Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Opponent plays Siege and all characters are in battle, do the order of operations matter when opponent is deciding on what order to activate abilities?

975   Siege   Siege   2/2   Micah 5:1   Brown   EE   All of Holder's Evil Characters in play and all of opponent's Heroes in play must join the battle.   N

CARDS WITH MULTIPLE SPECIAL ABILITIES

When a single card has more than one special ability (including gained abilities), and an order is not specified, perform the abilities in this order:

1. First, complete all printed special abilities in the order written on the card EXCEPT those that add a character to the battle.

2. Then complete all gained abilities (gained in set-aside or on previous turn, etc.), EXCEPT those that add a character to the battle.

3. Then, complete all weapon abilities.

4. Then, complete banding abilities.

5. Last, complete choose blocker abilities.

The traditional ruling has been that all characters are added simultaneously, but that their SAs happen 1 at a time.  So you have characters who are somehow "in battle" but at the same time have not activated their special abilities (which normally is a part of entering battle).

I think that this old ruling needs to be looked at again in light of a more top-down approach.  It seems inconsistent.