Just wanted to check my understanfing of how his interupt works
Zarathur attacks a flyer for 1
1 damage (0.5 rounded up) is assigned to the flyer
Interupt assignes another damage to the flyer
a shield card with 1 shield would block 1 damage resulting in 1 damage
a shield card with 2+ shields would block all damage
In this scenario, the attacked unit's Flying has no real baring on either Zarathur's effect or using shields. It's important to remember that Flying only reduces the assigned damage that the unit takes from non-Flying attacks.
When a unit with the Flying keyword is attacked by a unit that does not have the Flying keyword, halve the damage that is dealt before it is assigned. If the resultant damage would be a fractional value, round up.
Looking at the steps involved in "Dealing Damage:"
To deal damage to a unit, follow these steps in order:
Assign damage: Place damage tokens equal to the amount of damage being dealt next to the unit (or units) being damaged.
Shields: For each unit that has been assigned damage, its controller may discard 1 shield card from his hand to prevent an amount of damage to that unit equal to (or up to) the number of shield icons on the card. Prevented damage is returned to the token bank.
Take damage: Any assigned damage that has not been prevented or reassigned by a card effect is now placed on each unit, up to the unit’s remaining hit points. Any excess damage is ignored. If no damage is taken in this step, no damage has been successfully dealt.
So if you attack a Flyer with 1-2 damage, it's reduced to 1, 3-4 goes down to 2, and so on. Zarathur's effect is an Interrupt that comes after the assigning of damage, so Flying's reduction is already through. If there were a way to boost Zarathur's Interrupt to deal 2 damage instead (and if I'm forgetting a card that could do that, apologies; like most of us, I'm still waiting for my cards), it would do the full amount to a Flying unit.
And shielding is done after the Assign Damage step as well, so again Flying's damage reduction would have no effect.
Another thing to remember is that Flying is only relevant if the damage is coming from an attack; it is not a blanket reduction that affects other damage sources. Things like Zarathur's ability, the Action for Zarathur's Flamers, and (I think) Area Effect would all be unaffected by Flying, though all the steps above for Dealing Damage would still apply.
You are correct that Area Effect damage is not considered Attack damage.
You are correct that Area Effect damage is not considered Attack damage.
Excellent, the text for AE made me doubt myself.
This damage is considered to be dealt by a card effect. It is not considered to be dealt by the attacker’s attack, but it is being dealt while the unit with Area Effect is attacking. After the Area Effect ability has resolved, the attack is over.
So it's not an attack, but the unit is attacking? It's a touch confusing, though I see why it's there, so there can be reactions to the AE as though it were an attack.
You are correct that Area Effect damage is not considered Attack damage.
Excellent, the text for AE made me doubt myself.
This damage is considered to be dealt by a card effect. It is not considered to be dealt by the attacker’s attack, but it is being dealt while the unit with Area Effect is attacking. After the Area Effect ability has resolved, the attack is over.
So it's not an attack, but the unit is attacking? It's a touch confusing, though I see why it's there, so there can be reactions to the AE as though it were an attack.
You got it
