No worries, I didn’t take offense. I just realized the “ruling about FDS” that I had remembered came from me going “I think it works this way.”
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It’s an intentionally hyperbolic example Coiser brought up to illustrate an issue with Codex where reading some cards and in some cases reasonably assuming they work like other cards due to similar wording, doesn’t result in applying them correctly in play.
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In my opinion, Tenderfoot is not the simplest card in the game, based on its being a unit.
I would assume that, most likely, a spell or upgrade would win that title.
Neither units, spells nor upgrades are simple in general, but between them, you generally need to ask more questions about a unit than you do for a spell or upgrade.
i.e. You usually aren’t concerned with as many things when considering the effects of a spell or upgrade vs that of a unit. The ‘list of things to check’ is drastically smaller for Rich Earth vs Tenderfoot for instance.
For a unit you need to ask questions like whether it has sparkshot, is patrolling, is exhausted, is in jail, whether its a copy of something else, are its stats being different than printed for some reason(s)? That ‘list’ is much larger than the ‘list of checks’ for an upgrade, for instance.
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Why is the “target illusion = it dies” reminder text and “target flagbearer if you can” not reminder text?
Why is a Granfalloon Flagbearer not affected by Midori middle ability and a Tenderfoot with Vortoss Emblem is?
There’s a game rule about targeting illusions but not about targeting flagbearers.
Vortoss Emblem doesn’t grant an ability. (It’s actually functionally different from if it did grant the “flagbearer ability” even if you don’t consider Midori)
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The game would be so much cleaner if Vortoss Emblem said “attached unit gains XXX” and if “target flagbearers” was reminder text.
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ok, I don’t think we should nerf Vortoss Emblem like that.
We should buff flagbearers like that, though.
By all counts, “Unit - Illusion” and “Unit - Flagbearer” are equivalent and “Dies when targeted” is roughly equivalent to “Must be targeted”. It seems like these should be treated the same by the game, IE that flagbearer abilities are reminder text.
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In the game we have, you can put Vortoss Emblem on your opponent’s unit, and your opponent will be forced to target that unit, but you will not. That’s a big part of the point of the card imo.
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Ok but no, tenderfoot is a 1/2 with no abilities.
You might give it abilities later, sure, that’s unrelated.
Tenderfoot, as printed, is simple.
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Can we leave Vortoss Emblem like it is and count regular flagbearer text as reminder text?
I assume you’re replying to me because you think I’m being rude to Cosier? I’m not. Using Tenderfoot as an example is hyperbolic, and intentionally so. I’m not picking a fight, I’m trying to clarify why Cosier said something that Bomber found confusing.
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This would result in having to add a clarification to all the flagbearers to say “this rules text is a reminder text and not an ability.” That seems far worse than the current state of things.
edit: especially since we would need to clarify that in the CodexCard database, so now you really do fall into the “make sure to look up the rules clarifications for Tenderfoot before you play.”
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For Flagbearer to be able to funciton as reminder text, I think it’d be ‘cleaner’ with something along these lines:
Vortoss Emblem
Fading 3
Attach to a unit.
Whenever an opponent plays a spell or ability that can target a flagbearer or the attached unit, it must target a flagbearer or the attached unit at least once.
I think this would allow it to pass all the relevant checks, if Flagbearer were an ability covered by reminder text.
I don’t think its possible to know that the wording on illusion cards is ‘reminder text’ without referring to that document. I.e. Does spectral tiger have any abilities if its the only card in play? Without checking that document its difficult to answer that question.
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That’s a nice way of porting the card to that hypothetical ruleset.
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From previous conversations along these lines in other games, I am 99.99% confident that all suggested card changes are off the table entirely. Reprinting costs make it a no-go. The only thing that can happen now that the game is printed and out in the world is “provide card specific clarifications on the rules clarification website” and maybe “add something to that same website about broad rules philosophy (such as timing rules for state based actions vs. trigger actions).”
So while I sympathize with the impulse to provide clearer templating and suggestions for how cards could be expressed better in order to achieve a broader unity of function, those are ultimately going to be fruitless discussions. So, for example, Flagbearer isn’t going to become a key-word, but Vortoss Emblem could get some additional detail about how it interacts with Midori’s mid-band, to remind people it doesn’t grant an ability to the unit it is attached to.
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It’s possible to know from context. I agree it’s not impossible to “get the wrong answer” and think it’s rules text, which is certainly not ideal. Unfortunately that’s the world we live in.
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I’m not sure this would work without clarification that it replaced the standard rule about Flagbearers. Suppose my opponent has both a Flagbearer and a (different) unit with (his) VE attached, and I’m casting a spell which can target any unit. Vortoss Emblem tells me I must target either unit, and the base rules tell me I must target the Flagbearer. So the only legal target is the Flagbearer, as that’s the only unit which meets both constraits. However, designer intent is that I should be able to choose either unit as the target for the spell.
I think there’s a general and vague understanding that abilities beat rules.
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