In many dozens of hours of gameplay, I haven’t assumed that’s how it works. I will play it that way, I just can’t rationalize it.
You can play it however you want as long as you’re not in a tournament! 
Just make it your house rule.
That statement would actually mean something if these ‘rules’ were written down some where. Looks like lots of this is figuring stuff out as people come across it.
Correction: Its obvious that several people on this forum know every rule inside and out for all cases. The rest of us are just trying to figure some things out here and there I guess.
Keep in mind that losing Two Step loses 2 health, but taking 2 damage does not lose health. The unit dies (unless it’s Glaxx non-combat or indestructible or whatever) when damage equals or exceeds health. HP is “permanent” and modified only by card effects, not by damage.
That one’s just plain wrong. EricF is the primary tournament organizer and judge, and he gets things wrong every few months or so. Sharpo is officially authorized to make actual rulings, so he is the “decider,” but that doesn’t mean he’s always happy with his rulings, or happy with the vagueness or inconsistencies that meant he had to make his rulings. He just tries his best (as far as I can tell) to make rulings that are consistent, that have an underlying logic (though it might not match up with your or my logic) and that, whenever possible, minimize bookkeeping (as this is a physical game first).
I think a lot of his rulings make the game a bit less fun, and a lot I disagree with, but he always seems to be operating in good faith and explaining his reasoning as clearly as he can.
Everybody else here is just giving their honest opinion from a decent but often imperfect memory of the rulings they’ve read in this thread or on the database.
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Oh, I know that. Sorry, I was just trying to make an analogy that would be compelling to the “armor” argument.
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“I think a lot of his rulings make the game a bit less fun, and a lot I disagree with, but he always seems to be operating in good faith and explaining his reasoning as clearly as he can.”
“C. Being a “Dance Partner” is like being “Soulbonded” in MtG, not like being “a Goblin” in MtG. It’s a relationship between two units. Being a Demon is like being “a Goblin” in MtG.”
I sure hope that explanation regarding Two Step is not considered to be ‘explained as clearly as can be’.
We are discussing a game called Codex. Explaining that something works or doesn’t work some way in Codex because something works or doesn’t work this way in MtG may not be optimum, at least not by themselves.
I would recommend something along the lines of “In codex, for (reason XYZ) dance partner is not a type or sub-type, it is a special thing. Other special things like this would be…” or something to that effect.
I still have no idea why a single unit can’t be a dance partner. The ruling I got was far from teaching me anything about Codex. What do I say when someone asks me why a single unit can’t be a dance partner? I guess I respond and say because in Mtg something can’t be soulbound without something else.
Why does every other card try to do as much as possible, but you can only have 0 or 2 dance partners? I have absolutely no clue (other than you can’t).
What is a dance partner? It is a type? Is it a subtype? Is it an ability? What trait of a card do you look to in order to determine if something is a dance partner? I have absolutely no clue. I just know its somehow related to something in another game.
My best idea at this point is to not play the card, because I don’t know how it works.
RE: Dance Partner
Two of your units become dance partners if they aren’t partnered already.
If you only have one (or 0) legal unit, this instruction fails. Do as much as possible doesn’t apply, because there is no instruction for a single unit to do anything.
Compare to Chaos Mirror, which also requires two unit/hero things to have any effect. If you chaos mirror while the only unit/hero in play is Zane, it does nothing (and Zane can still gain atk from leveling up, which doesn’t happen if the switch actually succeeded).
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Okay. My answer would be:
From Two Step: “Two of your units become dance partners if they aren’t partnered already.”
It says “Two” not “up to two,” and it says “partner”
google’s definition of “partner” is:
“a person who takes part in an undertaking with another or others, especially in a business or company with shared risks and profits.”
So you can’t be partnered if you’re all alone. I can’t share the risks and profits of dancing if I’m dancing with myse-elf (oh-oh-oh).
It’s a flavorful description of an effect created by the card Two Step. It names the relationship created by Two Step. It has no meaning outside of Two Step.
I agree with you that Sirlin’s attempts to “make common sense with simple English” often result in poor templating and things that are totally unclear to new players who don’t have extensive experience with Magic. I think it’s a problem. But ultimately he designed the game, not me; and if I had designed it, all the text would likely have been more rules-lawyerly, and clearer to some folks, but maybe take longer to read and leave less space for pictures. These are the pros and cons of playing a Sirlin game. We put up with frustrations because the actual game is fun.
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Being partnered is a relationship between two units. It is not a type, subtype, or ability. It cannot be copied. A unit can be partnered with only one other unit. If a unit’s partner leaves play or changes controllers, it stops being partnered (Two Step says this part).
While calculating the derived state, at some point you apply the ongoing effect of two step. At that point you must remember which two units were chosen, then if they are both in play and controlled by the player who controls two step, they are partners with each other and get +2/+2.
The fact that they are partnered is basically only useful for figuring out that you cannot play a second copy of Two Step to buff one of the same units as the first copy of Two Step.
Does this help
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Make sure i played this right. I have 5 green units in play, i use Temporal Distortion on a Hyperion to play Gigadon from my codex. I figured its legal because the cost from Giga is reduced for each green unit.
Or dies TD only refer to the printed cost?
It refers to the printed cost.
Some abilities on cards like Insurance Agent or Garth Torken care about the cost of cards. Those abilities will always see Gigadon’s cost as 9. Gigadon’s ability only reduces the cost of playing it. — sharpo
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Which makes Sharpo’s more recent ruling on Newsman vs. Promise of Payment consistent with this earlier one I hadn’t seen. (: Props for consistency!
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Thank you all for the responses.
My question stems from my previous post where I was asking how dance partner is different then other cards worded similarly.
Metamorphosis:
…become Demons
Two Step:
…become dance partners
Fox Den School:
…becomes a Ninja (in addition to its other types).
So, based on reading those 3 cards, I concluded the following:
FoxDS gives something an additional type
MetaM gives something (maybe more than one something) the type Demon (not in addition to its other types, so this language is meant to overwrite any other types it has to where now it only has the type Demon).
Based on that, it appeared reasonable, to assume dance partner was at least somehow related/the same. How you logically read those three cards, and then are supposed to realize that dance partners is totally different is beyond me.
Regarding Chaos Mirror, if Zane is the only unit/hero in play, then it seems reasonable that he is selected as a target (the only target) for Chaos Mirror (in the attempt to do as much as possible (trying to find two targets) you find Zane, which is trying to do what was stated), then it attempts to ‘switch’, but cannot because in order to switch you need something to switch with. I won’t insult your intelligence by copying a definition of switch from the dictionary, although others seem to feel that its necessary to do that.
For instance, Two Step and Chaos Mirror both look for two things. Orpal’s maxband says to put a -1/-1 rune on two units. I assumed you ‘tried to do as much as possible’ and if all they have is one unit in play then you put 1x -1/-1 counter on that one unit. So I guess I’ve been playing that wrong also, and the ability does nothing if they only have one unit left in play. I just tried to do what made sense given the cards and the ‘do as much as possible’ idea.
Thank you for pointing this out regarding C.Mirror, I was under the impression it worked as I stated.
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Well, let’s assume for a moment that you could have a single dance partner. Even then, the wording of Two Step implies there has to be more than one from the same Two Step in order to get the +2/+2, so it doesn’t seem like succeeding at making one unit a dance partner is meaningfully different from failing to do so, which is how it currently works.
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One difference is that if you could create a single dance partner, you would prevent yourself from buffing it with your other copy of Two Step.
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I guess so, but leaving aside attempts to sabotage oneself, my point stands.
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This is admittedly a small difference, and isn’t mentioned anywhere, but every effect in the game which refers to unit types uses capitalization.
Except that Calamandra’s maxband summons tiger units, not Tiger units.
Whoops!
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I stated this previously.
I pointed out this capitalization issue in my original post of the question.
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Doesn’t Orpal say “up to two”?