Rules Questions thread

Whether the ability can target it would be the same as whether you can Mind Control your own units, is my guess? It could still go either way at turn’s end, depending on whether Kidnapping making you lose control at the end of your turn overrides all previous “take control” effects.

I would say you could target something you already control, but I am not sure if kidnapping would still send it back.

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I wouldn’t expect it to. It’s not like Kidnapping explicitly says the opponent gains control at the end of turn, it’s just that the temporary control effect expires. As long as there’s some other control effect still active, it should still be under your control, I’d think. Seems like this maneuver should work.

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That’s what I thought too. I wasn’t sure because Ogre Recruiter’s “gain control” is a one-off effect. I was also thinking whether control effects work the way temporary armour works, where e.g. if Onimaru is buffed by Aged Sensei, has it pinged by the tower, then casts Art of War, he has 1 armour during the opponent’s turn, not 2. In other words, whether Kidnapping effectively had a “lost control” effect trigger at the end of the turn, like Aged Sensei effectively removes 1 armour.

I could understand some ambiguity if Onimaru gained armor from Aged Sensei and The Art of War before taking 1 damage from a Tower (although I’d expect the active player should be able to decide to soak the damage with the shorter-duration armor), but saying Onimaru loses one of the points of armor from The Art of War from damage suffered before the spell is even cast makes no sense to me whatsoever. Where are you getting this from?

It came up on the Discourse channel last Thursday (@Shadow_Night_Black and @Hobusu, I think?). The reasoning was that armour goes into a common pool, so temporary armour effects work by implicitly adding a later effect that removes the same amount of armour as they originally added – they can’t remove the armour they specifically added, because they can’t find it. Similarly, in the case where you cast Art of War before attacking, you don’t choose which point of armour is pinged.

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Oh, I see. So, you’re thinking the Kidnapping could work the same way, with some implicit “give control to player X” effect triggering at end of turn that would override Ogre Recruiter’s effect, huh? I dunno, could be. @sharpobject?

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I endorse this post.

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Wait, so you’re saying that if I cast elite training on a unit, and use sensei’s advice on it, then it takes one damage, it will have no armour on the opponent’s turn?

Yes. 10charspleaseLars

… I don’t like that

Yeah, I think if I were to design the armor mechanic, I’d track 2 values, current armor and maximum armor (similar to current and maximum health). When an effect grants X armor, it would increase both values by X. Damage would reduce the current armor. Effects wearing off would reduce the maximum armor, but if the maximum ever dropped below the current, then the current would be set to the maximum. This might sound more complex to explain, but I think the behavior would be more intuitive.

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guys, a question about overpower+ death touch. If a unit as 2atk and death touch, and attacks something that has 3 hp, overpower doesn’t activate, right?

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This has come up a few times, I think, e.g. here. Overpower doesn’t account for deathtouch when determining lethal damage, so no, it wouldn’t activate.

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that was my reasoning too. tyvm

Can you overpower past a patroller that Sparkshot kills? E.g., P1 has a 3/3 Overpower Sparkshot, P2 has two 1/1s in Scavenger and Technician. P1 attacks one patroller, sparkshotting the other, killing both. Can P1 deal the 2 excess attack damage to P2’s base, or does it have to go to the other patroller?

You only get to ignore the original attack target when picking “something else this could attack” for overpower.

(Note that Obliterate happens before combat damage, and could get rid of other patrollers if you used Blooming Elm or some such to give an Obliterating unit Overpower)

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Hi.
I’m new to the game and I’m trying to understand something about the Lookout paroling zone.
I understand that you have to pay 1 gold in order to target that patroller… but do you need to target it first, or you can just target anything the card indicate? In other word, does it work like the the «squad leader» but for target spell or abilities?

(sorry for my english)

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The Lookout doesn’t force you to target the patroller in it, for that you want a Flagbearer. But if you put a Flagbearer in the Lookout, your opponent might spend just enough gold to not be able to afford the $1 extra for resist, and then they could ignore that Flagbearer because they can’t afford to target it.

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So, just to clarify, it reads as if you are saying in this case the Overpower damage would go to the second patroller. Either before or simultaneously as the Sparkshot effect.