Not A Bug tack Abilities Automatically does not stack identical non-targeting triggers

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Wolfleiden

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Wolfleiden7
(Small typo in the thread title: it should read “Stack Abilities Automatically does not stack identical non-targeting triggers.” I don't appear to have permission to edit the thread title.)

"Stack Abilities Automatically" does not appear to work as described in the MTGO documentation when multiple types of triggered abilities trigger simultaneously.

I tested this with Zulaport Cutthroat after intentionally causing multiple creatures to die simultaneously with a board wipe.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Enable Stack Abilities Automatically in Gameplay Settings.
  2. Control Zulaport Cutthroat and several other creatures.
  3. Cause multiple creatures to die simultaneously with a board wipe.
  4. Multiple identical Zulaport Cutthroat triggers appear in the Your Triggered Abilities window.
  5. Click one of the Zulaport Cutthroat triggers.
Expected behavior

According to the MTGO documentation, abilities that triggered at the same time, have identical text, and do not require targets should be automatically stacked together.

Therefore, selecting one of the identical Zulaport Cutthroat triggers should stack the entire group.

Actual behavior

Only one trigger at a time is moved to the stack.

I have to click every individual Zulaport Cutthroat trigger, and the client also takes noticeable time to process each trigger before I can continue.

This becomes particularly problematic in Aristocrats decks, where a board wipe can generate dozens of simultaneous triggers from cards such as Zulaport Cutthroat, Bastion of Remembrance, Syr Konrad, etc.

I have attached screenshots showing:

  • Stack Abilities Automatically enabled.
  • Multiple identical, non-targeting Zulaport Cutthroat triggers waiting to be stacked.
Could you please confirm whether this is intended behavior or a bug?
MTGO_bug.jpg
 
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Wolfleiden

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Since this has been marked “Not A Bug,” I understand that the current behavior is considered intentional. I have therefore created a separate feature request addressing the underlying usability problem:


If manually stacking these triggers individually is indeed the intended behavior, I strongly believe MTGO needs an option such as “Stack All Pending Triggers — Any Order.”

This is particularly problematic for Aristocrats, sacrifice, death-trigger, token, and similar strategies. A single board wipe can cause dozens of triggered abilities to trigger simultaneously. As shown in the screenshots above, this can result in an extremely large number of pending triggers that must be moved onto the stack individually.

The problem is not simply the number of clicks. The MTGO client also takes noticeable time to process and move each individual trigger onto the stack, meaning that a single game action can take a significant amount of real time to process.

In many of these situations, the relative order of the triggers is completely irrelevant to the player. Nevertheless, there is currently no way to tell MTGO:

“I don't care about the order. Put all pending triggers onto the stack in any legal order.”

With sufficiently trigger-heavy board states, this makes certain strategies extremely cumbersome and, in some situations, practically unplayable on MTGO, despite those same game states being trivial to resolve in paper Magic.

Importantly, this would not require removing the existing manual ordering system. Players who need precise control over trigger ordering should obviously retain it. “Stack All — Any Order” would simply allow a player to voluntarily delegate that ordering to the client when the order does not matter.

This also does not appear to be a new or isolated usability concern. Players have been requesting this type of functionality for years, including discussions about the limitations of automatic trigger stacking and explicit requests for an option to put all currently pending triggers onto the stack in any order.

Given MTGO's recent improvements aimed at reducing repetitive game actions, improving yields, and making combo execution less cumbersome, this seems like a natural extension of those efforts and would substantially improve the experience for trigger-heavy strategies.

I would appreciate it if the team could consider the linked feature request even if the behavior reported here is working as intended.
 
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