Website Idea: common rule misconceptions for this matchup

[Dreamfire]

@OffKilter

Doesn’t that clash with the ruling that bamstamper Lizzo and hired stomper must deal damage with their abilities that trigger on arrival?

I don’t think there’s a clash. Both are cases of the general rule saying ‘Do as much as you can’.

In the Lizzo and Stomper cases, you can always target a unit because you just played one (and there’s nothing in the game which makes them untargetable to your own abilities).

A closer comparison to SotP is Troq’s ult Final Smash: if there’s a tech 0 unit in play, you have to bounce it (even if it’s yours and you wouldn’t want to), but if there are no tech 0 units, you can still cast the spell and get the other effects. You could even play it if there are no units in play at all, and have it do nothing, if for some reason you really wanted to cast a spell and use up 6 gold.

The general ‘Do as much as you can’ rule is the reason you can do these things, not the tiny benefit you could get from playing SotP without a unit to attach it to.

[OffKilter]

To be clear, you’re clarifying that attachment spells must attach if there’s a valid target, but can otherwise be cast without a target.

Is this the same in any other game though? Like, Magic: The Gathering has Enchant Creature cards, as well as presumably a “do as much as you can”. Does it also allow you to enchant thin air with out a valid creature?

Maybe I’m biased because I use statically-typed programming languages. Invalid arguments are a no-go. For me, this is why an overly literal reading of Forgotten Fighter would just look at a token as an invalid argument to the Return To Hand operation, and not have an impulse to go anywhere. Full stop. However, I do prefer the interpretation being used here, as long as there’s clarification.

Isn’t there a qualitative difference between Troq’s Final Smash, where some of the targets are going to be valid, and allowing a spell to be cast that has no valid targets.

It’s a matter of interpretation whether to allow “do as much as you can” to include the “no valid targets” case. For me, casting spells with no valid target like this breaks immersion in the game’s simulated reality. It doesn’t seem to add value to the game strategically. I am asking you to reconsider this interpretation.

[charnel_mouse]

There’s no qualitative difference for Final Smash, because each effect on a spell looks for targets in isolation from the others. There’s never anything stopping you from playing a card that won’t do anything. This is in official rulings, so asking us to reconsider it is moot.

In times of statically-typed languages, any time a card needs to affect something, that target can be nothing (Option / Maybe). Depending on how you implemented “if you do, …” effects, you might have to do this anyway.

Maybe this is something to discuss in the rules thread instead?

[Bomber678]

Yeah you’re always allowed to play a card for “no effect” within Codex rules. I think ti’s easier to say that and also say “do as much as you can” than try and create a complete list of conditions of when you’re “not allowed to play a card”.

[OffKilter]

Not going to lie, it’s gonna take some coding to enable some of these edge cases.

At least the sad robot exhaust state will be fun though

[zango]

@charnel_mouse

Black

If Shadow Blade kills a Technician, the Technician card draw happens before the random discard.

Thanks to @Nekoatl the following was brought to my attention

Rules Questions thread

No, what happens before the discard is that the “draw a card” ability gets added to the end of a queue of things to do after Shadow Blade is over. Here, let’s play Shadow Blade on an enemy Technician Older Brother. at Time 1: Currently running: the part of my main phase where I choose which action to take, like hiring a worker or playing a spell. Currently in queue: nothing My gold: 3 My units and heroes: Vandy Anadrose My hand: Shadow Blade, Dark Pact My opponent’s hand: 5 cards My opp…

which contradicts the quoted statement above…?!

[OffKilter]

How curious!

My 2 cents is that @charnel_mouse 's version is more in line with how Gunpoint Taxman and midband Zane abilities work, and that makes it attractive.

I think I understand the mechanism in the latter interpretation, with the only difference I see is whether a death trigger is processed before moving onto the next part of the action or after the whole card. I’m not clear how this mechanism would also allow Gunpoint Taxman to work, or any reason why this mechanism would apply to Shadow Blade but not Gunpoint Taxman.

[zango]

This one is answered more or less directly afterwards:

Rules Questions thread

There’s no “things on his card” except his triggered ability. He attacks and trades with a scavenger. The scavenger and the taxman die simultaneously (state change action: units die when they take lethal damage), so two triggered actions are added to the queue: “opponent gains a gold” and “taxman steals a gold from an opponent.” As active player you decide the order of resolution of actions that happen simultaneously, and get to choose to resolve them in the order most favourable to you.

[OffKilter]

Okay, that makes great sense and addresses my last point. Gunpoint Taxman and Scavenger effectively give the Older Brother (or whoever) 2 additional death triggers, and the active player gets to choose which order they resolve.

Still seems like it would be beneficial to be a similar feel with Shadow Blade and Gunpoint taxman, if possible. Furthermore the description of how Forgotten Fighter works on tokens indicates a bias towards maximum granularity, which would also be surprising to be different for Shadow Blade.

I’m stating a preference here, perhaps in absence of the big picture.

[OffKilter]

I did a bit of research, reading through the “unofficial rulebook” here:
Codex - Google Docs

Based on this I updated the “sad robot” x/0 indestructible case to discard attachments.

I think I need help with the Section 4 part about cloning abilities interactions. It sure sounds like there’s some good candidates for my project in there, but I can’t really wrap my head around it. Are there clearer examples somewhere?

[zango]

Trivial thing to probably add here:
Things that are triggering in the upkeep all trigger simultaneously. If then something arrives (in the example I researched it was a Rememberer arriving from a Rememberer removing a time rune due to fading) that also has an upkeep trigger, this new trigger does NOT trigger in this same upkeep. You’ll have to wait for your next upkeep.

[OffKilter]

Cool, that’s just for rememberer, yes? Any other situations where that would happen?

I’ll also add Gilded Glaxx because he has several non-trivial rules clarifications that just apply to him.

[zango]

Well the ruling is about upkeep triggers in general, Prynn could be used to return anything else to the game in your upkeep. These things then also don’t get their trigger resolved.

Another thing: things with fading don’t die when the last time rune is removed. Your fading things only die if it is you yourself to remove the rune. If the opponent removes the last rune, the cards stay in game until they leave due to another cause.

[Bomber678]

How does that work?

[zango]

The discussion around this post was the source for me saying so. After revisiting I just realized that this maybe was not entirely 100% clear. But with EricF in the mix I didn’t question it.

Rules Questions thread

This still leaves some wiggle room. Note sharpobject’s summarizing of the ability as “when the last one is removed” which is agnostic about who does the removing. It’s possible that the bolded you in the fading help text is a use of the universal “you” to mean “anyone” like in a declarative “when you’re hungry, you eat.” …or it’s possible it really does mean “you” as in “you, the controller of the thing with fading.” Another possibility is that it’s similar to the “Sac the Weak” ruling in f…

Please click on this post as it is referencing a ton of relevant other posts.

[charnel_mouse]

@zango

Another thing: things with fading don’t die when the last time rune is removed. Your fading things only die if it is you yourself to remove the rune. If the opponent removes the last rune, the cards stay in game until they leave due to another cause.

That is, indeed, how the ability would work if the ability’s text was correct. Later rulings indicate that it’s not. sharpo says as much a few turns posts later, for example.

[zango]

Ah, thanks for pointing out that I stopped reading too early <3

[charnel_mouse]

If I remember correctly, there are a few situations where sharpo rules one way, then changes his mind a few years later, so it’s an easy mistake to make

[zango]

That doesn’t make the idea “break up the rules question thread and let a group of people crawl through it” any easier

[OffKilter]

Yeah… I’ve been avoiding saying it, but it recently became very clear to me that there should never have been a rules questions thread, but instead a folder of threads so that each question can have it’s own discussion confined to a thread, with official rulings pinned. Or something like this.

It’s painful to use that thread, with its majority content of confused questions and sometimes misguided answers, as any sort of official reference.