I'm interested to see what people's reactions are to this. Without looking up the card, tell me if you think Sabine Wren (crew) is an optional or mandatory effect. Then look at the card and see what you discover.

I'm bringing this up because I recently realized that I've been playing her one way, but she might actually be the other.

I didn't look at the card and have no idea!

It shouldn't be ambiguous, though, effects that you "may" perform are optional, everything else is mandatory.

There was this ingame situation once where I looked that up. A bomb blew up and only a ship of my opponent was hit by it, and I was thinking that my opponent might possibly have to target their own ship with Sabine's ability.

Because of that discussion, I meanwhile do know what it is

5 minutes ago, haslo said:

There was this ingame situation once where I looked that up. A bomb blew up and only a ship of my opponent was hit by it, and I was thinking that my opponent might possibly have to target their own ship with Sabine 's ability.

Because of that discussion, I meanwhile do know what it is

Sabine specifies an enemy ship, so you definitely wouldn't have to hit yourself.

Without looking at the card, I would assume its option because there aren't many "must" cards in the game (i.e. Rebel Captive).

Now looking at the card its not clear. It's neither a may nor a must. Meaning you should do it, but "forgetting" it would definitely be a missed opportunity. In what situation would you not want to trigger Sabine anyway?

7 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

I n what situation would you not want to trigger Sabine anyway?

When you have dropped multiple bomb tokens in the same round, and the one that detonates first is not at Range 1 of the target you most want to add an extra damage to, or you want to wait to see the outcome of earlier bomb tokens before deciding which target to use Sabine on with the last bomb.

Now that everyone has looked at the card before coming here, what does this mean then? Do you have to use her on the first bomb, or can you wait to trigger ..

Why on earth would I make some kind of ruling judgement or statement without looking at the card?

I would say if you don't choose an enemy ship on the first one, you haven't completed the once per round condition, and you can use it on the next one... but it doesn't say "immediately" so maybe you can't do it whenever

I think he was just trying to see how well people knew the card considering she's one of the mobs most wanted nerfs...

47 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

Without looking at the card, I would assume its option because there aren't many "must" cards in the game (i.e. Rebel Captive).

Now looking at the card its not clear. It's neither a may nor a must. Meaning you should do it, but "forgetting" it would definitely be a missed opportunity. In what situation would you not want to trigger Sabine anyway?

Technically anything that isn't a "may" isn't optional. Tactician for instance doesn't say you "may" give them a stress, it just says do it, so it's not an option.

12 minutes ago, Moneyinvolved said:

I would say if you don't choose an enemy ship on the first one, you haven't completed the once per round condition, and you can use it on the next one... but it doesn't say "immediately" so maybe you can't do it whenever

Immediately doesn't actually mean anything in xwing

This is true but I think there's a difference between "must" cards like Rebel Captive where both you and your opponent need to be on point about it (IIRC), and a card like Sabine where the onus is entirely on the bomb player.

So we go back to if I'm the Sabine user, and say I don't want to use her on the first cluster mine you hit, but on the third one (because it's closer to a different ship, and maybe now your ship that hit them is gone), is that allowed? Cuz dang that's how I've been using her lol

8 minutes ago, JediRush24 said:

So we go back to if I'm the Sabine user, and say I don't want to use her on the first cluster mine you hit, but on the third one (because it's closer to a different ship, and maybe now your ship that hit them is gone), is that allowed? Cuz dang that's how I've been using her lol

The argument is that since she doesn't say you "may" do it, you would have to trigger her on the first bomb token removal that had an enemy ship at range 1, so if they fly over 3 tokens you would have to use it on the first

24 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Technically anything that isn't a "may" isn't optional. Tactician for instance doesn't say you "may" give them a stress, it just says do it, so it's not an option.

Immediately doesn't actually mean anything in xwing

I know it doesn't. Reread what I wrote. I meant it as a joke

3 hours ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

I'm interested to see what people's reactions are to this. Without looking up the card, tell me if you think Sabine Wren (crew) is an optional or mandatory effect. Then look at the card and see what you discover.

I'm bringing this up because I recently realized that I've been playing her one way, but she might actually be the other.

not reading any comments or looking, but I believe it says you "May", so optional.

I was wrong apparently. Now it seems like it's mandatory, though it doesn't say "must", it just says do it.

6 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

not reading any comments or looking, but I believe it says you "May", so optional.

I was wrong apparently. Now it seems like it's mandatory, though it doesn't say "must", it just says do it.

Rebel captive doesn't say must either. Neither do a lot of mandatory effects. The key is really just the lack of a "may". Effects are "must" by default unless stated otherwise

My goal with this post was to see which way people who had played with or against the card thought it was supposed to be. I recently realized that I and everyone I have ever played with seemed to all assume it was one way, until someone pointed out to me today that I might be wrong. Therefore, besides just getting the actual ruling clarified, I wanted to see if there were other people confused by it.

What are some situations where you wouldn't want too? Only thing I could think of is if you have R2-D2 Crew and need another turn to gain a shield to not lose half MOV. Oh, maybe to have Keyan shoot at the target to relieve a stress.

18 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

What are some situations where you wouldn't want too? Only thing I could think of is if you have R2-D2 Crew and need another turn to gain a shield to not lose half MOV. Oh, maybe to have Keyan shoot at the target to relieve a stress.

Or they're going to hit multiple mines, and you'd rather trigger it from a later one where you can sabine a different ship.

6 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Or they're going to hit multiple mines, and you'd rather trigger it from a later one where you can sabine a different ship.

Aw I misread the scenario

6 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

Sabine specifies an enemy ship, so you definitely wouldn't have to hit yourself.

Absolutely, but we didn't realize that before re-reading the card (and I didn't want to spoil everybody's fun about not looking at the card by spelling it out too early in the thread )

3 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

Rebel captive doesn't say must either. Neither do a lot of mandatory effects. The key is really just the lack of a "may". Effects are "must" by default unless stated otherwise

Sabine is effectively "may" because the card says only "Once per round..." and not "Once per round the first ..." like Rebel Captive does.

In other words Sabine can trigger on any bomb going and RC must be the first enemy shooting.

25 minutes ago, haslo said:

Absolutely, but we didn't realize that before re-reading the card (and I didn't want to spoil everybody's fun about not looking at the card by spelling it out too early in the thread )

Oh I didn't need to re-read the card to know it only hit enemies

12 minutes ago, Arthur_McGuire said:

Sabine is effectively "may" because the card says only "Once per round..." and not "Once per round the first ..." like Rebel Captive does.

In other words Sabine can trigger on any bomb going and RC must be the first enemy shooting.

There's a lot of cards though that say "Once per round you may...", such as Push The Limit. The may lets you not do it so you aren't REQUIRED to PTL the first time you do an action every round. This doesn't have that.

There are only 3 upgrades in the game currently that say "Once per round" that don't include a "may". Rebel captive was the first. Then we have sabine and optimized generators, which is epic only, and you'd probably never not use it anyway.

As far as pilots, we have Tomax Bren (who again, you're always going to use anyway) as the only one who doesn't include "may".

Everything else specifies that it's optional with that "may", so why should sabine get to be optional without it?