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Yes, it becomes CBN. While you do get to interrupt what's causing you to lose, it's now a CBN capture that is causing you to lose because it triggers off the withdraw before you have the chance to interrupt.

The more I think about it, I'm not entirely sure. This is the only case I can think of where an ability triggered by something negatable that would cause special initiative makes it an uninterruptable situation after the fact. Currently the rule is that it's CBN, and I believe it's likely to remain so since the "no indirect negation" clause applies, but if the Special Initiative rule is higher on the hierarchy than that rule I could see a withdraw being interruptable.

The question is whether "CBN cannot be negated indirectly" takes precedent over "special initiative takes place under the conditions that caused you to be losing the battle." Since the current ruling has the former taking precedence, you'd need a quorum of elders to overturn it. The real question is, are the elders aware that this ruling sets the hierarchy in such a way and do they want to keep it like that?

This was the closest thing I could find on this subject. It would make sense that triggered abilites would have to wait for special initiative to resolve, much like they have to wait for active special abilities to complete.

From the OFFICIAL New Rulings Announcement Thread:

Triggers have to wait for active special abilities to finish first.  Triggered abilities are started by an instant event ("when X happens, do Y") or are manually triggered ("at any time X is true, you may do Y" abilities). 

Conditions do NOT have to wait for active special abilities to finish.  Conditions are always checking for an ongoing state and always result in ongoing abilities ("while X is true, give ongoing effect Y").

Card                       Trigger         Effect             Ability to insert during SAs
Unknown Nation       Manual        Instant            No, never for triggered abilities
Gates of Samaria     Automatic    Instant            No, never for triggered abilities
Bearing Bad News     Automatic    Ongoing          No, never for triggered abilities
Iron Pan                 none           Ongoing          Yes, it updates constantly

Another example of an "always working" ongoing check in Redemption is X/X values on characters like Silly Women or The Angel with the Secret Name.  Those Xs can change during other effects, too.  They don't wait and do checks after each card completes.  They are fluid.[quote/]

I don't think there's much more to debate, it's just a question of where on the hierarchy each rule falls. I believe the current ruling will be upheld. Consider the example of Arrogance on Astrologers. You could play Arrogance, then Head of Gold to capture all opposing Heroes, normally resulting in Special Initiative. However, since Arrogance is still going, you can play other cards and cap it off with Forgotten History, subverting the chance to enter Special Initiative. That is, Special Initiative does not insert itself in between abilities completing, but must wait until the current chain is completed before going back. If, at that point, a CBN ability has further altered the state of the board, that ability must remain.

I don't think there's much more to debate, it's just a question of where on the hierarchy each rule falls. I believe the current ruling will be upheld. Consider the example of Arrogance on Astrologers. You could play Arrogance, then Head of Gold to capture all opposing Heroes, normally resulting in Special Initiative. However, since Arrogance is still going, you can play other cards and cap it off with Forgotten History, subverting the chance to enter Special Initiative. That is, Special Initiative does not insert itself in between abilities completing, but must wait until the current chain is completed before going back. If, at that point, a CBN ability has further altered the state of the board, that ability must remain.

The difference between this one and HAII is that the CBN part only triggers after the withdraw has happened, whereas Arrogance lets you play a bunch of cards at once and then work through those abilities.

In the case of Arrogance: A bunch of cards get played and at the end of it you get a chance to interrupt (lets assume there are no CBN abilities causing hero to lose the battle) before you actually get removed from battle.

HAII's ability does not trigger until the actual moment that the hero is withdrawing. So HAII plays an enhancement that withdraws a hero, that should not activate his ability until the hero actually is withdrawn. Since there is nothing saying I can't interrupt this withdraw card, if I do negate the withdraw HAII's ability doesn't even activate it.

Basically I'm saying that playing the withdraw isn't enough to trigger HAII's ability (at least not the way it is written) but instead it only gets triggered once the withdraw happens.

Basically in your counter example you have 2 unlinked abilities, while HAII is triggered from the first ability completing.

That's a way to think of it that makes logical sense, but isn't how it works in Redemption.

This is probably the primary reason why even I have trouble with the redemption rules.

I didn't mean to say that the way it works in Redemption isn't logical (although there are one or two rules like that). But sometimes there are more than one equally valid logical interpretations and only one can be true for rulings, so oftentimes there is just one settled "way it works" that isn't the only possible logical conclusion.

I know, my statement wasn't entirely serious. I was laughing when I was typing it (at least laughing on the inside)

I agree with Polarius, and would continue to rule it that way as it has been ruled in the past, unless anyone can provide a good reason why it must be otherwise.

Well then, I shall attempt to do so.

That's a way to think of it that makes logical sense, but isn't how it works in Redemption. Trigger chains always complete all the way through before anything else can happen, even if there are choices of whether or not to activate the triggered abilities along the way.

If that is correct then why is Invoking Terror treated as being 'in play' during Special Initiative?  It has been ruled that way as SI has been hashed out, and that means that Special Initiative can resolve before other abilities do.  The fact that IT is not bottom-decked during Special Initiative is one excellent case of this, and there are others.

That ability must be resolved before any other abilities can be triggered off of it, yet it cannot be completed.  In the case of Agrippa, he certainly would make the withdraw into a CBN capture, but he cannot do so until a withdraw ability completes.  That is the way that triggers work, and if you look at THIS RULING, you'll see that triggers cannot insert between abilities.  They must wait until everything is completed.  Therefore, when the withdraw causes Special Initiative and does not resolve completely (a la the SI rules), the Trigger must wait its turn.  Once SI passes, then it can turn the withdraw into a CBN capture.

Truly, the way I have presented it is consistent with both the rules on Special Initiatives and Triggers, both of which have been revised of late and necessitate a new look at this ruling.  It must be updated, or both of those definitions as we have them are invalid.

Your premises are flawed. Invoking Terror does indeed complete and bottom-deck itself. After the fact, special initiative takes place during the interrupt window while Invoking Terror was in play with its ability pending. I think it's kind of crazy you have to have an understanding of relative time and space to conceptualize how interrupts and special initiative work in Redemption, but that horse left the barn a long time ago.

My premise is not flawed based on the rulings on IT:

Quote from: megamanlan on June 14, 2012, 06:07:04 PM

And this seems to mean that Negate no longer limits to play.

Not quite - In cases of special initiative, Invoking Terror is technically still in play, and can be negated.

If instead of winning the battle with IT, you used it to place someone in territory beneath, then won the battle with another card, if I played Blessings, IT would not be negated.

That thread was the post for the new ruling on this and similar matters, and to quote a later Elder post in that thread about this entire ruling issue:

The elders are in agreemnt.  It was unanimous, actually.

Therefore, my statements are in fact correct given the current rulings, unless there was some reason they told us it was unanimous without it being so.  And since it has been ruled that IT is still in play during Special Initiative, and the second part of the ability does not actually occur yet, it follows that triggers off of the ability must also wait for Special Initiative.

And besides, in this case it is a trigger activating.  I have already shown with the new rulings on triggers that they cannot insert between other abilities, and as Special Initiative must be resolved in this case first on the withdraw, it must wait to trigger.

Your interpretation of the statement is wrong. Yes, it's still in play during special initiative, but that doesn't mean it didn't resolve. You are missing the nature of special initiative entirely, so I can see why you're reading that excerpt that way.

Then you need to explain where I'm 'wrong' on this.  Because you still haven't shown how a card can trigger off of another card that grants Special Initiative.  It has actually not resolved, by the current ruling, and therefore the trigger must wait.

Honestly, just saying 'you're reading that wrong' or 'you're missing the whole point' does nothing.  Actually explain what you think it means, or your post doesn't add anything to the discussion.

I think the problem here is that we get Schrodinger initiative.

Sometimes it seems like abilities complete first (HAII and Jezebel+Ahab) and sometimes they don't (in cases like Invoking Terror) but it seems far too arbitrary.

Now I understand Minister Polarius's interpretation of the ruling, but I think we can do better:

I suggest (and I have suggested it before) that special initiative should work this way:

When the conditions causing special initiative to occur happen: Suspend the ability causing it until the special initiative is passed.

I think this is better than the because it is simple to implement, does what it is supposed to do and I would argue it actually fixes a few problems (or at least cards that could be problems)

Some examples:
Your opponent plays A New Beginning, since the first ability on ANB would cause special initiative suspend the card and an interrupt/negate can be played. (not really a problem, but closer to a side effect)

For Herod Agrippa II, the withdraw would cause special initiative (removing the hero in battle and is not CBI) suspend the ability, a chance to interrupt.

The big one that it could fix is Arrogance. First of all make Arrogance work 1 enhancement at a time, then allow a chance to interrupt/negate after each ability that would normally cause special initiative.

It would also make Jezebel slightly easier to negate (and I understand that it was the point of the Jezebel+Ahab band to work that way, but I would sooner see that go away than special initiative to cause a closed time-like curve)

This is a suggestion for a rule change, I think it would make sorting out abilities easier, it fits with how interrupts/negates work and only causes one exception that we basically already have anyway (except this exception is simpler to deal with than the one we currently have)

In your archers band with invoking terror you would basically go:

Archer blocks, plays Invoking Terror. Before the band completes you get a chance to interrupt the Invoking Terror, then it continues on.

It basically says that when special initiative happens you deal with it right away. Once it's dealt with you move on.

In your second case (Invoking Terror and Forgotten History) you get a chance to interrupt Invoking Terror before your opponent gets a chance to play Forgotten History.

End the Battle (on its own) wouldn't change a whole lot because it doesn't allow special initiative.

The biggest argument against this is that the general rule in redemption is that abilities have to complete before you can insert another ability and I am suggesting that Special Initiative is an exception...which it already is.