Ah, hmm… that’s an interesting question. “Does a unit retain temporary buffs while copying something else?”
I’m trying to think of other examples of such a thing… like casting Polymorph on an opposing unit with Elite Training. Should the Squirrel be a 2/1+A with Anti-Air and Sparkshot?
My feeling would be no, I think it should lose temporary buffs, but I’m not certain if there’s been official word on that. I’ll look around.
I’m pretty confident that Manufactured Truth and Quince only affect the physical card, so effects on the copied card don’t transfer over; equally, any effects on the copying card are kept.
Ok, I’ve found two conflicting rulings.
From the rulings spreadsheet:
And from the sharpobject post I am replying to:
So… it seems like sharpobject decided to overrule Sirlin at some point.
I still like Sirlin’s original ruling better, but I’ll have to concede that sharpobject has the latest ruling and was authorised by Sirlin to make rulings… even though it spawns a million more awful edge cases that it would be better off removing.
Like there are so few cases where you couldn’t change the order of actions to get your desired result anyway, and it would clean up so much jank…
Which edge cases do you have in mind? “No abilities” only referring to having no abilities on the printed card makes more sense, given what other cards do.
This one, among others.
Fair enough, that one didn’t seem too bad to me. You do need a fair bit of gold to pull it all off in one turn. I just wish the relevant cards were more explicit about it just being the physical card that is copied/changed.
There was at least one time somewhat recently where a sharpobject ruling came up on Discord and Sirlin disagreed with it, so make of that what you will.
Wow, I love inconsistency with my rulemakers.
If an armor piercing units attacks a SL but does not kill the SL, is the armor then “used up”?
No: they just ignore the armour, so it’s still there.
If I used Manufactured Truth on an Overeager Cadet to turn it into a Tax Collector, hire an Insurance Agent to insure it, used the manufactured Tax Collector in combat and it dies, do I gain insurance according to the copied stats or the original card? I would assume the copy in this case.
Also, what happens insurance-wise if I transform a Spectral Aven into a Brave Knight, it’s insured while it’s a Brave Knight, takes 2 damage from combat, and then dies at the end of turn when the illusion reverts? Is the insurance from the copied unit or the base one?
when a mirror copying a bugblattter is trashed due to the original unit dying - what happens?
My take would be that both units see the original dying, hence my opponent’s base gets two damage. Then the mirror gets trashed and no damage is delivered anywhere as the mirror did not die but was trashed.
Is the assumption that a trashed unit does not trigger “when dies” effects?
Also is the sequencing right or can I somehow reorder triggers such that more damage is delivered?
Trashed things definitely don’t die, so seeing as only 1 thing is dying, 2 dmg is going to be the max
Not a timing expert but both seeing the real bugblatter die seems very reasonable to me for 2 dmg
Any death triggers are placed on the queue – but not resolved – before the dying unit actually leaves play, so the damage effects are placed on the queue before the copy leaving is triggered. I’m not sure whether the copy leaving goes at the end of the queue, or it happens next as a state-based action Either way, the damage effects resolve regardless of whether the Bugblatters are still in play, otherwise a killed Bugblatter wouldn’t apply damage. That means two damage, that can’t be changed by the active player.
If someone kidnaps or mind controls my Hive, would their limit on buying stingers be 5 or (5 - how many I have)?
Either way, would those stingers ever be sacrificed if the hive safely returned to my control? (And then died)