Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Chris, I haven't answered your question be I have no interested in debating hypothetical situations.

It is not necessarily hypothetical.  Let me give you an actual scenario, then, to discuss:

Rain Becomes Dust
All cards that an opponent draws because of a special ability used by that opponent are revealed instead. Place all revealed Lost Souls in opponent’s territory. Discard the rest.

This is not optional.  Should your opponent play Mayhem immediately following your draw (for the maximum hit to you, of course), they then have activated the mandatory SA on RBD, and you had zero control over it whatsoever.  And this does definitely happen, I Mayhem'd with RBD up twice on purpose at Nats for strategic purposes.  So does that mean that in this case, RBD must remain active for the remainder of turn?

Or as another example that may come up, if I play an artifact like Covenant with Phinehas to protect heroes in my territory from discard and an opponent throws out a CM on a protected hero first thing on my turn, does that stop me from activating a different artifact, or is that a different case?  If it does, then it is another example of a scenario fitting Chris's question.


As a side note, I find this rule to be consistent with the rules about artifact activation in general, which I find more important than consistency with other rules (like the return from set-aside bit) since they refer to the actual class of cards.  However, I do feel that it would be much better to have a dedicated Artifact Phase in the turn, immediately following (or during) upkeep, that would save a lot of these questions and result in absolute consistency without issues of 'top-down' vs 'bottom-up'.

Is there a difference between activating an artifact and using an artifact?

Most artifacts state how and when they can be uses. Once per turn, once per game, upon activation, ect.

Because I use an artifacts ability, does that me I activate it? only when the cost of using the ability includes the activation of the artifact. For ex. I am Creator states upon activation the ability may be used. However this is not in all cases.

Therefore my line of thinking would include that I may use Gifts before I decide to use my artifact activation step in the Prep Phase.

Maybe we should have Bryon relook at this conclusion and see if he still feels the same way?

We already have two elders agreeing on this. I don't believe any further discussion is necessary.

Gabe, in my post I did point out that I also agree with the ruling based on the rules we currently have.  However, the question had been asked that, if there was a situation of a mandatory trigger, would the artifact have to remain active.  As no one had an example, it was (rightly) dismissed.  Now that we do have an example, can we just have a 'yea' or 'nay' ruling on that part?  Not a discussion, just a 'the current rule is...' so that when this thread is referenced in the future due to a similar situation all threads were resolved?

Again, I think it would be best to have a separate artifact phase, but that's changing the game up quite a bit.  And as the current rules read, I would say that Mayhem with RBD up would require RBD stay active, but we should have that ruled definitively (since it can, and will, be used by a conniving mind in the future and we should have a response).

...can we just have a 'yea' or 'nay' ruling on that part?  Not a discussion, just a 'the current rule is...'

It's rarely that simple. 

ChristianSoldier did a fine job of explaining how it works.

The way I see the ruling is, once you have chosen to use an optional activated or triggered ability on an artifact you have in effect chosen to use that artifact as your active artifact in that location for the turn.

This is in addition to normal activation stuff, so in the case of Gifts of the Magi if you use its optional trigger ability or in the case of Holy Grail, if you use the convert you have chosen to use the artifact, whereas if your opponent uses Mayhem while you have Rain Becomes Dust active (and have not done anything regarding artifact activation yet) you may later choose to deactivate it.

If an artifact was activated (as in flipped up) on your turn it is still activated and you've used up your activation for the turn whether or not it has an optional ability.

So to answer your question to make myself as clear as possible (although possibly somewhat verbose)

Are you saying that the ruling would be that if RBD were up and an opponent used Mayhem, the owner of RBD could activate a different artifact?

Assuming it was active from a previous turn yes you could activate a different one.

Egads!  Ever since the game went to 'phases', it is pure nonsense that characters return from set-aside in the prep phase after being triggered to return in the upkeep phase.  If they're not returned during upkeep phase, the next most logical time to return them is after discard phase base on terminology of 'turn'.

Don't make me bang my head again!

I'll be honest... I have always played/ruled that abilities that trigger from the return of Set-Asides take place in the Upkeep Phase. That just makes more sense to me. I didn't intend to break any rules.

Quote from: ChristianSoldier on December 03, 2012, 01:56:43 AM

The way I see the ruling is, once you have chosen to use an optional activated or triggered ability on an artifact you have in effect chosen to use that artifact as your active artifact in that location for the turn.

This is in addition to normal activation stuff, so in the case of Gifts of the Magi if you use its optional trigger ability or in the case of Holy Grail, if you use the convert you have chosen to use the artifact, whereas if your opponent uses Mayhem while you have Rain Becomes Dust active (and have not done anything regarding artifact activation yet) you may later choose to deactivate it.

If an artifact was activated (as in flipped up) on your turn it is still activated and you've used up your activation for the turn whether or not it has an optional ability.

So to answer your question to make myself as clear as possible (although possibly somewhat verbose)

Quote from: Redoubter on December 04, 2012, 01:20:26 AM

Are you saying that the ruling would be that if RBD were up and an opponent used Mayhem, the owner of RBD could activate a different artifact?

Assuming it was active from a previous turn yes you could activate a different one.

Okay, hopefully you can see my point from all of that when I say that there is some inconsistency.  We are treating cards differently based on whether the benefits obtained were optional or mandatory.  The benefits/effects still occurred, regardless of the type of ability, and we don't have similar situations in other cards.  Based on the earlier discussions in this thread and the way the ruling was worded, as well as previous rulings, it would be consistent and sensible to have the artifacts remain active for the entire turn in the case I supplied.

Gabe has (I think?) stated his support for the idea that only optional artifacts would remain active, but does Prof U (who as Gabe mentioned was the second Elder to rule) share that?  His post does not address the possibility of mandatory artifact use, and I ask because it does appear that it would change the rulings we have.

Can your opponent use your Iron Pan's discard ability during prep phase?

If your opponent does, an optional SA on your artifact was activated during prep phase outside of your control; that's essentially the mandatory case we were discussing. Does that mean that artifact was chosen for you? That is a very feasible scenario that'll see a bit of use if it locks your opponent into an art.

Sometimes it's useful to get rid of a fort (ie: WOP vs Goliath). Sometimes you want to get rid of Iron Pan before your opponent discards all your forts. There are tons of reasons to discard a fort.

So in the Mayhem/RBD scenario, who is using the RBD ability?

Can we let this dead horse be already?

Prof said he'd reconsider his opinion if someone provided a more realistic example than Mayhem/RBD. I don't think it's fair to say trying to do so is "beating a dead horse."

We're towards the end of the game and I've been droughting my opponent. He has his offense, which doesn't rely on battlewinners, set up, and when I don't draw any souls, he decides to play Mayhem despite me having RBD up, because he needs me to draw souls, and it's worth it to him. There's your realistic scenario.

We're towards the end of the game and I've been droughting my opponent. He has his offense, which doesn't rely on battlewinners, set up, and when I don't draw any souls, he decides to play Mayhem despite me having RBD up, because he needs me to draw souls, and it's worth it to him. There's your realistic scenario.

This is also NOT a realistic situation.  If I am in that situation, I would again wait until my opponent decided whether to leave RBD turned on.  I'd rather not throw away 6 cards if he's going to turn it off, and there's no downside to waiting until whatever point in his prep phase he decides what his artifact will be for the turn.  In fact, I would hope that he would put down some more cards first so that he is shuffling less cards into his deck and increasing the chance of him drawing a LS when he draws 6.

Quote from: Chris on December 05, 2012, 07:05:17 PM

We're towards the end of the game and I've been droughting my opponent. He has his offense, which doesn't rely on battlewinners, set up, and when I don't draw any souls, he decides to play Mayhem despite me having RBD up, because he needs me to draw souls, and it's worth it to him. There's your realistic scenario.

This is also NOT a realistic situation.  If I am in that situation, I would again wait until my opponent decided whether to leave RBD turned on.  I'd rather not throw away 6 cards if he's going to turn it off, and there's no downside to waiting until whatever point in his prep phase he decides what his artifact will be for the turn.  In fact, I would hope that he would put down some more cards first so that he is shuffling less cards into his deck and increasing the chance of him drawing a LS when he draws 6.

People make mistakes, and that doesn't make this scenario any less realistic. You yourself have accidentally made the mistake of playing Mayhem with RBD up, at a regional tournament no less, so you can't just say it's not realistic and dismiss the argument, when it quite clearly is.