The real trick is that in 99% of cases you don't actually need to know which die corresponds to which card if both cards are on the same character. I'm pretty sure even the "track separate cards" rule was written this way. Functionally, it doesn't matter until someone plays a card that removes an upgrade. I'm like 90% certain the guy that wrote the tournament document didn't think about multiples of the same upgrade on the same character.

20 hours ago, JLeisten said:

Okay, I wrote FFG and asked them this question. This is the response I got:

- - - - -

Jeff,
You can follow both rules at the same time. I will look into making sure that this upgrade exception, however, makes it into the tournament rules. Thanks for pointing this out,

--

Lukas Litzsinger
Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games

- - - - -

So, it sounds like you do track each die to its card, as per the tournament rules. However, there is an exception in the situation where if you have two of the same upgrades on one character and must remove one of the upgrades with both dice in the dice pool. In this exception you (the player controlling both upgrades) choose which die to remove with the card, as per the rules reference.

Can you quote the question you asked? It sounds like Lukas is saying if you Disarm someone, they get to choose which die to remove if they have 2 of the same upgrade.

Oh, I agree that it's confusing, but I'm okay with a little future proofing. If FFG is smart they should be designing and play testing upcoming sets concurrently, to avoid more band-aids or, in a worst case scenario, a ban or errata. For all we know there are niche cases where this particular interaction might come into play in the near future.

For as much as people rag on Magic, I would hope that having a comprehensive rule book - one that leaves nothing open to interpretation or 'common sense' - is not one of their complaints. The compromise for that sort of comprehensiveness is that some times you have to wade through text to get the answer you're looking for. Thank goodness for search functions, eh?

On 1/24/2017 at 4:39 PM, VytautasP said:

Each die in a pool corresponds to and is assigned to one card. When you play disarm you may ask opponent witch die goes with witch card.

the scenario where you can chose witch die to remove is only on your turn when you play an upgrade from hand decreasing is cost with upgrade card or when you redeploy a card.

I have to agree. This seems painfully obvious to me. Before you play Disarm, you simply ask "Which Jetpack does that +3 belong to? Okay. I'll play Disarm targeting that one." Isn't it that simple?

4 hours ago, rowdyoctopus said:

Can you quote the question you asked? It sounds like Lukas is saying if you Disarm someone, they get to choose which die to remove if they have 2 of the same upgrade.

It's the same as I posted here.

In your dice pool, you have:
- Finn showing 2 ranged.
- Jetpack showing +3 ranged modifier.
- Jetpack showing 1 disrupt.

Your opponent plays the event Disarm, removes one of his 2 ranged dice to discard one of the Jetpacks.
It would be to your opponent's advantage to remove the Jetpack die showing the +3 ranged modifier.
It would be to your advantage to remove the Jetpack die showing the 1 disrupt.

Which Jetpack die is removed?

(Rules Reference pg. 9 - Dice Leaving Play
If a player has two copies of the same upgrade on a character, and both of those upgrade dice are in their dice pool when they have to discard an upgrade from play, the player can choose which die to remove and set aside.

(Tournament Rules pg. 5 - Dice Proceedures)
When a player controls multiple cards or effects that use a die with the same collector number, he or she must designate the specific card or effect that each die in their dice pool corresponds to.

------------------------------

Jeff,
You can follow both rules at the same time. I will look into making sure that this upgrade exception, however, makes it into the tournament rules. Thanks for pointing this out,

--

Lukas Litzsinger
Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games

8 hours ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

The player resolving Disarm gets to choose which upgrade to remove, and then the corresponding die is removed along with it. The rules on page 9 let the player choose which die to remove in circumstances where they have to choose and discard an upgrade of their own (and where the opponent is not already involved), but that's not the particular circumstance we're discussing here. Nowhere on Disarm does it enable your opponent to make a choice.

The rule on page 9 says, "when they have to discard an upgrade in play, the player (the owner of the upgrade being discarded) can choose which die to remove".

Disarm says, "discard a weapon or equipment from play".

This sounds like a situation where that applies to the page 9 rule, "When they have to discard an upgrade in play". My opponent played a card where I have to discard an upgrade in play. No where on page 9 does it make the distinction where if you make yourself discard, or if your opponent makes you discard. It's "WHEN" you have to discard. Doesn't matter what or who is making you discard.

That rule on page nine is written for situation when you yourself make such a play when you have to discard one of your double upgrades during redeployment or placing new upgrades when your character has 3 upgrades already or wants to reduce cost because during that time you can remove any of your upgrades. Otherwise when its opponents turn and during all game each die goes with a specific card. Opponent may ask which die goes with which card and then name the targeted upgrade card to be removed.

1 hour ago, JLeisten said:

The rule on page 9 says, "when they have to discard an upgrade in play, the player (the owner of the upgrade being discarded) can choose which die to remove".

Disarm says, "discard a weapon or equipment from play".

This sounds like a situation where that applies to the page 9 rule, "When they have to discard an upgrade in play". My opponent played a card where I have to discard an upgrade in play. No where on page 9 does it make the distinction where if you make yourself discard, or if your opponent makes you discard. It's "WHEN" you have to discard. Doesn't matter what or who is making you discard.

We're going in circles here. It doesn't matter how much additional text you add to the rule book that isn't actually there, whether in parentheses or not. The sentence immediately before the one you keep quoting tells you exactly what to do. End of story.

You can pretend like the wording on Disarm doesn't obviously apply to the person playing it, and you can piss on my leg and tell me that it's raining. I'm smart enough to know better in both circumstances.

2 hours ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

We're going in circles here. It doesn't matter how much additional text you add to the rule book that isn't actually there, whether in parentheses or not. The sentence immediately before the one you keep quoting tells you exactly what to do. End of story.

You can pretend like the wording on Disarm doesn't obviously apply to the person playing it, and you can piss on my leg and tell me that it's raining. I'm smart enough to know better in both circumstances.

But you're adding in additional text too, saying when an opponent does something, the rules are different.

No where does it say that.

Am I though? I'm pretty sure you keep ignoring the part of the RRG I'm asking you to re-read. It's fairly straightforward, even without the benefit of me making up rules that don't exist. You're also ignoring the card itself, which takes some serious word-twisting to infer that anyone but the person playing it gets a choice in the matter. Last I checked the golden rule is still a thing.

6 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

Am I though? I'm pretty sure you keep ignoring the part of the RRG I'm asking you to re-read. It's fairly straightforward, even without the benefit of me making up rules that don't exist. You're also ignoring the card itself, which takes some serious word-twisting to infer that anyone but the person playing it gets a choice in the matter. Last I checked the golden rule is still a thing.

Hey, believe me, I'm on your side. In this situation I think that the opponent should have the choice to discard and remove which die he or she wants. But the rule doesn't state that. Here's the complete, unedited rule:

(The bolded portion being the most important.)

------------------------------

• If a card with a matching die leaves play, the matching die is also immediately removed from the game and set aside. The removed die can enter the game again at a later time, if its card enters play again.

• If a player has two copies of the same upgrade on a character, and both of those upgrade dice are in their dice pool when they have to discard an upgrade from play, the player can choose which die to remove and set aside . If a player has two copies of the same upgrade on different characters (one upgrade on each character), they must make sure to track each die separately.

------------------------------

My argument is:
1. The second bullet point applies to this situation. There are two copies of the same upgrade with both of those dice in the dice pool and that player has to discard one of those upgrades from play. The first bullet point says, do this. The second bullet point says, unless this is the situation, then do this instead.
2. There is only one player mentioned in the second bullet point; the player that owns the two copies of the upgrade. Therefore, the owner chooses which die to remove.
3. There is no source as to what is causing the discard in this rule, whether it's the player's own effects or the opponent's effects, or an opponent's Disarm event. It's simply, when this happens, do this.

When they have to discard an upgrade; the RRG is referring to the player with the upgrades. Disarm doesn't make any reference to the opponent at all. In fact, it's open ended enough that you could Disarm yourself, if you really wanted to. The only logical conclusion is that the person playing Discard is making the choice, otherwise it would be worded differently.

I get what you're saying now. I'm sorry I misunderstood what you were trying to explain before the last post. I was totally thinking you were saying something else.

That's a good point. When discarding an opponent's card, are you discarding that card, or are you choosing what the opponent discards themself? The way Disarm is worded, it sounds like I play Disarm, I discard the upgrade.

No need to apologize, its an admittedly convoluted situation. The rules are poorly written, the cards are poorly templated, and Lukas gave you a poor excuse for a non-response. This game needs better definitions for a lot of things, and we'll get them... eventually.

As other people noted, the rule on page 9 is for scenarios where you have to substitute one of your own upgrades on a maxed out character. Consider this: you have two Jetpacks and an IQA on Jango. You roll Jango and his attached dice into your pool. Your opponent resolves some dice, killing off an FO Stormtrooper and triggering the redeploy ability on its F-11. You decide that the F-11 is worth more than double Jetpacks, so now you have to discard one. Which of the dice gets removed from your pool? Answer: whichever one you want.

17 hours ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

When they have to discard an upgrade; the RRG is referring to the player with the upgrades. Disarm doesn't make any reference to the opponent at all. In fact, it's open ended enough that you could Disarm yourself, if you really wanted to. The only logical conclusion is that the person playing Discard is making the choice, otherwise it would be worded differently.

Nearly any card that allows you to force your opponent's dice to be rerolled are written in a way that implies you physically pick up and reroll their dice, but I don't think anyone would argue that it should be done that way.

Additionally, Lukas' response to the email implies you still follow page 9 of the RRG when playing Disarm and that the tournament rules might need to mention this exception.

You can still track them separately and still have the owner choose. Is it clunky and weird? Yeah. But removing an upgrade entirely is pretty powerful.

My experience with the designers has taught me to be wary of their ad hoc rulings. At least half the time they have no idea what's actually being asked of them, and the other half of the time they issue rulings that end up getting flipped in the next FAQ anyways. Seriously, how is "uh, do both?" in any way a real answer to what was asked?

Removing an upgrade is certainly powerful, which is why only one color gets to do it, it's limited to non-ability, and it costs you a damage die in addition to the resource cost. I'd say that fairly balances things out.

I don't see how these rules are contradictory. The player who played Disarm is the one discarding the Jetpack, not the player who owns the Jetpack. The first rule only applies when you are discarding your own cards. The second rule is what allows the player who played Disarm to choose which die is removed when choosing to discard the other player's Jetpack.

Quote

Nearly any card that allows you to force your opponent's dice to be rerolled are written in a way that implies you physically pick up and reroll their dice, but I don't think anyone would argue that it should be done that way.

If I play a card that says "Re-roll an opponent's die", I don't see why I shouldn't be the one to pick up the die and roll it. Likewise, if I play a card that says "Draw a card", I don't see why I would tell my opponent to pick up a card from my deck and hand it to me.

^^ I read the rule the same way, the 'player' that gets to choose is the player that played disarmed, so both rules are followed.

However, some people can be very possessive of their dice, especially when some of them cost $40 a piece right now. Always best to not touch other people's property unless given consent.