Warpstone Meteor says (paraphrasing here do not have card with me) "Each player MUST (MY EMPHASIS) corrupt a unit in the corresponding zone or take a point of damage to their capital.

This has raised the question if the player has a unit in the corresponding zone can they elect to take the damage and keep the unit uncorrupted. There are other cards with slightly different wording (inserting the word "either") which more clearly suggests a player choice between effects.

I have not seen an "official answer" in any of the threads so I e-mailed Nate about it last night . Will post here when I get a response.

The unit can't take the damage. You either corrupt it or apply damage to your capital.

If you don't have a unit in the corresponding zone, then you must take a damage to your capital.

the card is poorly worded as it doesnt clarify if there is a choice, but this card has previously been clarified.

Official ruling

If you have a unit in that zone, it must be corrupted.

If you have no unit that can be corrupted in that zone, you must take a point of damage to your capital.

You know what I want for Christmas? A FAQ

mateooo said:

How is this an example of a poorly worded card?

"After your turn begins, each player must corrupt one of his units in this corresponding zone or deal 1 damage to his capital."

This can be reasonably interpretted two ways.

A more definitive wording would have easily made it less confusing to the many people who have asked this question before.

Ooo I played that card wrong. No choice. That makes it BETTER.

any more explanation needed?

Brad Harrington said:

Sour Grapes Brad?

mateooo said:

Mateoo

Where did you find the ruling? I thought I had checked all the posts

FiendishDevil said:

Agreed, the corruption deck is really coming together.

i no longer remember... it was a ruling that came out about 85 rules disputes ago.Unfortunately, FFG/Nate/Eric have not provided a FAQ, so I can no longer point to the ruling. Of course, honestly, I ve never seen first hand any from of direct communication from FFG/Nate/Eric regarding rule interpretations and all of my rules questions submitted to them via the forum link have gone unanswered. I've only seen hearsay emails and pronouncements from Dormouse who says he talks with Nate, so who knows.

Does that mean we have to start up the debate again?

mateooo said:

Well if you are really bored I guess we can

lol

hmm, apparently that was too short to post.

so

LOL

That one wasn't me. I don't remember who posted that one. In that case I was pretty sure I knew what the ruling was going to be because I understood the FFG/LCG rules of grammar (note they are not precisely the same as English or even American English rules of grammar).

It is a poorly worded card. It says exactly what it means but it could mean two different things and both are valid interpretations based on the rules of grammar. Yay for ambiguity!

I too would love a FAQ for Xmas... but like that UFC ring girl I want wrapped in a bow under my tree... I'm not expecting to receive it.

lol

my favorite thread

mateooo said:

Interpreted differently? Yes. Reasonably? No.

The sentence has two clauses joined with "or". So unless you are suggesting that there is some other area to misinterpret this sentence (and I have to guess since you think its better to be pithy and cute instead of explain yourself) then I have to disagree and say that there is no reasonable way to have any other interpretation of this sentence.

you're pithy. .

The reasoning works out like thise, Do A or B seems to say I can choose between A or B. When we look at the full text of the card though instead of reducing it to abstractions it reads, The use of the word must adds a precedence to the first clause and should not be equally applied to the latter, since it is a Forced effect and therefore by definition, not voluntary, and if no priority was intended in this context, no additional word needed to be added.

Using proper American English grammer, the card does not spell out exactly what should happen without ambiguity, if it did it should have been written, " Forced: After your turn begins, each player must corrupt one of his units in this corresponding zone or, if unable,
deal 1 damage to his capital. (Players decide where their own damage is assigned.)"

Possible readings, paraphrased:

You must (corrupt a unit or take damage)

You (must corrupt a unit) or (take damage)

Buhallin said:

Nate responded to my question this morning. Here is his answer.

"Each player can choose between corrupting a unit or damaging the capital. If one option is impossible (i.e. no units in the zone, or the capital section is burning), the other must be chosen."

I feel like Warpstone Meteor is not quite as useful as a result of the ruling but I will probably try it in my corruption deck and see how it goes.

HA!

Apparently everyone is wrong, as Nate has ruled (or reruled) against what at least one person feels "there is no reasonable way to have any other interpretation of this sentence."

so the interpretation I saw previously was wrong. It was posted as an official Nate Ruling. So either Nate changed his mind or the original poster lied or was confused. Or a third option is that we all hallucinated that there was ever an original ruling.

lesson of the day

DONT TRUST THESE FORUMS!

Heh. I think even dormouse is 0 for 3 on today's rulings.

show of hands for who's been playing this rule wrong for the last few months.

[with hand raised high]

heres a thread on boardgamegeek regarding this issue.

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/449099/warpstone-meteor-card -

with the initial "ruling" outlined by (wytefang)

no mention of Nate though... someone wrongly answer the question definitively when he should have said it was just his opinion.

whats funny is that at the end of that thread, I posted this, questioning the clarity of the text

"the problem is that both of the interpretations are grammatically correct, because the english language has a lot of vagueness, and the card as written is simply unclear. This requires an FAQ, unless people like to endlessly debate."

that was more than two months ago, still no FAQ.

So again, DONT TRUST ANY GAMER unless they are posting rulings that are directly from Nate