Maarek Stele Ability and I'll show you the dark side condition card interaction

By Dereksson, in X-Wing Rules Questions

43 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

On a more important note: Can we all agree to abbreviate this stupid card STD? Seems to create similar levels of discomfort and is so much easier to remember.

I just have been relying on context clues and typing 'the condition' because that name is obnoxious no matter how it's abbreviated.

this is another of the many situations in wave10 that really need a FAQ. I can see arguments going 3 ways:

  1. Kylo's effect is completely overridden by Maarek, as he is told to "draw 3 cards" and the Kylo effect isnt a drawn card from the deck.
  2. Maarek draws 2 and adds the chosen card on the Kylo Effect as the third.
  3. Kylo overrides Maarek because of FFG's love for odd inconsistencies like that ("usual" crit effect being the key thing here)

im just avoiding it entirely until faq'd. This along with Target Synchs.

edit: aslo i vote we call it SSDS (somethingsomethingdarkside...) :D

Edited by Vineheart01

I hope Hoth open is post FAQ. But it seems best and consistent to say Maarek isn't giving the crit, the condition is and just resolve that way. As RAW as anything else and still makes the Steele Ren build a valid force multiplier...

...and results in smoother gameplay. I hate staring at the same dice while they're modified and rerolled for 5 minutes... and then we rinse and repeat with damage cards.

Edited by Lobokai

If we're submitting nominations for how to abbreviate I'll Show You The Dark Side I'd say imply cally it Kylo. After all he's the only one who can hand out that condition even if there are two ways of doing so.

Here is my two cents. Since Maarek Stele's ability states "when your attack deals a face up damage card" and ISYTDS states "when you suffer critical damage"

Maarek's ability would trigger off of ISYTDS and the crit would stay on the card.

My Logic: Darkside isn't dealing the crit, simply determinimg which crit is dealt(and bypassing shields).

As has already been suggested I think you can argue that ISYTDS overrides Maarek.

'When you suffer critical damage during an attack, you are instead dealt the chosen faceup Damage card.'

Instead is the key word here. You suffer critical damage regardless of whether you have shield tokens left or not, critical damage merely denotes crit results that have not been cancel by evade results.

You notice it also just mentions "critical damage" not X number of uncancelled critical dice results. You could also argue that even if your opponent rolls 3 crits, none of which are evaded, you would still just receive the face up card from ISYTDS.

Maarek Stele's ability says this...
"When your attack deals a faceup Damage card to the defender, instead draw 3 Damage cards, choose 1 to deal, and discard the others." The original critical damage was cancelled out by ISYTDS, so Maarek doesn't trigger at all on a ship that has this condition assigned to it.

Thoughts?

27 minutes ago, irishthump said:

As has already been suggested I think you can argue that ISYTDS overrides Maarek.

'When you suffer critical damage during an attack, you are instead dealt the chosen faceup Damage card.'

Instead is the key word here. You suffer critical damage regardless of whether you have shield tokens left or not, critical damage merely denotes crit results that have not been cancel by evade results.

You notice it also just mentions "critical damage" not X number of uncancelled critical dice results. You could also argue that even if your opponent rolls 3 crits, none of which are evaded, you would still just receive the face up card from ISYTDS.

Maarek Stele's ability says this...
"When your attack deals a faceup Damage card to the defender, instead draw 3 Damage cards, choose 1 to deal, and discard the others." The original critical damage was cancelled out by ISYTDS, so Maarek doesn't trigger at all on a ship that has this condition assigned to it.

Thoughts?

Don't confuse those who want the super broken combo where every crit Maarek would roll against a ship with the ISYTDS Condition results in him getting to pick a damage card to apply to the ship's hull.

Maarek doesn't mention 'dealing a critical damage' though.

He mentions dealing a face up damage card.

If you AHMed someone with Maarek, you'd draw 3 choose one. If you Major Hull Breached someone, you'd draw 3 choose one.

He interrupts at 'deal a card' so he ought to interact with ISYTDS somehow - I think the RAW is the 'instead of the ISYTDS card, draw 3 from the deck ISYTDS crit is untouched' argument is actually correct, but would be super broken in some rare instances (primarily Ghosts and Decis) so I doubt that's how it will be ruled, despite the inconsistency.

44 minutes ago, StevenO said:

Don't confuse those who want the super broken combo where every crit Maarek would roll against a ship with the ISYTDS Condition results in him getting to pick a damage card to apply to the ship's hull.

I'm not confusing them, I think they are two separate triggers that can't interact at all.....

Maarek attacks, rolls 2 hits and 1 crit.

Target already has ISYTDS applied to it,rolls 2 evades, you then compare results and and have 1 Uncancelled Critical Damage so you immediately apply ISYTDS instead of moving to the step of removing shield tokens and/or dealing face up damage cards.

So Maarek's attack NEVER dealt a face up damage card, it triggered an effect which caused the face up damage card to be dealt to the opponent. Kylo's ability is what's causing the damge here, not Maarek.

6 hours ago, irishthump said:

I'm not confusing them, I think they are two separate triggers that can't interact at all.....

Maarek attacks, rolls 2 hits and 1 crit.

Target already has ISYTDS applied to it,rolls 2 evades, you then compare results and and have 1 Uncancelled Critical Damage so you immediately apply ISYTDS instead of moving to the step of removing shield tokens and/or dealing face up damage cards.

So Maarek's attack NEVER dealt a face up damage card, it triggered an effect which caused the face up damage card to be dealt to the opponent. Kylo's ability is what's causing the damge here, not Maarek.

Except that STDS changes what happens with the crit and that crit was part of Maarek's attack. It is not canceling the crit result, it changes what happens with it. Maarek's attack did do a face up card with the help of STDS. It is not like vader(crew) effect where it does something after an attack.

They are separate triggers that chain off one another. STDS needs an unsaved crit, STDS turns the unsaved crit into a face up card, the face up card is switched with draw 3 pick 1 discard 2 from maarek.

Edited by Oberron
On ‎05‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 7:54 PM, thespaceinvader said:

Maarek doesn't mention 'dealing a critical damage' though.

He mentions dealing a face up damage card.

If you AHMed someone with Maarek, you'd draw 3 choose one. If you Major Hull Breached someone, you'd draw 3 choose one.

He interrupts at 'deal a card' so he ought to interact with ISYTDS somehow - I think the RAW is the 'instead of the ISYTDS card, draw 3 from the deck ISYTDS crit is untouched' argument is actually correct, but would be super broken in some rare instances (primarily Ghosts and Decis) so I doubt that's how it will be ruled, despite the inconsistency.

No, but my argument is that he never deals a face up card. When you "suffer critical damage" you remove shield tokens (if any remain) from the defender then deal face up damage cards. ISYTDS specifically says to deal the face up card INSTEAD of proceeding with the normal process. The condition card is what deals the card, not Maarek.

That's a persuasive argument, and I suspect, the one they'll use to justify why Maarek rolling 3 crits on a Ghost doesn't immediately deal 3x3choose1 face up cards, because it really shouldn't whatever the RAW is.

11 minutes ago, irishthump said:

No, but my argument is that he never deals a face up card. When you "suffer critical damage" you remove shield tokens (if any remain) from the defender then deal face up damage cards. ISYTDS specifically says to deal the face up card INSTEAD of proceeding with the normal process. The condition card is what deals the card, not Maarek.

Instead replaces the normal effect of dealing critical damage. The face up card is still being delt because of an attack

Edited by Oberron

This email from Frank indicates that the only face-up damage cards that count toward Maarek's ability are those dealt by uncancelled attack dice. So a face up card dealt by Major Explosion would not trigger Maarek's ability, and this ability could also be seen as the condition dealing a face-up card instead of Maarek's attack.

Instead replaces the normal effect of dealing critical damage. The face up card is still being delt because of an attack

And that's the counterargument ;)

With ISYTDS in play, deal a critical damage goes from ;remove shields if any, else, deal a face up damage card', to 'deal the chosen damage card' which is a faceup card, so Stele kicks in.

Edited by thespaceinvader
3 minutes ago, joeshmoe554 said:

This email from Frank indicates that the only face-up damage cards that count toward Maarek's ability are those dealt by uncancelled attack dice. So a face up card dealt by Major Explosion would not trigger Maarek's ability, and this ability could also be seen as the condition dealing a face-up card instead of Maarek's attack.

There is a major difference between major explosion and STDS, major explosion does not change the results of an attack, it is a separate ability where the crit damage has the trigger of roll an attack dice, STDS has the trigger when you would suffer critical damage from an attack.

11 hours ago, joeshmoe554 said:

This email from Frank indicates that the only face-up damage cards that count toward Maarek's ability are those dealt by uncancelled attack dice. So a face up card dealt by Major Explosion would not trigger Maarek's ability, and this ability could also be seen as the condition dealing a face-up card instead of Maarek's attack.

The Condition isn't dealing the face-up card, though. Maarek's attack is still dealing a face-up card, albeit in a slightly roundabout way. For me there's no question Maarek's ability activates with ISYTDS. It fulfils the requirements for his ability to activate.

The only real question is what happens to the crit on the Condition card. The wording of Maarek's ability could be read to suggest the "other" cards it's referring to are the 2 unused cards drawn from his ability but I could see an argument to suggest the "other" cards would also include the crit on ISYTDS.

Of course, Maarek was written in an era before any of this was possible, which makes figuring out what the developers actually want to happen a bit tricky so a FAQ would definitely be most welcome.

18 hours ago, joeshmoe554 said:

This email from Frank indicates that the only face-up damage cards that count toward Maarek's ability are those dealt by uncancelled attack dice. So a face up card dealt by Major Explosion would not trigger Maarek's ability, and this ability could also be seen as the condition dealing a face-up card instead of Maarek's attack.

While I normally trust Frank's emails to be correct the faq already has a precedent which seems to discredit the notion of 'only triggering from uncanceled dice' in Rexler Brath and minor explosion. That FAQ entry suggests that regardless of the source damage cards dealt as a direct result of the attack are counted as being dealt by the attack.

For reference:

FAQ:

Any faceup damage cards that have been
resolved and flipped facedown and any
additional Damage cards dealt by the Minor
Explosion Damage cards are also flipped
faceup when Rexler Brath uses his ability.

Ability:

After you perform an attack that deals at least 1 Damage card to the defender, you may spend a focus token to flip those cards faceup.

I agree with those who say that the face-up card dealt is not dealt by the attack, but by the condition itself, so it doesnt trigger Maarek, since he specifies it has to be an attack dealing a face-up card.

I think this because when a condition card is assigned, it is placed near the affected ship and becomes like some kind of upgrade card (as the 2nd person wrote on it refers to that ship). The card is dealt by a card you control, and that can never be the result of an attack.

Been a long time already. As there been an official answer on this yet? I mean with all the regionals surely the question must have been answered by an official at some point?

Nothing so far afaik

11 hours ago, Thormind said:

Been a long time already. As there been an official answer on this yet? I mean with all the regionals surely the question must have been answered by an official at some point?

You assume FFG personnel are present at these Regionals. With very few exceptions, that is not the case, so individual TOs have had to make their own calls.

Critical damage results in damage cards, so I'll Show you the dark side replaces the critical damage with the card. The condition, not the attack, is giving out the face up damage so Maarek doesn't care. Unless there's another one, of course.

One of the players in my area reported from Kashyyyk System open that officials ruled Maarek doesn't trigger after "I'll Show You the Dark Side".

5 hours ago, FourDogsInaHorseSuit said:

Critical damage results in damage cards, so I'll Show you the dark side replaces the critical damage with the card. The condition, not the attack, is giving out the face up damage so Maarek doesn't care. Unless there's another one, of course.

This is wrong. It does not replace the critical damage it replaces what the critical damage normally does. Look at Adv. homing missiles, that deals the face up card and cancels the attack. STDS does not.