Cactus Game Design Message Boards

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

And if you have eight hands, you need to cut four of them off.

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.

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...

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.

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