be dead. We put your creature in the graveyard immediately. Now, let’s say you have Grave Pact in play. Resulting triggers still happen, so the Grave Pact trigger goes on the stack, and I have to sacrifice the creature I blocked with. It’s a good thing I didn’t notice until after I blocked because the rules say your other creature is still blocked even though my creature should have died in your upkeep when you failed to pay.
Awkward, but it’s just a corner case, and it’s nothing new.
“If the trigger requires a choice that does not have a default action, requires a choice made by another player, or requires no choice, but will have an effect on the visual representation of the game, and the error is caught within the scope of a turn cycle (see below for definition), insert the forgotten ability on the bottom of the stack. The player may not make choices involving objects that were not in the zone or zones referenced by the trigger when the ability triggered. If the error is discovered partway through an action (such as choosing blockers), complete the action before inserting the trigger into the stack. If the error is discovered after a turn cycle, continue the game without resolving the forgotten trigger. A turn cycle is defined as the time from the beginning of a player’s step or phase to the end of that player’s next same step or phase. If a turn cycle would end in a skipped step or phase (but not turn), the turn cycle expires when the step or phase is skipped. No attempt should be made to rewind the game state to the point of the missed trigger.”
This section says that when missed triggers of a certain nature are caught, you never rewind the game; you just put them on the stack. This means that if I attack with Geist of Saint Traft and don’t put a token into play and you declare blockers, then I could call the judge, say that I forgot to make an Angel and put it into play tapped and attacking, and you wouldn’t be able to block it because blockers had already been declared. This would let me win a game I couldn’t have won otherwise. You had the option to point out the trigger, but you didn’t have to.
Imagine a game where you’re at two and you have two 1/1 flying Spirit tokens. I attack with Geist of Saint Traft and forget the trigger. You can remind me or not. If you remind me, you have to block both creatures and lose your guys. If you don’t remind me, you can either block the Geist with one and keep a creature in play, or you can double block and kill the Geist. If you follow this line, you risk the danger that I’ll remember, call a judge, and put an Angel into play after blockers, and you’ll just die. It’s an awkward decision to put you in: do you hope I actually forgot, rather than that I’m just angle shooting you?
This is why section 1.4 was created. It fixes this problem. Let’s look at how it does that.
“1.4. OPTIONAL ABILITIES
Traditionally, some abilities include the word ‘may’ as part of their text, indicating that their effect is optional. At Competitive and Professional REL, some additional triggered abilities and enters-the-battlefield replacement effects are considered optional. The player is not required to follow the instruction when the ability resolves, and if the ability is forgotten it will not retroactively be applied. An optional ability does one or more of the following things, and nothing else:
• Gains you life or causes an opponent to lose life.
• Puts cards from your library, graveyard, or exile zones into your hand or onto the battlefield. This includes drawing cards.
• Causes opponents to put objects from their hand or the battlefield into the library, graveyard or exile.
• Puts a permanent into play under your control or gives you control of a permanent.
• Puts +x/+x counters, or counters linked to a beneficial effect, on a permanent you control.
• Gives +x/+x or a beneficial ability to a target creature you control.
• Exiles, damages, destroys, taps, or gives -x/-x to an opponent’s target permanent. If the ability could target your own permanents, it is not optional unless that ability could target an opponent.
• Gives you additional turns or phases.
• Counters a spell or conditionally counters a spell, but only when cast by an opponent.
Abilities that trigger at the same point in each player’s turn and do something to “that player” (e.g. Howling Mine) are never optional.
This list is comprehensive. An ability that does not fit all of the criteria above is not optional, even if it is to the benefit of the player controlling the ability. Similarly, an optional ability is always optional, even if it would be to the detriment of the player for it to happen.”
Putting an Angel token into play is covered under the fourth bullet point; it puts a permanent into play under your control. This means that it is considered an optional ability; this means that you don’t have to put the trigger on the stack even though the printed Geist of Saint Traft doesn’t say you can choose not to make the Angel.
That’s a very clean solution. A vast majority of the time, we can dodge the complete mess of a game state that occurs in examples like this and the Grave Pact instance above by saying you simply chose not to perform an optional trigger, and we can move on with the game.
Let’s look at a slightly different case though.
Imagine I have a Suture Priest, and you have Geist of Saint Traft with Sword of War and Peace. We’re both at one life. You attack. What happens under the new rules?
On Magic Online, your Geist of Saint Traft triggers; you get an Angel token; and Suture Priest kills you.
At FNM, you forget to make your Angel. I remind you. Geist is a mandatory trigger; you make an Angel. Suture Priest kills you.
At a PTQ, you forget to make an Angel. I remind you; you point out that section 1.4 applies because we’re in a competitive event, so his trigger is now considered optional, and you don’t want to make an Angel. I can’t block because of the sword, and I die.
Seriously, that’s how this works right now.
I’d be pretty comfortable with it, if the change applied to all of Magic, if these things were just all errata’d to function as optional abilities. It would be a pretty big functional Oracle update, but it would have some positive implications on tournament Magic in general, so I could deal, even if it caused some significant functional changes in the power level of certain cards.
Well, let’s look on the bright side. This is still a very narrow corner case. Most of the time, you want to do all these optional things, so it shouldn’t change much, right?
Well, that’s the hope, but it’s not 100% guaranteed to work out that way. The most obvious card that might cause problems is Mind Unbound.
Have you played with this card in Limited? It’s really powerful, but often, you just can’t win with it before you deck yourself.
Well, what if you play with it at a PTQ under the new rules?
Mind Unbound has a trigger that does two things:
• Puts cards from your library, graveyard, or exile zones into your hand or onto the battlefield. This includes drawing cards.
• Puts +x/+x counters, or counters linked to a beneficial effect, on a permanent you control.
Those are both on the list, so this is now an optional ability. You can draw until it gets dangerous, then go back to drawing only during your draw step.
It’s conceivable that a deck could exist that takes advantage of that card. If this deck were to play in the top 8 of a PT, players at home would watch coverage and see pros choose to stop drawing with Mind Unbound whenever their hand was already full. They’d think playing with a full hand all the time is pretty sweet, build the deck, and bring it to FNM. Once there, they’d play against someone in the first round who didn’t know the rules, and they’d explain how they saw it work to their first-round opponent, and they’d beat them with it.
Later in the tournament, they’d play against someone who was familiar with the IPG, and that player would tell them that because this is an FNM, the ability is not optional, and their deck doesn’t work.
Many people at that tournament leave with a very negative experience.
All of this is entirely possible under the rules as announced.
Fortunately, there’s almost no chance that a tournament will actually be played with the rules as is.
Matt Tabak, the rules manager, @tabakrules on Twitter, tweeted the following on December 20th:
“We’re talking about the new IPG changes and any unforeseen consequences. Holes will be closed. We’re listening to feedback. More to come!”
I’ve spoken with senior judges, and the following change is being given strong consideration:
“If a card’s Oracle text contains a mandatory ability that would be an Optional Ability under 1.4, an opponent may insist that the instructions are followed on resolution.”
This simple line would, as far as I can tell, fix almost all the problems caused by these changes. No one could build a deck that exploits changes to existing cards because their opponent could always choose to force them to play with the card as written. Corner cases where one takes advantage of a card’s new functionality are cleanly removed.
I’m still uneasy about having rules that are different in FNM and on MTGO than at higher-level events, but because a player could no longer take advantage of the changes over a watchful opponent, the impact is minimized.
So how did this policy get announced without that line? Well, in case you haven’t been paying attention to PWP announcements, Wizards communication about rolling out significant changes is, as the kids (Julian Booher) might say, “clown shoes.” I honestly have no idea how they can fail to carefully vet policy changes that they’re announcing while dealing with the horrible lack of faith that their waffling on PWP announcements has inspired, but at this point, I suppose it’s hard to be surprised. On the bright side, at least we know that when bad policies are announced, they’re likely to change.
But really, how did this rules update happen this way, without that line? Maybe the line isn’t so simple. I’m told the most common issue raised that that rule would cause is the answer to the question, “How long does my opponent have to call me out on forcing a mandatory/optional trigger?” To me, this isn’t a complicated issue. If you want it to play as much like its announcement as possible, without allowing for abuse, just say that they have until they take any game action, at which point they’ve accepted the game state you’ve offered by choosing to skip the ability. This is actually very clean and simple.
Basically, this change all came down from R&D, who may not have fully realized how awkward of a position they were putting the rules guys in to try to deal with removing may. This was their first attempt, which I gather was somewhat rushed, but it’s likely to change before any tournaments happen with the new policy in January.
From what I’ve heard, most judges support this change, and it’s up to R&D to accept. Unfortunately, Erik Lauer was unavailable for comment at the time of writing this article, but my guess is that this is the change that’s going to happen.
If that does happen, what do you need to know to take advantage of new options offered to you by the new IPG? Honestly, very little. Any strategic decision you make based on skipping a mandatory trigger, your opponent can catch you on, so really, it just means you should be careful about your own triggers and careful to force an opponent to do things he might not want to do, if the option presents itself.
If that change doesn’t happen, sorry, but if you want to optimize your play, you’re going to have to study and learn the exact list of abilities that are now considered “may” so that you know when you can click no if a card doesn’t make it clear—or just keep playing FNM, where your cards will function as printed.
Thanks for reading,
Sam
@samuelhblack on Twitter