Had a situation occur this weekend at a tourney and I'm not sure I agree with the ruling. So for future reference, I ask the world of IA for clarification:

Situation:

Greedo attacks Vinto with Element of Surprise (Attack #1). Vinto interrupts to perform an attack on Greedo, because of Greedo's Slow on the Draw (Attack #2). Vinto does enough damage to kill Greedo, triggering Greedo's Parting Shot (Attack #3).

Card for reference:

In this scenario, I would argue that Element of surprise only applies to Attack #1. Since, Vinto does enough damage to defeat Greedo in Attack #2, that nullifies Attack #1 all together, and in essence, makes Element of Surprise useless. In other words, Element of surprise was applied to the initial Declaration of attack, the Parting shot is a result of the interrupt and therefore an entirely new timing window, where Element of Surprise does not exist.

I was overruled by the moderator, being told that Element of Surprise applies to the activation.

So at the end of the day, the question is, would Element of Surprise apply to Greedo's Parting Shot (Attack #3) above if it was playing during the first declaration of the attack (attack #1).

For reference, here's the card wording:

Quote

Use when you declare an attack. If the target did not have line of sight to you at the start of your activation, remove 1 die from its defense pool.

I'm not a rules expert by any means, but by logic alone I've got to agree with your interpretation that the card only applies to the single attack.

To me I would assume that anything that you "use when you declare an attack" will apply for only that attack. The card doesn't explicitly say that, maybe, but it's got to be implied.

I have no idea where the thought that it applies to the activation comes from. In fact based on the card text the only other reasonable assumption would be to say that it removes one die from the defense pool permanently. This obviously isn't the case, so that brings us back to assuming that it would only affect the one attack.

Edit: Just to add, both the Element of Surprise card and the interrupt from the Greedo card have the same trigger (when you declare an attack). In that case my understanding is that the attacking player's effects trigger first, meaning that the Element of Surprise card would have been played and its effects taken into account before Vinto started shooting back at Greedo. So your opponent couldn't even use the defense that the attack didn't take place, therefore he couldn't play the card.

Just now, ManateeX said:

I have no idea where the thought that it applies to the activation comes from. In fact based on the card text the only other reasonable assumption would be to say that it removes one die from the defense pool permanently. This obviously isn't the case, so that brings us back to assuming that it would only affect the one attack.

It looks like it should end with "...remove 1 die from its defense pool for this attack ." That would be the sensible interpretation I think.

@manatee_x Thanks for the tip, added the card to my post as well!

Glad I'm not alone

the activation ruling makes no sense. Parting shot was an interrupt within the slow on the draw interrupt on the attack. that triple deep inception attack is still possible (think greedo on greedo attack/slow on the draw/slow on the draw) to resolve and get back to the original attack where the element of surprise was in play.

If you use element of surprise with Luke, it doesn't apply to both his normal and heroic attacks. Or, if it does, i'm definitely going to start running Luke again, lol.

It is clear that Element of Surprise played on the first attack doesn't apply to the Parting Shot, because it is a different attack and has it's own declare target step. (Attack and defense pools are built for each attack independently. There are a lot of abilities that depend on that, for example the Focused condition.)

Btw, Element of Surprise has been ruled to refer to the line of sight "during this activation", but its timing is when declaring target (which is the same timing as Slow on the Draw, and both are attacker abilities, so the attacker can decide their resolution order). Maybe whoever did the ruling got confused about that.

4 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Btw, Element of Surprise has been ruled to be "during this activation". That will allow it to make more sense to you.

Is there somewhere official that I can point to in the future (not that I'll ever experience this again haha).

6 minutes ago, wannabepudge said:

Is there somewhere official that I can point to in the future (not that I'll ever experience this again haha).

It seems it has been ruled as "this activation" in tournaments, but still in queue for the FAQ. (Clarifications are easier than errata, because the former only affects the FAQ, while the latter affects all new printings and thus much more work.)

On 7/17/2017 at 2:55 PM, ManateeX said:

Edit: Just to add, both the Element of Surprise card and the interrupt from the Greedo card have the same trigger (when you declare an attack). In that case my understanding is that the attacking player's effects trigger first, meaning that the Element of Surprise card would have been played and its effects taken into account before Vinto started shooting back at Greedo. So your opponent couldn't even use the defense that the attack didn't take place, therefore he couldn't play the card.

@manatee_x Are you suggesting then, that in reality Element of Surprise was never actually played and that my opponent would be able to put the card back in his hand? After reading that a few times I don't think you are, but just wanted to make sure I was understanding.

Since Slow on the Draw and Element of Surprise both belong to the attacker and are both in the Declare Attack step, shouldn't it be up to the attacker the order they occur in?

Seems like in that case, you would always want to do Slow on the Draw first, then if Greedo survives, you can play surprise there. If he dies, you can play it on the Parting Shot instead.

5 hours ago, wannabepudge said:

@manatee_x Are you suggesting then, that in reality Element of Surprise was never actually played and that my opponent would be able to put the card back in his hand? After reading that a few times I don't think you are, but just wanted to make sure I was understanding.

Yeah, sorry, my wording was terrible, but I think in the end you managed to weed through it to find what I wanted to say. I think that once he played the card he's committed it already to that attack, and can't take it back or say it didn't count just because the attack doesn't finish.

2 hours ago, DTDanix said:

Since Slow on the Draw and Element of Surprise both belong to the attacker and are both in the Declare Attack step, shouldn't it be up to the attacker the order they occur in?

Seems like in that case, you would always want to do Slow on the Draw first, then if Greedo survives, you can play surprise there. If he dies, you can play it on the Parting Shot instead.

Does Slow on the Draw belong to the attacker, though? I guess more specifically, does the interrupt from Slow on the Draw belong to the attacker?

For reference:

Quote

Slow on the Draw: When you declare an attack, the target may interrupt to perform an attack targeting you.

So slow on The Draw is Declared, but the defender still has to make a decision. Does that decision now count as a defender ability? If it does, then the attacker would have to perform all of his abilities (including element of surprise) before the defender makes that decision. The more I think about it, though, the more I agree that you're probably right - I'm probably over-thinking it and the defender's decision probably happens immediately when Slow on the Draw resolves.

And in that case, yeah, the attacker should really wait to see the results of the Slow on the Draw attack before playing Element of Surprise. Although I guess that still doesn't really change wannabepudge's situation, since once the card was played it'd still be locked into just that attack.

It is on the attacker's card, it is their ability. It doesn't matter that the defender is the one making a decision.

If you pick slow on the draw, you resolve it completely, which includes doing the whole attack.

8 hours ago, DTDanix said:

Since Slow on the Draw and Element of Surprise both belong to the attacker and are both in the Declare Attack step, shouldn't it be up to the attacker the order they occur in?

Seems like in that case, you would always want to do Slow on the Draw first, then if Greedo survives, you can play surprise there. If he dies, you can play it on the Parting Shot instead.

Yes, both are attacker abilities. Slow on the Draw being a disadvantage does not change it to be a defender ability. Slow on the Draw is a mandatory attacker ability.

Also, a good catch that you return to the declare target timing after resolving Slow on the Draw, it didn't occur to me.

All text on cards and hero sheets are referred to as abilities.