Cactus Game Design Message Boards

1. I have Cain in my territory and my opponent attacks with Thaddeus. They must discard a card from hand or battle, correct?

2. My opponent has Cain in territory. I have drawn extra cards in prep phase due to a set aside enhancement returning. I attack with any hero (ability not important) and my opponent blocks with Foreign Wives who is protected. I can play an enhancement that targets Cain and choose to discard Foreign Wives from battle per his ability, correct?


Cain - If Cain is targeted by an opponent's special ability, that player must discard a card from hand or battle.

REG - Immune​ and protect ​abilities target the cards that gain the immune​ or protected ​status.

Thaddeus - Protect all cards in play, set-aside area, Artifact piles, hands, and decks from Evil Characters with toughness X or less. Cannot be interrupted.

Foreign Wives - Search discard pile for Household Idols. If opponent has drawn 5 or more cards this turn, protect Foreign Wives from cards used by opponent. Cannot be negated.

Thanks! Here's some follow-ups:

1. <nevermind, forgot Thad protects hands, too>

2. I know that's the default for hand, territory, etc. because those locations are specific to players, but battle isn't. "Targeted player's battle" would seem to mean (to me) a battle in which that player is involved (ex: in multiplayer there are people not involved in battles) but I've never heard of it defaulting to a "side" of battle (unless it specifies "opposing characters" or something similar). The only "hand or battle" cards I can think of specify good card/evil card or something else that makes it apparent it's a particular side of battle. Am I missing one that is worded like this?

If we decide that you can choose to discard any card from battle (even an opponent's card) does that also mean you can discard a card from any hand?  It seems like the condition should be the same for both options since no condition is stated.

No, because we've been very consistent over the years of treating "hand," "deck," and "territory" in terms of the targeted player's perspective for this sort of ability.  Battle is indeed different.

I had thought that there was at least some card that didn't specify an alignment for this sort of thing, but as Browa indicated there isn't anything like this out there; the others all say a type of card or alignment "in battle," not just a "card" in battle.

Since battle is not an 'owned' space, and is shared, I'd have to agree with him that in those cases where Cain was targeted during battle, opponent could discard anything in battle, by the current rules.  Unless we changed that, it would make Cain...kind of lame

Sorry if I broke Cain, haha. I had originally been thinking there were some cool combo things you could do with him if my questions were correct but it turns out I just proved he was kinda bad, lol.

nope. you proved that he is awesome.

Awesome for your opponent maybe, haha.

Next question involving Cain:  I have Cain in my territory.  My opponent activates Crown of Thorns and keeps it active.  Do they discard a card from hand on their Prep phases? 

The elders have discussed Cain and agreed that he should be played as follows:

If Cain is targeted by an opponent's special ability, that player must discard a card from hand or (a card they control in) battle.

We're split about 50/50 on whether or not to call this "play as" or "errata". Whatever you want to call it, that's how it will function. While all initial released version of Cain (CoW) will have the original wording, future print runs that include Cain (CoW) will most likely receive this clearer wording.