Bloodgift Demon

| DLI

At a Standard GPT (REL Competitive), Adam controls a Bloodgift Demon. After Nadine passes her turn, Adam untaps, draws a card and immediately proceeds to the Declare Attackers Step.

He attacks with both Bloodgift Demon and some other creatures. Nadine casts a Go for the Throat, targeting Bloodgift Demon, to which Adam responds by casting Undying Evil, remarking: “This badass is too good to simply let him die!”; right after that, he realizes he did not remember the trigger of the Demon and calls for a judge.


When you arrive at the table, you hear Nadine sigh “Too bad, I already hoped you wouldn’t remember and miss the extra card”.

What are the infraction(s), penalties and fixes you apply?

View Answer

Since this is not a lapsing trigger and less than a turn cycle has passed, Adam receives a Warning for Missed Trigger; we put the trigger at the bottom of the stack. The trigger asks for a target player, so even if the trigger will only resolve after both spells on the stack have been dealt with, Adam has to choose a target player for the ability right now.

Nadine does not receice a Warning for Failure to Maintain Game State, per the new IPG we don’t do that anymore: Players are responsible for their own triggers, opponents are not obliged to point them out, even if they are obligatory.

Now the important question is: why is Bloodgift Demon‘s trigger not lapsing?

Either the Demon is giving your opponent a card or costing you a life, and thus doesn’t fulfill the requirements in the definition of lapsing triggers, regardless of which player is chosen as a target. For a good read about the new Missed Trigger Policy we can’t recomend enough the comprehensive article Toby Elliott wrote about it:
http://internationalmagicjudges.net/article-1624

The final question remaining is why drawing a card is not in the list of lapsing triggers: while we all think of the great advantage of extra cards, and recognize that through stiffer penalties for Drawing Extra Cards, it’s not always a good thing. Just think of “mill” strategies…