Omega "Ace" and DeadEye EPT

By kingargyle, in X-Wing Rules Questions

I'm waiting for FFG Organized Play to respond via twitter, in the meantime, Can Omega Ace, just take the Deadeye EPT, and only need to have a focus token to activate his ability? Deadeye lets you treate spending a focus like having a target lock, so was wondering if its ability and Deadeye would work together to allow it to only need a focus token instead of a focus token and a target lock?

Even if we treat Omega Ace's pilot ability as an attack that instructs you to spend a target lock (we don't), I don't think Deadeye's wording allows you to get both the virtual target lock expenditure and the focus token expenditure out of the same focus token.

Answer from FFG, is that Dead Eye would require an extra focus token to trigger. So one focus and a target lock, or two focus tokens with Dead Eye.

https://twitter.com/FFGOP/status/645963032405909504

Edited by kingargyle

Interesting. Fleet Officer would make that Focus token somewhat easier to come by.

At the end of they day, though, probably more efficient to just take PtL and grab the target lock.

Is the Twitter account allowed to make official rule clarifications?

I'm waiting for FFG Organized Play to respond via twitter, in the meantime, Can Omega Ace, just take the Deadeye EPT, and only need to have a focus token to activate his ability? Deadeye lets you treate spending a focus like having a target lock, so was wondering if its ability and Deadeye would work together to allow it to only need a focus token instead of a focus token and a target lock?

No need to wait - this one's dead in the water.

Deadeye only lets you treat focus as target lock under a very specific set of circumstances which are impossible for Omega Ace to meet.

Deadeye:

You may treat the "Attack [Target Lock]" header as "Attack [Focus]".

When an attack instructs you to spend a target lock, you may spend a focus token instead.

Only secondary weapons have the "Attack [Target Lock]" header.

TIE F/Os cannot equip secondary weapons

Is the Twitter account allowed to make official rule clarifications?

It is the official account and multiple items that ended up in the FAQ have come through them.

I'm waiting for FFG Organized Play to respond via twitter, in the meantime, Can Omega Ace, just take the Deadeye EPT, and only need to have a focus token to activate his ability? Deadeye lets you treate spending a focus like having a target lock, so was wondering if its ability and Deadeye would work together to allow it to only need a focus token instead of a focus token and a target lock?

No need to wait - this one's dead in the water.

Deadeye only lets you treat focus as target lock under a very specific set of circumstances which are impossible for Omega Ace to meet.

Deadeye:

You may treat the "Attack [Target Lock]" header as "Attack [Focus]".

When an attack instructs you to spend a target lock, you may spend a focus token instead.

Only secondary weapons have the "Attack [Target Lock]" header.

TIE F/Os cannot equip secondary weapons

According the offical FFGO twitter account, with Deadeye you would need two focus tokens for it to work. You are spending your target lock to use Omega Aces ability during the attack. PTL is still better, but if you had Fleet Officer it could work, but probably not worth the trouble trying to get it to work.

I'm waiting for FFG Organized Play to respond via twitter, in the meantime, Can Omega Ace, just take the Deadeye EPT, and only need to have a focus token to activate his ability? Deadeye lets you treate spending a focus like having a target lock, so was wondering if its ability and Deadeye would work together to allow it to only need a focus token instead of a focus token and a target lock?

No need to wait - this one's dead in the water.

Deadeye only lets you treat focus as target lock under a very specific set of circumstances which are impossible for Omega Ace to meet.

Deadeye:

You may treat the "Attack [Target Lock]" header as "Attack [Focus]".

When an attack instructs you to spend a target lock, you may spend a focus token instead.

Only secondary weapons have the "Attack [Target Lock]" header.

TIE F/Os cannot equip secondary weapons

According the offical FFGO twitter account, with Deadeye you would need two focus tokens for it to work. You are spending your target lock to use Omega Aces ability during the attack. PTL is still better, but if you had Fleet Officer it could work, but probably not worth the trouble trying to get it to work.

Official or not it doesn't insulate them from the occasional mistake.

The trigger for Deadeye is unequivocal - it triggers when you perform an attack with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header

Omega Ace cannot perform attacks with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header

A comprehensive errata of the Deadeye card notwithstanding, Deadeye does not work on Omega Ace

Edited by Funkleton

The trigger for Deadeye is unequivocal - it triggers when you perform an attack with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header

Omega Ace cannot perform attacks with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header

A comprehensive errata of the Deadeye card notwithstanding, Deadeye does not work on Omega Ace

Deadeye has two separate clauses. The first is that you can treat "Attack (Target Lock)" as "Attack (Focus)". The second is that if an attack instructs you to spend a target lock token, you can spend a focus token instead.

So the right question is whether Omega Ace counts as an attack that instructs you to spend a target lock. It's ambiguous--is offering an opportunity the same thing as instructing?--but I think it's way more interesting if FFG resolves this in favor of allowing focus+focus to activate Omega Ace's ability.

It's an interesting corner case. Of course, most of the ways that you could get Omega Ace to have two focus tokens would also let you get one focus and one TL.

The trigger for Deadeye is unequivocal - it triggers when you perform an attack with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header

Omega Ace cannot perform attacks with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header

A comprehensive errata of the Deadeye card notwithstanding, Deadeye does not work on Omega Ace

Deadeye has two separate clauses. The first is that you can treat "Attack (Target Lock)" as "Attack (Focus)". The second is that if an attack instructs you to spend a target lock token, you can spend a focus token instead.

So the right question is whether Omega Ace counts as an attack that instructs you to spend a target lock. It's ambiguous--is offering an opportunity the same thing as instructing?--but I think it's way more interesting if FFG resolves this in favor of allowing focus+focus to activate Omega Ace's ability.

Fair point - there's some ambiguity there - but not a lot.

The most obvious interpretation is that the second clause is there to clarify the first - so the conditions set in the first clause still stand - focus may be used in place of TL when you declare an attack with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header - the focus is not treated as a TL when it comes to dice modification - only as a condition for the attack.

When Omega attacks (s)he isn't instructed to spend any tokens in order to attack, (s)he is presented with an option to spend tokens when modifying the attack - by which point the timing trigger and conditions for Deadeye have passed so it can't be used.

I'd be rather reserved to consider this a judgement from FFG - I'm more inclined to think they forgot to fully read the card text before replying

The trigger for Deadeye is unequivocal - it triggers when you perform an attack with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header

Omega Ace cannot perform attacks with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header

A comprehensive errata of the Deadeye card notwithstanding, Deadeye does not work on Omega Ace

Deadeye has two separate clauses. The first is that you can treat "Attack (Target Lock)" as "Attack (Focus)". The second is that if an attack instructs you to spend a target lock token, you can spend a focus token instead.

So the right question is whether Omega Ace counts as an attack that instructs you to spend a target lock. It's ambiguous--is offering an opportunity the same thing as instructing?--but I think it's way more interesting if FFG resolves this in favor of allowing focus+focus to activate Omega Ace's ability.

Fair point - there's some ambiguity there - but not a lot.

The most obvious interpretation is that the second clause is there to clarify the first - so the conditions set in the first clause still stand - focus may be used in place of TL when you declare an attack with the "Attack [Target Lock]" header - the focus is not treated as a TL when it comes to dice modification - only as a condition for the attack.

When Omega attacks (s)he isn't instructed to spend any tokens in order to attack, (s)he is presented with an option to spend tokens when modifying the attack - by which point the timing trigger and conditions for Deadeye have passed so it can't be used.

I'd be rather reserved to consider this a judgement from FFG - I'm more inclined to think they forgot to fully read the card text before replying

The two pieces of Deadeye are clearly independent of one another, to me. We have cards with the Attack (Target Lock) header than don't spend the lock, and it's not impossible for there to be an upgrade card that invokes the second sentence but not the first.

Suppose there were a hypothetical secondary weapon that simply had the "Attack" header, and started with the text "If you have a target lock on the target, you must spend it to make this attack. If you do, roll 1 additional attack die." I think Deadeye would work there.

Deadeye's wording is thus:

You may treat the Attack (Target Lock): header as Attack (Focus):

When an attack instructs you to spend a target lock, you may spend a focus token instead.


These two parts are separate and trigger separately.

Headers require a specific token to be present to trigger the attack. Compare Homing Missiles and Assault Missiles.

  • Homing Missiles has the header Attack (Target Lock). This denotes that you need a target lock on the target ship to fire it. It says nothing about spending that lock, hence you keep your Target Lock when you fire Homing Missiles. Same for Ion Pulse Missiles and Advanced Homing Missiles. Proton Rockets behaves the same way for Attack (Focus).
  • Assault Missiles, however, has another condition. It tells you to spend your target lock (and discard the card) in order to attack. This is where the second clause of Deadeye comes into play: it allows you to spend focus tokens in place of target locks here. If it didn't (if the second clause is simply a redundant clarification of the first as you suggest) you'd then need to spend a target lock as part of the attack costs. Deadeye would only work on the missiles in the above paragraph unless you had a target lock anyway.

Attack (Target Lock) and spending a target lock to attack are two distinct mechanics and Deadeye deals with each of them. On a hypothetical ordnance card that lacked the Attack (Target Lock) header but instructed you to spend a target lock, Deadeye would trigger. In reality, Attack (Target Lock) is actually redundant on cards that order you to spend a target lock: Attack (Target Lock) requires you have one, but surely you have to have one anyway to spend it?

Despite the independence of Deadeye's two effects, Omega Ace isn't a clear cut one.

"When an attack instructs you to spend a target lock, you may spend a focus token instead."

Is Omega Ace instructing you to? Certainly not in the same way an Ordnance card does. While the two effects of Deadeye are independent, the second clause doesn't say "you may spend a focus token in place of a target lock." Otherwise you could spend a focus token to reroll all your attack dice, and we know that isn't the case.

Omega Ace's ability is likewise a dice modification ability: it demands more tokens be spent, but it changes all results of one type into another type. Focus does foci to hits, Omega Ace does all to crits.

It looks like it wouldn't work. After looking at it this deeply I'd actually rule it doesn't. But that reply from Organised Play throws a spanner into that, as FFG goes intent over wording in all cases I can think of.

OP, you could send it to Rules Questions, then you'll get a designer reply, which is the highest authority you can go to.

Edited by Blue Five

The two pieces of Deadeye are clearly independent of one another, to me. We have cards with the Attack (Target Lock) header than don't spend the lock, and it's not impossible for there to be an upgrade card that invokes the second sentence but not the first.

Suppose there were a hypothetical secondary weapon that simply had the "Attack" header, and started with the text "If you have a target lock on the target, you must spend it to make this attack. If you do, roll 1 additional attack die." I think Deadeye would work there.

OK I'll buy that - but I'm really not seeing Omega Ace's ability as an "attack [that] instructs you to spend a target lock" - it's an option during dice modification not an attack instruction.

Edited by Funkleton

Yeah, we would need not only to establish that this opportunity counts as an instruction, but also that this pilot ability (that happens to only be relevant during an attack) is itself an attack.

I think it's clear that Omega Ace's ability is powerful, but that it comes at a price that demands a fair bit of planning. The hoops you would have to jump through to get two focus tokens on him just to be able to use Deadeye instead would seem to outweigh the usefulness of him, to me.

Plus I think you'd be hard pressed to convince an opponent or even a TO that this is legal. I could see a lengthy debate during the game, which would just be a waste of time.

And in the end, what's the best average result you can gain here. A 3-dice attack at Range 1 that yields 3 crits. And before anyone jumps in to start adding all sorts of other attack die additions, remember he's got to get that second focus somehow as well.

Seems like an exercise in over-planning to me. :huh:

If that did end up being legal, I think it opens the door for all focuses wth deadeye to be treated as target lock modifications on any attack for any pilot. Which makes that card wayy to powerful and not in the spirit of the card.

If that did end up being legal, I think it opens the door for all focuses wth deadeye to be treated as target lock modifications on any attack for any pilot. Which makes that card wayy to powerful and not in the spirit of the card.

This.

I think the general gist that Deadeye has two completely separate abilities is correct, but it doesn't change that Omega Ace's (I'm going to type those in full every time, just because the name's so awful) ability is not an attack.

Of course, the wording on Deadeye is actually pretty awful. Attacks never instruct you to do anything. What it should say is:

"When you are required to spend a target lock to perform an attack, you may spend a focus token instead".

Or something comparable. But hey, it was Wave 2 so it... well, actually, it's about as bad as what we're still getting. But, well...

If that did end up being legal, I think it opens the door for all focuses wth deadeye to be treated as target lock modifications on any attack for any pilot. Which makes that card wayy to powerful and not in the spirit of the card.

I think what it would do is allow you to spend a focus token instead for any pilot ability that starts with "When attacking, you may spend a target lock to..."

And I might be forgetting something, but I think Omega Ace and the Han Solo crew card are the only game elements that allow you to spend a target lock on your own attack to get some benefit. (And spending a focus token to get Han's effect is pointless.) So it would be something FFG would need to be aware of going forward, but I don't think it has any power issues in combination with currently available cards.

Of course, the wording on Deadeye is actually pretty awful. Attacks never instruct you to do anything. What it should say is:

"When you are required to spend a target lock to perform an attack, you may spend a focus token instead".

Or something comparable.

Sure, but that's not what it says.

Of course, the wording on Deadeye is actually pretty awful. Attacks never instruct you to do anything. What it should say is:

"When you are required to spend a target lock to perform an attack, you may spend a focus token instead".

Or something comparable.

Sure, but that's not what it says.

Yeah, but that's kind of my point about the awful - attacks never instruct you to do anything, so Deadeye's trigger for "When an attack instructs you to spend a target lock..." is never actually met. As written, the second part doesn't work.

But hey - we finally got secondary turrets cleaned up! So we've got that going for us, which is nice.

[edit;] *ignore post / wrong thread*

Edited by Elkerlyc