The card should say “Put 2. If you can’t, Put 1. If you can’t, put 0”, but that’s not in keeping with the way the cards have been written.
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I don’t think that’s an entirely accurate interpretation of a card like Sickness. I think the intention of Sickness is that you can place a single -1 token, even if there are multiple additional targets, since the card says “up to two”.
You might be confusing this with the discussion about Orpal’s maxband, where the requirement is that one place as close to two -1 tokens as possible, but only on units friendly to the one that died.
My ‘wish it was worded this way’ sheets says:
Put a -1/-1 rune on one or two units and/or heroes. If you intended to have a ‘do as much as possible’ rule then many of the cards should not be worded as they are.
I just read the wording as-is.
Without referencing some other document (specific rulings for each and every card) you have no way to know this (that you cannot choose zero). The game should not be such that you cannot play without each time needing to reference a specific ruling just to see if you can do what the card says or not.
This statement is interesting.
If we bet $20 that you cannot pick a number between 1 and 5, and you pick 4 can I say “In my system, 4 is not considered to be a number between 1 and 5” and then take your money?
It was not my intent to trick you, I expected you to know that my counting system was different than pretty much every other counting system in the world.
This doesn’t contribute to the discussion of codex rules in the slightest. Are you seriously making the argument that Sirlin is intentionally misleading people who play his games? What possible motivation could he have for that?
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I am ‘making the argument’ that, in the language the cards are written in, 0 is a number that is in the group of numbers ‘up to X’ (so long as X>0).
I don’t try to understand card design intent, or motivation behind card design. I just try to read the cards as written, and hope that, at least some of them, can be played as written, without needing to reference another document.
This ‘contributes’ to codex rules, in that its ‘beneficial’ if an overall rule can be made which covers all ‘up to X’ cases. I think it would be ‘not beneficial’ if a rule is selected whereby in some instances ‘up to X’ can mean one thing, while in other circumstances ‘up to X’ means something else.
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Things that have expiration times work the same way as things that do not, which is like in Hypothetical-Game-Rule-A. (There’s some annoying wrinkle here where for armor to work correctly, you grant the armor one time, then make an effect that does nothing, but on expiration it takes armor away.)
For the current ruling about Mind Control vs. Final Smash, I would implement that by applying all change of control effects other than Mind Control, then applying all Mind Controls. I would like to change this interaction to remove the need to do this though.
For Sanatorium and Feral Strike, supposing I said “You really do have to pick something!” then when you don’t pick something, you have to pause your 2-player game and get a neutral 3rd party to come over and verify that you couldn’t pick anything, because the only other way to let your opponent know is to show them your private zone, which contains a bunch of information they shouldn’t get to have. This is really awful! (This actually happens in the base set of Warhammer 40k: Conquest with this card) So to avoid that sort of thing, you’re allowed to not find stuff when searching your private zones.
For Xenostalker, it looks like if you have a Xenostalker, and your base is at 1 HP, and your opponent is patrolling with a single damaged Crash Bomber in the technician slot, you probably shouldn’t attack with the Xenostalker.
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Thanks. I have this noted specifically by the armor explanation you provided before.
Understood. I can modify later based on future rulings, etc. Just trying to understand as it is now.
I cannot swallow vined Gargoyle being able to attack. There is no way this can be right.
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Brutal, and what I was hoping to avoid.
Poor poor Xeno.
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I probably should have clarified. Every Hypothetical-Game-Rule-X that I wrote in the above post are intended to be read and implemented together. i.e. you only have HGR-A because HGR-B also exists. The idea was that between all the HGR’s you could handle all ability/time stamp/etc gaining/losing/etc.
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Intuitively it seems like Entangling Vines should be able to work just as well on Gargoyle as on other cards. But consider what’s going on on Gargoyle without Entangling Vines: Gargoyle has an ability that says it can’t attack. This ability is as old as Gargoyle. A new effect comes in and says actually it CAN attack. So for Gargoyle to not be totally useless, we have to let “Actually it CAN attack” override “Can’t attack” at least in this case. So what’s the mechanism for that? We can either always apply “Actually CAN attack” after applying “can’t attack” when calculating the derived state, or we can put them in the same category of effects and apply them in timestamp order.
So if we do either of those things, and the “Can’t attack” on Entangling Vines isn’t somehow different from the “Can’t attack” on Gargoyle, we’ll end up in a situation where if I cast Entangling Vines and then you activate your Gargoyle, it’s allowed to attack…
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I think that the easiest single rule that covers all the cases in the way that makes the most sense is “Enchantments apply last”. That means nothing overrides mind control or entangling vines except for a later casting of one of those cards. Gargoyle with Entangling Vines would not be able to attack in this case.
I’ll give this some thought. I wouldn’t want a 5/5 Huntress with Spirit of the Panda to get stealth from Behind the Ferns.
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We can say that gargoyle overrides its own “cant attack or pateol” with its own "it can attack and patrol"
However the vines on top of it is an ongoing effect and need to be checked everytime you attempt to attack
So gargoyle cannot attack. Cannot even attempt to attack.
You pay 1 to activate it, you can now attempt to attack but too bad you cant actually attack because of the vines.
Edit:
So
Most other units “can attack and patrol” by default. The vines stop them in the same way it stops a gargoyle that “can attack and patrol”
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Oh, that’s one way to do it. So I would start out calculating my derived state and at the very beginning (uh, after applying copy effects) I look at the stuff printed on the cards and say “This Gargoyle can’t attack.” Then later I apply all “Actually CAN attack,” then later I apply all “Can’t attack” that comes from some source other than being printed on the card.
Edit: I’m not committed to this interaction working a particular way, but I want to make sure it’s easy to implement.
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The way I look at it, Gargoyle’s effect is a one-time trigger while Vines is continuously applied due to it being an attachment. So activating Gargoyle’s ability allows him to attack for a split second, then it is immediately overrode by Vines.
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I think what Sharpo was saying above is “why wouldn’t the Gargoyle’s innate Cannot Attack be treated the same?” i.e. continuously applied and immediately overriding the one-time trigger?
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My interpretation of the state-based effects check (based on the above hypothetical rules I wrote) would be:
Player A has Gargoyle which can’t attack (its own ability)
This sets the ‘can this attack’ attribute = false (note: the game does this when gargoyle comes into play, not repeatedly)
Player A ‘activates’ Gargoyle
This sets the ‘can this attack’ attribute = true (it has a specified duration, so it will again regain the ‘lost’ attribute, per the rules I mentioned above)
Player A attacks/patrols with Gargoyle
Player B puts Entangling Vines on Gargoyle
This sets the ‘can this attack’ attribute = false (continually, every single time this attribute is checked)
Player A has a Gargoyle which can’t attack (because Vines continually applies this)
Player A has Gargoyle which can’t attack (its own ability, regained from the ‘losing’ ability timeing out and Vines continually applying this stipulation)
This sets the ‘can this attack’ attribute = false
Player A ‘activates’ Gargoyle.
This sets the ‘can this attack’ attribute = true (and sets up a time to regain the ‘lost’ ability)
Gargoyle can attack.
Enter State-Based Effects check.
Vines applies its ‘continually applied’ effect to it; Gargoyle can’t attack
This sets the ‘can this attack’ attribute = false
Outcome…Player A has a Gargoyle which can never attack or patrol
I can’t see a logical way to handle this ability otherwise (i.e. without specifically saying ‘card X works this way, card Y works this way’.
Note: The application method you have outlined in the link you posted yesterday is the best way I see. You have to set certain abilities to take effect after others (as opposed to all attachments last, etc). I just don’t want to make it further confusing than it is as you have written (which I think the entangling vines thing goes towards ‘further confusing’ if you allow the gargoyle to attack).
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