@mysticjuicer, sharpo already ruled otherwise on that interpretation.
Ah okay, I’ll delete my replies so future searches don’t pick it up.
Given the previous ruling, why would the “second attack” not trigger voidblocker’s ability?
I think it probably would, but I’m not certain if a retargeted attack is treated the same as a declared attack for purposes of triggering effects like Voidblocker. Since I couldn’t find a ruling on this particular question, I thought it safer to request confirmation than to rely on my intuition.
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I am fairly confident a retargeted attack still triggers effects, but I dont have much to base that on other than that the validity of targets is continually checked, which just makes me think its logical.
My opponent and I both have only 1 base HP remaining. My opponent has Crash Bomber in play. I cast Death and Decay. Who wins? My thought is that D&D kills the Bomber first, putting its triggered ability into the queue, then D&D breaks my opponent’s base, then I win before Bomber’s ability can resolve.
My opinion is that D&D deals dmg to buildings and -3 to units at the same time, so first you resolve its effect and win, and only later does the bomber go to discard and trigger its effect. Even if the two things happened at the same time, as the turn player, you decide the order with which simultaneous effect resolve so you would win anyway.
Pretty sure that is not correct, based on Sirlin’s ruling for Earthquake.
Isn’t that a MTG concept? I thought Codex worked differently. -3 to units happen first as noted in the example of Earthquake, so Crash Bomber’s ability resolves before you go to damage to buildings.
Official Rulebook says
“In some card games, you can activate abilities, then “before they resolve,” play so-called instant abilities. Codex does not have instants, so in general you have to finish resolving something before you can do something else. For example, if an effect said “Sacrifice a unit. If you do, give an other unit +2/+2 this turn” you couldn’t sacrifice a unit, then activate some other ability, or hire a worker, or summon a hero, etc., before giving the other unit +2/+2. You’d have to completely finish your first ability before moving on to doing something else.”
If I remember correctly, you resolve all effects on a card, before resolving any further effects they add to the queue. So this is consistent with Earthquake.
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@bansa, MTG uses a stack rather than a queue, and as you pointed out, allows the player to take certain actions while the stack is not empty. Codex uses a queue and does not allow the player to take any action until the queue has emptied.
@charnel_mouse, that is my recollection as well, though I don’t remember anything specific I could reference to support that.
My main point of uncertainty is whether the queue must fully resolve before base HP are compared to determine a winner.
Where is this in the Rulebook or official ruling? Can you provide a reference?
I believe resolving -3 to units first before moving onto deal 3 dmg to buildings is consistent with Earthquake ruling.
Official Rulebook says
“.+1/+1 and -1/-1 Runes
These adjust the ATK / HP of the unit or hero they are on. Units or heroes with 0 or less HP die immediately. +1/+1 and-1/-1 runes destroy each other if they would go on the same object”
“If any units die (by taking damage equal or greater than their HP or by having 0 hp from debuffs) then put them in their owner’s discard pile face down”
“Dies: Do X
When this is put into your discard pile from play, do X”
It’s also ruled by zhavier before as above. When a unit dies in the technician slot, it goes to discard pile before draw a card. So, in the same way Crash Bomber will die immediately from -3 and will go to discard before anything and it’s ability will trigger when it goes to discard before we even start reading the next part of the Death and Decay.
Whether or not it checks for win con in the middle of a spell is another question but I think it does
Official Rulebook says
The game ends when any player’s base is destroyed
So, I think if you D&D in this case, your base will be destroyed first and game ends.
I think the concept of the queue isn’t mentioned in the rulebook or the card database at all. However, sharpo’s mentioned it various times. There are a few examples here, at the start of the questions thread, and the concept predates this forum.
This post gives some cases where a non-state-based effect skips the queue.
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To clarify, by “does not allow the player to take any action”, I mean that the player can’t voluntarily initiate any new behavior, such as playing a card, using an ability, declaring an attack, or ending the main phase. Triggered abilities are different, because they initiate themselves in response to an event.
I agree that the Crash Bomber will die and go to the discard pile, and that its ability will trigger, before Death and Decay deals damage. However, Crash Bomber’s ability doesn’t resolve until after Death and Decay deals damage.
I’ve found confirmation that the game can end between two clauses of a spell here, so it can definitely happen between the completion of a spell’s effects and the resolution of the first ability in the queue, therefore in this scenario, I would win because Death and Decay would destroy my opponent’s base before Crash Bomber’s ability would resolve and destroy mine. (Thanks to charnel_mouse for pointing me in the right direction.)
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Can you provide a reference to back this up? You guys keep talking about the concept of “in the queue” that doesn’t exist in the Rulebook which by the way specifically says otherwise.
Official Rulebook says
“In some card games, you can activate abilities, then “before they resolve,” play so-called instant abilities. Codex does not have instants, so in general you have to finish resolving something before you can do something else. For example, if an effect said “Sacrifice a unit. If you do, give an other unit +2/+2 this turn” you couldn’t sacrifice a unit, then activate some other ability, or hire a worker, or summon a hero, etc., before giving the other unit +2/+2. You’d have to completely finish your first ability before moving on to doing something else.”
“Something” is unfortunately a pretty vague term.
- Death and Decay deals damage to Crash Bomber. Damage and death are instant, so the Bomber dies. Its death ability is put on the queue, to resolve once we’ve finished resolving Death and Decay. If the Bomber was is Scavenger or Technician, the bonus also goes on the queue at the same time.
- Death and Decay deals damage to the enemy base. Damage and winning are instant, so if this destroys the base we win.
- Death and Decay is now finished resolving, and goes to the discard.
- We now resolve the queue, i.e. resolve Crash Bomber’s ability. Our base takes 1 damage, if the game hasn’t finished. If there are patrol bonuses, they also resolve now, since they went on the queue at the same time. As active player we choose the order in which the bonus and the damage occur.
In this context, that quote from the rulebook means the player can’t start another action (e.g. play a card) until the queue’s been fully resolved. This is what is meant by “no instants”.
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You guys are talking in circles. Concept of “in the queue” again which does not exist in the Rulebook. Can you rephrase that in Codex language so I can understand?
Just search for “queue” in this thread and look for posts by sharpobject. He’s the official authority on all rules-based questions for Codex.
Well, I’ll try to simply explain. Multiple abilities can trigger at the same time, in which case the active player has to choose what order they resolve in. “Trigger” means an event occurs that causes an ability to respond. “Resolve” means the responding ability performs its effects.
A responding ability may, in turn, trigger other abilities as it resolves, but those abilities happen “after” whatever other abilities triggered before it, so they go into the queue afterwards. A “queue” is a data structure where things come out in the same order they go in, like, when people line up to wait their turn for something, another name for that line is a queue.
OK. See that bit about “you have to finish resolving something before you can do something else”? That also applies to other effects that get triggered by whatever you’re currently doing. It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the simple version.
Past that, you’re just not going to find this in the rulebook, sorry. It’s not thorough enough for that. If you browse the questions thread you’ll find quite of a few of us not liking that fact, and there’s a reason there was an attempt at an unofficial rewrite. Maybe things would be different if there’s a second edition, or if someone straightens out all the rulings into a nice, consistent digital enforcement and enlightens the rest of us, but the former is looking especially unlikely.
Theres a misunderstanding here:
Its ability is added to the queu, not immediately triggered. It is another card, and its ability cannot interrupt something that is currently happening. D&D must fully resolve before you can check what others cards got up to while you were resolving D&D.