dutpotd said:

And thats what I get for relying on memory.

Acutally it does tip the scale to Dark Decks because Dark Riku will almost always beat Riku lvl 2-3 or Sora 1-3 without friends.

Aggro runs Herc and Beast as beatsticks or to combo with Jack and Sephiroth is an auto-include so in thoery Sephiroth and Jack would be targets (after cage's hits the field). The sad truth of it is Aggro light has the upper hand in most cases and this stratgey and ruling would definately be evening out the balance of aggro power plus it gives dark a chance at [successful] control.

Just to update the community on this.

I have heard bcak from Jafer, and he has indicated he will address and repost the ruling in the forums as well.

The ruling has changed slightly per Jafer's conference with FFG James. In summary, "any 'captured' Friend or Magic Friend is not considered to be in any player's Friend Area". This applies to when a Parasite Cage captures a friend and is played on a world and when a Parasite Cage is played as a Dark Friend and itself counts as a Friend in a friend area.

The any was bolded by Jafer with respect to when the Parasite Cage is played as a dark friend. i.e. the Parasite Cage played as a dark friend (after caputring a friend card) is considered to be one Friend in the friend area. The 'captured' friend is no longer in any player's friend area.

Basically, the name of the captured friend is the only item of relevance when considering Parasite Cage's effect and it does not interact with Monstro lvl 1 becuase a captured friend is removed from any and all friend areas. The bowels of Monstro is not an area for friends

Yay for lack of zero friend locks!

- dut

Aww. The zero friend lock sounded interesting. oh well. This is the proper ruling, I believe. I didn't see why it counted as a friend to begin with after being inside parasite cage...

While I do think this is the right ruling now and all things have been corrected...I think too big of a deal was made about it...your apparent "personal vendetta" against Parasite Cage is a little ridiculous sir, I'm not gonna lie. You could have just simply emailed Jaffer in the first place instead of blowing it out of proportion as much as you did...

Oh well...the problem is solved now though, so all is right with the world.

Or FFG Robb who is actually in charge of this sort of thing, it's good to address the issue but you did blow a bit out of proportion. doesn't really matter though.

I think dut did the right thing, and I'm glad it's being addressed. before reading a couple of posts about the rulings being updated I was about to ask what would happen if each player had more than one parasite cage in their possession as friends and monstro was played after the fact. this would force at least one player to discard a parasite cage. This happens alot in the games around here, but we didn't really care for the original ruling so we played as if the captured cards didn't take up friend slots.

But back to that situation, if each player had 2 PC's how would the order of discarding friends go? player with more friends goes first? player who played monstro? do they discard down to 3 simultaneously or 1 at a time alternating players?

Anyways, I'm glad it will be changed and for all the reasons dut put out there. You have my personal thanks

Ok since there is soooo much to read of people just going back and forth can someone just tell me what the official word on this ruling was?

Kryz said:

I'm not questioning the fact he did it...I was just commenting on how he blew it out of proportion a bit. Good to hear people just disregarding the rules because you don't like them though...way to go guys!

As for your question, I'd refer to the Gravity ruling and the person who played Monstro would discard first and alternate from there...but if you don't like that one either feel free to make one up!

Alright I have a question about Parasite Cage then, If your Parastie Cage captured (oh lets just say) Pan lvl 3 and then you're opponent plays Parasite Cage and designates you're Parasite Cage what happens to Pan? What happens to equipment cards if they capture a friend with one?

Well if I remember correctly the equipment stays on the friend and I believe that pan would be discarded.

I thought Pan would stay attached to Parasite Cage, just as an equip would stay attached to a character. Only diff would be that while that Parasite Cage is attached to the other, your opponent would be able to play Peter Pan

Henry1245 said:

I don't think so because the cage that pan was originally under has lost it's card text. At least that would be my understanding of it. I think the potential situations that dut mentioned can all be avoided if someone just cages a cage.

To address the most recent post... You can't Cage a Cage if you are a Light player playing against a dark player that plays no worlds. The case where the dark player is playing a lock deck and using worlds = never. The lock is intended for a followup agro, not a slow world race... In fact, I highly doubt that we will see many world racer dark decks beyond casula play, the cards out as of now aren't designed for it.

To answer the question about pan, etc. If a Parasite Cage card is captured (will be rare, if ever, per my above bolded comment) then it loses it's text. What does this mean to the friend inside? I would say nothing. Namely, the capture is a 'come into play effect' and the lack of text afterwards is meaningless. The alternative is the friend inside the original Cage is discarded. I don't think this will come into play that often based on the effective strategies that this game offers. If it does, I would lean towards my first answer, that the friend simply remains 'placed' on the Cage card that captured it, to be released (per the card text that did exist when the come into play effect triggered) upon defeat only.

To answer Dawn whom I hoped would have posted sooner, as he was the person I respect most (tied with L Roxas) and mainly wanted an opinion from, granted I think he was the original messenger of the first rule too!

I don't think I blew anything out of proportion, and if anyone thought that they should have mentioned it before the solution was reached and actually helped to mitigate it sooner...

If you playtested it as much as we did, chances are you would agree it was a serious problem and I gaurantee if you were the one put into a no friend lock becuase of the ruling you would have been addressing it here as well.

About disregarding the rules, people can play however they want and with whatever rules they want. Needless to say I only play with the official agreed upon rules but that is personal preference. If you aren't having fun becuase of a particular oddball rule, and it is casual play, I would suggest you change things up as long as everyone agrees.

Chances are, if you are in the case noted above then you should discuss the ruling on the forum and determine why it is a problem and why it has been ruled that way BECAUSE it is possible that other players are also suffering from a lack of fun becuase of a particular ruling that may not agree with the way they understand the game to work.

I don't have a 'personal vendatta' against Parasite Cage, I use it in most of my decks and I face it all the time. I did have a problem with the way Parasite Cage was interacting with other restrictive cards, namely Monstro lvl 1. But it wasn't so much a vendetta as it was a problem, one that I wanted addressed, and as a community. It has been, and trust me, the game is better for it.

Sometimes you have to be assertive to get things done. And if I come across as blowing things out of proportion I can only assure the community it is for the good of the game and it is not 'personal'.

I would have straight up emailed Jaffer first but that is disrespectful to the community whom first posted the question to him and whom deserves a chance to explain the context of the ruling. That would pretty much be going behind the backs of people I respect and saying, I don't trust what you brought back from the rule people at FFG. If you don't see it that way, I apologize, but I did and still do.

I also apologize to anyone who thinks I blew it out of proportion, it was not my intent. My intent was to explain the extent to which I felt the combination of certain cards was restrictive to the game in the hopes that I would receive constructive comments on how I was right or wrong. To me, that is what the forums are all about.

- dut

Hello Kingdom Hearts Community,

Sorry for the long lapse in communication - as many of you may know, we are in the middle of 2 major initiatives: 1) Making our new website the best website it can be (which means dealing with some fairly lame technical difficulties that we are ironing out all the time) and 2) Our big clearance sale which wraps up today.

So, it has been brought to my attention that the previous ruling on Parasite Cage has become problematic with the introduction of Dark Players like Riku and Ansem . We expected this: as cool as the Dark Players are, the subtlety they have introduced into the rules interpretation has been a fine tightrope.

In an effort to increase the overall level of fun for the Kingdom Hearts meta, the Moogles have put their heads together and revised the ruling on the Parasite Cage . We don't think this fundamentally changes the way the card will be played, but we do think it should clear up some of the issues of that weird Parasite Cage / Monstro combo.

Without any further ado:

"When a Dark Player plays a Parasite Cage into his/her Friend Area as a Dark Friend, its ability still triggers and an opponent's Friend or Magic Friend is 'captured' until the Parasite Cage is defeated. While a Friend or Magic Friend is 'captured', it is still considered to be under the control of its original player - therefore that player cannot put into play other Friend or Magic Friend cards with the same name. However, any 'captured' Friend or Magic Friend is not considered to be in any player's Friend Area."

Moreover, to address the issue of how your get your Friend back once it has been captured, there is this clarification:

"It is possible to cast Magic directly at any Dark Friend in a Dark Player's Friend Area."

Finally, much thanks and applause goes to Way_to_the_Dawn for compiling all of the previous rulings into one big document (which we will post on our new website shortly, along with some additions), which contains these rulings on the Parasite Cage .

Q: If a Friend is captured by "Parasite Cage," it will be returned when "Parasite Cage" is defeated. However, what happens when "Parasite Cage" is discarded or returned to a player's hand by another effect? What happens when I Escape?

A: The Friend Card is discarded, and is not returned to the player it was captured from. In the event of an Escape, the Friend is discarded. CLARIFICATION : If the Parasite Cage is in your Opponent's Friend Area (not on your top World ), the Friend IS NOT discarded if you escape.

Q: If I defeat a "Parasite Cage" through the damage of a Magic Card, will the captured Friend be returned to me?

A: Yes.

Q: If a Friend is captured by "Parasite Cage," can I play other Friends on the same name?

A: No. CLARIFICATION: This ruling has been slightly revised to take into account the above ruling.

Q: If my Friend was captured by "Parasite Cage" and I initiate a Battle against it with "Peter Pan" participating, does my Friend return because the effect of "Parasite Cage" is negated?

A: No. The effect of capturing a Friend is only activated when "Parasite Cage" is first played -- it is not an ongoing effect. Even if "Peter Pan" participates in a Battle against it, the Friend will not be immediately returned. CLARIFICATION: That is, you will get the Friend back if you defeat the Parasite Cage in a Battle , but not before the Battle if Peter Pan is participating.

Q: Are cards caught by Parasite Cage effected by outside scenarios? (i.e. Villains or Simba)

A: If it refers to a particular card name , such as villains, then yes they will be affected, otherwise no.

Q: Does Parasite Cage's effect remove the Friend from the field in terms of use for Pot Spider and Clayton?

A: Yes it does. The friend is technically removed from play while captured. CLARIFICATION: See above ruling. The Friend is still in play, but not in any Friend Area .

That's all for now, folks! Hope that helps and I hope you're all enjoying Light and Darkness!

Thank you,

Jaffer Batica

Marketing Coordinator

Here's an interestin question bout Parasite Cage that my friends 'n I just thought up tonight.

My opponent's Parasite Cage took my Beast lvl 3. I have a Jack lvl 3 in play, and a Hercules lvl 3 (alt) in hand. I also have a Goofy lvl 3 equiped with a Herc's Shield in play. Would I be able to play my Hercules lvl 3, bounce the Parasite Cage back to my opponent's hand, and discard the Herc's Sheild to keep my Beast lvl 3 in play?

We argued the wordings behind Parasite Cage's text against the wording of Herc's Sheild's text, but since it was two ayes versus two nays, I felt compelled to bring this up. I believe that Herc's Shield could very well save a friend from being discarded by Parasite Cage's effect (ie: the above rulings).

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Choitz said:

My opinion would be no you couldn't because of timing and where beast is on the board.

I would have to agree with Roxas.

The timing is the biggest issue in that question, and since there aren't any instants like in M:TG, you can't bounce parasite cage an in response use the shield to save beast since it's not in your friend area as well.

Choitz said:

whoa whoa whoa.... this is a lotta stuff at once here, I need to know once and for all does the parasite cage lock work in a dark deck( Monstro lvl1 plus three cages) If it doesnt I'm taking my dark deck apart.

Okay answered my own question... I just wanna say taht I think its unfair, sure it made no sense taht the captured friend still took a slot in the friend zone but it gave dark decks an edge, not a great one but an edge none the less. It was very easy to avoid the cage lock too, if the opponent sees it coming avoid having three friends out at once. I got my friend down to one friend zone with cages once( before the ruling) and he just kept playing one friend and attacking me with it. My heatless consisted of two cages and a wizard so It hurt me to have to bring one up. he did this till I had no choice but to fight with a cage or lose. So the lock was powerful but very hard for a dark deck to do, try getting to level7 it aint easy

lol this argument proved nothing other then the fact monstro/parasite cage combo is ridiculous and broken. The fact is all they have to do is play 2 parasites and a wizard then continually out attack you in challenges until they win. Sigh... i might quit for a while, because now its whoever builds a better dark deck....

Thirroxin said:

Now, normally I wouldn't comment on something like this, but I feel it needs to be said.

First...do you even play this game? The obvious responses to your statement there are that getting to level seven via dark deck friends is incredibly hard...any amount of playtesting will show you this...so it isn't "ridiculous" or "broken" because it takes so much set up it's not even funny.

Secondly...How does a Wizard matter in this equation? I run 2 Owls and 2 Phils in my current build so I'm MORE than prepared for not being able to cast magic or magic/friends. In terms of support Your Cage is a Seven (If I force you to use them, which if you think about it how are you going to out attack someone when you need to keep your two cages for this supposed "lock") and a wizard with a measly 5 support? If I've got the lock I run, I'm gonna have a Sephiroth out there and against that you'll win one, maybe two challenges but only if your packing a crapload of attack cards.

So a dark deck running this "lock" you speak of isn't going to do crap...as most dark decks succeed at amazingly...crap...

Waytothedawn said:

"Now, normally I wouldn't comment on something like this, but I feel it needs to be said.

First...do you even play this game? The obvious responses to your statement there are that getting to level seven via dark deck friends is incredibly hard...any amount of playtesting will show you this...so it isn't "ridiculous" or "broken" because it takes so much set up it's not even funny.

Secondly...How does a Wizard matter in this equation? I run 2 Owls and 2 Phils in my current build so I'm MORE than prepared for not being able to cast magic or magic/friends. In terms of support Your Cage is a Seven (If I force you to use them, which if you think about it how are you going to out attack someone when you need to keep your two cages for this supposed "lock") and a wizard with a measly 5 support? If I've got the lock I run, I'm gonna have a Sephiroth out there and against that you'll win one, maybe two challenges but only if your packing a crapload of attack cards.

So a dark deck running this "lock" you speak of isn't going to do crap...as most dark decks succeed at amazingly...crap..."

My answer:

LOL
LOL
LOLL
LOL

Hard to get to lvl 7????/ n00bs these days... honestly.

The fact that most people run jacks help you what? lower your dark level.

Black fungus lowers what? your dark level.

Dragon malifiecent is a lvel 9 that lets you discard to what... oh yeah... lower the dark level....

My mistake, but if you have a DM out... you can play what? Oh yeah, any other dark card in the game.... huh... she sounds really hard to get out though.... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLZZZZ

Thats all fine and dandy you can handle no magic or MF, but are you ready to drop to 3 characters while they guarantee out attack you every turn? I dunno, maybe i should play test this deck... oh yeah... i already placed first twice with this deck....

So before you go and critisize people for not playing, maybe you should think about how your sephiroth is useless if he gets parasite caged, you may get him out one game, but in tournament play its 2 out of 3 wins the round, and they wouldnt let that happen again.

Nice answer though.... "hard to get to level 7" haha... thats adorable....

Thirroxin said:

Are all those "LOL"s really necessary...do you have some sort of mental disability?

jerk internet trolls these days...honestly

Anyway...now to destroy you...

I'm a no0b? hmmm I seem to remember placing 3rd at a major tournament last summer called GEN CON! I also seem to remember that my regular play group also placed well within that tournament, my friend (Roxas_Lawliet) going undefeated in that tournament. I also remember that I was moderator on the old forums and was a well respected player, with well respected deck building ideas. I don't remember people saying that about you. I have heard nothing about you at all actually, so right of the bat you have already shown ignorance.

You statement about Jack can be refuted with 3 words "Challenge with jack"…ya, what you were trying to accomplish by that argument? And what if they don't run jack (i.e dark deck)? What if they sacrifice it to their Simba's? What if they ditch it to their monsro?

Ya, nice try but again, it's apparently obvious you haven't taken into consideration the other 36-56 cards that they would run.

Black Fungus, not really useful, and any amount of playtesting will show you that. You still have to ramp with 1 in play and getting multiples out will last for about a turn. Just playing a level 1 with actual support would work better. So unless you have superior card draw and search power (which you don't) then you fungus isn't going to be fast enough to their moogle, triton, destiny islands, the king, mayor or bambi. So again, you show ignorance.

Yup that's right, I can read cards and I know what DM does. But you obviously didn't consider that by discarding those cards you lose advantage. Consider that it would take 4 cards in play (to get a level 4 out) and 5 cards from your hand just to play it…Seems pretty slow to me. And if you are trying to set it up, I hear Pinocchio can discard it from your hand but I'm not sure, maybe you should read the card for me, and I hear that gepetto searches for him and that's a level 0, but I'm apparently such a no0b I can't make the correlation that you can use Destiny Islands to search for Gepetto, obviously. Man I am a no0b.

Hmm, maybe before set 3 was officially out, I already thought of this deck, seeing as when I was Gen Con (you know, that major tournament I placed third at), I saw most of the set on Jaffer's computer and when I got my complete set of the cards plus a box, I actually made a deck similar to this, which was by the way, at least a week before the set was even on sale in stores. So uh ya…Maybe I've played a couple games with the deck before…just maybe…

Winning your local tournaments proves nothing and bringing it up was irrelevant, personal anecdote cannot be the basis of an argument. Again, nice try though, cute to see that you win your local tournaments.

Hmm, maybe you should consider how your strategy is flawed by both rulings and apparent logic. Maybe you should think about how Sephiroth isn't the only means of winning the match-up. Maybe you should consider that if I throw an attack card out, you will have to answer it either with a friend or an attack card, and that I will have answers to that as well, so your lock exists for about, a turn, maybe two and against WR, it's almost pointless since they run a whole variety of friend cards, and have Simba as well and can play monstro. Maybe you should consider that although they may lose 1 match or 1 set, it doesn't automatically make the deck better, it just means you won the match or set. Maybe they can't help but lose again because of the lack of speed their deck has, and the consistency is almost nonexistent.

Hard to get to level 7, ya, I would say it is with all the hoops you would have to jump through. And thanks for calling me adorable though you obviously meant it in a derogatory manner. I'll be blunt and honest, you're ignorant.

Look, I'm sure you'll read all this and laugh it off and counter with some sort of long winded response about how your deck could take mine no problem and blah blah blah...well I'm telling you right now I'm not going to continue this argument...I've stated my opinion and completely obliterated yours...I won't sit here and keep a flame war going, especially arguing with someone who won't see reason or admit when they're wrong. So speak your retort... I love a good laugh

~Mr. Dawn

Look, all i was saying was that I dont think its hard to get to level 7, and i'll be honest, i read the rulings wrong for the monstro/cage combo. My original belief was if you had 3 cages sitting on a monstro they coulnt play friends period.

Regardless, Mr. Dawn,

I am sorry and i do appreciate all the help you AND everyone has given me in the past few months i have been on this site. I was merely trying to prove a point on how I personally dont think its very hard to reach level 7 in a dark deck. I do apologize to everyone that has been offended by this in any way, I guess i did sound kind of ignorant, actually very ignorant. All the "lols" and "oh yeah"'s were kind of overkill. I was in a bad mood and i guess i figured i could be a jerk for a while.

Regardless, i am sorry to everyone, especially you Mr. Dawn and i hope that you dont hold a grudge against me for this. I'll try to watch my answers and be less blunt from now on.

Really... sorry to all...

-Thirroxin

From my experience, Cage as a friend is difficult task. In order to win, a Dark Deck usually needs to spam Attack and/or Magic along with tons of level 1-3 dark friends.

Jack generally doesn't help, because as Mr. Dawn mentioned most aggro players will challenge with him and WR might as well battle with him before allowing any help to the opponent.

D. Mal.....It's a double edge sword from most of my proxy testing. It's good if you can get it set up quick. If not.....well the slower a Dark Deck is the less likely it will win.

That being said, Parasite Cage and Monstro ruling the way of the lock wouldn't even practical. Getting those 4 cards on the field maybe be difficult but making a ruling that way would sound more like one of the dead end victories of the YGO games and it definately sounds like Yata.