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Just wanted to double check a situation that came up.

I RA with a hero (obviously), my opponent blocks with Nebby that has some horses attached.  He uses Nebby's ability to search his deck and plays a capture enhancement to capture my hero.  Do I get my special initiative to negate that enhancement before the horses activate?

We played as if I did.  I played an enhancement to interrupt and remove Nebby from play.  Does the horses then come into play since it is an interrupt and the ability has not gone off yet?

I would think the horses goes off because it is an "interrupt the battle."

Neb's ability would activate, then Swift Horses would activate right after. All abilities in battle have to complete before you can interupt any other ability. first the character, then the weapon. then you would have Special Inicative.

Im pretty sure you use horses before they play an enhancement. because all abilities finish before the opponent can play something. A weapon activates as soon as you go into battle and everything else finishes.

Quote from: wyatt_marcum on June 03, 2013, 04:45:02 PM

Neb's ability would activate, then Swift Horses would activate right after. All abilities in battle have to complete before you can interupt any other ability. first the character, then the weapon. then you would have Special Inicative.

This is not accurate.

1. Nebby activates, searches for a capture.
2. The capture activates.
3. The hero has speicial init to interrupt the capture.
4. The hero is either captured or plays something to prevent the capture (let's say Zeal) and targets Nebby for discard.
5. Nebby has init to play an interrupt.*
6. After the above has been resolved, Swift horses activates (if a crimson character is in battle)

*The question is if Swift Horses can activate here, which it should not be able to

That's not how Jezebel/Ahab works (to my knowledge).  You only get SI after all current abilities finish, so the hero would not get SI until Neb chooses whether or not to play off of horses.

*instaposted*

If all abilities have to complete why do horses activate before the capture completes? That's nonsensical.

Horses doesn't, not technically.  The capture is 'complete', or else it could not allow SI (because interrupt/negate only works AFTER an ability is complete) but there is still a state of SI that allows the opponent the opportunity to play an enhancement once all other abilities have been resolved.  That's the way SI works, outside of the normal initiative.  That is why it is special.

The capture completes.  Horses activates and finishes (including any enhancements played off the horses).  Should the battle not be over (end battle - Forgotten History, etc.), the captured hero has SI to interrupt the capture.

I don't see how you could construe that as the capture resolving.

That's exactly what it is doing, but the cards don't "go" to those places and the battle doesn't end until SI completes or another ability causes the ability to be something that cannot be stopped or the battle ends.  Your perspective on the situation seems to want to add complexity and detail that just isn't there.

The game does not interrupt the activation of abilities.  Anything 'queued' goes off before SI is resolved.  It is actually a simple solution to a complicated (potentially) problem and is consistent with all other rules we have.

You can think how you want, but I don't see how immediately awarding special initiative before horses has even activated is more complex. It's substantially more consistent actually.

It is actually not more consistent, because one of the main underlying rules of abilities in Redemption is that all abilities must complete before anything can respond to it.  Doms, interrupts, negates (seriously, look at their definitions, they have the part about the ability having to complete right there), none of them can be played until an ability completes.  Do you get SI if the same card has 2 components, and the first would cause removal?  Or do you get to Grapes in response to that first component?  No, the entire ability completes first, and even after that, there are strict rules about what can happen.  It is also an established rule that all abilities on characters and everything they bring in (be they gained abilities, weapons, triggered abilities, etc.) must complete before the character is considered 'in battle'.  Partial activation violates that component in cases of blocks being described.

So, consistency actually supports this system over a stack or game-interrupt system.  It is written all over the rules of Redemption.  All abilities must finish, and then special initiative (which is by definition 'special') kicks in if able.

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on June 03, 2013, 09:44:30 PM

You can think how you want, but I don't see how immediately awarding special initiative before horses has even activated is more complex. It's substantially more consistent actually.

It is actually not more consistent, because one of the main underlying rules of abilities in Redemption is that all abilities must complete before anything can respond to it.  Doms, interrupts, negates (seriously, look at their definitions, they have the part about the ability having to complete right there), none of them can be played until an ability completes.  Do you get SI if the same card has 2 components, and the first would cause removal?  Or do you get to Grapes in response to that first component?  No, the entire ability completes first, and even after that, there are strict rules about what can happen.  It is also an established rule that all abilities on characters and everything they bring in (be they gained abilities, weapons, triggered abilities, etc.) must complete before the character is considered 'in battle'.  Partial activation violates that component in cases of blocks being described.

So, consistency actually supports this system over a stack or game-interrupt system.  It is written all over the rules of Redemption.  All abilities must finish, and then special initiative (which is by definition 'special') kicks in if able.

Consistency would suggest that you don't insert Horses (which have  not happened yet) because special initiative.

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on June 03, 2013, 10:23:05 PM

Consistency would suggest that you don't insert Horses (which have  not happened yet) because special initiative.

You then missed the entire point of my post.  Horses are active, they must activate in order for the character to be blocking so long as something else hasn't already removed him.  That is the rule.  SI does not take precedence over that.

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I understand the point of view that Horses is activate, but my argument is that it shouldn't be active because that's inserting abilities into the capture. It's much simpler to resolve the capture first.

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on June 03, 2013, 10:46:17 PM

I understand the point of view that Horses is activate, but my argument is that it shouldn't be active because that's inserting abilities into the capture. It's much simpler to resolve the capture first.

Here is the crux:  It is not actually interrupting the capture.  The capture is 'complete', even if it can later be negated/interrupted through SI.  It is just another ability completing before SI is resolved.  It is the rule, the way it has been ruled, and is consistent with other rules.  Not really sure what else I can say for you beyond that about how it is the actual rule 

Also, if we go with your suggestion, then what do we have, a situation where the card played in SI is immediately interrupted by horses and you get to play another card?  Not only is the suspension of the horses (or other abilities on the same card as caused SI) more complicated and inconsistent with existing rules, but it drastically changes gameplay in a negative way.

What should happen is:

1. The capture is played
2. Special iniative passes and resolves
3. After the resolution, if horses can still activate, it does.

This is really simple. It's really consistent with the ruling you can't insert other abilities (since no matter how you slice it, currently you capture, then there's this other ability, and then you finish capturing).

Special initiative is not as instant as one might think. In the past, for example, if two heroes are in battle and one is captured by an evil enhancement the defending player can writ or cm the other hero before SI kicks in. A little while ago they made changes to that scenario and said the last hero in battle never gets special initiative, even if it is losing. Something to think about.

I also see an  issue if it is ruled that Nebuchadnezzar can play of horses b4 the hero gets special initiative. What if Nebuchadnezzar played Deceit or Pride or some other battle winner what would happen then? Can my opponent play some thing like Samuel's Edict to negate deceit and discard Nebuchadnezzar even though he is also being captured?