Cactus Game Design Message Boards

The definition of Toss says the enhancements must come from hand. What happens if my hand is protected (Simon the Zealot, etc.)? Do I get to play my enhancements as normal or not at all? Or does Toss' "regardless of protection" for the decrease also extend to the initial discard?

I believe this has come up before and it was clarified that the enhancement just comes from hand like any enhancement played in a normal battle would. Having one's hand protected does nothing to affect a toss battle.

Argue that it is different when it comes to Thad rather than Simon, because the former also protects cards in play.  At no point do they actually leave his protection.  You still have to 'play' the cards in order to activate them and then they are Tossed, so they would leave hand and hit play before Tossing occurs.  I'll just quote/link to the last time I can find myself making a post about this.

Quote from: REG 2.0

How to Play
A toss ability allows a player to play an enhancement in a different way than usual; instead of activating the numbers 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).

I don't know that this ever got fully resolved.  ProfA stated that Toss was worded to get around protection (which I was disputing in that thread).  Gabe posted a response that was unclear as to his position, but then Byron seemed to agree with me, though perhaps he misinterpreted.

I would argue that since Thaddeus protects all cards in play and out of play (that are relevant to this discussion...), either interpretation (that they are "tossed" instead of being played, or played then "tossed" from play) would result in no Toss.  However, if we do go with the interpretation that they go to play and then are tossed, then cards like Simon the Zealot (or other cards that protect hand from discard) would not stop Toss.  Only things like Thaddeus would work.

Can we get clarity on this?  Or does someone know a more conclusive thread?

Yes. You're still playing the enhancement, just in a different way

"The conclusion I draw from all of this is that toss doesn't target the hand at all, but instead targets the eligible Enhancements that are being played in battle." quote from Gabe in the other toss/hand protection question thread