Rules Questions thread

Correct, it is still played, so things like Knight of the Conclave still triggers Drill Sergeant and Flagstone Garrison, but not Blooming Ancient.

What happens if I have 2 Banefire Golems during upkeep? Can I have them both sacrifice the same unit, and still get the effect twice? If I have one of them sacrifice the other, does the 2nd one’s ability still trigger?

Both abilities go in the queue, you have 2 chances to sacrifice a unit to deal 1 damage to each opposing thing. The banefires do not still need to be around for the abilities they put into the queue to happen. It is possible to have them both sac the same unit, but only if the unit is somehow still alive after being sacrificed by the other one (e.g soul stone, second chances).

No matter what both abilities will trigger, as they both trigger and go into the queue before either one of them resolves.

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I think the Second Chances trigger would not return the unit until after the second banefire trigger happened, as it was not simultaneous.

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It’s my turn.
I have a 4/4 Mimic with Overpower and Sparkshot.

My opponent’s patrol zone has a 1/1 in Scavenger and a 1/1 in Technician. There is also an exhausted 4/2 Vandy on his board.

Question:
Can I kill all three of them with one Mimic attack?

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My heart says yes, but my mind isn’t sure.

From the rulings page on Sparkshot

Sparkshot damage is dealt simultaneously with all other combat damage. — Sirlin, 03/11/16

I believe this means that you have to determine eligibility for Overpower at the same time that you deal Sparkshot damage; it doesn’t work like Obliterate, where the destruction happens before Overpower triggers.

I disagree with this logic. The sparkshot timing isn’t particularly relevant; what’s relevant is whether or not overpower determines what can be attacked based on which patrollers will be reduced to 0 HP by the attack, or merely by what is the declared target for the attack. According to a strict reading of the overpower rulings, it goes by the declared target, so you would only be able to overpower to the other patroller. However, it’s very possible the ruling was not worded with this edge case in mind, so hopefully @sharpobject will weigh in when he gets a chance.

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But isn’t overpower also technically simultaneous? Although I guess if they were all simultaneous, I would think no

I think it boils down to whether Overpower’s target is decided upon Overpower entering queue (while second 1/1 is still alive) or upon Overpower leaving queue (when second 1/1 is already dead to Sparkshot).

I was unable to find a definite answer to that.

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Sparkshot and overpower are combat abilities; unlike triggered abilities, they don’t go into the queue at all… they just modify the behavior of combat damage as it’s dealt, and the sparkshot and overpower damage is dealt at the same time as the attacker’s normal combat damage. So, for example, if there were (3/3) Brave Knights patrolling as Elite and Scavenger, and you attacked one with a (5/X) Sparkshot, overpower unit, it could kill both, and if the defender had 2 Second Chances in play, both Brave Knights would be returned to play.

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The timing rules have to do with how the state of the game is calculated, and when. Triggered abilities resolve, then calculate the game state, then move onto the next triggered ability.

Combat damage isnt a triggered ability, or of it does bheave like one, the entirety of it happens, then the game state is calculated. So, If that is true, then overpower would not hit vandy in that example.

What is meant by simultaneous is that all the things happen, then the game state is recalculated. What died, where things went, how much damage ended up on various targets, any triggered abilities, are all calculated after the combat damage has been done.

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We have a ruling from the highest instance handed to us in Discord to reinforce your judgement :slight_smile:

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Posting @Unity’s question here

So the first thought I have: it may seem unthematic, but there’s generally small edge cases that are correct by the rules, even if they don’t quite match the themeing. The important details are that Blackhand has a requirement (the hero has to have died previously during the game) and an effect (the hero is brought into play at max level).

Second thought: this seems like a case of “specific trumps general”; Snapback blocks all summons, Blackhand allows a specific type of summon, so that overrides Snapback. I could be wrong about that, though.

EDIT: don’t mind me, the better rule to follow is probably “‘can’t’ trumps ‘can’”, so Snapback would block Blackhand’s effect.

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I suspect the intended behavior here is that Blackhand Resurrector can summon the hero, because:

  1. Blackhand Resurrector has been ruled to bypass every other restriction on being able to summon heroes, including cooldown time after death and even the hero limit from buildings.
  2. I suspect Snapback is intended to put the returned hero on cooldown as if it were killed, and since that means the hero can’t normally be summoned until after the owner’s next turn, that’s how the card was worded.

Per rules as written, I’m inclined to agree with your edited reasoning that Blackhand Resurrector wouldn’t work, however, but per rules as written, I’d also be inclined to say that BR wouldn’t be able to summon a hero that recently died, or one that exceeds the hero limit. Perhaps BR should have been worded “… -> Put a hero … into play…” similar to Snapback.

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Paging @sharpobject! How do Blackhand Resurrector and Snapback interact if the hero that’s been Snapped Back already died that game?

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Hey,

Snapback says in part “It can’t be summoned until after its owner’s next turn.” Blackhand Resurrector says in part “Summon a hero from your command zone.”

The way this works in general is that text on cards beats text in the rulebook and text that says you can’t do a thing beats text that says you can or must do the thing. In this case, “It can’t be summoned” on a card (Snapback) will prevail over any other card’s efforts to summon the hero.

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For searchability sake, I wanted to link to a rules discussion that resulted from a tense XCAPS19 game, and @sharpobject if you are able to chime in with official confirmation that’d be swell :slight_smile:

Situation is that one player (@Marto) controls a Blooming Ancient during the opponent (@bansa)'s turn, and the opponent plays Terras Q, the Shackled, granting the player 4 warlock tokens. The general consensus reached was that the Blooming Ancient would receive 4 +1/1 runes, one for each warlock, as they arrived under his control with the arrival of Terras Q.

See here for full context, pretty spectacular to see a TerrasQ + Discord combo get immediately countered by raw combat damage like that!

It would follow that the same would apply for Final Showdown (or any other card I’m forgetting?) and the two Hunter tokens given an opponent in control of a BA.

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Those are some epic bushes.

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What’s the alternate possibility, that the warlocks wouldn’t grant +1/+1 counters to the ancient? What would be the reasoning for that happening?

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