If the underlying issue of effect potential vs. negation effects is the problem, then patching over an over-situational card with an errata when the card is pretty irrelevant in the metagame anyway is a bad idea.

The real hiccup comes from situational negation, which shows up in UFS more than I think any other CCG around today. Naruto & Dragonball have a lot of situational negation too, but those generally don't interact with the effects of an ability, rather they use the keywords on the Ninja/Warrior using the Jutsu/Technique (and in DB's case, the keywords on the technique itself).

That's not something that can be "fixed" with an errata - it'd need a fundamental re-working of the way we play abilities... or alternatively, a complete C&D on all future "situational negation" like Killer Android, Red Lotus, et al. - because if it's not negating the entire ability, it can instead respond at the trigger event, akin to Spiritual Center. Make an effect intended to work like Killer Android instead do "R Commit: When one of your assets would be destroyed, that asset is not destroyed. Destroy 1 asset." There, functional ability that does not cancel the entire effect, but merely shields your asset (assuming there's another asset out to destroy instead of the one you're protecting... etc).

Tagrineth said:

I like that option

to be fair. whos to say this doesnt work exactly as intended to? maybe Hata wanted the card to cancel teh entire ability. Or as an answer to Kazuya?

Mike, you're smarter than that.

This is an issue of "should the card work if there is no asset to protect," not an issue of "don't errata this because we need to stop Kazuya somehow." It's pretty cut and dry that it should NOT stop Kazuya at all, but for some reason the ruling is that it does. I am all for this kind of errata.

Tagrineth said:

Now that's forward thinking. I'm liking that wording VERY much.

TripsEX said:

I dont' see why it is cut and dry that it should not stop Kazuya.

Tagrineth said:

Intent is clearly "Protect asset" - Otherwise the wording would have been different - I don't even think you would have seen the word "asset" on the card.

The rule is FINE, I'm sorry but that's what negation has to be like.

It HAS to use the potentiality rule. Imagine this scenario.

I have no momentum and I use From the Mouse, Humility on your attack. This will add a card from momentum to my hand, but I have no momentum. As such, you decide to not respond with Martial Arts Champion, but then suddenly I use another enhancement such as Treacherous Offspring to add a card from my discard pile to momentum.

BY YOUR LOGIC, Martial Arts Champion couldn't have possibly negated From the Mouse, Humility because there were no cards there to add to hand! THIS IS NOT LOGICAL. There is nothing wrong with the potentiality ruling.

Couldn't agree less with this statement.

MAC says "would" so its preemptive. Android says AND destroy an asset which should target something as its meant as a redirect not just a LOL dont have to do anything and turn sideways.

I've always felt that AND should be inclusive to have to do both. Just my opinion.

Except the litanty of past problems it has had and already have been documented.

Having potentiality rulings also hinder how cards are designed, hinder cards that offer choices, even hinder working and templating of the cards. The reason we have potentiallity ruling is because there is no "targeting" in UFS, IE a card can be used without a valid target for the sake of using it, often to trigger other events. Also since the intent of a card is not announced until after the card is used (IE. AMYS) and in the current rulings past the respose window to respond to it being played, this is the result.

Do I have the proper solution, no I do not. Perhaps UFS needs some level of targeting or declaration of intent when usign cards with choice. Maybe a card needs to have a valid effect when played, i dont know, but as it stands the current rulings are cumbersome, lead to unintended effects, are not intuative to most players, and unbalance some cards. This is not ideal and honestly looks sophmoric to a game that is many years old now.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

However, you cannot use MAC on from the mouse or any other card that adds or draws cards based on something dealing damage. only things that immediatly draw upon resolution. just like how red lotus only stops things that immediatly commit/destroy/remove on the resolution.

# This card will only stop cards whose effect will commit, destroy, or remove a card immediately upon the resolution of the cards effect. [Antigoth / Hata 08/13/09]

# General reminder that an effect which states "If this attack deals damage" does not finish resolving until after the damage dealing step of the attack sequence. [Antigoth 04/24/09]

All negation is preemptive, otherwise you're stuck with Dead for 1000 Years.

"after your opponent PLAYS an ability that destroys an asset"

...has the same effect as...

"after your opponent plays an ability that would destroy an asset"

...particularly because the ability hasn't resolved . All negation that responds after an ability is PLAYED is preemptive because the ability has not yet resolved. It's very easy to see that the ruling is fine.

Uh... the effect resolves when the card is about to be destroyed. That doesn't change anything, especially when two sentences below it says:

"•If an effect could commit a card upon its resolution (IE Amy's Assistance) Red Lotus will negate the entire effect when it is played. [Antigoth 08/13/09]"

So let's read them in order, shall we?

#1 This card will only stop cards whose effect will commit, destroy, or remove a card immediately upon the resolution of the cards effect. [Antigoth / Hata 08/13/09]

#2 General reminder that an effect which states "If this attack deals damage" does not finish resolving until after the damage dealing step of the attack sequence. [Antigoth 04/24/09]

#3 If an effect could commit a card upon its resolution (IE Amy's Assistance) Red Lotus will negate the entire effect when it is played. [Antigoth 08/13/09]

We can obviously extrapolate that to MAC as:

#1 This card will only stop cards whose effect will draw or add a card to hand immediately upon the resolution of the cards effect.

#2 General reminder that an effect which states "If this attack deals damage" does not finish resolving until after the damage dealing step of the attack sequence. [Antigoth 04/24/09]

#3 If an effect could draw or add a card to hand upon its resolution (IE From the Mouse, Humility) Martial Arts Champion will negate the entire effect when it is played.

So yeah. "If this attack deals damage, draw 1 card" can be negated with MAC because the effect would resolve when the attack deals damage.

End result: ALL NEGATION IS PREEMPTIVE , and ALL NEGATION IS INDEPENDENT OF THE CURRENT GAME STATE .

You don't have to have cards in momentum for the effect to be negated, and you don't have to have assets to use Killer Android responding to something that would destroy a "card" or "cards" in your staging area.

I mis spoke on my post. Or spoke too hastily. Pre-emptive is not the issue for "control" cards.
MAC can always respond to an ability that has the potential to draw a card. AKA it negates From the mouse.
Fing Toaster is in the same boat to respond to an ability that would destroy an asset. But why does it work if they're no assets to destroy. Thats completely counter-intuitive in my opinion.
Its much more cut and dry. Ability blows up asset Toaster makes toast. No asset to destroy, toaster cries.

MAC is a terrible example here. B/c MAC has a much more "blanket" effect.

Point taken on response triggers being indipendent of game state. But I dont understand an effect that responds to something that potentialy does nothing.

Nfxon said:

For the same reason MAC negates From the Mouse with no momentum.

Imagine this scenario. An Earth deck fronted by Siegfried, right?

He has Killer Android out, along with Atoning for his Wicked Deeds. The opponent plays the ability on Shield Breaker to destroy an asset, aware of Siegfried's evil intentions. The opponent knows that because Shield Breaker has Death he could essentially blow up Atoning to put any asset into his staging area with its Life R, and this could be anything from a Path to.... well there isn't much worse.

Should he be able to negate with Killer Android before responding with Atoning? For if he responds with Atoning first, Killer Android itself will destroy his own asset.

THIS is why the potentiality ruling exists; there's always the potential to MAGICALLY fit the conditions of an ability that weren't there in the first place. With From the Mouse, you had no momentum... but what if the attack it's used on, dual symboled, is Lunging Brush Fire? Then you could resolve Lunging Brush Fire, put your other attack in momentum, then to hand.

Red Lotus was stupid not because of the potentiality ruling, but because it could potentially stop TEN DIFFERENT SCENARIOS. Foundation committal, foundation destruction, foundation removal, asset committal, asset destruction, asset removal, unidentified card destruction, unidentified card committal, unidentified card removal and character committal... anything that would do any of these would be stopped by Red Lotus.

As opposed to Killer Android, who stops only two: unidentified card destruction and asset destruction. This isn't even half as bad and not worth three pages of discussion, really.

The problem is more so what this leads too. It messes up choice cards. Let's say I have a card that reads:

Exploding asset

"F: Your opponent choses one, they take 3 damage or they destroy one of their assets. Your opponent must take 3 damage if they don't have an asset."

This is a perfectly well templated card, your oppoenent has to do something, the intent is clear, etc. So put this up against killer android, and even though the player who has no asset in play and could not destroy an asset they dont have by the very wording of the card being played, killer android would still stop this based on potential. But its false potential, because its not possible to begin with.

Why is that ok? Every other card game on the market accounts for this. It's not intuitave, it's not fun, and it does not look good for the game.

Protoaddict said:

Because apparently we must repeat the mistakes that were made years prior.

I just want to know where the Saviors of UFS are with all this. Even Antigoth seems relativly quiet on the subject.

I'm in agreeance with Ben and Fred. Killer Android should not blanket stop Kazuya's ability. It SHOULD be like Makai High Noble in that it jumps in the way of an asset, much as MHN jumped in the way of a foundation in a board nuke such as Start Over or Infiltrating.

B-Rad said:

Seriously though, unless the rules change, I have to agree with the guys who says it should stop Kazuya. Because the text, as written, says it does as referenced by a ton of people out there.

That doesn't mean I have to like it and not think like you guys do - that it underlines a severe problem that might have solved a lot of bad card interactions over the years and one we were kind of dumb to ignore.

Protoaddict said:

Every other card game on the market doesn't have this type of scenario at all . This is the only one that does. So how does every other CCG have something to account for it? Answer: They don't.

Other CCGs wouldn't have the whole "negate-asset-destruction" situational counter, they would in this case have

1. abiltiies that cancel any given ability on an asset/foundation/whatever your card is

2. abiltiies that would cancel any given form

but what we've found from experience in UFS that blanket, general-use negation tends to get overpowered because they can cancel too much crap, since our counters and negates tend to stay in play for re-use every single turn. So instead, we get situational negation like Killer Android.

I'd say the system works great, or at least it works better than when we had too much general negation (Chesters/Oral Dead more recently, or if you want to go back in time a bit, Yoga/Lost Memories together potentially shut off all your foundations and all your enhances).

The other games dont deal with it because the other games rules dont allow for situations to arise like this. Ill use magic as an example but it extends beyond this. Because of "the stack", which is just LIFO resolution of events, and the fact that choices and targets are declared as part of cost, you never have a point where a card that could potentially do something but isn't can be targeted for it.

Protoaddict said:

There's a reason why declaring a target as part of the cost doesn't work here but the examples don't come to mind. Anyone help?

The important part is to remember than negation will occur only if when the ability resolves, the undesired effect might happen. This is not to say that it cannot.

I posted the Siegfried with Atoning for his Wicked Deeds because it's the most obvious example. But MAC cancelling From The Mouse, Humility when the opponent has no momentum is just as "illogical" as Killer Android negating something that would destroy an asset with no assets out.

The potentiality ruling is there because negation is worded when an ability is being PLAYED, not when it is RESOLVING. If Killer Android was worded "R: When one of your assets would be destroyed by an opponent's card effect, commit this card instead" then it wouldn't be negation. Potentiality ruling in negation makes perfect sense in UFS because from one point to another in the same enhance step, the entire game state might change. I might add an asset to my staging area. I might put cards in my momentum. This shouldn't prevent me from playing the corresponding abilities OR from negating the corresponding abilities.

Edit: The following might help, man of the hat kind.

A character card is a card. A foundation is a card. An asset is a card. THUS when something would destroy all "cards", it should count as trying to destroy foundations AND assets, and whether any of these are even available should be superfluous. Why?

"Destroy a card". Because most negation responds to the ability which is going to destroy a foundation, for example, is PLAYED, you don't get to the resolution just yet! So the player hasn't defined what he's going to destroy. We are all aware there ARE no assets, but if he so desired it, he could ask to destroy one of the opponent's assets. What's stopping him? Supposing he's playing Ymirfang and is doing it just to jack up the vitality losses for Heir to the Storm, for example. Or in Legacy, that he's playing Darkness Blade and trying to commit as much as possible. NOTHING stops the opponent from playing an ability that would destroy an asset without the opponent having assets.

It is this free will that causes the potentiality ruling to exist. Because the opponent could NOT desire to destroy a foundation, and could instead choose to destroy an asset (or vice versa), in any case when an ability that would destroy cards is PLAYED, it is to be treated as if it could destroy foundations OR assets.

FREE WILL, BABY!

I don't think any of us inherently disagree with you that this is the way the rules currently work, what we are trying to convey is that it is sloppy and not the best possible execution. We all know that currently KAz is stopped by android even with no asset, most of us just think its dumb and feel like there had to be a better way to handle these sorts of situations from a global rules perspective.

Keep in mind that bulk negation in the past has never been a problem rules wise. Yoga mastery was always VERY straight forward. It may have been to powerful, but it was never a rules problem. It's always been the case where cards do more than they should based on the cards wording like Red Lotus and now android, where the more cards enter the environment the more of a problem they become rules wise down the road.

I personally agree with the opinion on cards saying "if an ability WILL destroy a card" something will happen. This really does solve tons of problem with rulings and makes the game much more clear. Basically if cards would just be worded this way every time, you wouldn't ever have these strange potential rulings, and the game would be much easier to understand.