Cactus Game Design Message Boards

On another thread I have been waiting for an official answer on whether a gold hero can be immune to itself with an SA that reads: "Hero is immune to Gold Brigade."  The example I used was having Adino's Spear on Ehud which takes a little work in and of itself.  I will come right out and say that I need to know for a T2 deck I am building using Ehud+Adino's Spear+Samson's Sacrifice.  (I hardly feel this is breaking the game if Ehud can gain the immunity to himself.  First, I would have to get initiative, and second, SS could still be negated.)

On a separate thread regarding Ahimelech, Priest of Nob, I asked whether good and evil enhancements could be targeted with Ahimelech's SA.  During the discussion, a reference was made to the Warrior's version of Battle Prayer.

By now you're probably wondering why I haven't posted any SAs.  Well, there are going to be a lot so pull up the REG in a separate browser window, which is what I do.

You're probably also wondering what I am getting at, besides the more specific need regarding heroes being immune to themselves.  I see inconsistencies in the way we're ruling interpretations of "gold" and "enhancement".  Although some are helpful in the decks I build, as a judge I would prefer that there was a consistent manner of ruling.  Let's look at some cards in question:


Battle Prayer (Wa) - Current "play as" does NOT allow retrieval of evil gold enhancements.

Gabriel (Wa) - Current "play as" does allow discard of good enhancements.

Adino's Spear (Ki) - Awaiting official word on whether heroes can be immune to good gold brigade cards.

Ahimelech, Priest at Nob - Current ruling is that he can retrieve good or evil enhancements.  Reinforced by scripture.

Miriam - Can she ignore good gold brigade cards?

Nicolas of Antioch - Can he search for Healing of Naaman?

Michal - Does she ignore evil enhancements connected with David?

Providing Angel - Current ruling is that he can retrieve good or evil enhancements.

Israel Pays Tribute - Can it negate an evil enhancement?

I think immune/ignore will only apply across alignment when all is said and done, but the other cards will be flexible in their application (those which are not already ruled so).

I could see this going either way.  I don't have a preference.  By being able to target both alignments with immune/ignore, it opens up the possibility of new cards as well as expand the abilities of current ones, e.g. Adino's Spear.  For instance, a cool reprint of Asahel could be that he ignores all warrior-class humans except for Abner (based on the story in scripture).  This ignore could target both alignments as worded.  A Ham, Japheth or Shem card could be immune to cards that depict water, again regardless of alignment.

But that wouldn't make any sense.  How do you resolve one Hero ignoring your other Heroes?  Does it force them to leave at the end of battle, like ECs?  What if Asahel was Warrior Class himself?  What do you do when you ignore yourself?

I think limiting targets in that way would hamper the gameplay a lot more than it might conceivably help it.

You may be right.  If we didn't have gold being both good and evil, then this part of the discussion would probably never have been brought up in the first place.

As for the targeting of enhancements regardless of alignment, I think at this point if Battle Prayer (Wa) was ruled by its original wording rather than the "play as", then we'd have consistency with the current card set.  Following that guideline, then...

Nicolas of Antioch - Can search for good or evil enhancements

Israel Pays Tribute - Can negate good or evil enhancements

Following that guideline, then...

Nicolas of Antioch - Can search for good or evil enhancements

Israel Pays Tribute - Can negate good or evil enhancements

Not that either of those cards gets used all that often (and it's even more rare that they'd be used in the manner you suggest) but that is how both of those cards work, isn't it?

Oh yeah, forgot about Gib Treaty.  So, Gib Treaty and Healing of Naaman.

Hmmm, seems like there is one other...

Thanks for the bump.  But since I hadn't heard anything I went a new direction with my T2 decks.