16) Which of these effects is least suited to be an upkeep trigger?
At the beginning of your upkeep…
a) …gain 4 life.
b) …discard a card.
c) …this creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
d) …win the game.
e) …untap this creature.
17) Which of these effects is least suited to be a saboteur trigger?Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player…
a) …that player gains 4 life.
b) …discard a card.
c) …it gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
d) …win the game.
e) …gain control of target blocking creature.
18) Which of these effects is least suited to be a end step trigger?At the beginning of your end step…
a) …if you lost life this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.
b) …discard a card.
c) …create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token.
d) …win the game.
e) …untap this creature.
Click through to see the answer and my rationale.
The best answer to #16 is E because the last thing that happened in the game was the untap step; It could be relevant on a creature with a tap ability, or if you have instant effects that you pay for by tapping your creatures, but even then there are better times to untap your creature an extra time. A and C are fine, and thus unacceptable answers. B is the second best answer: Discarding before your draw step is weird; it's better than discarding during your draw step, but still awkward. D is a fair answer: There are many alt-win cards that trigger during your upkeep. This would be the first without a condition and that's significant, but assuming that card has some kind of distinct vulnerability, it's defensible.
The best answer to #17 is C because the primary impact of P/T boosts is on combat, but combat is over by the time this triggers; It could affect a post-combat fight, but we're not going to make a creature whose purpose is to attack and then have you cast
Prey Upon on it afterward; If the toughness boost could save the creature that would help, but this triggered ability won't resolve before the state-based effects of combat damage kill it. A and B help your opponent, which is odd and usually not what we want, but could be downsides to justify strength elsewhere; A is a weak answer and B is unacceptable. D is an unacceptable answer as it already effectively exists on
Phage the Untouchable. E is a weak answer; Blocked/Blocking status doesn't fade until the combat step ends, not as clear as we'd like that this works, but it does.
The best answer to #18 is A because it creates a window where your opponent can
Shock you to get around the trigger; since you will only be losing life during your own turn from things you do that cost you life or from your opponents' instant-speed effects, that loophole means your opponent is never affected by this trigger. B is a decent answer, because forcing discard just before cleanup step enforces maximum hand size is suboptimal, but you can cause players who aren't near their hand limit to discard. C is an unacceptable answer, because there are no problems with making tokens during the end step; You might have vaguely remembered
Waylay was problematic because there was a time when you could cast it during the end step to sidestep the intended defensive nature of the card, but token creation is not the issue. D is a fair answer; You could absolutely win the game during your end step, but we prefer to put alt-wins in the upkeep so your opponent is guaranteed one chance to answer your bid at sorcery speed, or to win the game first through combat. E is a weak answer because untapping your creatures for use in other turns is fine, but that's better accomplished during other player's upkeep steps.
These questions were very focused on timing implications and require you to visualize a realistic moment in a game. Strong knowledge of existing cards and past problems helps, though partial knowledge might have hurt a little.
Notes and answers, before clicking through:
ReplyDelete16. E. This is only relevant if the creature has an instant-speed tap ability.
17. C. This is only relevant if the creature has double strike or there are additional combat steps. A is close, though, since it weirdly undoes most or all of the damage to players-- kind of like reverse frenzy.
18. A. This is a closer call; all of them are possible, but A only works if you have some way to make yourself lose life (or the opponent plays instant-speed burn).
Ha ha. I originally messed up why A was the answer to #18 because the effect I was lifting from Paladin of Atonement would trigger during your opponent's end steps not yours (in this hypothetical situation where the trigger isn't deferred to the next upkeep step to prevent the loophole). Fortunately, you're right, and A is still the best answer.
DeleteWhile reading n°16 answers, I first used a different reasoning than you did to eliminate wrong answers : starting with the fact that upkeep triggers are prone to be forgotten, and this is not a "may" ability, which one is the least problematic to go back to later in the turn without affecting gameplay to much ? (in the context of casual play) Gaining life shouldn't be to impactful most of the time, but discarding strikes me as a potential problem (if you realise you missed it after drawing and playing cards). +3/+3 isn't problematic (as you can always re-play the combat step while accounting for the change), unless your opponent has a trick from their hand. Win the game, surprisingly enough, isn't problematic at all here since if you forget about it and remember later, well further actions don't have any consequences (but then since it's a major effect it should rarely be forgotten).
ReplyDeleteFinally I read your last answer : "untap this creature", and I was like : "oh. I guess it's E then. I used the wrong approach." Still I liked my reflection so I wanted to share it.
Thanks for sharing. Other perspectives are always useful. "How would this be to judge at a tournament" is one I sometimes forget about that is pretty important.
Delete16) E. Untapping literally just happened!
ReplyDelete17) C. Would lead to confusion for new players, who would want the additional 3 damage.
18) D. Win-the-game effects don’t happen at EOT, because it’s unfun - giving the opponent “one last chance” is much better gameplay. You could come up with a really convoluted trigger that works as an “end of turn”, but it should almost always work better as an upkeep trigger that requires a turn instead.
Concerning the one I disagreed on: A set that has a big enough damage-to-self or life payment theme wouldn’t care about the Shock at EOT loophole very much. But like the wins-the-game trigger, you gain some benefits for turning it into an upkeep trigger. I think both answers are “right” in the sense that an upkeep trigger is better for both.
DeleteAh, interesting question, good test of knowledge of small but important considerations.
ReplyDeleteI go #1, disagree about #2, but missed #3. Oops!
For #1, I did hesitate. There *are* cards like Brass Gnat that have an upkeep untap trigger, but it's not literally "At the beginning of your upkeep, untap CARDNAME", and alt-win cards are just rare overall even if most of them trigger at upkeep. But after a moment of hesitation I decided the question was clearly referring to the direct effect with no additional conditions.
For #2, I'm still not sure I agree. What cards have opponent-lifegain? Something like "When this deals combat damage to an opponent, they gain 4 life. Whenever an opponent gains life, they lose twice that much life." Or something. That's possible, but fiddly.
Conversely, I can imagine something like "Double Strike. Whenever ~ attacks for the first time each turn, untap it, and there's an additional main phase and additional combat phase after this phase. Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, it gets +3/+3 UEOT".
I'm not sure, but I think the pump creature is more appropriate than the lifegain creature. The growing-ing definitely IS confusing, but I think having future combat damage events to come makes it a lot more obvious what happens, even though "+3/+0" is probably *better*. Whereas the lifegain one is really Melvin-y, I feel like there's usually going to be a better way of writing that than immediately undoing the combat damage. Even on an aura you put on an opposing creature, giving it -4/-0 makes more sense than giving it anti-life-link.
For #3, I just missed the timing interaction.
Edit: OK, and for #3 I *also* missed that it only triggered during your turn. Oops again :)
DeleteI don't understand the timing issue for the last question. How is there now a window where they can deal damage to you without it triggering the counter?
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of the end step, the condition will fail to trigger because you haven't lost life this turn. Then the opponent can Shock you anytime during the end step and the card won't care. See rule 513.2 here.
DeleteOf course, it's absurd that Magic has something called an "end step" which is distinct from the actual end of the turn! This is part of the legacy of the game being printed without a robust rules engine to make its mechanics precise.
This is, I think, an actual problem with the rules, that could be closed ot make things work more intuitively.
Delete