0026: Lasting effects and designations

Status: Accepted. Amends decision 0008 (keyframes include lasting effects). Item 6 amended by decision 0027 (power and toughness are recorded). Delayed triggers created by actions are added by decision 0030. Reflexive triggers clarified by decision 0032.

Context

Keyframes are meant to hold the full game state (decision 0008), but some state was invisible to them: Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar's "until your next turn" shield, dash's "return it at the next end step", goad, day and night, and emblems. A viewer jumping to a turn could not see them, and a recorder that missed the event that created them could not resync.

Decision

1. new effect ID of OBJREF TEXT controller PLAYER CAUSE records, as it is created, every delayed triggered ability and every continuous effect from a resolving spell or ability that can last past the current turn's cleanup step.
2. Effects that end by the cleanup step are not recorded. Their results (damage dealt, attacks made) are recorded as events.
3. A delayed trigger that triggers names its effect with from ID. Effects end with cease: rule:delayed-trigger when a once-only delayed trigger has triggered, rule:duration when the duration is over. "Until your next turn" ends as that turn begins: the cease is the first line of its untap step, and the keyframe still lists the effect.
4. Keyframes list every effect still in force.
5. Designations: goad and end-goad PLAYER with a keyframe goaded PLAYER; game statements day and night with a keyframe line; new emblem for emblems in the command zone.
6. Monarch, the initiative, dungeons, and power and toughness changes stay in "Not yet covered".

Rules basis

Checked against the Comprehensive Rules effective 2026-09-25.

• 603.7a: "Delayed triggered abilities are created during the resolution of spells or abilities, as the result of a replacement effect being applied, or as a result of a static ability that allows a player to take an action."
• 603.7b: "A delayed triggered ability will trigger only once ... unless it has a stated duration".
• 603.7d, 603.7e: the source of a delayed triggered ability is the spell, or the source of the ability, that created it.
• 611.2a: "A continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability lasts as long as stated by the spell or ability creating it (such as 'until end of turn'). If no duration is stated, it lasts until the end of the game."
• 514.2: in the cleanup step, "all 'until end of turn' and 'this turn' effects end." Such effects never reach a keyframe.
• 701.15a, 701.15b, 701.15c: a goaded creature stays goaded "until the next turn of the controller of that spell or ability"; goaded is a designation; a creature can be goaded by several players.
• 731.1, 731.2: day and night are designations of the game, which starts with neither, and change during the untap step. 702.145d: "Any time a player controls a permanent with daybound, if it's neither day nor night, it becomes day."
• 114.1, 114.2: an emblem is a marker with abilities in the command zone, "both owned and controlled by that player."

Alternatives rejected

• Recording every continuous effect. Rejected for now: "until end of turn" effects are very common and never affect a keyframe; recording power and toughness needs its own design.
• Inferring lasting effects from the abilities that created them. Rejected: a parser would need to understand card text, and a recorder that joined late could never show them.

Consequences

• See examples/lasting-effects.mtgr (Tamiyo, dash) and examples/more-situations.md (Geist of Saint Traft, goad, day and night, emblems).