TheLizard, you're looking at it wrong. You are never allowed to intentionally miss your triggers (Bob in the example you gave). Doing so is Cheating - Fraud, and earns you a trip straight out of the tournament. In addition, any missed trigger that is detrimental (regardless of board state) receives a warning, and a judge interjects. Bob is detrimental; losing life is not insignificant.
The controller of the missed trigger only receives a Warning if the triggered ability is generally considered detrimental for the controlling player.
I would issue a warning for a missed Confidant trigger, regardless of where life totals sit (assuming, of course, investigation led me to believe missing it was unintentional).
Yes, he can target the Omniscience. The target for Oblivion Ring's ability is only chosen after Show & Tell resolves, when a player would gain priority.
They should poll on these things. Are the cards being spoiled early going to increase the amount of cards you buy, decrease the amount of cards you buy, or not affect the amount of cards you were planning to buy at all from Return to Ravnica?
But people don't know that, or at least they don't know well enough to answer that honestly in a survey / poll. The marketing gurus know how to make something sell, and have designed a method of spoiling that increases sales. Marketing knows people better than people know themselves. Marketing research can identify with high likelihood when a shopper at a grocery store is pregnant, before the shopper even knows. Target got in trouble for that a while back because they would send out the expectant-mothers brochure to pregnant women who didn't yet know they were pregnant. Point is, marketing people are smart, and know how to move a product.
So, ruining that plan marketing created will, generally, decrease the number of sales due to excitement, leaving the set to stand on its own for sales. With a very powerful set like New Phyrexia, that was fine (so much good stuff). With a set like RTR, again... probably fine (shocks and fun multi-colored stuff... always moves well. Plus, it's Ravnica. The name sells by itself). If Dark Ascension or AVR had been spoiled that way, it would have negatively affected sales.
The thing about each of the four top guilds; those color combos rely less on creatures, and more on spells (yes, the have strategies that rely on creatures... don't get into the details, I'm talking generally). So tell me, Wizards, why exactly are you pushing creatures and downgrading spells while players obviously prefer playing spells over blindly turning dudes sideways?
1. When the Brindle Shoat's triggered ability resolves, Parallel Lives is no longer on the battlefield, so there is no doubling any longer. Your friend will receive 1 3/3 (this is, of course, assuming he hadn't placed a fate counter on the Parallel Lives)
2. He can't target the planeswalker since planeswalkers are not players, so they can't be targeted by anything that says "Do X to target player". However upon resolution he can redirect the damage from your first friend, to the Sorin Markov that player controls.
I thought slide was WGR. I know the version I played was (I loved that deck).
It went through several incarnations. WR, then WRG, then some WG forms in extended. From Onslaught through Darksteel, it was white/red. It only adopted green when Eternal Witness was printed, because honestly that card is stupid good with Astral Slide. For the bulk of its most competitive days (Onslaught through Mirrodin) it was just WR.
One word of warning on the Premium Deck Series; I have noticed they often times will have more foil curling than even a normal foil. If you use them - and especially if they are the only PDS cards you are using - make sure there is no excessive curling that would 'mark' where they are in your deck. If there is, try to flatten them out (there's some threads I've seen here for some suggestions).
2. If announcing targeted abilities, always announce the target, even if it's "nothing." For instance - "casting Lightning Mauler, whose abilities are soulbound haste, with no soulbond target."
Sidenote; 'Nothing' is not a legal choice for a target from an activated or triggered ability, if a legal target exists. This is true even if you don't want to target something. For instance; if you control only a (non-angel) Phantasmal Image, and flash in a Resto Angel, you MUST target your Phantasmal Image even if you have zero intention of flickering him, and don't want to target him. You choose the "May" part of triggers upon resolution.
Every creature (and non-aura enchantment) you play from then on becomes an Oblivion Ring. Infinite Reflection will only fall off if the Opalescence gets taken out.
There's so much going on with this and we're only getting one side of a story with so many facets of perception, that it doesn't feel the least bit appropriate to try and speculate what the appropriate judge call would have been. However, the appropriate thing for both of the players to do would have been to call a judge. This is why we are at events, and this is what we do. We're trained on the appropriate resolution of scenarios like this. Both of you would have walked away from the match if not happy, far less upset.
The problem with putting dice to represent P/T on something like, say, Dungrove Elder is that the P/T will be fairly consistantly changing through the match, and you will run into player communication errors if that die doesn't get properly updated. Personally, I wouldn't let you put dice on my creatures that function like that, but when I play those creatures I make an effort to make visible exactly what makes their P/T. If you're having issues with an opponent stacking his forests, or making it difficult to determine the P/T of a creature that functions like that, call a judge to sort it out.
Counters are a completely different thing, though.
3. Both players need to have a target creature that will be switched when you announce the spell. If one of those creatures dies, leaves the battlefield, or somehow becomes an illegal target before Switcheroo resolves, no exchange occurs.
4. Yes, a permanent needs to have been constantly under your control since before your most recent turn in order to not have summoning sickness.
Cards in hand is called derived information. At regular REL (FNM, random day of the week drafts, etc) your opponent has to tell you. At competitive, your opponent doesn't have to tell you, but they can't hide it or misrepresent it.
I would issue a warning for a missed Confidant trigger, regardless of where life totals sit (assuming, of course, investigation led me to believe missing it was unintentional).
But people don't know that, or at least they don't know well enough to answer that honestly in a survey / poll. The marketing gurus know how to make something sell, and have designed a method of spoiling that increases sales. Marketing knows people better than people know themselves. Marketing research can identify with high likelihood when a shopper at a grocery store is pregnant, before the shopper even knows. Target got in trouble for that a while back because they would send out the expectant-mothers brochure to pregnant women who didn't yet know they were pregnant. Point is, marketing people are smart, and know how to move a product.
So, ruining that plan marketing created will, generally, decrease the number of sales due to excitement, leaving the set to stand on its own for sales. With a very powerful set like New Phyrexia, that was fine (so much good stuff). With a set like RTR, again... probably fine (shocks and fun multi-colored stuff... always moves well. Plus, it's Ravnica. The name sells by itself). If Dark Ascension or AVR had been spoiled that way, it would have negatively affected sales.
2. He can't target the planeswalker since planeswalkers are not players, so they can't be targeted by anything that says "Do X to target player". However upon resolution he can redirect the damage from your first friend, to the Sorin Markov that player controls.
It went through several incarnations. WR, then WRG, then some WG forms in extended. From Onslaught through Darksteel, it was white/red. It only adopted green when Eternal Witness was printed, because honestly that card is stupid good with Astral Slide. For the bulk of its most competitive days (Onslaught through Mirrodin) it was just WR.
Couple others:
BR: Goblin Bidding
UWG: Mirari's Wake
UWR: No-Stick
Sidenote; 'Nothing' is not a legal choice for a target from an activated or triggered ability, if a legal target exists. This is true even if you don't want to target something. For instance; if you control only a (non-angel) Phantasmal Image, and flash in a Resto Angel, you MUST target your Phantasmal Image even if you have zero intention of flickering him, and don't want to target him. You choose the "May" part of triggers upon resolution.
Also, Soulbond does not target.
Counters are a completely different thing, though.
2. Yes
3. Both players need to have a target creature that will be switched when you announce the spell. If one of those creatures dies, leaves the battlefield, or somehow becomes an illegal target before Switcheroo resolves, no exchange occurs.
4. Yes, a permanent needs to have been constantly under your control since before your most recent turn in order to not have summoning sickness.