Could the rules support an ability that triggers if a card is exiled? If so would it need to care about the zone it was exiled from

I believe it could.

Could the gift mechanic work as a triggered ability instead of something solely done on cast? Such as "when this creature attacks, you may Gift a Food."

I don’t know if the current version of gift can do that, but as it’s a cost, I assume we could tweak things to make that work. Just a hunch though. I’m not the Rules Manager.

Hi, Mark! A templating question (with some recent card text for reference):

Whenever you commit a crime, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. This ability triggers only once each turn.

Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on Dusk Legion Duelist, draw a card. This ability triggers only once each turn.To save space and avoid any sense of letdown, why does Magic not more frequently use phrasing such as the following?

The first time you commit a crime each turn, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

The first time one or more +1/+1 counters are put on Dusk Legion Duelist each turn, draw a card.Unrelated feedback: I quite like these designs, which slot perfectly into a certain Burn deck of mine: Amped Raptor; Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury; Fear of Missing Out (such good art); Bloodbraid Marauder; also Inventor's Axe.

Two main reasons. One, it becomes a memory issue where you have to think back to what you did before you cast this spell. Two, it increases the chances that you miss a chance to use the card the turn you play it.

How much are cards allowed to care about exile in a generic sense? For example, triggers when something is exiled, or getting +1/+1 for each exiled card. It seems like a type of effect that's shown up slightly more often lately.

Cards can care about other cards in exile. The thing we need to be careful with is getting back cards from exile (that weren’t put there by the card getting them out).

"The timing of upkeep made a lot more sense in early Magic when it dealt actual upkeep costs...Now that most of these effects aren’t upkeep costs, you want to let players draw their cards first to have more information for when it triggers."If it were at all within your power, do you think, then, that you would move the upkeep step to be after the draw step if you could?

It’s another in the camp of “if we started over, we’d do it this way”.

Hey Mark would you mind following up on the Party-Crasher-Monarch question? Folks in the notes pointed out a monarch-specific rule that says the current monarch controls the monarch triggers and thus the active player wouldn't get to order those triggers to insure they become monarch. Seems reasonable but wanted to clarify since we're still in silver border land.

The answer isn’t very Un. It has to do with stacking triggers. I did miss who gets to stack the triggers. Rules are not my forte.

Can the rules handle a ward cost that only triggers once each turn or would you write it out as its own ability?

My gut is no.

There are some effects that require a target, even though they often do nothing with that target. (For instance, there are many effects written like "At the beginning of your end step, you may pay {5}. If you do, target creature picks its nose." The "if you do" wording means you pick a target even if you have no way to pay the {5}.)These effects create a way to commit a crime at no cost, but I fear that many (if not most) players won't even recognize that a target is being selected for this kind of effect, thus not acknowledging that a crime has been committed for abilities that care about this.Was any thought given to this problem when the mechanic was designed? If so, is there any solution to this problem for newer players?

There are lots of things less enfranchised players are unaware of. The question is can the game progress if they’re unaware? If kitchen table players play with commit crime cards and have fun and are unaware of this particular thing happening, it doesn’t keep them from enjoying the cards.Magic has a complex rules system, and quirky interactions are going to happen. I will note that “if” triggers will happen, but “when” triggers" will not. For example, take the card Hypothesizzle.

This card only commits a crime if you discard a nonland card.

There are triggered abilities now that trigger more than once a turn. They usually use “whenever”. Triggers that happen based on a certain phase/step starting or ending can only trigger once.I think he’s talking about something like “this ability only triggers twice each turn”, where it still has a limit, that limit just isn’t once

I don’t think you can trigger twice. Triggers trigger once per event that trigger it. You can double the effects if you want.

So, since were changing ETB to just "Enters", would LTB triggers be able to be simplified to "Leaves"? Or is that too restrictive?

We looked into it, but it can’t as we use “leave” as we use the word for other zones, such as the graveyard. “Enters” is exclusively used with the battlefield.