Hello everyone!
The newest set from Wizards, Guilds of Ravnica, is released this weekend. With it come a slew of new cards for the Missed Trigger Project to look at for their sweet guild mechanics and flavor, but mostly for their Generally Detrimental Triggers. We wanted to write a post for this release to shed some light on why we chose the cards we did.
Our project deems (4) of the cards had Generally Detrimental Triggers from Guilds of Ravnica:
When Gateway Plaza enters the battlefield, it creates a tax that if not paid makes the player sacrifice it. If this land didn’t have this ability it would be substantially better, but having a trigger force the player to perform an action or lose assets is Generally Detrimental.
Chance for Glory creates a Delayed Triggered Ability on the Extra Turn’s End Step, causing the player to lose the game. Ouch! I am sure we could all agree, losing the game is Generally Detrimental. (Side Note: Current Creatures on the battlefield will gain the Indestructible ability permanently.)
Mnemonic Betrayal creates a Delayed Triggered Ability for the Next End Step. If a player doesn’t get their Graveyard back because it was left in Exile, it is advantageous for their opponent. Therefore, this is Generally Detrimental (Sorry, Eternal Scourge and Misthollow Griffin!).
Finally, we have Charnel Troll. This card’s 2nd ability says to exile a creature from your Graveyard during your upkeep and give it a counter; if you do not (or cannot), sacrifice Charnel Troll. Having a Troll is better than not having Troll (I do prefer them with colorful hair and a jewel in their belly usually), so this trigger is Generally Detrimental.
Something to keep in mind here, the 3rd ability of Charnel Troll does help the 2nd ability, making these at first glance appear to be like other cards with triggered abilities we do not consider Generally Detrimental anymore, like Bomat Courier. However, these abilities are independent of one another; and having to exile a creature card from the graveyard, and ensuring a creature card is always in the Graveyard moves this triggered ability to be Generally Detrimental. Sacrificing seems bad, too.
Cards that are Generally Non-Detrimental
For educational purposes, we want to highlight some cards here that might slip up some of us.
1. Glowspore Shaman Glowspore Shaman makes you mill three cards, which seems bad. But, it does this for advantage by potentially giving you a land. This is Generally Non-Detrimental.
2. Experimental Frenzy While there are many words on this card, none of these abilities are triggers.
3. Severed Strands There are not any triggers on this card, either. Sacrificing a creature is a casting requirement, not a triggered ability.
4. Plaguecrafter This trigger tells all players to do something. The owner of this card is playing it for this reason, so this is Generally Non-Detrimental.
That’s all we have for this release. We, in earnest, hope you took something away from this article. We will see you again with Ravnica Allegiance in January!