I've been working on a new tourney deck and had a question on how Venom Lash works with Chester's Backing. Venom Lash has a static ability that reads:

"While this card is in your card pool your opponent may not gain vitality"

And Chesters reads:

"R Commit: After your opponent plays an ability on one of their foundations, cancel its effects, then gain vitality equal to the foundation's difficulty."

I'm under the impression that as long as the gain isn't optional (Chesters forces you to gain the vitality as it's not a 'may') it is prevented and as such the effects can't be fulfilled, much like God of Metal forces both players to have 2 momentum and how Armored Defense stops .::Ken. So, based off of that I think it would stop Chesters but I wanted clarification from someone official. I know it would stop things like Rejection for sure. Thanks in advance!

griffinman01 said:

If Chester's effects where backwards ("Gain vitality, then cancel effects") and you canceled/prevented the life gain then yes it would stop the whole ability. In actuality the cancel comes first, and the life gain is reliant upon it, but the cancel isn't reliant on the life gain.

So they can still cancel your foundations effect, they just won't gain life equal to the foundation's difficulty when they do. Unless of course they're canceling your "Infected". (;

**Stamps for Aslum**