Rules Questions thread

Nice! I see. So it’s not as though there’s such an established face to face community that there are significant conventions about these things. Ok, I’ll figure out stuff that works for me, then.

I actually have a question relating to 2v2 matches, after attempting my first one:

2v2 Add-ons: Completely shared as part of the shared base, right? I initially missed the “can’t have two of the same add-on” rule somehow, so we played it incorrectly with too many towers. I just want to confirm that one player building a tech lab, heroes’ hall, or surplus means that both players on the team can choose another spec, summon an extra hero, and draw an extra card each turn.

This seems strong? It effectively doubles the value of non-tower add-ons, but denying your teammate the ability to build their own copy of these add-ons seems really arbitrary, unless it would be redundant because they’re shared. Two towers seems game-warping in a way that two tech labs/heroes’ halls/surpluses wouldn’t be, precisely because defenses are shared but tech buildings/heroes/hands aren’t. I do think that the tower is much stronger, what with two patrol zones to get through to twice as many buildings (except bases), so it still seems like the benefits of the non-tower add-ons are intended to be shared.

So…can someone confirm: double-power non-tower add-ons, or weird team legendary-esque non-tower add-ons?

As far as I know, when you first build a building, put one of those down. Then use a die to track its health. That seems to be the best solution, since when it’s destroyed, take the die off and the token remains.

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Each player may build an add-on, but you cannot have two of the same. A tech lab built by one player has a spec attached to it for that player only.

Remember, things that say you really mean you, and not your ally.

I’m trying not to be a rules robot here, but it’s a little hard to sort the rules as written from the rules as intended sometimes. The rules are sparse enough on the 2v2 to allow for misinterpretation (although I’m amazed at how explicitly and efficiently they answer other things, like Double Time and Legendary). Anyway, the non-robot version of the post was above, so apologies in advance for sounding pedantic here.

“You means you” is a great rule than answers almost everything.
However, the actual sentence on 2v2 add-ons in the rulebook (v.46) is:

“You” is specifically being used to refer to two people at a time here.

What else can we go off of? There’s some more rules for Tower, specifically.

(emphasis added)
Also:

The rulings spreadsheet says about Towers:

A literal interpretation of “you” through these in 2v2 would have the tower hitting anyone without stealth or invisible attacking your team, but only detecting stealth and invisible if it attacks a unit or building that is not controlled exclusively by your teammate. Additionally, if you have a tower, your teammate will probably never get to use a detector at all (unless they have Grave + Versatile Style or Eyes of the Chancellor), because only one of you gets to build a tower. Under that, stealth units could destroy all of your teammates’ buildings without facing a single patroller or tower shot, but would (once) if they attacked yours. Additionally, a detected unit would still get to ignore your teammate’s patrollers, just not yours. That’s…weird, and probably a sign that the “you means you” rule isn’t quite aligned.

There clearly was a reason that each side was restricted to one add-on of a given type. Two damage per attacker from two towers seems excessive, but is that also true of two separately purchased heroes’ halls?

I’m hoping sharpobject or someone who isn’t just guessing at why that restriction is there will weigh in and clear things up. In the meantime, I’ll continue with the idea that towers detect and hit anyone attacking the team’s stuff, and heroes’ halls/tech labs/surpluses will require coordinating with your teammate to see who gets to build and use one since the other will have to do without. It almost doesn’t matter, because towers seem like nearly must-build in 2v2.

You’re right, I hadn’t specifically thought about that.
But instead of waiting for sharpo, why not head to the source?

How about it, @Sirlin? Care to enlighten us?

The “you means you” rule is talking about text on cards, no?

It doesn’t say that; it never specifies cards and uses it in the context of “an effect.”

That wouldn’t really help anyway, because it just brings back to the strict tower readings which don’t seem to be intended (by Sirlin’s ruling). I don’t believe this can be solved by rules-lawyering because it doesn’t seem like it is likely to match the implicit intent in the banning of teammates having duplicate add-ons. I don’t know what problem that limitation was solving, so I’m just trying to clarify.

My friends all lean to the defensive so there’s no way one person per team doesn’t build a tower, which means they’ll wonder why the tower effectively works for both teammates but the tech lab doesn’t. I’d like to have an answer for them, and the follow-up question of why not have “you means you” for all the add-ons, but allow duplicates on the team (probably because potential tower unevenness again warping the game into “attack the guy without the tower”).

I feel like 2v2 will be a format where one person takes the tower “for the team” and the other person gets the benefits while also being able to use a surplus or something. It’s not necessarily a problem, but it feels kinda negative. Restricting the no duplicates rule to only towers would also feel weird and (at least with my friends) end up in the same place of someone taking the team add-on and the other taking the solo add-on.

I’m not sure I understand why it would be wierd for each player in 2v2 to be restricted to one addon while the tower happens to benefit both players? The whole point of 2v2 is to lean on each other to protect the same base and leverage unified attacks to break the enemy base. If I have a green and purple match vs a red and white match, I would expect one player to take up defense and the other take up offense on both sides, just due to the colors inherent strategies available.

Allowing both players to build a heroes hall can drastically tilt the game, as now one side has access to 2 more heroes than the other. 2 heroes facing down 4 seems pretty rough. Same with surplus, which is effectively an extra card played each turn for free in addition to its other benefits. Point being, doubling any of these 3 addons could be game warping. Tech labs just means that someone has to stay in spec on your team, which seems a fair limitation, but probably not as broken as the other 3.

The idea that building surplus “only benefits one player” doesn’t make sense in 2v2. You aren’t playing 2 different games of codex, you are inseperably intertwined and your joint strategy needs to reflect that. If the red player can build a surplus while the white player builds a tower, the white player will definitely see benefits in more offensive cards played by the red player.

If it doesn’t feel weird to you, that’s perfectly fair. It might just be me. I’m asking the question because I don’t fully understand the problem the rule is solving or its implications, and basically my entire thought process is in my previous posts.

Note that a hard cap of 2 heroes facing down a hard cap of 4 is entirely possible without a heroes’ hall, which is why I picked it as my go-to example. Tech 2 does it just fine, and it lets you have tech 2 units.

And I agree, add-ons are powerful and can alter the game, but both sides have the options to build or not build them and face the opportunity costs of their choices. Assuming the “you means you” rule holds for all the add-ons (except possibly the weird case of the tower for detection), all of the add-ons function exactly like the 1v1 game except for the tower. There’s no inherent power boost to them, and I don’t see why allowing all players to have a heroes’ hall is unbalanced with four total players but not with two.

What if both players on a team want to play aggressively and minimize defense, throwing in their heroes?

I dunno, it just feels weird to me to have to decide what player builds a tower, because the team needs one, and what player builds the thing their deck/playstyle wants.

Also, maybe I’m wrong about how much stronger towers are in 2v2? I’ve played one 2v2 game and I did this rule wrong, so my experience isn’t typical. If quantities of things (cards, gold, units, heroes, buildings) all scales linearly (x2, except for base health, which is x1.5), then maybe the tower’s effectiveness is the same because its damage per attacker is exactly the same. Maybe it’s weaker, due to the decreased base health relative to units and the limitation of not scaling the number of units it detects.

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I’m taking a guess here but I wouldn’t be surprised if the rule is like that to allow you to play 2vs2 without buying additional core/deluxe sets for more add-on duplicates.

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Theres already enough for a 5 FFA match, so 2v2 seems like it would be covered. At least I am pretty sure theres enough addons for 5 players in the deluxe.

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Yeah, I was being dumb. Even if there were only 2 of every addon card in the box, you couldn’t play 2vs2 anyway because they are double-sided (aren’t they?).

Tower and surplus share a card, and heroes’ hall and tech lab share a card, and I think there is a pair for each of 5 players in the deluxe set.

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I would like to have the interaction of swift strike and indestructible added to the FAQ above.

As I understand it, the indestructible thing still gets to deal its combat damage to the swift strike unit in combat even if it would have been enough damage to kill it. Exhausting the indestructible unit does not remove it from the combat because it did not die, and the swift strike unit will take damage.

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I can add this to the combat abilities section. Here is what I understand happens when a swift strike unit attacks an indestructible unit:

  1. Swift strike unit deals damage to the indestructible unit
  2. If the damage is enough to otherwise kill the indestructible unit, exhaust it and remove all damage and attachments (as defined in the rulings) and remove it from the patrol zone
  3. The indestructible unit hits back with whatever its attack is now (after losing attachments)

This means that if Oathkeeper (7/8 swift strike) attacks an Immortal with Spirit of the Panda (5+2/5+2 with Indestructible), the Immortal only hits back with 5 attack instead of 7, because it lost Spirit of the Panda to Swift Strike damage.

Does that sound correct?

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It does to me.

It is done.

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Pleas fix the wording in the final sentenece of note 43 in the official rulings document.

Which sheet of the official rulings document?