The problem is that “non-operational” isn’t really defined. The rulebook doesn’t say anything about having to have an “operational” or “non-disabled” Tech I to build Tech II. It just says you need Tech I to build Tech II. So it had to be specifically ruled and added to the spreadsheet that if your Tech I is disabled, you can’t build Tech II.
That seems to imply to me that “disabled” is supposed to mean that it’s treated as if it were broken and is rebuilding except that HP remain the same and your base doesn’t take damage.
Thematically, I see the tech buildings as producing the units. If it were an RTS, you’d be clicking on the buildings to create the units. I see Feral Strike as temporarily allowing you have a tech building create units it wouldn’t normally produce, and cheaply, or to rapidly speed up production, or both. I would argue that when the tech building is down (whether that be destroyed or disabled), even magic can’t make it produce units.
Likewise, I see Garth’s maxband ability as essentially rapidly speeding up unit production.
(Skeletal Lord doesn’t need a tech building; he’s sending his skeleton crew (har) on a scavenger hunt to get a unit. Circle of Life likewise dangles a unit out as bait so that something bigger comes along and eats it.)
Does that make sense? Does going by theme seem helpful at all?
Either way, however this goes for Feral Strike, it should probably be the same for Garth.
I got Sirlin’s opinions where I wasn’t certain. He’s clarified that you can’t choose 0 targets for Sickness or burning volley if there are targets available and you can’t use Feral Strike to put tech 2 units into play while your tech 2 building is disabled.
Are these rulings all put on the codexdb website for easy reference.
I’ll be teaching this game to a few mtg tournament veterans and all of these questions will come up at some point.
Regarding the 15 years or so of iterations that made the wording so tight in MtG, it should have made it easier rather than harder to implement it in Codex I feel. Standing on the shoulders of giants etc…
Do you know if Sirlin is dedicating any resources to doing this?
I guess the target market for this game was intended as casual MtG fans rather than tournament players which would explain the loose wording.
Jaina middle and final tier abilities – details about how to use them.
I’m a codex newbie and in trying to play my first few games I was very confused with Jaina’s hero abilities.
When I exhaust Jaina, can i pick two different targets? (one for her normal attack and one for her targeted ability)
If I hit an target with her ability, does it simultaneously hit back, or only enemies targeted by her normal attack?
Can these targeted abilities ignore the patrol or are they subject to the normal patrol rules?
If i’m completely off base with my assumptions about her abilities being able to target something different than her normal attack, then why are they separated out at all vs just having a stronger normal attack?
PS
I searched for information about this in Jaina’s card in the database but it didn’t include any information about my questions, if you have an answer for me, please add it there too for others who may be similarly confused.
No, she can either exhaust to attack, or exhaust to target something (with either of her abilities, but not both). Exhausting is a cost to pay to use the ability, they are not something that happens when she exhausts.
No, she is not attacking it, she just deals the damage to it.
The Patrol zone only matters for attacks, and spells/abilities are not attacks, therefore they ignore the patrol zone.
See above, they have different targeting rules, she doesn’t take damage in return etc. (think of them as her casting a spell that does 1/3 damage depending on the ability used).
I’m glad to hear that. I was kind of shocked to read that you thought you could get Tech 2s with FS despite not having a functional Tech 2 - that seemed to go against everything I thought I knew about tech buldings.
1 No you can either declare an attack by Jaina and exhaust her or exhaust her to use her ability. Note if she somehow acquires readiness (for example Metamorphosis) she could attack without exhausting and still be able to exhaust to use her ability.
2 No her ability just deals damage it doesn’t iniate a combat.
3 Her ability can ignore the patrol zone (except you do have to pay one extra to target the resist patroller)
All abilities that require exhausting that hero/unit - including Jaina’s mid and maxband ablities - are effectively done instead of attacking. So you can exhaust Jaina to attack with her, or to use one of the abilities (provided she’s at a high enough level) - but she’s then exhausted, and you can’t do any of these things again. [Unless you can find a way to unexhaust her - or give her Readiness, in which case she can attack then use one of her abilities, although not the other way round.]
Things you target with spells and abilities do no damage back. “Mutual Damage” only happens in combat - that is, when you declare an attack with that hero or unit. Abilities are something else. For the same reason, abilities are not subject to any rules regarding the patrol zone (but note if the opponent has a flagbearer then any spells or abilitiies that can target the Flagbearer must do so).
Welcome to Codex, it’s a great game
EDIT: too slow, but I’ll leave this up here because sometimes reading 2 responses helps to clarify things
Based on the cards wordings this is the outcome I would expect. It did seem strange (and maybe ‘out of flavor’ for this to be the case) which is why I posed the question.
Random Thoughts: I would really like to be able to choose zero in cases where I can choose up to X, based on the following:
Sanatorium: Does the game force you to put a unit into play if I have one matching the description? There are circumstances where I would rather not.
Feral Strike, Option 1: Are you forced to get at least 1x card from your codex? Will the game not allow you to fetch nothing if you have at least one card you could choose?
Feral Strike, Option 2: Same general idea as Sanatorium, but that I would probably opt to ‘not put into play’ more often with Sanatorium.
Xenostalker: I can envision a board state in which:
I would need to attack with this card in order to win this turn
There are enemy patrollers
Dealing damage to one (or more) of them would cause me to lose the game
If I pass the turn, I will lose the game
Sad → I need to be able to choose zero with Xenostalker’s ability or I lose.
As for Sickness/Burning Volley:
I have River singing her Harmony song. I would like to play sickness to get another dancer, but don’t want to put -1/-1 on something of mine. Harmony entices me to play spells; why am I hindered (not able to ‘press my advantage’) by casting spells (and choosing 0) in order to generate dancers. This is similar to the saying “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back” (pun intended!).
I’m not surprised to hear the rulings on Burning Volley or Sickness and I expect the ruling for Feral Strike will be that it is also disallowed from choosing 0, based on the rule-of-thumb that you can’t play a spell or ability and have it do nothing when you have the option to have it do something.
As for Sanatorium and Xenostalker, each of those choices comes as a side-effect to another part of the ability that is already happening, so I’d be curious to hear this ruling. Presumably, you could use Sanatorium just for its draw-card affect, or use Xenostalker just for its ability to attack, and not be forced to use their side-effects, no?
This contrasts with Burning Volley and Sickness, because the card would actually do nothing if you choose 0.
(And I think the point about Harmony is a distraction. Sickness doesn’t care that you have Harmony in play So I think in the situation you describe above, you’d have to make the judgement call to put a -1 on something of your own or just not activate Harmony, and those are the breaks.)
Based on what I’ve read/learned in the last two weeks or so, here is my thought process for this topic currently (all hypothetical, but the best I can come up with):
Hypothetical-Game-Rule-A: For anything that effects another game object (or game attribute, etc); if an expiration time is not set for that effect (i.e. end of turn, until next upkeep, etc) then that effect is applied on an ongoing basis. That is to say that Soul Stones is repeatedly giving a unit +1/+1. The unit does not get a permanent +1/+1 when SS is played, and later lose +1/+1 when Soul Stones leaves play, which is an important distinction. For continually applied effects, a ‘time-stamp’ can be applied to establish an order of effect application. (Note: I only see a need for such time-stamp tracking when ‘gain control of’ effects are the ongoing ability applied.)
Hypothetical-Game-Rule-B: For anything that effects another game object; if an expiration time is set for that effect, then that effect is applied immediately, and only a single time. That is to say that Rampant Growth gives something +2 attack +2 armor a single time, at the time the spell is played. At a specified time X in the future, the target of Rampant Growth will receive -2 attack -2 armor.
Hypothetical-Game-Rule-C: For a card which has an ability that is not shared with anything else and is not given a duration (i.e. Mad Man has haste), it is an ability gained by the card (and then known by the game) at the time it comes into play. It can be lost permanently by using a (hypothetical spell of: target unit loses haste) or it can be lost temporarily (hypothetical spell of: target unit loses haste this turn). It is not regained continually, but is regained at the time when losing X expires (unless it lost something temporarily, and then lost it for a longer duration, or forever, etc). It will regain the ability when the farthest-in-the-future time duration elapses (potentially never). Note: Currently, few cards make something ‘lose’ something, but the language is here for completeness.
I am trying to establish something akin to these ‘general rules’, but they fail the Gargoyle-Entangling Vines test (although they pass the Final Smash - Mind Control test).
Case 1:
If Gargoyle can be made to attack while E.Vines is attached to it, then its difficult to reason that Final Smash cannot allow someone to take a Mind Controlled unit. (As this would imply that the ongoing effect is not repeatedly being applied.)
Case 2:
If Mind Control overrides Final Smash, then its difficult to reason that Gargoyle can attack. (As there is an ongoing effect repeatedly giving Gargoyle an ability which says it cannot attack.)
Note: Several cards (Free Speech and other cards specifically ruled on in the database) do not adhere to the above, and are handled on a card name by card name basis. I would rather like to be able to have a standard ‘general rule’, but as-is I cannot find the words to write a statement explaining how to discern between case 1 and 2 (without using ‘ugly’ wording such as “if a card is named mind control then it overrides other rules”).
Thoughts/Clarification/Discussion on the above is welcome and would be most helpful!
That’s why I said the Harmony discussion is a distraction. Sickness doesn’t care about Harmony or Calypso, or anything else it might trigger. All it cares is, if you’re playing it, it’s going to try its hardest to at least do something itself. The only way you could prevent it from distributing at least a single -1 token would be if there were actually 0 targets (a hard feat, considering if you’re playing a Disease spell, you probably at least have the Disease hero in play).
If you tell me the phrase ‘up to X…’ with no other stipulations (i.e. put rune on up to 2, etc) then I fully believe that one of my options is to choose zero. I do not know of any widely-accepted method of counting in which zero is not considered to be less than two.
