Ok here comes a loooong one. I think it's also important to note that we should all understand that templating is poor in this game, and not everything fits into this.
A quick comparison. Multi-Triggers and Optional Triggers or like brothers, Multi being the bigger brother, and Optional being the younger brother.
The main difference between the two is that one is Spell Speed 2 (Multi-Triggers) and the other is Spell Speed 1....that's it...
Examples:
Optional Trigger
Peten the Dark Clown
"
When this card is sent to your Graveyard,
you can remove this card from the Graveyard to
Special Summon 1 "Peten the Dark Clown" from your hand or Deck."
He is a great example because he includes all the possibilities, a trigger, a choice to activate, a cost and the correct template.
The
blue indicates the event that Triggers it. Since these effects are Spell Speed 1, they only respond to actions/events that are either non-chainable (ie. a Summon) or after an effect resolution (Chain resolution) or being present in a Phase/Step (ie. During the Standby Phase). However, just like Multi-Trigger's you MUST directly respond to the event (Trigger), or you have missed timing.
The
green indicates a cost for the effect. This is optional to these effects, and may or may not exist. In the event that it does have a cost, it is outlined here.
The
red indicates the effect portion of the text. Targeting can also be outlined here as well (ie.
Mobius the Frost Monarch).
The
you can is the second Trigger (as obscure as it may be), in which you make a choice to respond/activate the effect. This is what makes the effect a sort of Spell Speed 1 Multi-Trigger, it is the event-response nature to it.
Multi-Trigger
Dark Paladin
"As long as this card remains face-up on the field,
you can negate the activation of 1 Spell Card and
destroy the Spell Card by discarding 1 card from your hand."
For text saving space and gramatical purposes in the case of Multi-Triggers the Trigger is usually embedded inside the effect text. You can see this with the
blue Trigger text inside the
red effect text.
Although the order might be different in this case all of the ingredients are there:
- A Trigger (event)
- The "you can" optional text indicating and optional response (second Trigger)
- A cost
- Effect text
Of course as with Optional Triggers, a cost does not have to be present. Unfortunately the templating is even less consistant with Multi-Triggers than it is with Optionals. So i'm using
Dark Paladin because it most closely illustrates the relationship between Multi-Triggers and Optional Triggers.
Because these effects are Spell Speed 2, they generally are geared to respond to card/effect activations, and are mostly for countering purposes much like Counter Traps. They also are permitted to be manually activated/used at times when Spell Speed 1's would not, like the Battle Phase. They must, of course, respond directly to the event that they counter, or be activated during a specific activation window (ie.
Injection Fairy Lily).
Multi-Triggers that do not have a specific timing, essentially can be manually activated to start new chains or respond to any event or activation.
Strike Ninja is a perfect example of this. It does not mean that they have "no Trigger" it simply means that any event is a viable Trigger for this effect. It is non-specific.
Of course what i'm saying is not perfect but, i think it's pretty close to finding a general guildline to these effects.
Hope that helps
.