Stack Empty
Active player gets priority
Active player maxbands Geiger
Geiger maxband begins resolving
Active player chooses to trash and return to play Unit X
Unit X is trashed and returned to play all as one ‘continuous action’
Game checks ongoing effects at end of first line of text being executed (in this case, we have just one line of text as part of the overall ability, but mentioned here for completeness)
Game looks for things to add to the stack.
It finds a leaves ability that triggered
It finds an arrives ability that triggered
It asks active player to order them
Game checks to see if anything is in the process of being resolved
It sees that Geiger maxband has completed
It proceeded to execute the next thing in the que
This should hold true for all non-que-buster effects
Yes, but I’m not sure if it works the way @Coiser thinks or the way @Hobusu thinks. We know that triggered abilities are not allowed to resolve in the middle of an effect, but can they be added to the queue in the middle of an effect? I guess a more straightforward example would be Doom Grasp. If both the sacrificed unit and the targeted unit have ‘Dies:’ triggers, can you queue the target’s trigger before the sacrifice’s?
I asked sharpo on Discord, and he confirmed that you can’t choose the ordering in either case.
this was a sticking point for me for a long time
because in mtg you don’t let stuff die or put stuff on the stack in the middle of the resolution of any ability
but sirlin eventually told me that was not ok enough times that we made something else
He might post in a bit with more specifics of how it works, but now you’ve got an answer to your question.
If you play doom grasp, or use geiger’s max band, or use final smash, the zone changes happen in the order they are written on the card. When each zone change happens, any triggered abilities it causes are enqueued. So if you have 3 Stingers and a Hive and you blink the Hive using Geiger, you will end up with 5 stingers. You cannot choose to end up with 0.
Moreover, if Bluecoat Musketeer stops checking its ATK before the Elite bonus applies (which is what I think @sharpobject is saying happens), then what makes it different from Doubling Barbarbarian (since he doubles the ATK he gains from Elite)?
Yeah, for the Musketeer to keep Long-Range while in the Elite slot (without a -1/-1 rune), the Elite slot would have to be some kind of weird non-effect mechanic that alters combat performance without actually modifying a patroller’s attack This would also have other implications, like you wouldn’t be able to use Elite placement to affect what can be selected as the “weakest” unit by Sacrifice the Weak.
Every time the game applies a buff to a thing, it has to check whether the thing has the Doubling Barbarbarian ability and double it if so. Doubling Barbarbarian’s ability is not something that can be applied only once at a certain time when working out the stats of Doubling Barbarbarian, unlike basically everything else in the game.
Okay, so Barbarbarian gets to break the normal rules. I can accept that, since it’s a unique ability…
But it still seems weird that Bluecoat Musketeer can ever have more than 1 ATK and Long Range at the same time, since its ability says that can’t happen. I’m willing to believe this can make sense too, but you’ll have to explain it a bit more clearly. You’ve explained below, and I’m satisfied with it. Thanks!
The elite slot gives +1 atk after Musketeer has checked whether to get long range. The lookout slot gives resist 1 after Midori has checked whether something has an ability or not.
If you play Doom Grasp on a thing in the resist slot, you have to pay gold because it has resist. If you play sacrifice the weak, you must choose your opponent’s non-elite wisp instead of their elite wisp, because the elite wisp has 1 atk.
Sure. I dislike that you can have the Musketeer have long range while 2/2 or not have it while 1/1, but from my perspective I would have to add more exceptions to the game to fix this.
It’s all good! Thankfully it’s a situation that’s unlikely to matter too often (probably Blue vs Red if a Doubleshot Archer comes out is most likely), and there’s a logical reason for it to work the way it does (even if it doesn’t immediately make sense). Of course, if someone saw this on a hypothetical online version they’d think the game was bugged… Perhaps the ideal solution would be an errata/ruling that says something like “This ability ignores the ATK bonus from the Elite slot.” Functionally it wouldn’t do anything that isn’t covered by the existing rules, but it would curtail a lot of questions about that.
Edit: Now that I see Jadiel’s post, is there anything else broken by making Lookout unable to get Midori’s bonus and letting patrol bonuses be “normal”?
In the realm of it being unlikely, you could also point out that if any red player gets all the way to tech 2 against the blue starter, they’re probably just toying with them… Haha