Please move and discuss this thread on playtesters board

[The Schaef]

You're welcome to treat it as it suits you.  I think it's clear that at least one additional source is at least encouraged, and on a personal level I have always strongly recommended it.  But I don't consider myself in a position to state the official level to which a ruling should be discounted for lack of evidence.

[Master KChief]

i think thats what most of us are confused about. i initially also had put more merit towards an elder's input that also provided one of the 3 criterias listed by rob, but there has lately been a common mindset that it is considered an official ruling even if an elder gives input without any of the 3. a clearly defined level between what is considered an official elder ruling and what is not would be nice.

[The Schaef]

don't those criteria give you that clearly defined level, and the issue here is that weight is just being given to stuff that falls outside that level?

[Prof Underwood]

I would say that there are several levels of confidence in a forum ruling really.  I would say that you should assume that all of these are correct, unless there is another thread with a different ruling that is either of equal weight and is more recent, or is of higher weight.

Level 1 - you find a thread where there are several posts, including rulings from some REPs ("real experienced players") that agree, but no elder input.

Level 2 - you find a thread where there is 1 elder alone who supports a ruling with no dissension from other elders.

Level 3 - you find a thread where there are 2 or more elders who agree.

Level 4 - you find a thread where Rob posts a ruling.

[Master KChief]

don't those criteria give you that clearly defined level, and the issue here is that weight is just being given to stuff that falls outside that level?

thats what i've been asking...is an elder input with at least one of the 3 an official ruling, and elder input without at least one of the 3 an unofficial ruling?

Level 2 - you find a thread where there is 1 elder alone who supports a ruling with no dissension from other elders.

so would sirnobodys input in that thread fall under level 2 then?

[SomeKittens]

Level 5- God Himself makes a ruling.

[The Schaef]

That was my impression but I can't speak to a "common mindset" and I can't run the boards trying to divine all the right answers.  I'm really only looking for one thing in this thread and I don't want to get too far down a rabbit hole from this: is there some kind of history or other input on this issue, so that I'm not forced to assume this entire thing is just based on one post in the wild?

If there is nothing else, then that unto itself is a significant issue with this ruling that needs to be addressed, but either way, I think there is something clearly wrong with either the logic underpinning the ruling, or in the way it is being applied in certain situations.  Again, I'm in the dark as to which.

[RTSmaniac]

When finally ruled upon, I believe the ruling will once again fall under- Works, but we can't allow it due to going against Fun/Fellowship rule. "Giving" your opponents hero's the ability to discard all evil cards in thier hand or beginning a new turn with no hand will be frowned upon. So now some new rule or an interpretation thereof, will be implemented- im sure. If not, (angel sings) HALLELUJAH! I will try to remake my version from teal/purple to teal/green with less uniques than before. 

[Prof Underwood]

Level 2 - you find a thread where there is 1 elder alone who supports a ruling with no dissension from other elders

so would sirnobodys input in that thread fall under level 2 then?

Yes, and this thread is both more current, and also has more elder input, so I would say that whatever the outcome of this thread ends up being, that it will supersede that older thread.

[The Schaef]

I'm not clear on how either ANB or Nazareth requires people to discard evil cards in their hand or render them unable to draw cards.

[Lamborghini_diablo]

You force them to play ANB while you have nazereth and Rain Becomes Dust out. Since Nazareth protects your RBD from being shuffled, it reveals and discards the 8 cards your opponent draws. So they now have no hand, and no territory.

[The Schaef]

Also giving you nothing to do on your turn.  And they draw three when they begin the new turn.

[Professoralstad]

Also giving you nothing to do on your turn.

How's that? When my turn comes around, after their ANB turn, I have a full territory and hand with which to do something.

And they draw three when they begin the new turn.

Which leaves their three cards vs. my fully armed and operational territory and hand. Odds are weighted pretty heavily in my favor.

[browarod]

They should just reprint ANB to blue (it's Genesis, after all) and fix the ability so they won't have to errata it anymore....

[The Schaef]

How's that? When my turn comes around, after their ANB turn, I have a full territory and hand with which to do something.

Like what?  I have no characters to attack, no Lost Souls to rescue, no Artifacts to burn... what do you do against an empty territory but discard and pass your turn?  Not a whole lot.

Which leaves their three cards vs. my fully armed and operational territory and hand. Odds are weighted pretty heavily in my favor.

I have a two-card combo that would essentially waste your efforts, using a card many people here have said is useless.

[Rawrlolsauce!]

What if you add thorns to it? :O! Not to mention something like Hoppers, HTs, ....

It will also take you several turns to become un-crippled, several turns where you might draw souls.

[The Schaef]

Gathered Strengthening Angel, band to his character when he Agur's it, you remove the card from the game, keep your hand, RBD does nothing, and under the old rules you would start your new turn with as much as 22 cards in hand.  Now it's just whatever is the current hand limit.

[Lamborghini_diablo]

Gathered Strengthening Angel, band to his character when he Agur's it, you remove the card from the game, keep your hand, RBD does nothing, and under the old rules you would start your new turn with as much as 22 cards in hand.  Now it's just whatever is the current hand limit.

... how would strengthening angel give you a 22 card hand?

"Protect cards in your hand and deck from discard by opponent.  Increase your human Heroes by 1/1.  Cannot be prevented."

Also, you'd have to KNOW ahead of time that they were even using that deck. Strengthening Angel is not my first choice


Plus, your entire territory is still wiped, while i get to keep EVERYTHING in my territory by forcing you to use ANB.

[The Schaef]

My bad, I was looking at an earlier edit of the card that had more protection.  Point is, there are cards out there that protect from one thing or the other.  Plus, Agur telegraphs the play and the EC needs initiative (and in the current meta, even getting to block is not a sure thing.

And what people are neglecting here is that between Agur, ANB, Nazareth, a green Hero, a choose-rescuer card and an EC to play it on, you're talking about a six-card combo without even including RBD or some other card designed to punish you for the use of ANB.  Six cards in a combo is six potential points of failure.  Plenty of anti-Site stuff out there, anti-Artifact stuff, etc that can take out any one piece of this puzzle and you're done.  Shoot, I could even take Nazareth AND the ANB'd Hero and turn your own plan against you.

If I'm going to line up a six-card combo, I'd take the one that allows me to block your rescue, destroy all your Evil Characters and deny you the Lost Soul, cannot be negated.

[STAMP]

My bad, I was looking at an earlier edit of the card that had more protection.  Point is, there are cards out there that protect from one thing or the other.  Plus, Agur telegraphs the play and the EC needs initiative (and in the current meta, even getting to block is not a sure thing.

And what people are neglecting here is that between Agur, ANB, Nazareth, a green Hero, a choose-rescuer card and an EC to play it on, you're talking about a six-card combo without even including RBD or some other card designed to punish you for the use of ANB.  Six cards in a combo is six potential points of failure.  Plenty of anti-Site stuff out there, anti-Artifact stuff, etc that can take out any one piece of this puzzle and you're done.  Shoot, I could even take Nazareth AND the ANB'd Hero and turn your own plan against you.

If I'm going to line up a six-card combo, I'd take the one that allows me to block your rescue, destroy all your Evil Characters and deny you the Lost Soul, cannot be negated.

I'll take that ridiculous 6-card combo if it can provide a Brut slap to my testes-less ANB Type 2 deck. 

[Professoralstad]

How's that? When my turn comes around, after their ANB turn, I have a full territory and hand with which to do something.

Like what?  I have no characters to attack, no Lost Souls to rescue, no Artifacts to burn... what do you do against an empty territory but discard and pass your turn?  Not a whole lot.

FWIW, there is a fairly high probability you'll have LS's to rescue. RBD doesn't stop you from getting LS's in your territory, so unless there are no LS's in your top 11 cards, then I can attack, and have an extremely good chance of rescuing, unless your three cards are especially helpful. The Thorns LS would also stop your LS from being shuffled in the first place, so adding that would almost assure me at least 1 successful rescue.

I am fairly certain that if someone were to pull off such a combo, their opponent would have a low chance of coming back from it.

Also, I don't see why CtR is necessary. Unless I'm missing something, Rehoboam would be far more effective, especially since Gates of Jerusalem allows him to be CBN and protected.

[The Schaef]

FWIW, there is a fairly high probability you'll have LS's to rescue.

I consider there to be a very high level of variance in the availability of Lost Souls because of the great number of factors that can affect that number.

The Thorns LS would also stop your LS from being shuffled in the first place, so adding that would almost assure me at least 1 successful rescue.

And only makes the combo one card larger.  I'm sure I could come up with a dozen different combos that would be unstoppable by opponents if I were allowed to use ten cards to do it.

Also, I don't see why CtR is necessary. Unless I'm missing something, Rehoboam would be far more effective, especially since Gates of Jerusalem allows him to be CBN and protected.

Choose the rescuer is the scenario that was presented to me; don't hold me responsible for the parameters that were provided to me for this discussion, I am only abiding by them.  Besides, Rehoboam plus Gates is the same number of cards as EC plus e.g. Lies, so if we include RBD and now Thorns LS, we're still looking at what is now a seven-card combo.

[Rawrlolsauce!]

The thing is, it won't be that hard to get those 7 cards out by mid game. I'll have multiple copies of each, and the only ones that really need to stay in my hand would be the CtR and ANB.

[The Schaef]

ANB can't stay in your hand if it needs to be placed on the Hero.  And a seven card combo is still a seven card combo.  If I rescue or even bury your Thorns soul, you're done.  If I DoN your RDB Artifact, you're done.  If I play Land Grab and take your Nazareth, suddenly you're faced with the threat of me pulling your own trick against you by banding in your Hero on purpose.  Again, aside from having to go and actually draw them, every card in a combo is a potential point of failure.

And all of this is only going to how likely this one specific combo is and how damaging it will or won't be.  That really has nothing to do with how the cards work, or where the ruling in question came from.

[Rawrlolsauce!]

I meant CtR and ANB are the only ones that need to take up hand space until I'm ready to pull off the combo. Also, keep in mind, this combo is more aimed for t2.

If you want to waste your Burial, or if you're able to rescue the both copies of thorns (or pigs if I want it instead of RBD), congrats. The combo is still going to work. If you want to waste your DoN, assuming I don't have lamp up, on one of my three RBDs, congrats. If you want to waste your Benedictus (assuming I get CP up) and Land Dispute, fantastic.

The thing is, you'll be "wasting" more cards countering this combo then I'll be trying to pull it off. Even if you do manage to stop it, it isn't like those card are totally a waste. Sure, ANB won't be doing what I want it to, but it is still a fantastic enhancement to use. I might be disappointed in Nazareth, but it is still protecting me. The only card that I would view as a "waste" at that point would be the CtR.