Dealing 0 damage is not dealing damage
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Except that dealing 1 damage to armor does trigger deathtouch, even if it deals 0 damage to the unit’s HP. Still need at least 1 ATK, though.
I think it would be pretty unpleasant to tell people that playing something for 0 and playing something for free mean different things. It would also be a little unpleasant to tell people that playing something for free changes the cost.
It is a little unpleasant now, though, to tell people that playing something that “costs 0” does not get them around a ban on things that “cost 8”
Two rules questions I haven’t found answered anywhere:
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Does Sentry only prevent 1 damage each turn, or the entire first “packet” of damage?
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When playing on the Vortoss Ruins map, how does picking/changing your secondary specialization work? Can you just change it for free at any time? (That would seem a little ridiculous.) Change it for the cost of 2 damage to your base? (That wouldn’t make a lot of sense.) Or is it just locked in, unlike normal? (And do you have to pick it when you reach tech 2, or can you just save picking it for some later time?)
Thank you all!
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Sentry only prevents 1 damage
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I think we played it as you could play any Tech II card at any time, but now I look at it, I’m not sure…
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2.It should work the same as if you have a tech lab that can’t die. I think if you have a tech lab before you build your tech 2 building, you pick your primary spec and your secondary spec when you build your tech 2 building. With the Vortoss Ruins map, you won’t be able to change your secondary spec.
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Hey all. Everyone is really good at figuring out corner cases, etc and I need help with armor.
I’ve got a short list of armor “groups”. I haven’t heard them referred to this way, but its the best I can figure for classifying armor.
In a very specific order, we have Armor Gained From:
1.) Safe Attacking
2.) Something giving it armor this turn (Rampant Growth, Argarg)
3.) Something giving it armor until Your Next Upkeep (Art of War)
4.) Something being in a Patroller Slot. (Taunt ‘bonus’, Ironbark Treant)
5.) (What else am I missing?)
Once something has armor, we need to track which of these cases the armor came from. After that, when damage is dealt to the thing with armor, the armor absorbs damage in the order as specified above. If one category is giving no armor then it skips to the next, etc until all damage is absorbed, or there is no armor remaining, at which point damage is dealt to the thing. If no damage is dealt then the armor falls off in the order as determined by game progression (i.e. end of attack, end of turn, next upkeep, etc)
Note: #1 and 2 can be interchanged since they never occur together unless (someone has found a corner-corner case of attacking with a patroller).
Thoughts on what other cases need added to the list? I prefer not to have to track which card/effect armor came from, and would rather just add armor to a certain ‘group’.
Also welcome thoughts on whether the above is incorrect and/or corner cases where it doesn’t work.
I can’t think of any reason a thing needs to know where its armor came from other than for determining when it expires.
I assume you’re asking about this in the context of coding. Since armor that lasts more than one turn always refreshes between turns, you can model each point of armor as an object which has a boolean describing if it has been spent this turn and an int or something which is set on creation that defines its lifespan, Then, one of your upkeep or cleanup steps can include “refreshing” each armor object by decrementing the lifespan by 1 and setting the “spent” boolean back to false.
EDIT: Actually, now that I wrote it out, I think doing this as part of the cleanup at the end of a turn makes the most sense, because then for effects that grant armor “until end of turn” you can create that armor with a lifespan of 1 and it’ll expire when it’s supposed to.
EDIT2: This was based on a mistake in my understanding of armor. See below for correction/discussion.
Thanks for your input.
I’m trying to think of it as a general thing, where damage is done to group 1, then 2, etc. That way each group just has 0 to X armor associated with it. Then you don’t worry with lifespan/Boolean effects, and at EOT you just set group 1-3 armor = 0, and can then apply new patrol zone bonuses at start of next turn. At start of your turn set all armor = 0 (I can’t find a case where this isn’t correct).
Safe Attacking requires its own ‘special’ tracking, because it giveth and taketh away on its own time table.
That is the approach to tracking I was thinking, but I’m trying to figure out what else screws that plan up.
Questions regarding Two Step:
A.)
River is in play
No units in play for active player
Pay for and cast/channel Two Step
Choose zero units to become Partners (did as much as possible)
Nothing gets +2/+2 (did as much as possible)
“If you lose one, sacrifice Two Step” doesn’t apply, as there is nothing to lose. (i.e. can’t lose something you don’t have) The only way Two Step can ‘die’ is by being destroyed or River leaving play.
- Two Step (generally) sits in play doing nothing -
B.)
(Same as A. except you have one unit)
River is in play
You have one unit in play
Pay for and cast/channel Two Step
Choose one unit to become a Dance Partner (did as much as possible)
Nothing gets +2/+2 (did as much as possible)
“If you lose one, sacrifice Two Step” applies if you lose the one partner. Furthermore, this unit cannot later partner with another unit (say you cast a 2nd Dance Partner) because it’s already a partner (without a partner…sad) unless this (original) Two Step is no longer in play.
- Two Step (generally) sits in play doing nothing -
C.) Is Dance Partner a subtype? Two Step is worded similar to Vandy’s Ult, except that Demons is capitalized and dance partners is not. Is a capitalized word a subtype, but lower case just for flavor? Dance Partner really seems like it wants to be there just ‘for flavor’, but trying to understand it for completeness.
D.) Is being a Dance Partner a trait that get copied and thereby prevents copies from becoming a dance partner (for the whole game), as there is no way for the copy to lose being a Dance Partner?
About armors
Consider this. Onimaru with art of war in squad lead position.
That is 1sql armor and 2aof armor
Now this is free for all match
Opponent1 attacks Oni with two birds (2× 1/1)
Opponent2 attacks Oni with two birds (2x 1/1)
Opponent3 attacks Oni with a flier 5/x
Is Oni dead ?
?
Active player decides which armor to attack or forced to attack squad lead armor first?
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No. At the end of Opponent 1’s turn, Oni’s armor repairs. At the end of Opponent 2’s turn, Oni’s armor repairs again. Up to this point he hasn’t taken any damage, so when he takes 5 damage from Opponent 3, the first 3 damage is absorbed by armor so he only takes 2 damage to health.
EDIT: I am very wrong. See below for correction/discussion.
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Armor is ablative, and never refreshes.
However, the Squad Leader ability is “gain 1 armor for each opponents’ turn”
Active player decides which armor gets used up first. For 1 v 1, that will 99.999% of the time be a pre-determined optimal order. For free-for-all it will be that same order 99% of the time (unless someone needs to get an attack trigger, but wants to minimize the damage to the defender)
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Oh really? I was so sure I’d read somewhere that armor was treated like toughness in MtG. ie if it’s from an ongoing affect, it replenishes each turn until that affect ends. But maybe I’m getting that mixed up with the specific ruling on squad leader…
EDIT: Ah, Ironbark Treant is where I got that idea. See the second ruling here which pertains to free-for-all games: Codex Card Database | Ironbark Treant
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A and B seem correct to me.
C not in the sense of Demon or Soldier. The text is just there to say “you can’t stack this effect with another Two Step.”
D I don’t think there are any effects that copy non-printed values from cards.
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Good catch - I guess the rule is “while patrolling” refreshes each turn.
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So Onimaru dies only if opponent1 decided the two damage is dealt to the AoW armors
That appears to be the case.
This is a potentially correct way to do it, but here’s an easier way: Each event of gaining armor has a corresponding later event of losing the same amount of armor. The event of losing armor always happens to whatever armor the unit still has.
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There’s still the issue of making the attacker decide which armor points to destroy first, since there are strategic reasons why you might want to hit armor in a particular order, like in the example above: armor granted by Art of War, or armor granted by SQL.
Given Coiser is discussing how one would code this, it seems really inelegant to make the attacker decide which armor point to do their damage to first. But maybe that’s the only way to do it while remaining true to the card game.