Cactus Game Design Message Boards

The way browarod (I'm never sure if I capitalize the B or not) said.  Cost is paid first.

I agree with RDT that the traditional ruling has been that you have to pay the cost first before giving your opponent a chance to play the negate.

Here's another hypothetical card to consider how this way of thinking would affect things.  Imagine a SA that says something to the effect of "Opp must discard a card in hand with the word "negate" on it, and discard all cards in battle."

If your opponent ONLY has 1 negate enh in hand at the time, then this timing becomes crucial.  If we say that you fulfill all of the "non-character-removal" abilities first, then their negate is discarded before they get "special initiative", and therefore they can't actually negate their character being discarded.  But if they just show their negate that "would be" discarded, but the effect of the whole card that ends up removing the characters is paused by "special initiative", then they could go ahead and play the negate.

Do we have a card that does something to that effect???

Not exactly, but I have a vague memory of being in a situation at some point where my character was being removed from battle somehow, and though I had a negate in my hand, it was being discarded at the same time (perhaps as a random) and therefore I wasn't allowed to play my negate.  So that precedent goes along with the idea that everything EXCEPT the actual character being removed completes before the chance to play the negate.

Hasn't Blessings always been able to negate things like JiP?

That's a good point.  That precedent would point to JiP NOT being removed at the time that Blessings is played, and therefore that part NOT resolving before the negate is able to be played.

There have obviously been some inconsistencies here.  I'm glad that we are now thinking through this exactly to come up with a consistent answer.

Why is the hang-up on whether a card can be targeted?  Negates/interrupts target special abilities.  Which special abilities cannot be targeted by negates/interrupts?  Those that cannot be negated/interrupted.

Pretty simple, eh?

Just decide how far the "cannot be negated" qualifier can extend (e.g. used and discarded artifacts, etc.) and then everyone doesn't need to be smarter than a 5th grader to figure it out.

I'm not saying that the cost isn't paid when the effect takes place, but that if the cost/benefit ability is interrupted, the cost being paid is interrupted.

I think this sums t up. If I use Writ or Zimri, etc I need to go through the costs first. I discard Writ/the enhancement and try to win the battle. At this point the opponent can negate. My impression of the issue is whether or not we think Zimri and Writ are different because they are different card types (which is NOT confusing) or if we want to rule them to be treated the same way.

It's not a matter of whether it's confusing. If we had a single precept that could be applied to every instance of negation/special initiative, then one of the most asked-about aspects of the game will have a uniform answer.

Do we want the same answer for every card type though? Artifacts aren't in battle, so it's not a stretch to rule them differently or frankly its not even confusing.

Here is the way I think it should be, to keep everything consistent (not that my word means much): If a card in battle removes itself (while removing a character), the player who's character is being removed should have the opportunity to play any kind of negate card that targets the card doing the removing (negate all, negate last, negate any, and interrupt the battle). This is consistent with cards like King Zimri, where you can play anything that negates him or interrupts the battle. I think that makes it a lot less complicated, and I also don't think that sacrifices gameplay at all. Now cards like Unholy Writ or Magic Charms (played out of battle) I'm a little less sure on, but I think that based on the precedent that would theoretically be set by what I said before, I'd be inclined to say they can be negated by any card that targets them (for instance, Foreign Sword).