Is it legal to play Tides of Fate after an enemy shadow card gives an enemy +0 attack? -for example, the "Many Roads" as a shadow effect (Shelob's Lair quest) when there is no active location.

I would say you're stretching the definition of "increase" by including "increase by 0," but stranger things have been ruled legal.

If that turned out to be allowed, I'd definitely file it under "rulings to ignore".

i can see it either way, whether "increase" is the most important term here, or "any amount" is the more important phrase. hence the question. any similar rulings ever?


I guess it depends on if you think that you can increase something by 0. You can definitely add 0, which is exactly what is happening.

Somewhere there is a ruling about "each" and "all" and 0, but I'm not sure "any" has ever been explicitly mentioned.

It would definitely be weird to allow something like the OP mentions, though... If you allowed that, there's some pathological stuff you could start to argue for. Look at Harbor Master:

"Response: After a card effect adds any number of resources to the resource pool of a hero you control, Harbor Master gains +1 Defense until the end of the round."

So, some arbitrary card effect fires, and...

Mr. Pathology: ...all right, Harbor Master now has +3 Defense until the end of round.

Game: ...huh?

Mr. Pathology: That card effect added 0 resources to each of my 3 heroes, so I use Harbor Master's Response thrice. +3 Defense.

Game: GTFO.

Needless to say, I don't think this would be allowed.

EDIT: Okay, so the FAQ on adding resources explicitly disallows this example. How about Boromir ally? "Well, he took 0 damage, and 'any' includes 0, so he readies, right?"

there is a huge difference between these scenarios.

If there was a card effect that specifically added 0 resources, you might have a good case for being able to trigger harbor master.

"Made-Up Card:
Ready a hero, then add 0 resources to the resource pools of up to 3 heros you control."

if the text was something like that, then the scenario would be comparable.

My guess is that 0 is excluded from "any X" calculations.

You could select 0 for X in We Are Not Idle.

I think the key word is "increase" and not "any."

Is it legal to play Tides of Fate after an enemy shadow card gives an enemy +0 attack? -for example, the "Many Roads" as a shadow effect (Shelob's Lair quest) when there is no active location.

No

The card specifies that it must increase the attack by any amount but 0 is not an amount. Might as well say that if its attack is decreased you could play ToF because the attack has been increased by a negative amount.

Is it legal to play Tides of Fate after an enemy shadow card gives an enemy +0 attack? -for example, the "Many Roads" as a shadow effect (Shelob's Lair quest) when there is no active location.

No

The card specifies that it must increase the attack by any amount but 0 is not an amount. Might as well say that if its attack is decreased you could play ToF because the attack has been increased by a negative amount.

I agree with your conclusion, though not with your reasoning. It appears you're thinking of a null value, which is indicated by '-'. As an example, locations like "Doors of Durin" and quest stages like "Scattered Among the Hills" have '-' quest points, not '0' (the difference being that '-' doesn't really have a value, so it can't be compared or modified; '0' can).

However, I do agree that modifying a value by +0 is not "increasing" it.