No Pain, No Gain - The Knowledge Pool

Ari and Ned are playing against each other in round 3 of a local GPT. On turn four, Ari untaps the Pain Seer he attacked with last turn and says ‘Seer trigger’. In response, Ned casts a Lightning Strike, killing the Seer. Once the spells resolve, Ari draws his card for turn, then realizes he didn’t reveal it for the trigger. You’re called over. What do you do?

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Answer

Thank you all for your participation this week! Rules changes can be minor and sometimes easy to forget, and this one is no exception.

Pain Seer has a trigger which requires a physical action on resolution. As such, simply acknowledging the trigger is not sufficient for the trigger existing – if you forget to take the required action as it resolves, you have still missed it. In this scenario, despite pointing out the trigger, Ari did not take the required action (revealing the top card of his library, potentially losing life, then putting the card into his hand), and instead moved right to his draw step. Therefore, he has missed the trigger. Because this trigger isn’t generally detrimental, there is no penalty associated with the infraction. Ned will be given the choice whether to have the trigger placed on the stack, then play will resume.