Hey everyone, in a casual match @dwarddd came up with this awesome interaction:
Temporal distortion a unit into a new one while second chances is in the table.
Does second chances prevent the unit from going to the hand in order to let TD have it’s condition fulfilled in order to do it’s magic?
No, Second Chances doesn’t prevent units from leaving play, it simply returns them to play immediately after they’ve left.
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I think the specific question @zango is asking about is involves the wording on Temporal Distortion that only it triggers if you return a card to hand. If I recall the language used for explaining Forgotten Fighter destroying tokens is that “return to hand” actually means “remove from play; then return to hand.” If that’s correct, then it may follow that Temporal Distortion removes a unit from play, Second Chances returns that unit to play, and the conditional part of Temporal Distortion does not trigger because the unit never fully returned to hand.
I don’t have an opinion either way at this time, but I wanted to make the point of contention more clear.
This is the first I’m hearing of zone transfers being a two step process, so I would have to see the ruling this interpretation is based on to accept it. My understanding is that a zone transfer from in play to anywhere else is what it means to leave play, and that tokens that leave play are destroyed.
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Yes, the rule book has it as you describe. It’s cleaner that way, I’ve just heard it described the other way.
To be more specific: after reading multiple walls of text in this thread Punf fights the rulebook
especially the part about timing and about fast triggers, my interpretation of the rules is:
You cast TD and start to progress it.
You return the unit to your hand, second chances triggers.
As second chances is a fast trigger, it interrupts the progressing of TD.
The unit does return to hand and immediately returns to play.
Second chances is progressed so the game proceeds to progress TD
TD checks whether you returned the unit to hand and realizes: the unit is still in game, so the modal second part of TD does not trigger.
Is this interpretation wrong? The replies so far didn’t make me change my mind as they don’t really explain why my interpretation is wrong.
TBH: I would prefer this interaction to function that way, it is simply awesome and would lead to a very well deserved win for Dwarddd. It just doesn’t fit my understanding of the spirit of the game about rules. In my understanding TD’s intention is to check whether the unit actually returned to hand and nothing else.
Even on your interpretation, though, I would think the conditional in TD would trigger - you did return the card to your hand, even if it didn’t stay there.
There are a few things about that interpretation that cause me to raise my eyebrows, in particular, I didn’t think anything could interrupt the flow of the processing of a card’s text once it started. But, I can definitively say this interpretation is wrong, on the grounds that the returned unit is not the same as the unit that left, therefore Temporal Distortion cannot see that the unit is still in game.
From Second Chances:
When this returns a unit to play, it returns in a “fresh” state. It’s a new object, and no longer has any properties of the old object such as +1/+1 runes, damage, being a dance partner from Two Step, etc. It also returns ready (not exhausted) and it can’t attack or use exhaust abilities unless it has haste. — Sirlin, 03/11/16
Oh that one is for sure. That’s specifically the reason why punff and sharpobject differentiate between triggers and fast triggers.
For that I can only say that the rules in codex fundamentally work differently than in MtG. I first learned to play magic, then codex. And this argument for sure has the MtG spirit, which is close to my heart. Codex does care about the cards no matter the zone transfers. Otherwise for example units in the graveyard zone would not be put in discard when the graveyard is trashed for example with a detonate. (I would even go so far that with this argument above they would stay in the graveyard zone when the gy is destroyed by combat damage). But let’s not split hairs about that.
As there are multiple seasoned players in favor of this interaction to work this way, I can very well put aside my feelings of how the rules should be interpreted in the spirit of “what was the intention of the card”. I especially have to agree with dreamfire about the exact wording. My feeling about the intention of the weird modal form of TD probably has to be put aside.
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Oh interesting. Are you claiming that Second Chances would be a normal trigger, going in the queue, and not a “fast trigger”?
(I think “interrupt” is a more descriptive word for things like graveyard or appel stomp where cards are redirected. I had thought of Second Chances as in this category)
From the spreadsheet:
So yeah, TD doesn’t care if the thing actually makes it to your hand or not. That combo was designed to work, by Sirlin. I remember him talking about it somewhere. Also, it appeals to the rule of “Come on” which Sirlin favours so much.
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No, I worded that poorly. Some things do happen in the middle of resolution, like units dying and abilities triggering and going into the queue. What I meant was that I think once an ability starts resolving, it always finishes resolving before any other ability starts resolving.
And I realize the wording of this quote seems to contradict my point of view here, but I think I remember reading somewhere else in this thread that declaring targets for an ability and resolving an ability are two separate steps, in which case Smoker / Illusion would slip in between these steps rather than interrupting the resolution step.
And for Second Chances, etc., I think this is saying, if SC were to trigger off of a technician dying, then SC would go to the front of the queue, whereas the technician draw would go to the back of the queue. But, of course, the currently resolving spell/ability (Temporal Distortion) would finish resolving before the front of the queue (Second Chances) would resolve.
So, I think how this interaction plays out is:
- Temporal Distortion starts to resolve and returns a unit from play to hand.
- Second Chances triggers and cuts to the front of the queue, ahead of any abilities that might tamper with the contents of the hand.
- Temporal Distortion moves a unit from codex to play.
- Any “arrives” triggers on that unit go to the back of the queue.
- Second Chances starts to resolve and moves the original unit from hand back into play.
- Any “arrives” triggers on that unit go to the back of the queue.
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To iterate on what others wrote, one key thing here is that the text for Second Chances does not contain the word “instead”. The card does get returned to hand, and Temporal Distortion doesn’t care that it’s removed again.
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Awesome, thanks for clearing that up!
Thanks for writing that out so clearly!
It’s kind of elegant how it’s written out, but I don’t think it avoids the complications that sharpobject is mentioning.
For example, casting Boot Camp targeting an illusion you control with Reteller of Truths in play could cause, in the timing that you’re describing, the illusion to be shuffled into the deck before having a chance to be returned to hand.
I think it’s necessary for these graveyard-timing effects to happen as a way of redirecting what happens to the card when it dies or is removed from play as the case may be, using the same time that would normally be used to handle putting the card in the discard pile.
In other words, I think “fast triggers” is not an accurate description of what is happening here. I really would prefer calling it a “death interrupt” or “death redirection” or something like that.
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Good point, I guess it really does need to skip the queue entirely and happen immediately. I would discourage use of “death redirection” because that makes it sound like it prevents the original movement. E.g. in this case, it would make it sound like TD didn’t actually return the unit to hand because Second Chances redirected it back into play instead, which of course, isn’t how this interaction is meant to work. “Death interrupt” seems much more appropriate.
So with the fact that you probably do have to return the card to play before you finish resolving temporal distortion, the focus for understanding this particular interaction is on how temporal distortion decides “if you [have returned something to your hand]”.
One suggestion so far is that it checks the board to find said unit, and is satisfied if doesnt find it, which lead to someone else pointing out the returned unit isn’t recogniseable.
I suggest, as a human enforcing the card’s rules, i remember doing the first step… there’s some switch which is flicked within TD to remember the first step has been done if you like. Sure, the second step is hard to define as a function of purely board state now, but see Necromancer in Black for evidence that that isnt necessary, plus this is a two step card so why not have a little local variable.
And for more evidence that this was how it was intended (altho i understand people agreed this anyway and were just trying to understand how it could work), see rulings on SC, which specificslly say it can return the sacrificed unit for doom grasp (implying it doesnt neuter it).
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The “just remember that it happened” approach makes a lot of sense, and at the same time, remembering which card was returned would provide the information necessary for step 2. This is a far simpler and cleaner approach than trying to extract the information by looking at the board state afterwards.
Yeah most of these cards don’t actually care if the thing succeeds, just that you tried to do it.
Banefire golem similarly still works if second chances returns the sacrificed thing
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Well, the do as much as you can rule allows spells to be cast even when there’s nothing for them to affect.
Looking at the rulings on Temporal Distortion, the criteria appears to be if TD caused a unit to leave play, with no regards to what happens afterwards. Attempting to remove Gilded Glaxx (with gold) doesn’t satisfy the condition, but removing (and thus, destroying) a token does.
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