So let me preface this question by saying that I like the rulings as they stand in the official FAQ. I’m just curious why they were ruled that way.
When Rook’s “dodges” or Gwen’s “Gloria’s Remedy” are countered, they still don’t return to hand. I like this, but don’t understand it. In my eyes, if you counter an ability, you should negate everything in the text box, including the part about them getting discarded.
Is it simply because countering an ability is supposed to have a negative effect on the person being countered, so all innately negative parts of the ability still trigger?
I think you’re allowed to counter Zane’s Crash Bomb when you block it, and if you do this you’ll only be helping the Zane player. So this pattern applies to these special blocks, but not throughout the game.
I believe you have it right. I do not know if there is a source for this, but I heard that there was official comment on this issue saying that one should not get a benefit from having one’s ability countered. As a result, supposedly we are to interpret counters as only countering the beneficial aspects of the ability.
However, as pointed out above, this is not really consistent with every edge case, so take it with a grain of salt.
Hm, actualy all countering abillitys explicity says that your opponent should discard the card that is countered. /Except Arg, where you shouId put the card at the botom of your deck/. I guess that is the reason for discarding and there is no conection with the countered card’s ability to be discarded.
It says "… the opponent discards the card if played from hand."
Special blocks played as a combat card are not played from hand, because they are “during combat” abilities.
For example, if someone played Point, Counterpoint on the attack side, but wanted to spin it to the throw side for more damage, countering it would not cause the card to be immediately discarded. It would just counter the rotation, and they would be forced to keep the attack side.
Combat cards that have already been revealed are not “played from hand”.
The answer to “why do countered blocks get discarded” is a mix of things, but fundamentally comes down to “because that’s what Word of God says happens.”
A slightly longer explanation: Rook’s special blocks actually lack the help text that tells you that blocks return to hand unless they lose combat. So even if countered, those should be discarded, since they don’t have that specific instruction. I believe Gwen’s blocks do have that help text, and for a while they returned to hand when countered, but then that was inconsistent with Rook’s blocks and Sirlin commented that they should also be discarded when countered.
@mysticjuicer is spot on, from a pure rules perspective the counters should negate the ability text, rendering the card a standard block. The rulebook defines blocks as follows:
Block
Blocking lets you build up more cards. When you block, you only discard your block card if you get thrown. If the opponent attacks, blocks, dodges, or plays a Joker, then you return your block card to your hand at the end of combat. You draw an extra card if you block an attack or Joker.
The problem we have with special blocks is that reverting them to a normal block would mean the blocker would draw a card and then return the special block to hand, which is almost always an advantage for the blocker.
I’d like to see the special block and counter rules adjusted in the next iteration of yomi, imo Rook’s special blocks should be adjusted to return on block /blodge and trigger on Jokers (Rook would be close to perfect with this kind of boost imo) and the counter explanation text on all counters should have a specific mention of special blocks, something like:
(Prevent and undo the ability and the opponent discards the card if played from hand. Special blocks don’t return to hand or draw from blocking. You can’t counter Aces, Jokers or character cards.)
This would make it explicit how the counters should work in these situations and make all non-normal block interactions easier to figure out for new players.
The only other change I think Rook would need would be for both special blocks to count as hitting his opponent, so they can end advantage time states like Temporal Distortion, Bubble Shield and Long Range.
I just re-read this and remembered that Argagarg’s Ace doesn’t have the help text either, yet it still returns to hand on block-block. I guess it just highlights that this is an area of the game in need of amending for clarity.
As a relatively new player, I can say that I experienced some frustration learning Yomi. I learned it with the 2nd edition physical cards, and relied on the help text often. There are many mistakes not just in grammar, but in rules as well.
I pointed out some of these errors, and was (correctly) told to use the icons as an authoritative guide–not the help text. Now after playing online, I’m still learning a lot of things I never would have otherwise (i.e. Rook’s special blocks, Arg’s BS is an ODD for mixup normals, etc.)
But, the help text and abilities certainly could use some “cleaning up”.
Its interesting re-reading this discussion to realise that I’ve come full circle. I now disagree with my statement above (emphasis mine). It should really read “…which is sometimes to the advantage of the blocker”.
Anyone who has played Rook vs my Argagarg or to a lesser extent Grave would know that the way the official counter rules interact with special blocks is horrible for Rook’s end game. If 5-block is effectively useless then there is no way for him to rock armor at all and death to chip is super real. This is at its worst vs Arg because 7*/10*/AA provide extremely card efficient ways to neutralise everything Rook wants to do.
I’m now of the opinion that the way to do special blocks is to make them explicitly normal blocks with an optional during combat trigger where you discard the successful block card to activate the special ability. This would immediately fix the inconsistencies between Rook and Gwen blocks (if they go block / blodge they will just be regular blocks) and we could also add the line/help text “this counts as played from hand” to all special blocks to make the interaction with counters clear but without needing to change the counter cards.
Note: From a Rook perspective this doesn’t actually fix his late game woes but would give him 2 more normal blocks which is great for his consistency in early / mid game. As I see it, the best way to help him vs characters with counters it to make his 5* un-counterable so he can always challenge aces. This is probably best placed in another discussion though.
I really like the idea of making the special blocks into normal blocks with an optional during-combat trigger to get the ability, but I don’t really understand this part. These abilities are not being played from hand (at least not in the way the rest of the rules interpret ‘played from hand’), so are you just suggesting that we make an exception and “pretend” they are played from hand so that Arg’s 10* will send them to the bottom of the deck instead of going in the discard?
It was actually me trying to get sirlin’s desired interaction between special blocks and counters i.e. that they are discarded if countered. With my change, if they don’t count as “played from hand” then they would just revert to normal blocks and return to hand. I take the point that it’s a bit weird tho. We could instead amend the counter help text and achieve the same thing.
To be clear, I think that countered special blocks *should* revert to normal blocks, draw a card and return to hand, because then they would *actually be* blocks rather than weird, less good dodges that you can play when knocked down. I think this change would be better for clarity and better for balance, I just don’t believe that we will be able to convince sirlin to change his mind.
Ah, I see. That makes sense. In that case, I feel like parenthetical text on the special blocks that says something like “if this ability is countered, discard this card” would be easier to implement and be less confusing.
