Missed Teklo Pounder trigger

[brazen ember]

Thinking about a judge call this season: The turn had progressed several plays past the missed Teklo Pounder before I was called over. I saw some precedent for ruling: "the counter is lost but the +2 bonus isn't applied". Is this the correct call? If so, why not attempt a partial fix such as "the opponent chooses to either apply the +2 to the current chain link, or can retroactively take 2 damage"? Not applying the +2 at all feels wrong, since it's not an optional trigger.

[dusk acorn]

The goal is to try to preserve the gamestate without creating more issues.
Taking the 1 counter off preserves the state but giving them bonus damage or any other benefit would create more problems.
It's the mech players responsibility to remember their triggers so if they mess it up it's on them

For all anyone knows that turn they missed the trigger they didn't have a good attack anyway and would prefer to have saved it for later

[elfin pebble]

You might check out the "Procedure and Penalty" section of 2.3 Missed Trigger in the PPG

The flow chart for Missed Trigger is:

• Simple Rewind: The PPG suggests this course of action if the infraction was "caught immediately". It sounds like that wasn't the case, so you move on to...
• Partial Fix: This works particularly when the players don't really have any choices revolving around the fix. For example, a player forgot to gain a life off Life For Life. There's generally nothing anyone could have done about this, so it's okay to just adjust the life total up by 1. Doesn't seem to work here because it's entirely likely the opponent might block differently if the Pounder bonus was applied. So, you move on to...
• Full Rewind: When doing a full rewind, the thing I'm looking for most is how much information is gained by the player who made the mistake. If there have been attacks and blocks since the Pounder was missed, this becomes an unlikely option IMO - because the player who forgot their trigger has gained knowledge about their opponent's cards and plans to block. Depending on how far they've gone, a full rewind is possible but otherwise you move on to...
• RIP Trigger: If none of the above work, the PPG says that you take no action and treat the effect as though it triggered but failed to resolve. I can't say for sure without seeing the board state, but this seems the most likely outcome to me

All that said, I don't think I would ever apply the solution you proposed involving giving the opponent a choice. There's no precedent for something like that in the rules, so you'd have a hard time justifying the decision

[inland sandal]

Also, your opponent already has a choice if they notice it: they can call a judge, and the sooner they do that, the more likely the trigger is to happen.

[brazen ember]

Thanks for the detailed breakdown! As far as precedent, I was thinking the fix around looking at extra cards (allowing the opponent to opt the cards as they wish) as a fix in a similar vein?

[brazen ember]

Definitely understand the sentiment here re: punishing players attempting to miss it strategically, but what about cases where the player who missed it made the judge call on themselves? it was clear to me that this player wasn't trying to gain an advantage by missing it, and simply dropping the two damage felt like it didn't preserve the game state as much as possible (ie via the fix I suggested)