Cactus Game Design Message Boards
Redemption® Collectible Trading Card Game HQ => Official Rules & Errata => Ruling Questions => Topic started by: DaClock on November 15, 2009, 09:11:07 PM
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Remove a Hero from the game. Any player may discard half the cards in their hand (rounded down) to negate this. Otherwise, it cannot be interrupted.
If my opponent has 0 cards, can he "discard" his hand of 0 to negate?
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If Jephthah can be considered a precedent for this situation, then no.
Instant Abilities > Discard or Remove > Special Conditions
.• When using Jephthahs special ability, the holder must have a draw pile and must discard two characters in the same territory unless only one character is available.
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this has been brought up before. there is a difference between cost and effect. jepthah is a cost. i believe the alternate option on sinning hand is an effect. if so, then the opponent can discard his hand of 0 cards to satisfy the ability.
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this has been brought up before. there is a difference between cost and effect. jepthah is a cost. i believe the alternate option on sinning hand is an effect. if so, then the opponent can discard his hand of 0 cards to satisfy the ability.
Why wouldn't Sinning Hand also be a cost?
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Sinning Hand
Type: Evil Enh. • Brigade: Orange • Ability: None • Class: None • Special Ability: Remove a Hero from the game. Any player may discard half the cards in hand (rounded down) to negate this. Otherwise, it cannot be interrupted.
Discarding your hand is the cost to negate Sinning Hand. If you don't have at least two cards then you can't discard anything.
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Yeah, this has been brought up before. And Gabe is wrong. Well, acording to how I see it and how Bryon sees it.
THe difference is that Jepthah's ability requires you to d/c the Top Card. SO you have to have a deck with a top card to d/c in order to use jepthah's ability. Bu Sinning hand is simply a number of cards (1/2 of your hand rounded down) so if your hand is 0, 1/2 of 0 is 0 and you can d/c 0 cards in order to fulfill it. Playing sinning hand on a player with a hand of 1 card or less would be futile because they would simply choose to d/c 0 cards to fulfill the SA of Sinning hand.
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thats why i remembered it being a player could choose to discard 0 cards. i just couldnt remember the reasoning behind the ruling. :)
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I'm not sure whether I like this ruling or not, but I do remember that the official ruling was that you CAN discard 0 cards to stop Sinning Hand.
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(https://www.cactusforums.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fit.pinellas.k12.fl.us%2FTeachers2%2Fladdr%2Fimages%2F6D0D2FA8C7934C3CA694AF0C5F643C31.jpg&hash=ec3bc5a956b39f1c3d1341adc54fff40651a0f2c)
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Gabe is incorrect and here's why - This goes way back to two years ago when I made the 'One turn Wonder' using Primary Objective and Long day. It was ruled at the time that 'Hand' is a location and regardless of how many cards are in your hand, you can discard it, If you have 0 cards in your 'Hand' you can still discard your 'Hand' - I hated the ruling at the time, and I still hate it now, as it seems to defy all logic.
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I remember the ruling. It's completely inconsistent with the Jephthah ruling. If I can discard a hand of 0 to satisfy Sinning Hand's cost then I can also discard from a deck of 0 to satisfy Jephthah. That just doesn't make any sense, regardless of how it was ruled in the past.
I'm sure that using Sinning Hand against a player who has 0 cards rarely ever happens so I can't imagine that this really matters, but consistency would be nice.
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Gabe is incorrect and here's why - This goes way back to two years ago when I made the 'One turn Wonder' using Primary Objective and Long day. It was ruled at the time that 'Hand' is a location and regardless of how many cards are in your hand, you can discard it, If you have 0 cards in your 'Hand' you can still discard your 'Hand' - I hated the ruling at the time, and I still hate it now, as it seems to defy all logic.
I hate it, too. There is no logical reasoning behind being able to discard a "hand" of 0 cards. I still think discarding your hand is a cost and as such you have to actually discard something more than nothing otherwise you're not paying anything for the cost. As the card and its reference say, if your Hand is Sinning you need to cut it off, and cutting off nothing doesn't solve anything.
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Sinning Hand and Assyria Conquers Israel work the same way. Jepthah doesn't apply to this scenario at ALL. Jepthah says "Discard the top card of your deck" (read: discard 1 card from the top of your deck) where as Sinning hand says "Discard half..." (read: Discard X)
If a card says discard 1, you must discard 1. If a card says discard 0 then it basically undoes itself.
Would you guys argue that TGT and Pride before Calamity work the same way?
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Hey,
I hate it, too. There is no logical reasoning behind being able to discard a "hand" of 0 cards. I still think discarding your hand is a cost and as such you have to actually discard something more than nothing otherwise you're not paying anything for the cost. As the card and its reference say, if your Hand is Sinning you need to cut it off, and cutting off nothing doesn't solve anything.
Whether or not you can discard 0 cards is kinda like what 0! (zero factorial) is. 0! is 1 because the mathematicians said it is. You can discard 0 cards because the PTB said you can. There is no right or wrong answer in these cases until some authority defines what is the correct answer. And TPTB have defined that discarding 0 cards is possible.
(To run with your example, having a hand of 0 cards would be equivalent to already having your hand cut off. If you've already cut off your hand, you've already taken care of the Sinning hand problem, you can't have a sinning hand if you don't have a hand.)
I remember the ruling. It's completely inconsistent with the Jephthah ruling. If I can discard a hand of 0 to satisfy Sinning Hand's cost then I can also discard from a deck of 0 to satisfy Jephthah. That just doesn't make any sense, regardless of how it was ruled in the past.
I don't think it is inconsistent with the Jephthah ruling. You can discard 0 cards from a set of 0 cards. You cannot discard 1 cards from a set of 0 cards. If you have an empty hand Sinning Hand requires you to discard 0 cards (half of zero is zero). If you have an empty draw pile, Jephthah requires you to discard 1 card. So Sinning Hand falls into the first case, which you can do, while Jephthah falls into the second case, which you cannot do.
Tschow,
Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly
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(To run with your example, having a hand of 0 cards would be equivalent to already having your hand cut off. If you've already cut off your hand, you've already taken care of the Sinning hand problem, you can't have a sinning hand if you don't have a hand.)
If one hand is sinning, you need another hand to cut it off (2 cards in hand), so if you have less than 2 hands (1 or 0 cards in hand) you cannot fix your sinning problem and your hero is lost.
I know this seems like a silly example, I'm just trying to understand the reasoning behind the PTB's decision to allow discards of 0 cards to satisfy the cost of the negate.
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And if you have eight hands, you need to cut four of them off.
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I can do the math, but I agree with Gabe that the ruling is inconsistent. The point here is not the math, it is the part of the REG I quoted. Notice that it says "the holder must have a draw pile." Consistency would indicate that in order to negate Sinning Hand, you must have a hand.
If math was the reason, then math should be in the REG. Logic is in the REG and this is clearly a logical inconsistency.
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Jephthah says to discard one card. It specifies a number: no math. If you don't have that number left to target, you can't complete the ability. Sinning Hand involves math: you must divide the number of cards in your hand by half. If that number is 0, 0/2=0, so you may discard 0 cards to complete the ability. That's my logic.
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+1
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what if you have 1 card in your hand??? By your argument you could negate it by discarding 0 cards as long as you have one in your hand...
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Playing sinning hand on a player with a hand of 1 card or less would be futile because they would simply choose to d/c 0 cards to fulfill the SA of Sinning hand.
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Jephthah says to discard one card. It specifies a number: no math. If you don't have that number left to target, you can't complete the ability. Sinning Hand involves math: you must divide the number of cards in your hand by half. If that number is 0, 0/2=0, so you may discard 0 cards to complete the ability. That's my logic.
Jepthah says to discard from your deck, which requires a deck in order to target. Sinning Hand says to discard from your hand, which requires a hand in order to target.
My logic still stands.
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+1 YMT
I hate math, because it leads to illogical decisions like this.
A cost is by very nature costly. 0 is nothing. Nothing cannot satisfy a cost because costs require something (even if it's half of something) and half of nothing is still nothing.
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Hey,
Jepthah says to discard from your deck, which requires a deck in order to target. Sinning Hand says to discard from your hand, which requires a hand in order to target.
My logic still stands.
You always have a deck, even if it there are no cards in it. You always have a hand, even if there are no cards in it.
Tschow,
Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly
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Hey,
A cost is by very nature costly. 0 is nothing. Nothing cannot satisfy a cost because costs require something (even if it's half of something) and half of nothing is still nothing.
My salvation disagrees with your logic.
Tschow,
Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly
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A cost is by very nature costly. 0 is nothing. Nothing cannot satisfy a cost because costs require something (even if it's half of something) and half of nothing is still nothing.
My salvation disagrees with your logic.
Amen! :)
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You always have a deck, even if it there are no cards in it. You always have a hand, even if there are no cards in it.
But you cannot discard from a deck you don't have to satisfy Jepthah, so why can you discard from a hand you don't have to satisfy Sinning Hand?
My salvation disagrees with your logic.
Um, Jesus still had to pay the cost. It may be free for us, but a cost was still payed.
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You always have a deck, even if it there are no cards in it.
Instant Abilities > Discard or Remove > Special Conditions
.• When using Jephthahs special ability, the holder must have a draw pile and must discard two characters in the same territory unless only one character is available.
What exactly is the point of the bolded part of the REG quote if what you say is true? Obviously it is possible to not have a deck, hence the ruling.
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That bolded phrase which you are so fond of quoting was meant to simply be a clarifier telling you how to use the card. Having no deck is the same as having zero cards in your deck for most purposes, but the latter is technically the more appropriate verbage. You can't expect the REG to be perfect.
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Well here's something that may change the discussion. I oppose the ruling for a totally different reason. Sinning Hand lists Discarding half your hand (rounded down) as a cost. You have been focusing on what "half your hand" means. I say concentrate on what Discard means. What does the Rulebook define "Discard" as? Has this occurred if you have 1 or 0 cards in hand? If no, why is Sinning Hand Negated?
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Discard is removing a card from its current location and placing it face up on the top of the discard pile.
I think Pol is onto something.
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By golly
I'm sure you didn't know it, but that phrase is actually just a euphemism for "By God" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Golly). It has no other meaning other than that, and is therefore a method of taking the Lord's name in vain. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from doing that.
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:'(
Fix'd
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By golly
I'm sure you didn't know it, but that phrase is actually just a euphemism for "By God" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Golly). It has no other meaning other than that, and is therefore a method of taking the Lord's name in vain. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from doing that.
Let's tone down the legalism.
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Let's tone down the legalism.
No kidding. Preaching your own convictions to others doesn't belong in this section.
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Let's tone down the legalism.
What you consider legalism, I consider obedience and holiness.
No kidding. Preaching your own convictions to others doesn't belong in this section.
He said something offensive to me. I politely made a personal request that he not speak that way. I'm not making any forum mandates here. It was only a personal request, and I appreciate that he honored it.
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While I agree with you in principle Mark - Golly is also short for 'Golliwog' as well as a numerous selection of other antiquated words. Additionally taking the Lord's name in vain is something done not only in speach, but also in the intention of the user - I think its clear that taking God's name in vain was not what Browarod intended, also worth consideration is that it was origionally a euphanism I think we can all say with some certanty that it is not any longer and is merely now an exclamation of suprise exactly as Browarod intended it. Also I think we've had this debate once - so can we just delete or split these last 5-6 posts into a new thread please.
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I think its clear that taking God's name in vain was not what Browarod intended
I agree, which is why I started my comment with "I'm sure you didn't know it"
it was origionally a euphanism I think we can all say with some certanty that it is not any longer
Actually we can't say that with any certainty at all. It still has the same definition (euphemism for God) in the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary (which I already linked to).
Also I think we've had this debate once - so can we just delete or split these last 5-6 posts into a new thread please.
I didn't remember having this debate before. Can you point me to the thread so that in the future, I can just post a link instead of rehashing old debates?
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i wish that when i clicked on the post called sinning hand that i would see some information on that post instead of all of this stuff
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http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/index.php?topic=17725.0 (http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/index.php?topic=17725.0)
This is the thread I was thinking of Mark -
Again - Could somebody with Mod powers split and splice this into the Open Discussion segement of the board please?
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most people have misconceptions about what 'taking the lords name in vain' means. its more than simply words. what it means is announcing to the church, world, whatever that you now follow christ, yet you do not live like you follow christ. that is taking up the lords name in vain. i sincerely doubt this is what browarod meant.
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I can do the math, but I agree with Gabe that the ruling is inconsistent. The point here is not the math, it is the part of the REG I quoted. Notice that it says "the holder must have a draw pile."
If that is what it says in the REG, then the REG needs clarification. The point is not that you must have a deck. The point is that you must have a TOP CARD of a deck. If you have zero cards in your deck, you still have a deck. BUT you do not have a top card.
Get the difference? For Jephthah, focus on the TOP CARD (since that is what you are told to discard). If you have no top card, you can't pay the cost.
You CAN have half of zero, which is zero. You can discard zero cards.
If I play a card that says "discard all of your cards in play to discard all of opponent's cards in play," then I can discard all of zero to discard all of my opponent's one cards.
All cards can be zero cards.
Half of zero cards can be zero cards.
1 card cannot be zero cards.
The top card cannot be zero cards. This is identical to the ruling that you can't discard the top 5 cards of your deck if you only have 4 cards in your deck. If the cost of the card is a number, you must discard that number. Even if that number is zero.
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Bryon made this man happy:
(https://www.cactusforums.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbayareaevents.files.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F190_sinbad.jpg&hash=34e4e273c3ec1a1aa6da46d171647f91bb93b012)
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I would say that to discard you need to have some thing to discard (I.E you need some thing to move from your hand to the discard pile) in order to negate sinning hand.
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I would say that to discard you need to have some thing to discard (I.E you need some thing to move from your hand to the discard pile) in order to negate sinning hand.
+1 The definition of discard I posted earlier (before the tangent discussion) supports this theory.
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So, are you saying that "discard" means different things depending on if it is a cost or a benefit?
Isn't it easier to say "discard zero cards" is possible in both cases? Why is ET/Authority "discard all evil characters in play" possible when there are no ECs in play, while "discard all evil characters in play to draw a card" is not possible if there are no evil characters in play?
As Tim said, either they need to be treated the same or differently. Rob+playtesters decided to treat them the same. If it is possible to have a discard ability discard zero cards as a benefit, then it is possible as a cost as well.
HOWEVER, if a NUMBER is given as a cost, then that cost MUST be payed in order to get the benefit. So, if you are told to pay 5, then 5 and only 5 is the cost you must pay. If you are told to pay the top card, then you MUST discard a top card. If you don't have one, you don't get the benefit. If you are told to discard zero cards, you can discard zero cards.
If there are zero Assyrians in play, then X = 0 for ... that card whose name escapes me (help!). Clearly, that card was created with the intent that it is easy (not impossible!) to negate it if the number of Assyrians in play is zero.
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http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/index.php?topic=17725.0 (http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/index.php?topic=17725.0)
This is the thread I was thinking of Mark -
Thanks for pointing me to that, although that seemed to be only about cussing rather than taking the Lord's name in vain. However, there is now this thread (http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/index.php?topic=18659.msg292378#msg292378) that is dedicated to this subject. So hopefully anymore discussion on this topic can be posted there.
Discard is removing a card from its current location and placing it face up on the top of the discard pile.
This definition does seem to go against the idea that you can either discard 0 characters with AoCP, or 0 cards from hand. Perhaps the definition needs to be refined to better reflect the way that this is being ruled. After all, you can't remove "a" card if you don't have any.
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HOWEVER, if a NUMBER is given as a cost, then that cost MUST be payed in order to get the benefit. So, if you are told to pay 5, then 5 and only 5 is the cost you must pay. If you are told to pay the top card, then you MUST discard a top card. If you don't have one, you don't get the benefit. If you are told to discard zero cards, you can discard zero cards.
I agree with your whole post but just wanted to confirm the following when expanding on your explanation:
If a number is given as a benefit, is it still up to the specified number? i.e. not exact like cost?
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If that is what it says in the REG, then the REG needs clarification. The point is not that you must have a deck. The point is that you must have a TOP CARD of a deck. If you have zero cards in your deck, you still have a deck. BUT you do not have a top card.
I would agree that the REG needs to be clarified. I was basing my decision on the REG, which is what I would consider the proper authority when I am hosting and judging. If the ruling was based on the word "top," then that should be the emphasis of the REG section for the Jephthah ruling.
There have been several recent threads that all point to the same issue - an antiquated REG. Prof Underwood volunteered his services and I would too. This is not a slight of those in charge, but rather an offer from those of us who have the spare time to make the necessary changes and updates (the little ones).
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We are hard at work passing a major redo through some playtesters. (A big portion of it is in my lap currently, so I accept some blame for the slow release). Rob will get it soon, and then hopefully he will open it up for comment to some selected members of this board.
I am very grateful to those who have volunteered to help. You may be contacted for assistance.
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I still think this ruling makes absolutely no logical sense at all. I realize it makes sense from a ruling perspective: if everything is consistent it's easier to rule on; but common sense wise it falls flat. Why would you intentionally create cards with effects like this, that go completely against logic, as you say they did with the Assyrian one?
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Logic is not a requirement for Fun & Fellowship. ;D
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Logic is not a requirement for Fun & Fellowship. ;D
It is for me, I'm the kind of person that has the most fun when everything makes sense ;)
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Hey,
Why would you intentionally create cards with effects like this, that go completely against logic, as you say they did with the Assyrian one?
These rules have logic behind them, you are just struggling to understand the logic behind them. (It's kinda like those optical illusions that have two pictures, once you see one sometimes it's really hard to get your mind to not see that one any more and see the other one).
As far as the design of the specific cards:
In the Assyrian case we wanted to make a card that works with Assyrians and is better the more Assyrians you have. If the card works well when you have no Assyrians, then it defeats the goal of the card.
In the Sinning Hand case, it is very rare to see a player with less than two cards in hand, much less for them to have less than two cards in hand while in battle against an orange defense that has initiative and has Sinning Hand ready to play. The frequency of this boundary case happening in normal play is rare enough that we're not going to balance the card around how it works in the boundary case. In 99.99% of cases Sinning Hand is played against a hand of at least 3 cards and works just fine.
(I'm technically not a playtester and I didn't have significant involvement in designing either of these specific cards, but I do know the playtesters and the process well enough to be confident in these statements.)
Tschow,
Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly
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I understand that the Assyrian one is for Assyrians, using it outside that strategy would be stupid as it could just be negated, it just confused me why there wasn't something like "If played by an Assyrian" rather than this complicated negation strategy to tie it into an Assyrian strategy (other than to make it better with more Assyrians).
As for Sinning Hand, I know you're right, I just found it strange that balance would be left up to chance (albeit it a very low chance of backfiring). Not that this is bad, just interesting :P
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So, are you saying that "discard" means different things depending on if it is a cost or a benefit?
As Tim said, either they need to be treated the same or differently. Rob+playtesters decided to treat them the same. If it is possible to have a discard ability discard zero cards as a benefit, then it is possible as a cost as well.
No I'm saying discard should mean the same thing in any case, moving cards from your hand, play or territory to your discard pile. If one can not do said action (moving cards to the discard pile) than you can't have the benefit (negating sinning hand).
Isn't it easier to say "discard zero cards" is possible in both cases? Why is ET/Authority "discard all evil characters in play" possible when there are no ECs in play, while "discard all evil characters in play to draw a card" is not possible if there are no evil characters in play?
ET/AOC: if no evil characters are in play you've just wasted your play in discarding nothing so there for its not possible. That being said you can still play(I.E move a card form your hand to play) it but it does nothing
"discard all evil characters in play to draw a card": If there are no EC in play you can't draw a card but, you can still move the card form your hand to play but it does nothing
HOWEVER, if a NUMBER is given as a cost, then that cost MUST be payed in order to get the benefit. So, if you are told to pay 5, then 5 and only 5 is the cost you must pay. If you are told to pay the top card, then you MUST discard a top card. If you don't have one, you don't get the benefit. If you are told to discard zero cards, you can discard zero cards.
I'm say you can't have some thing for nothing if a card says "discard all evil characters in play to draw a card" I MUST be able to discard at lest 1 EC to draw a card. If I can't discard at lest 1 I can't draw a card.
To summe up I'm saying cost/benefit cards have a check like "if one or more EC are in play you may discard until there are none left in play when there are none left in play than you may draw a card"
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I basically agree with this. I have also thought that the key was the definition of discard.
I understand that you can have zero cards, half of zero is zero, your hand or deck can be zero cards etc. I don't disagree with the logic or math in those arguments.
The problem for me is that discard is an action word and if nothing happened then you can't logically say that the action happened. Running 0 miles is the same as not running; it didn't happen. So it is possible for your hand to be 0 and it is possible to discard your hand which could be zero but if it is zero then no discarding actually happened so any condition that requires the discard to happen is not met.
So, are you saying that "discard" means different things depending on if it is a cost or a benefit?
Isn't it easier to say "discard zero cards" is possible in both cases? Why is ET/Authority "discard all evil characters in play" possible when there are no ECs in play, while "discard all evil characters in play to draw a card" is not possible if there are no evil characters in play?
As Tim said, either they need to be treated the same or differently. Rob+playtesters decided to treat them the same. If it is possible to have a discard ability discard zero cards as a benefit, then it is possible as a cost as well.
I don't think cost and benefit should be considered the same here. If someone commands me to run 0 miles, I can do nothing and obey that command. But if I have to run miles in order to burn calories, I cannot run 0 miles and still expect to lose weight. It can be a variable cost (some people have to run more than others) but I can't do nothing and get the benefit that comes from doing something.
A hypothetical scenario: I have previously placed Abomination into my opponent's territory. I make a rescue attempt with my only hero. My opponent blocks and has initiative. They play a new enhancement that makes my hero have no brigade for the rest of the turn (demonic blockade? already does this to sites). They still have initiative and band in Emperor Vitellius. Because x = 0 they get to draw 0 cards. Do I still get to discard one of my choice from Abomination? Clearly they can draw 0 cards but I don't see how my condition (cost) is met so I can discard. For Abomination the important part seems to be that fact that they drew cards not how many they drew.
I understand that the Assyrian card was probably written with your idea in mind but we have had conflicting ideas in the game before and I don't think it would actually be a problem for that card to resolve the game this way.