I may be straying into the unrealistically hypothetical, but what if, at a tournament, Maul takes his final damage as time is called and he hasn't activated yet. If Maul's controlling player decides not to activate him, does he remain undefeated, therefore protecting his VP value? Common sense would suggest that Maul keels over dead at the end of the game, giving up his points. However, the wording of the card suggests otherwise.

Also, could you decide to leave him unactivated for several rounds, until you decide the time is right for him to pounce?!

When time is called, the round gets played to the end. So, provided there are no Take Initiative or other exhaust shenanigans on the final round, Maul will be activated and defeated.

The round does not end until all deployment cards have been exhausted. You cannot choose to not activate a group if it is your turn to activate and you have a ready group. (You can just delay using the pass rule.)

Ah yes, I was sure that couldn't work like that. I don't know why that didn't occur to me... Thank you @a1bert , you're a godsend! Okay, picking up your brief aside, if you were to play Take Iniative and exhausted the fully damaged Maul to pay the cost, and that's the turn time was called, would he remain undefeated at the end of the game?

When you use Take Initiative at the start of the final round, Maul won't have suffered damage up to his health, most likely (unless he was exhausted without activating the previous round). If you knew it would be the final round, you could play Take Initiative and exhaust him if you suspected he would die this round, and then if time were indeed called this round he wouldn't be defeated and so you'd deny your opponent those points.

-ryanjamal

3 hours ago, a1bert said:

In skirmish figures suffer strain as damage instead. You may cancel the damage by discarding equal number of command cards from the top of the deck.

When an opponent causes Maul to suffer strain, I don't think there is any interpretation issues there due to the order of things.

If Maul has suffered damage equal to his Health, activating abilities with a strain cost would not work without discarding a command card though, because he would not be able to pay the cost by suffering damage. (There's a ruling for a campaign mission where Leia cannot suffer damage. She also cannot voluntarily suffer strain, because non-heroes suffer strain as damage instead.)

right, I understand the timing stuff and how strain works in skirmish very clear- the question was (rather) whether or not it would be an exception to the other ways damage typically would work, but I suppose that you are right and the only way to pay the cost would be discarding the command card or multiple cards in certain scenarios. Just a curious thought, and thanks for a well reasoned response! I'm just excited to see this guy hit the table! May the force (users) be with us!

Actually, me adding "without discarding" was wrong. Activating abilities with a strain cost would be impossible, because the discard only cancels the damage.

On 9/7/2017 at 5:08 AM, ThatJakeGuy said:

Meaning that if someone were to heal Maul or if he were to recover even one wound during his activation, he would survive to sustain his rage again. Brb, building an infini-Maul army...

MHD Miracle Worker to the rescue!

28 minutes ago, caseycheesecake said:

MHD Miracle Worker to the rescue!

Miracle worker doesn't work on Maul it is a recover effect "it instead recovers 3" he can't recover.

I also think if Maul shenanigans like this persist then 'Provoke' becomes a good command card pick, you can force Maul to activate early in a round. (Or potentially before someone can skip him with change of plans)

3 hours ago, Pigeon Von Smythe said:

I also think if Maul shenanigans like this persist then 'Provoke' becomes a good command card pick, you can force Maul to activate early in a round. (Or potentially before someone can skip him with change of plans)

The problem is, whom would you want to Change of Plans into? At 7, there aren't many viable Force User or Brawler units in Scum or Rebel that are the same price or cheaper to activate with him. Maybe Davith? eTusken? eNexu?

39 minutes ago, ThatJakeGuy said:

The problem is, whom would you want to Change of Plans into? At 7, there aren't many viable Force User or Brawler units in Scum or Rebel that are the same price or cheaper to activate with him. Maybe Davith? eTusken? eNexu?

I see the regular Gamorrean Guards making a comeback! :-)

-ryanjamal

I actually could see an eNexu being a good candidate Davith might be too if you built into something like Ahsoka, Davith, Maul, maybe clawdite or two and some other stuff. With some force user and spy control cards

2 hours ago, ThatJakeGuy said:

The problem is, whom would you want to Change of Plans into? At 7, there aren't many viable Force User or Brawler units in Scum or Rebel that are the same price or cheaper to activate with him. Maybe Davith? eTusken? eNexu?

I mentioned that potential issue last week.

Another thing to note however, is that according to @a1bert you don't necessarily have to have a viable target to reactivate in order to exhaust Maul.

Obviously, it's nice to reactivate a group and get the most value out of the card, but I think it's nice that it's still situationally useful if your nexu or whoever is defeated or hasn't activated (and you want to exhaust Maul before he can be provoked)

On 9/13/2017 at 9:18 PM, ThatJakeGuy said:

The problem is, whom would you want to Change of Plans into? At 7, there aren't many viable Force User or Brawler units in Scum or Rebel that are the same price or cheaper to activate with him. Maybe Davith? eTusken? eNexu?

Just an update on this topic that I found by chance... If you're looking for a fun and non competitive list, then Ezra can work well.

I tried Shyla with Motivation yesterday, and I used her to whip for activating Maul's Parting Blow and then removing the harmful condition with Motivation. Idea is to bring Jabba and R2 or Black Market so that you can draw enough cards to keep Maul unactivated and still able to attack.

I'll try him next with Jabba and Palp, but there's no pusher in imperial lists I'll have to rely on CCs.