Can't deny how great Toughness is with the ruling.

I foresee a change in the way Toughness is handle in Combat in regards to damage assignment...there's already broken issues with the ruling.

I don't foresee that change, because for the moment, even if you consider cards that were spoiled but are not yet available, nothing is broken. When facing units that cancel unlimited combat damage you still have several options to deal with them: Destroy them with non-combat damage or direct removal or by reducing their hitpoints, corrupt them, move them to another zone or attack another zone, or make damage uncancellable (Bloodthirster or Mob it up! come to mind). Card like Swordmasters of Hoeth and Dragonmage or even Gustav the Bear are certainly powerful and you have to consider them when deckbuilding, but that is true for cards like Judgement of Verena, Waaagh! and several combos, so I really don't see anything broken here.

actually from reading the rules and the faq I think those cards might be subject to the whole assign more damage if you want to in anticipation of damage canceling actions. If so then they would not be as powerful as you can assign their HP's worth of damage.

Aykenger said:

While it may be true that there are ways to deal with these powerful combinations, it is also unfortunate that the threat of these combinations may drive deckbuilding strategy in the metagame.

I was initially attracted to this game by the idea that the games were decided primarily on tactical decisions within the game, and not necessarily which deck you happened to choose for that particular game and how it matched up with your opponent's deck. What if I don't have any cards that corrupt or move units, or render damage uncancellable? I'm at a serious disadvantage, and the game just might be over before it even started.

This may be a selling point for some, but not for me. I have a limited number of opponents and I don't want the game to be largely determined by correctly guessing which deck to use or which couple of cards to throw in.

I'm sticking with my hunch that the new toughness rules are really not what Eric Lang originally intended.

They may not be what he originally intended, but Eric helped craft the FAQ and if there was a major rules change he is very much aware of it and probably had a hand in crafting it. Even if he was completely against it as an individual, this is the direction the design and development team as a whole has moved, and therefor that is the "proper" way to play the game in officially sanctioned events. *shrug* I suspect one of two things will happen... that they have play tested these rules changes and have little fear that this will destroy the game (because if you could not deal with specific units before that were hard to kill your deck was not very versatile to begin with and your w/l record would reflect that), or that we players will find so many alternate paths to victory that those specific units just become one more known obstacle to take into account when you build and play your deck, the same way as Keystone Forges and resets.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not "happy" about the change, but I'm pretty sure that we players can deal with it in turn.

New addition -

Steel's Bane reads, " Action : Cancel the next 10 damage that would be dealt to one target High Elf unit this turn." The word in question is next. What ever damage it is played in response to would get 10 of it canceled. I'm curious if it creates a lasting effect. IOW if the damage effect it was played in response to did four points, would that unit still be under the effects of Steel's Bane for another six points of damage or the turn ends, whichever happened first?

Master Rune of Valaya reads, " Action: Cancel all damage assigned during the battlefield phase this turn." I have a similar question here, does it create a lasting effect that continues to cancel all damage assigned during the battlefield phase that turn or does it just cancel all damage that is assigned in the action chain following it's resolution?

GIfts of Aenarion reads, " Action: Cancel all damage that would be dealt to your capital until the end of the turn. For each damage thus canceled, gain 1 resource." This one seems extremely clear that it is intended to create a lasting effect. Does the difference in wording between these cards imply that they operate differently regarding lasting effects or is it just standard wording deviation due to the design process?"

And the official clarification from James Hata, "Hi Damon,

All of those cards operate similarly. Their effects do last until the end of the turn, and it is just a wording deviation."

Fletchgrooves said:

Could you edit the first post in this thread to include a link to "the official FAQ"?...

Martin_fr said:

I would think wording would matter here. If the cancellation effect on the hydra was a "may", then the opponent would only have to assign hp worth of damage. It will most likely be a forced effect though to avoid confusion.

I would like to modify my posts, but apparently you have to be a moderator to do so

Just received the Tooth and Claw Cards. Dark Elves are going to be ruthless.

So how do we kill units like Gustav now? I thought I asked this question somewhere but these forums, while sleek-looking, aren't terribly functional or user-friendly in the options they allow (no Edit feature, the hassle with cutting and pasting, searching for posts you've made, etc..)?

So any unit who cancels all damage or whatever can't be killed via direct combat damage from another unit, then?

Also, what is this buzz I'm hearing about Shrine to Nurgle (I assume that's the Shrine being referred to here) being tweaked or nerfed? Can someone CLEARLY (not quickly or sloppily) explain how it was nerfed compared to what it did previously? I saw a clarification for it in the FAQ but I'm not seeing why it'd be a big deal - it's basically the same wording so what's this "nerf" or "change" I keep seeing referred to?

Wytefang said:

One needs do find a workaround to handle such units.

Gustav is vulnerable to damage as long as you control no corrupted units, so keep it in mind when he hits the table (I admit that in multiplayer games this hero would be an awesome "must-have"). Up to now, Order decks have no way to corrupt opposing units, so it is up to you to not corrupt your own units until Gustav is gone.

The Dragonmage is vulnerable to 1-damage sources. The incoming High Elves Swordmen are protected from combat damage while they are in the battlefield.

The best workaround is to attack other zones, or to remove those cards either with direct damages, or to send them back into your opponent hand prior to your attack (and Pilgrimage is a neutral tactic).

Wytefang said:

Old Shrine + Pestilence.

Combat:

Declare Target

Action Window (use Pestilence, since combat has started "during combat", Pestilence does 1 dmg to all and corrupts all opponent's Unit that took damage)

FAQ changed Shrine to only work when unit is dealt combat damage. Multi-power defender (say Chaos Knights) can die and corrupt 3 of the opponent's attacking Units, but nowhere near the possibilities of the old combo.

Martin_fr said:

A dragonmage with gomril armour is invunreble. That irks me a bit...

mathulus said:

Are you sure about this? Should all the damage reduction take place at the same time? If he is taking two damage his toughness would stop one and his text would only allow him to take one, so wouldnt he still take one point?

Gomril Armour would still be good on him, you wouldnt be able to shoot him down for one with things like dwarf ranger.

Vitamin T said:

I would assume the controller would get to choose the order of the damage prevention effects. You are basically just saying the the toughness would trigger first, but it could very well happen in any order.

The dragonmage abillity cancels assigned damage (unless the spoiler is wrong). Thougness cancels damage when applied. I'm sorry but no matter how you turn it, the dragonmages ability triggers first.

mathulus said:

Ok, I just assumed both were worded the same. Good to know it isn't even more degenerate than just the dragonmage alone.

Wytefang said:

Copy/paste is easy to fool if you have a GNU/Linux. Mark the text you want to copy and then press middle mouse button to paste it. But you are right. Crappy software at all ends. But perhaps one could hack the javascript that does the forum logic and make things easier.

darkdeal said:

It IS more degenerate. The mage's ability takes down any damage to 1, and the armour cancels that 1 point of damage outright.

You could still use uncancellable damage (Cloud of Flies, Mob Up, Bloodthirster) and counterstrike... but that's all.

Soooo.... Use it.

I have not found any 1 unit that has been OP to this point. The Skaven cards are pretty ruthless as well as DE.