While playing in a local PTQ, Alfred controls an Assault Griffin, a Thraben Valiant and Geist of Saint Traft, while Mr. Nigma has 3 Brushstriders and a Rage Thrower.

Alfred declares all three of his creatures as attacking, placing an Angel token on the battlefield tapped and attacking.

Before declaring blockers, Mr. Nigma casts Tower Defense, then declares his Brushstriders as blocking the Assault Griffin, Geist of Saint Traft and the Angel token.

Before moving to Combat Damage, Mr. Nigma also casts a Searing Spear, targeting the Thraben Valiant, which Alfred puts in the graveyard.

The players move to combat damage, where things become confused and they call for a judge. While both players are agreeing that all of Alfred’s creatures should be in the Graveyard, Mr. Nigma believes he should be able to do 8 damage to Alfred.

How many triggers (if any) have been forgotten and why?

Judges, feel free to discuss this scenario here!

[expand title=”View Answer”]Given our 4 main categories of triggers and when they are considered missed, we can go through all the creatures with triggers here and determine when those triggers were either successfully remembered or missed.

In this example, only Geist of Saint Traft and Rage Thrower have triggers, so lets step through those two cards.

The Geist triggers when it attacks, putting the Angel token into play (tapped and attacking) – this would be “A triggered ability that causes a change in the visible game state…” – Alfred put the token into play at the appropriate time, so that one is considered remembered.

Rage Thrower triggers whenever something else dies – it requires a target be declared, so it is “A triggered ability that requires its controller to choose targets…” , so let’s step through when things die in this scenario. The first creature to go the graveyard is the Thraben Valiant. At this time – specifically before moving on to combat damage – Mr Nigma does not make any mention of this trigger, so it is considered missed. The next time creatures die is as a result of combat damage and at that time, Mr Nigma is incorrectly noting that his opponent should take 6 damage, which would include the 4 damage that Alfred should be taking from the 2 remembered triggers.[/expand]