Mitigation Block
The last zone price departed from before a break, where losing orders wait to be "mitigated".
A mitigation block is close to the order block concept, but more precisely refers to the last zone price departed from before breaking a structural level, without necessarily as clean or impulsive a move as a classic order block.
The idea: participants opened positions there right before the market turned the other way, leaving them at a loss. When price returns to that zone, those participants look to "mitigate" (reduce) their loss by closing out, which can move price again.
In practice, ICT traders often treat it as a looser variant of the order block: a probable reaction zone, best combined with other confluences (FVG, liquidity) rather than used on its own.
How to spot one: identify a zone an impulsive move started from, then watch price return towards it. If price comes back and touches it without having decisively broken it beforehand, and leaves in the direction of the original move, you have a mitigation block. The nuance against a breaker is right there: here the zone never switched sides.
The term comes from the idea of mitigation: large participants who could not fill their whole position on the first pass use the return to complete it, or to trim positions left underwater. Either way, activity concentrates in the same place.
How to trade it? Like a classic order block, but with one extra requirement: you want to see a reaction before entering, not merely a touch. A rejection candle, an imbalance left on a lower timeframe, a small CHoCH in your favour. The stop goes beyond the zone.
The practical distinction from a breaker comes down to one question: did structure change in between? If yes, breaker. If no, mitigation block. That is the only thing to remember, and it decides which way you will trade the zone — so, the whole trade.
The classic mistake: entering on first touch without confirmation. A mitigation zone is by definition one price has already visited; it is less “fresh” than a virgin order block and fails more often. Confirmation is not a luxury here.
Second trap: stacking zones. On a sufficiently worked chart you end up seeing mitigation blocks everywhere. Keep only those that produced a move which broke structure, and ignore the rest.