When the rules are unclear, let's answer the question with fluff!

If Guri's unique, one-of-a-kind cloaking device malfunctions, where is Vizago finding a working replacement?

(For the record, I think it's pretty clear that you can't do this, at least according to the tournament rules. A facedown unique card is still a unique card.)

Take a different scenario.

You're fielding two ghosts, one of which Hera is piloting. You would not be allowed to have Hera in the shuttle in the second ghost, regardless of whether she would ever shelter the game or not. Even if the Hera ghost blows up, and the Hera shuttle is then deployed... still illegal. One copy of a unique card per player per game.

2 minutes ago, ge0rd1eb4lls said:

Take a different scenario.

You're fielding two ghosts, one of which Hera is piloting. You would not be allowed to have Hera in the shuttle in the second ghost, regardless of whether she would ever shelter the game or not. Even if the Hera ghost blows up, and the Hera shuttle is then deployed... still illegal. One copy of a unique card per player per game.

The difference is that the shuttle is part of your list from the start of the game.

The second cloaking device is not.

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The difference is that the shuttle is part of your list from the start of the game.

The second cloaking device is not.

True... but the cloak must still be available for you to deploy, as the shuttle cards are. You cannot have more than one cloak device ready to go if it is a unique card.

Take Magic or any other card game. Any unique cards may not be in play or available to be active (such as HQ in Conquest) if one is already "live", and many graveyard / discard recovery actions discuss this idea, regardless of how many you have ready to go in the deck.

20 minutes ago, ge0rd1eb4lls said:

True... but the cloak must still be available for you to deploy, as the shuttle cards are. You cannot have more than one cloak device ready to go if it is a unique card.

Take Magic or any other card game. Any unique cards may not be in play or available to be active (such as HQ in Conquest) if one is already "live", and many graveyard / discard recovery actions discuss this idea, regardless of how many you have ready to go in the deck.

If there were actually rules to this effect you might have a point

2 hours ago, ge0rd1eb4lls said:

True... but the cloak must still be available for you to deploy, as the shuttle cards are. You cannot have more than one cloak device ready to go if it is a unique card.

Take Magic or any other card game. Any unique cards may not be in play or available to be active (such as HQ in Conquest) if one is already "live", and many graveyard / discard recovery actions discuss this idea, regardless of how many you have ready to go in the deck.

Are you trying to argue that if a Unique card is removed from play it could NOT be replaced even if it lands somewhere else? If so bringing up MtG is a terrible example! There you may only have one legendary card card in play at a certain time but there is nothing stopping a player from having four copies in his deck and having options to pull it out of the graveyard. Even if it isn't "in the game" you have Wish options that could get it from outside the current game. Only one Legendary card may be able to sit it play (although multiples could briefly appear before game rules kill them) but there are many options on getting another copy back into play.

3 hours ago, StevenO said:

Are you trying to argue that if a Unique card is removed from play it could NOT be replaced even if it lands somewhere else? If so bringing up MtG is a terrible example! There you may only have one legendary card card in play at a certain time but there is nothing stopping a player from having four copies in his deck and having options to pull it out of the graveyard. Even if it isn't "in the game" you have Wish options that could get it from outside the current game. Only one Legendary card may be able to sit it play (although multiples could briefly appear before game rules kill them) but there are many options on getting another copy back into play.

Thats... literally what I just said. That if you already have one in play you can't have another, regardless of how many are available to you.

Did you just argue with me by backing up my point?

1 hour ago, ge0rd1eb4lls said:

Thats... literally what I just said. That if you already have one in play you can't have another, regardless of how many are available to you.

Did you just argue with me by backing up my point?

I'm not sure? I guess maybe the question is what are we saying is "in play" because some will say that if you bring one to the table it's "in play" even if it is not longer part of the battle while other will say it is "in play" only if it is affecting the battle.

On 18.06.2017 at 5:29 AM, nitrobenz said:

Here's some more reference material.

Rules Reference (aka semi-casual) has this to say on p.20 last entry under Upgrade Cards :

"When an Upgrade card is discarded, it is flipped facedown. The card is out of play for all purposes except when determining the total squad point cost of the ship to which it was equipped. If an Upgrade card is flipped faceup by a game effect, it returns to play equipped to the same ship."

By that wording a discarded card is no more in the game than the cards in your binder. My ruling of this would be after the Cloak fails on Guri it is definitely fair game for Cikatro

But! Also see this passage from Tournament Regulations 2.1 (the most current version as of June 2017) p.5 under Discarded Cards :

"Facedown Upgrade cards and Dual cards under Ship cards are out of play but remain equipped to their respective ships."

I am willing to admit that by this passage unique cards previously equipped and currently discarded are probably still off limits (but I'd still like a ruling explicitly stating that equipped cards are off limits for swaps)

TLDR: the rules are in fact different whether you're playing official or casual!

@D00kies @digitalbusker what do you guys think of these citations?

Because the rules contradict themselves, I would go with the rule of novelty- the newer version of the rules (in this case, I belive the one stating that the card remains equipped is newer) would be considered an overwrite to the old one.

That said, RoN is not an official X-Wing rule, so it's definitely an overlook.

Side consideration to this: How do FFG declare we submit tournament lists for Cikatro?

If they specify that the swapped in card must be identified prior to commencing the tournament, then technically you will be fielding it the list (the ship contains the unique item, even though it is not visible to the enemy ships).

or, are they going to allow you (for the first time ever) to be able to adapt to another players list by swapping in any card that would be able to successfully counter something in the opponents list, <- this I VERY much doubt they will allow.

1 minute ago, ThisIsDavin said:

or, are they going to allow you (for the first time ever) to be able to adapt to another players list by swapping in any card that would be able to successfully counter something in the opponents list, <- this I VERY much doubt they will allow.

Given that this is exactly what the card says to do and exactly what it's intended for, I doubt they would prevent it. It's not like, other than this one trick, the Illicit slot contains much in the way of strong counters to specific enemy types.

How are you expecting people tyo use it such that swapping out their Illicit for a different one will actually help much? They could already have taken whatever illicit it is that is that strong, and they're giving up the best slot in the game - scum crew - to do it.

I cant see on the card where it says "any card in your collection"

it says "Another card"... not "any other card"

4 minutes ago, ThisIsDavin said:

I cant see on the card where it says "any card in your collection"

it says "Another card"... not "any other card"

It's not telling you to pick a single card at setup and you can swap that one in, it's telling you to change it for another illicit. TO do that, it would have to *actually say that* Without telling you to choose that card specifically at a given point, the implied pool of cards to choose from is 'everything in that slot that costs equal to or less than the one you already have'.

They may rule it the way you're expecting, but I doubt it, otherwise they would have written it that way.

And you didn't actually answer the more important question in my post which is 'how would this be broken'? Time was the Illicit slot was awesome, but Glitterstim has been substantially eclipsed by Expertise now, so other than the Cloak to something else combo, there are no killer uses for this, and the Cloak to something else comes with significant downsides. Maybe, just maybe swapping in Slicer Tools might be worth it, but... why not just equip them to begin with? Or Feedback Array > Dead Man's Switch I guess? None of these sound broken to me.

In what situation do you see someone being better off with Vizago and Illicit A and trading Illicit A for Illicit B based on the opponent, rather than just equipping Illicit B to start off with an having a free crew slot to stick (just as cheap examples other crew may apply) Zuckuss or 4LOM in? Or for that matter, just not equipping Vizago or an Illicit and taking the (substantially better) crew anyway.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

It's not telling you to pick a single card at setup and you can swap that one in, it's telling you to change it for another illicit. TO do that, it would have to *actually say that* Without telling you to choose that card specifically at a given point, the implied pool of cards to choose from is 'everything in that slot that costs equal to or less than the one you already have'.

They may rule it the way you're expecting, but I doubt it, otherwise they would have written it that way

Thats going to be bloody amazing for Azmorgan then... Thousands of Crew to choose from that can dynamically **** the game over for the opponent.

Want an example of broken? your opponent is near the corner, and you choose top swap in an EMP Device at end phase instead of your planed slicertool or glitterstim... Instant win for you if he has been suddenly unable to plan around your pre-built list and is now flying off the board because you changed up according to the situation.

if I was said opponent, i'd like to know what was coming at me....

or perhaps now we can hide our entire list from the other player and suddenly announce prockets are equipped when he comes into range one? is that not any different?

or at a tournament, I change my build to different equipped rockets per game, but still claim the list is 99/100 pts even though I've now chosen tracers instead?

38 minutes ago, ThisIsDavin said:

or perhaps now we can hide our entire list from the other player and suddenly announce prockets are equipped when he comes into range one? is that not any different?

or at a tournament, I change my build to different equipped rockets per game, but still claim the list is 99/100 pts even though I've now chosen tracers instead?

Yes, it's entirely different, because *there's no card that lets you swap to a missile you didn't start out with yet*, sharing your list with your opponent is part of the rules of standard play, and changing your list between rounds of a standard format tournament is against the rules. Those two things would be cheating, using Vizago as written would not be. Nobody but you suggested that either of those things were possible.

38 minutes ago, ThisIsDavin said:

Thats going to be bloody amazing for Azmorgan then... Thousands of Crew to choose from that can dynamically **** the game over for the opponent.

Want an example of broken? your opponent is near the corner, and you choose top swap in an EMP Device at end phase instead of your planed slicertool or glitterstim... Instant win for you if he has been suddenly unable to plan around your pre-built list and is now flying off the board because you changed up according to the situation.

if I was said opponent, i'd like to know what was coming at me....

You would know. You'd know your opponent has Vizago and a 2 point illicit, you'd therefore know he can choose to swap for EMP device, and you'd fly accordingly. It's not like Cikatro and a 2 point illicit wouldn't be in his squad list at the start of the game. You'd also know at least a round in advance, given that he can only swap to it in the End Phase, after he;'s attacked for the round, so he'll have to telegraph the trick if he wants to do it, giving his opponent time to get away from that board edge/rock/bump. He also can't swap it in to replace Slicer Tools, as it's more expensive, and Glitterstim with Cikatro would be a questionable choice given that you have to discard Stim to use it. And even if that DID work... yeah, it should work sometimes, else it's just binder junk. For a minimum of two slots (one of which is the best slot in the game) and 1 point (and that 1 point isn't that flexible, you need a minimmum of 2 slots and 2 points to get useful flexibility, swapping between dampeners, burnout SLAM, or slicer tools isn't exactly going to wreck anyone's day), it's got to do something, sometimes.

Azmorigan (and Epic use in general) is probably a stronger point - but fundamentally, Epic is not as balanced a format as standard, and Azmorigan is probably low on the list of broken stuff. And still, you'd be better off spending his slot on something good in the first place, than on flexibility. Also, 34 crew and 5 teams is not 'thousands'. And very few of those substitutions can 'dramatically screw the game over for your opponent'. Instead of grandstanding and exaggerating, perhaps you could suggest actual examples.

The sky is not falling, and your interpretation of the card is not what is written on it in any way at all.

It worked twice for me.... Vizago + Jabba + Hotshot Blaster. swapped for a pregame-declared EMP.

2 out of 4 games in a single tourney, I flew 2 full health ships off the board because they "forgot" I could swap it in. I didn't mind the 100-0 score, but I'm sure my opponent was furious. and If I could dynamically adapt, I'm sure I'll catch a punch to the face the next time I do it.

13 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

And even if that DID work... yeah, it should work sometimes, else it's just binder junk. For a minimum of two slots (one of which is the best slot in the game) and 1 point (and that 1 point isn't that flexible, you need a minimmum of 2 slots and 2 points to get useful flexibility, swapping between dampeners, burnout SLAM, or slicer tools isn't exactly going to wreck anyone's day), it's got to do something, sometimes.

OK

Do you have any evidence to suggest they wouldn't also have forgotten it if you'd had it from the start?

Also, this doesn't exactly lend credence to the idea that a pre-picked card is more balanced than a free pick of any Illicit - the real issue there appears to be forgetting that Cikatro exists at all.

I think we've lost track of the Original Issue... which is when a card is deemed as having been fielded. like I said, if you have to declare the swap card from the outset, you have fielded it at the time of your list submission.

otherwise, the chance to swap in a unique could be valid.

1 hour ago, ThisIsDavin said:

I think we've lost track of the Original Issue... which is when a card is deemed as having been fielded. like I said, if you have to declare the swap card from the outset, you have fielded it at the time of your list submission.

otherwise, the chance to swap in a unique could be valid.

I think I've been pretty clear on that: unless the card says you have to have to specify a replacement card at any point other than when you make the replacement, you don't. It doesn't, so you don't.

13 hours ago, ThisIsDavin said:

It worked twice for me.... Vizago + Jabba + Hotshot Blaster. swapped for a pregame-declared EMP.

2 out of 4 games in a single tourney, I flew 2 full health ships off the board because they "forgot" I could swap it in. I didn't mind the 100-0 score, but I'm sure my opponent was furious. and If I could dynamically adapt, I'm sure I'll catch a punch to the face the next time I do it.

Are you serious dude... you replaced at end of turn your Hotshot Blaster by an EMP, then your opponent had a full activation phase to move his ship not on the edge of a map, then he still moved his ship near the edge of the map when he was fully aware that you now had an EMP equiped from the previous turn. And then you say that Vizago is powerfull ?!?!? Did it not occur to you that your opponent were just really bad !?!?! At this point, bad like that, you could have started with the EMP and they would have still forgot. In fact they would have even more forgot, because you would have not told them: "HERE AT END OF TURN I EQUIP AN EMP" to help them remember of the trick...

Yep... but he was not in a position to be able to move out of danger... he was in the corner facing toward the corner of the map, his next move (hard turn) put him still facing an edge.

it was powerful in that situation because you can end up in that spot even if you arent a bad player.