Rules Questions thread

From what I can find of targeting in Codex, I can’t tell how similar it is to MtG.

If something has an ability that targets, does it have to have a target something, or can you just use it (and have the effect do nothing)?

i.e. Can P1T1 play a Spore Shambler and then pay 1 gold to remove a +1/+1 counter from it (and move it to nothing).

Not asking if this is a good play, just if it is a legal action that can be taken. I know that when resolving an effect you do as much as you can, which in this case would be nothing?!

I think you can cast a spell or use an ability, even if there is no legal target. For example, if you had Death Rites active, and wanted to kill an opposing Untargetable unit, but had no way to kill one of your own units, you could cast Doom Grasp even though there are no legal targets. This would let you sac your own unit, which triggers Death Rites and forces your opponent to sacrifice their Untargetable unit.

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As long as there are no legal targets for that part of the ability/spell, then you do not need to do it (because you can not). If there are legal targets, then you must do it.

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Hello,

The other 2 replies are correct. You choose targets as late as possible, right as you need them, and as a result of that you are allowed to play abilities and spells that won’t have valid targets when you get to the step where you choose targets.

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One of the weirdest rules in codex

The other weird one is overpower taking the first live of a two-live card

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Thanks for mentioning another strange interaction, I’m trying to make sure I have them all noted.

The way I assumed it worked is that the card with overpower would deal damage to the card with 2-lives, and then excess damage (beyond what it takes to trigger the 2nd lives) would go onto the next card. It would then get a crumbling rune.

If it already has a crumbling rune then the same would happen, except it would actually die in that scenario.

Is this correct, or am I missing something weird about it?

You’re correct.

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Two random questions:

1.) When referring to a play such as P1T1 play spore shambler, pay 1 to use its ability (or any other card ability whereby you generally do nothing) is there a slang expression / adopted term for this? i.e. If you said “Spore Shambler puts a +1/+1 counter on Sirlin” would that be understood as doing nothing with it?

2.) Is there a slang expression / adopted term for when a player is unable to summon any of their 3x heroes? I.e. maybe they have three heroes in play, they all die the same turn, that player cannot summon any heroes and therefore has been … (insert term here)? (hero-wrathed, etc?)

  1. just don’t mention it at all? Why would you use an ability to do nothing? In the rare case that you are just wasting gold to play around Pillage or some such, it generally gets spelled out explicitly, so the opponent knows that there wasn’t a typo or other error.

  2. In 200+ pbf games I’ve read, this has never happened.

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Regarding the unable to summon heroes thing, I read a forum game from maybe two weeks ago where it happened, so I figured it wasn’t that rare.

Raiddinn [Discipline]/Nerco/Anarchy vs Penatronic [Finesse]/Discipline/Disease

On P2T5 Penatronic got ‘hero-wrathed’, or some such lingo. Was just interested if anyone had a funny title or slang term for it.

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I managed to pull it off in a game once, thanks to Snapback. If I recall correctly, it was roughly midgame, my opponent had 2 heroes in play, and one or both of them was patrolling. I played Snapback on one of the heroes (who was in squad lead) and was able to kill the other hero much easier than he expected, and then finish off the new hero that Snapback put into play. I believe we referred to it as a hero-wipe, ha!

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Yeah, this is the situation I’m asking about. For whatever reason, one player is unable to summon any of their heroes, while also having none in play.

Would having two maestros on the field give your virtuosos the ability to exhaust and deal 4 damage to a building?

Your virtuosos would have 2 different abilities to exhaust and deal 2 damage to a building.

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I could use some help understanding triggers. When multiple cards have abilities that will triggers at the same time, do all triggers ‘go on the stack’, or do all the cards with abilities that are triggering line up and then the active player chooses the order they will resolve and then goes through them one by one, with the game having no knowledge of which abilities are yet to come?

I’ll use Banefire Golem as an example.

1.) If you begin your turn with only 2x Banefire Golems in play, do two sacrifice triggers ‘go on the stack’, meaning they will both be sacrificed in your upkeep (one to each trigger) or, instead, does B.Golem #1 trigger, and you can choose to sacrifice B.Golem #2, which has yet to trigger (allowing you to get past your upkeep with B.Golem #1).

The triggers go on the stack. There are lots of instances where card abilities resolve, even when that card is no longer in play (e.g. Leaves triggers)

There is a queue rather than a stack, but both abilities are enqueued before either one happens.

For further details, search this thread for mentions of “queue”

I wrote more than you ever wanted to know about triggers in the second post of this thread. The second example under the triggers section is particularly relevant for your hypothetical.

Things that are triggered simultaneously go into the queue simultaneously, and the active player chooses the order in which to resolve them. In your example, both Banefire Golem sacrifices are triggered simultaneously when you hit the upkeep step. As active player, you can choose whether to resolve sacrifice #1 or sacrifice #2 first, but you have to do both of them.

It happened in the 1 PBF game that I played.

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