Cactus Game Design Message Boards

No.  They are seperate definitions and categories. 

Cards that are discarded (usually by losing a battle by numbers or an ability that says "discard x") go to the discard pile and can be retrieved by cards that say they get cards out of the discard pile. 

Cards that are removed from the game by an ability that says to "remove x from the game" are permanently gone for the rest of the game.  They are put somewhere out of the way and there is no way to get them back. 

So in my example, if my opponent uses a discard ability, then City of Refuge's ability is not applicable, correct?

Correct.

It sounds like it would, since City of Refuge does not specify a human "in play".

It sounds like it would, since City of Refuge does not specify a human "in play".

If an ability does not specify, it defaults to in play.

Instead changes the destination?  That's news to me.  So I can use Herod's Temple to save a NT Human sniped from my draw pile/hit with DD?  Also: Triggered abilities don't need the trigger to occur in play?

Instead changes the destination?  That's news to me.  So I can use Herod's Temple to save a NT Human sniped from my draw pile/hit with DD?  Also: Triggered abilities don't need the trigger to occur in play?

Correct on both counts. Don't mistake the "target defaults to in play" ruling to mean "everything defaults to in play." Things triggering abilities are not being targeted by those abilities, so the targeting default doesn't apply.

Heal is defined to be a magical outside-of-time ability, so that would be its own entity.  (My tongue is only half in cheek here.)

Heal is indeed a unique ability type. It does break the rule for targeting, which is unfortunate because I always prefer rules to have no hard exceptions.

Clearly, we should remove heal from the game.

First banned card: Leaves for Healing.

Second banned card: Backwards Shadow.

This one is even more OP. It prevents poison! Forever!