There’s something afoot at Karlov Manor, and once we’ve been invited inside there’ll be a whole bunch of clues to a murder mystery. As with most sets, there are a few triggered abilities that can throw a wrench into players’ gameplans and earn them some Warnings if they’re missed. Don’t worry, though – we’re here to guide you past the red herrings to the triggers that are generally detrimental. Grab your best awkwardly-shaped hat and let’s get to it!
Nine cards have one or more triggers that upgrade to a Warning when missed:
“[You may put a creature card onto the battlefield]. Return it to your hand at the beginning of the next end step.”
Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and red getting rid of creatures after they’ve outlived their usefulness. Generally speaking, keeping an extra creature on the battlefield is better than not, so a player who forgets to return the creature to their hand will earn a Warning.
“When this creature leaves the battlefield, return the exiled cards to their owners’ hands.”
Aurelia’s Vindicator is sort of like Oblivion Ring on a body. While there are certainly some cases in which a player may want to exile some of their own creatures or creature cards, generally this is a removal spell attached to a 4/2 with a bunch of good keywords. If we’re usually exiling opponents’ stuff, it stands to reason that giving them their stuff back is bad. As such, a player who forgets to return the exiled cards here will receive a Warning.
“Whenever a creature is dealt damage, its controller may exile that many cards from the top of their library. They may play those cards until the end of their next turn.”
The set’s lone symmetrical trigger! If Anna controls this enchantment and her own creature is dealt damage, it won’t upgrade if she forgets to exile cards. It would, however, upgrade if Anna’s Grizzly Bears dealt damage to Nora’s Hill Giant. Also, note that there’s no “oh they just chose to not exile cards” option here; the shortcut of “if they forget to do it, just assume they left things alone” only applies specifically to scrying or surveilling.
4. Festerleech
“Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you mill two cards.”
The ever-contentious self-mill rears its ugly head once more. Since Festerleech itself doesn’t have any interaction with or benefit from the milled cards, this mill is considered generally detrimental.
“[Make a Thopter token]. Sacrifice it at the beginning of your next end step.”
Three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and red making tokens that have to go away at the end of combat. If someone forgets to sacrifice their intrepid Thopter token, they’ll earn a Warning. Since this trigger undoes a zone change, it doesn’t expire. As soon as the error is noticed, get that Thopter gone.
“When this creature enters, target opponent creates two 1/1 white Dog creature tokens.”
There are many things better than giving your opponent creatures, especially not doing that. If a player forgets to tell their opponent to make some free blockers, that will earn the first player a Warning.
“When this creature enters, you lose 3 life.”
Much like the above cardinal rule of “your opponent having fewer creatures is better,” having more life is generally better than having less life. If someone plays this creature face-up and forgets to lose 3 life, they’ll earn an upgraded Missed Trigger – Warning.
“When this land enters, sacrifice it unless you tap an untapped artifact or land you control.”
In what seems to be a recurring theme of triggers in this set, more of a resource is better than less of a resource. A land that asks you to sacrifice another land is usually worse than one that doesn’t require that. As such, if a player plays a Thoroughfare and doesn’t sacrifice an artifact or land, they’ll earn themselves a Warning.
9. Pull, the right half of Push // Pull
“[Put creatures from a graveyard onto the battlefield]. Sacrifice them at the beginning of your next end step.”
Much like Anzrag’s Rampage and Harried Dronesmith above, Pull sets up a delayed trigger for you to get rid of the recently-returned creatures. A player who neglects to will earn a Warning. Again, the remedy here never expires; ashes to ashes, dust to dust, these creatures will be sacrificed when the error is noticed.
Looks like we’ve cracked the case of generally detrimental triggers in this set. Our next set will follow us, thematically, through Hollywood – the sun sets on Murder at Karlov Manor’s film noir pastiche, and the sun rises on the Western stylings of Outlaws of Thunder Junction! Yeehaw, pardner.