Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Spy + Warriors Spear "works," if by "works," you mean the discard happens.

Did the spear enter battle?  yes
Was it negated (directly or indirectly)? no
Then it works.

The discard happens AFTER the withdraw option.  So, if you choose to withdraw, and then the discard makes a lost soul become available, you can't decide "oh, I mean Spy stays in battle." 

Is this still "gospel"?

If so, if a bunch of special abilities are in battle awaiting their turn to activate, due to one or more cards in battle, do they all get to activate whether any more cards are in battle when it's their turn?

That depends, why aren't the cards in battle anymore?

It shouldn't depend.  It should be one way or another.  Maybe the cards are no longer there because the character withdrew, like the Spy+Warrior's Spear example.  Maybe the cards are removed by other special ability types, like discard, return to hand/deck, shuffle, etc.

It needs to be consistent.

I think by now #1 has been hashed out enough that everyone knows it's special in its own case.

#2 is iffy because getting back to Bryon's quote, yes, Spy is still in play after the withdraw but nowhere does he imply that is the reason for WS activating.

And I don't have some deck or combo that I'm toying around.  Inasmuch I don't judge anymore if I don't have to, I still have a judge's perspective when I read through all the deck ideas on the boards.

If I were to give an example, I guess Uzzah that had been set aside with Habitation with Demons.  If Uzzah is discarded, does the band still activate?  It's CBN, too, and we know those stick.

You are both correct with the Uzzah example, even if he discarded himself the band would still take place.

I'll try to help clarify #2 for Scott's sake and others. Bryon didn't need to mention that it worked because Spy is in play for the weapon to activate on, that is assumed in that situation. Redemption has always required a character of matching brigade for an enhancement to activate ("play other" [brigade] abilities being the exception to that rule). I'll provide two examples of how this can happen:

a) I play Wrath of Stan on my Fallen Warrior. You play Zeal for the Lord on Joshua the HP to discard Fallen Warrior. WoS does not activate because the character it was played on is no longer there for it to (re)activate on.

b) A more complex example would involve banding several characters into battle at once, one is a warrior holding a weapon, the other is ET. I use ET to play Visions of Iddo the Seer on green guy. All Heroes are returned to hand (no longer in play) so any pending weapons or pre-loaded enhancements would not activate since they do not have a character to activate on.

Does that help or did I just muddy the waters?

Yes, in example b) if the characters were withdrawn to territory (instead of hand) then the pending enhancement(s) would still activate.

If you recall, back in the day, it was ruled that Spy + Warrior's Spear did not work. Then TeP introduced territory class enhancements so the idea that enhancements could not active on a character in territory no longer stood. That's when the Spy+WS ruling was overturned (I assume by the quote from Bryon). If the character remains in play, under most circumstanced the enhancement will activate.

I can't think of many things that would keep a pending special ability on a character from activating after they were removed from battle. An "End the battle" ability is the only one and we mentioned that already. Here's an example of how I see it working:

i) I block with Scribes and have initiative. Babel is played, selecting your 5 ECs (one is Gomer) and my Emperor Otho. They all enter battle together and I choose the order of their abilities (I mention this because I see people think they enter battle one at a time). I choose to use Otho's ability to discard all characters in battle. You don't negate so everyone is discarded. Now I still get to carry out Gomer's SA and band to my Emperor Galba causing you to discard a card from hand. That would take place even though there isn't a Hero left in battle, because I still have [pending] abilities to complete.

Agreed.  One final thought about your example.  If Otho had a weapon, would its pending ability activate on Galba even though Galba wasn't in battle initially? 

Yes, weapons can switch holders during battle.

Also, would it activate if no gray EC were added to battle by Gomer but you had Galba in territory? 

No, as there is no EC for it to activate on.  Enhancements are only "activated in territory" if they return with the character they activated on.

Finally, since weapons are handled differently than pre-loaded enhancements, would a pre-loaded weapon activate if the situation were changed to involve heroes?

Again, no, there isn't anyone for it to activate on in battle, and it didn't return with a hero.