Cactus Game Design Message Boards

The Testimony
Selected Hero gains 7 ability points to be distributed as holder chooses until Hero is discarded. Distribution must be announced when played.


Toss
How to Play
A toss ability allows a player to play an enhancement in a different way than normal; instead of activating the numbers and/or special abilities of the enhancement, the enhancement is discarded to decrease an opposing character by X/X (where X is the strength of the discarded enhancement).

Default Conditions
Enhancements discarded to the toss ability must come from hand.
The strength of the discarded enhancement is determined by the face value of the card.
Targets for the decrease must be in battle and controlled by opponent.

Am I right in deducing that you can "play" the testimony in a toss and then determine it's value (obvious 7/0 lol)?

The Testimony has no numbers itself, nor any dynamic numbers despite the */*.  There had been an effort to errata those abilities that are actually dynamic (usually represented */* or X/X on the card) to show that they were based on an identifier instead of an ability.

While there is an errata entry (The Testimony - Special Ability: None. Identifier: Selected Hero (until discarded) gains 7 ability points to be distributed as holder chooses. Distribution must be announced when played. Under Advisement.), note that it is "under advisement."

It is pretty clear from the ability that it increases a character, and does not actually increase itself (give itself numbers).  Especially given more recent precedent and abilities, I can't see any way to rule this an identifier, and it should instead be treated as an Increase special ability.  If you Toss this card, it gives no numbers for the decrease.

Let me confer with the other Elders about this errata and get a concise ruling.

I would agree with Redoubter. Whether Testimony is an identifier or a special ability it's clearly increasing the Hero, not itself, so it would be considered a 0/0 enhancement for all abilities that check numbers on enhancements (including Toss).


*instaposted*