Not what that ability means. "After your draw step" is a turn based action that doesn't use the stack and can't be responded to. Saga only does it that way because something additional triggers when you put the counter on. This needs to remain an upkeep trigger.

Doesn't use the stack, huh? Okay. I'll probably change these back. However, why does it need to remain an upkeep trigger though? It puts on a counter like Sagas do.

­Aulë's Craft on the other hand... It has the word "may" in it... How would it function with this "after draw step"? Would it always be "missed"?

You could introduce "When your draw step ends" if it's just about the timing (and avoiding the phrasing with "precombat main phase").

Technically Sagas could use triggered abilities, but it's slightly preferable to use turn-based actions to chaining triggers.

If you keep this as a turn based action (not advisable), that doesn't mean it cannot involve choices. Aulë's Craft would still involve a choice to discard or not. It's just like other choices e. g. choosing to untap a creature like Frightshroud Courier.

Honestly, Dominaria is one of those sets that is looking to have a lot of rules introduced to clarify this, so I'd hold off on implementing anything until the rules are updated so we can be sure what it's messing with.

Upkeep is pretty much made for these sorts of triggers, so this should remain on upkeep. I enjoy the corner case interaction of deciding whether or not you want to flash in a Spirit with your newly untapped mana (or otherwise responding to an upkeep trigger) before you see your draw, because it creates a good sort of tension.

The only reason the upkeep exists is to have these triggers happen during it. There are no cards that trigger at the end of phase, and no reason for those cards to exist. It's the pinnacle of bad design to do something different just to say it's different. You should never use a turn based action if you can use a trigger, and you should never trigger at the end of phase if you can trigger at the beginning.

This wasn't done "just because". It came from a real-life problem that I've constantly seen with upkeep triggers, especially negative ones such as echo, where people keep missing them. On the last play test, it was very noticeable with Aulë's Craft. This is an issue with upkeep itself and I'm exploring ways to circumvent it even though it's obvious that a step called "upkeep" was created to handle these kind of things; it's just that it's placement on the turn order is little bit wrong. Players tend to untap and draw by instinct at the start of their turn, so if the "upkeep" triggers happened around the time of the precombat main phase, I'm certain it would alleviate the issue since:

• After drawing and untapping you usually start to weigh your options and would notice the triggers before entering combat
• Reverting from declare attackers phase is less of a problem than "reverting" from a draw phase since that action has given you access to hidden information. If you know what card you will draw it affects your decision making concerning things like whether to pay echo costs.

I guess I could use the "draw step" timing only for Aulë's Craft, but that feels rather inconsistent.

Also, I would appreciate it if you guys generally kept separate what actually doesn't work properly within the rules as they are and what's against 'good' design. I need to know the limits to test them.

Let me put it this way: I don't think you can put a turn-based action on a card. There's a dozen or so listed in the comp rules, and I think this sort of thing has to be the rules of the game, not abilities temporarily granted by cards. For sagas, they're adding a line the rule 703 that says "put a lore counter on each saga you control as your pre-combat main phase begins." You can't do that for every card you want to make this way.

As for your comment about missed triggers, that's why upkeep triggers aren't done at common very much, to avoid tripping up newer players. If you choose to play a bunch of cards with triggers, it's your responsibility to keep track of them.

The other thing about turn-based actions is that no player controls them, so while this works because it just checks a condition of the active player, ones that require you to make a choice (like targeting or may abilities) probably just don't work at all.

> If you choose to play a bunch of cards with triggers, it's your responsibility to keep track of them.

That is not a correct description of the relationship between game designer and player. Designing a game is taking ownership of it and taking on responsibility.

Abilities that involve targets need to use the stack, but choices are fine. There are plenty of turn-based actions that involve choices already.

It's still preferable to use triggered abilities just to be consistent though.

I think that's more of an issue with the way Magic is designed (and taught). Because upkeep triggers are getting increasingly rare, the natural instinct to untap then draw is reinforced because that's all you usually do. Because of that, Wizards is less inclined to design more effects that happen at upkeep.

I think this issue probably warrants its own discussion, but as a designer I think having something occur at the beginning of your precombat main phase is something you can move towards if you are truly concerned with people playing it incorrectly. But to me, that's just simplifying or modifying the game itself rather than actually solving the issue.

How about flip it around?

Let the opponent put a counter on it, if the condition is not met? That way it's interactive; the opponent gets to remember to do a bad thing to you, which they will enjoy. And they might forget - which you will enjoy.

This particular card doesn't care about that timing at all since the effect is mandatory and it hardly matters whether you happened to draw the card before you put the counter on - no harm done in the majority of cases. Aulë's Craft is actually the card where the issue lies in this environment - this just happened to be the card where the discussion related to the whole upkeep thing got going.
There seems to be only four cards with upkeep triggers in the set so in truth it doesn't matter that much here. I could just red flag Aulë's Craft and be on my merry way.

I've considered going with "at the beginning of your precombat main phase" but it does feel even more like a hack. It's quite verbose and potential confusion with words like "precombat". The wording was last used on Bounty of the Luxa because that card adds mana and the timing wouldn't work with upkeep, which is another problem with upkeep as it is.

I agree that this likely needs its own discussion space.