Rules Questions thread

From that conversation I see that you need to have 1g before assigning the excess to Setsuki (but you dont pay the 1g)

For example, you cannot assign excess damage to nonpatrolling invincible unit. Because you are not “could attack” it.
However if you use the tower to expose the invisible unit before attacking, you can assign excess damage to it as now you “could attack” it.

Seems the same logic should apply to Setsuki. Have the 11g to “could attack” her , but dont spend it because you are not “attacking” her

Yeah I’m sure.

Sure I agree

I would prefer if the game only cared about the 1g when you need to spend it.

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I would say that paying 1g is a cost to attack Setsuki, just like exhausting a unit is normally a cost to attacking with that unit. The fact that you have to pay a cost to attack doesn’t affect the ‘can you attack this?’ state of the card, it’s just something you need to do when you actually decide to attack.

So if my opponent has a clear patrol zone, setsuki in the back line, and I have a unit and 0g, Setsuki is a legal target for an attack, but I can’t attack her because I can’t pay the costs associated with doing so. Overpower only cares about whether a target is legal, not whether you can pay the costs associated with that attack.

I agree with @sharpobject that it’s silly for the game to require you to have 1g, even though you don’t actually need to spend it…

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I think the only logic required to make it so the game doesnt care if you have the 1g, is that it would be an annoying gotchya for a player that just doesn’t need to be there for any balance reason.

It would be good to add these rulings to codexcarddb… there’s nothing on the Setsuki page.

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Not sure what you mean by logic, but I think it’s one of those issues that’s unavoidable as a gotchya. There are two legitimate ways it might work, and one of them has to be chosen - it’s going to be a gotchya for anyone who finds the other to be more intuitive.

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or the overpower clarifications

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question: i have a maxb quince and a mirror, and i play an abomination.
Does the mirror become an abom, or does it die cuz abom’s effect?

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It dies

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what’s this ruling?

I don’t know why I referenced it, but the rule is that the active player can order start of turn abilities in whichever order they want. Maybe I was thinking of the example where (if ordered “wrong”) a damaged Starlet would die by taking a 2nd point of damage, even though the Helpful Turtle was “about” to heal her.

Ah, I see. It doesn’t seem to be the same thing though,no? In the case of the abom there are no abilities to order. In some LCGs I’ve played, permanent abilities start ‘before’ triggered abilities so the abom would kick in before the arrives ability. Is that the same in Codex? It seems to me that the ruling should be about the relationship between permanent abilities (like the abomination) and triggered abilities (like arrives etc.)

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Permanent abilities do kick in prior to triggers, I believe.

Cool. would be great if this was written down somewhere… Somewhere one can find when they have a rules question.

Its actually more accurate to say that state based effects come before actions, triggered or otherwise.

There is all the information in this thread, but it is very long, and finding it is not straightforward. @Barrelfish did a great job of summarising important rulings in the first couple of posts, but it’s difficult to determine what should go in them.

Basically, the reason the game works like this comes down to the interaction between 3 different kinds of effects: constant effects, triggered effects and state based effects. Units, building cards, heroes and upgrades have text on them, which either gives them abilities (such as Flying, or Resist) or effects, which can further be divided into constant effects and triggered effects. Triggered effects resolve using a queue system, which resolves the effects in the order they entered the queue. Constant effects apply from the moment the card causing them enters play until it leaves play, and ignore the queue system.

Finally, there are state-based effects. These are effects (which all come from the rules of the game, not cards) which the game immediately resolves as soon as they are relevant, and they are checked after anything happens in game. They also ignore the queue system.

So in the case of a player with a maxband Quince and a Mirror token playing an Abomination, the game state proceeds as follows:

Player plays Abomination, putting it on the table from their hand, and paying its cost in gold.
Abomination arrives in play, and triggers any arrival triggers. Quince maxband ability qualifies, and so ‘Turn a Mirror into an Abomination’ joins the queue. Abomination is now in play and so its constant effect is in operation
The game checks for any state-based effects - it finds that Mirror token has 0 hit points, and so Mirror token is sent to discard.
The game checks for state-based effects again - it finds a token in the discard, and trashes it.
No more state-based effects exist, so the queue starts resolving. Quince’s maxband looks for a Mirror to turn into an Abomination, but can’t find one, so the effect fizzles.

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Has there been a ruling on the timing of Boost effects on units? Does the boost effect happen before the unit arrives in play, at the same time as it arrives in play, or is it a triggered effect like an ‘Arrives:’ triggered effect?

So, for example, my opponent controls 3 Abominations (assume he either Mind Controlled one, or Quince maxbanded one with the help of Macciatus). I play Hooded Executioner with Boost (presumably killing an Abomination of my choice), is my Hooded Executioner still in play after the Boost resolves?

ETA: I should have checked the rulings database before I posted. It seems pretty clear that my HE survives in the example above. I’m not 100% clear whether Boost effects on units happen just before or simultaneously with the unit entering play, but given that there are only 2 units in the game with Boost, it probably doesn’t matter (Challenge: find a situation where it does!)

On a related note - the database entry for Marauder doesn’t match the card. Am I right in thinking this is an error, and that the card is correct? If so, could whoever maintains it (or the spreadsheet it’s pulling info from - @sharpobject?) fix it?

I agree that this thread has become very hard to sort through. I think I got most of the common interactions covered in the first couple posts (someone let me know if that isn’t the case). The problem is that there is a long tail of stuff that comes up less frequently. I think these are too numerous for an FAQ to make sense (a 50 item FAQ is pretty unwieldy to search through, not to mention a pain to maintain), but I don’t know of any good option.

I’d love to add a really thorough explanation of constant, state-based, and triggered effects to the FAQ, since I think that would cover a lot of the questions that come up. @Jadiel, your post above is a good start on that. If you or @sharpobject or someone want to flesh it out (I think “painfully thorough” with lots of examples is the level of detail needed), I’m happy to add it to the FAQ. I’ve already got something in there on the queue, but this would be the next level. I’d do it myself, but I don’t have confidence that I know it well enough to do it right.

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Yeah! Maybe I can make time this weekend to update all that stuff. I got some other report that out-of-date information on the ruling spreadsheet (and therefor also codexcarddb) is confusing.

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I think you are inferring that your HE will survive against 3 Aboms from Sirlin’s ruling about HE vs. Jail. I am not sure if he intended that ruling to have that implication, so I’m trying to clarify with him.

I’m personally fine with this either way, because regardless of what we say happens with HE vs. 3 Aboms, we still need 2 different rules about boost. Either like this:

  1. When you Boost a non-Ongoing Spell, you just follow the instructions as the spell resolves, and it will say what to do if you Boosted.
  2. When you Boost an Ongoing Spell, Upgrade, Building, or Unit, follow the instructions for if you Boosted before moving it into play.

Or like this:

  1. When you Boost a non-Ongoing Spell, you just follow the instructions as the spell resolves, and it will say what to do if you Boosted.
  2. When you Boost an Ongoing Spell, Upgrade, Building, or Unit, treat the instructions for if you Boosted as a triggered ability that reads “When you play this, if you boosted, do X.”

I agree that the Jail vs. HE ruling suggests the first set of rules.

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