#69 Banish (High Elf Tactic) 3-HH

Action: Return one target unit without any Attachment cards on it to its owners hand.

Could this be played in response to the Lobber Crew action, thus removing it from play before it can sacrifice itself?

No. The Lobber Crew is sacrificed as soon as it's action is declared (it's a cost). If the Banish were played first, the Lobber Crew could be sacrificed in response. The time a Lobber Crew can't be activated in response is if a Forced action on a card that is already in play is killing it.

Are you sure about that?

The sacrifice is behind the Action: so it would be added to the stack as usal. If it would be something like "sacrifice to action: XXX" things would change.

I agree it would be ideal if the game chose to clearly delineate costs via templating, but it does so with language instead. Everything before "to" is a cost. There are no cards which list the cost before the "Action" keyword. Things would get fishy if you could duck paying costs until abilities resolved. You could, for example, activate a Nurgle Sorcerer on an Opponent's Lobber Crew, and then when they responded by activating the Lobber Crew, simply activate the Sorcerer again, causing the opponent to activate the Lobber Crew again... and on and on you'd go.

page 2 of the FAQ says

Sacrifice
Sacrifice means to put a card that you
control into its owner’s discard pile. It
cannot be cancelled or prevented by other
effects.

this seems to suggest that you cannot trump it with a banish.

Not to mention that once an effect is part of the action chain no matter what happens to the unit, that effect has already been triggered, it is just waiting to resolve. Once Lobber Crew has been triggered, nothing but a cancel will stop it from continuing through with the effct (note that the sacrifice is part of the cost, so if you could cancel the ability, the cost must still be paid...

My Interpretation: If you Banish a Lobber Crew in response to it activating its action, Lobber Crew's action cannot resolve and fizzles. Why? Because you cannot pay the cost (sacrificing Lobber Crew), the action cannot take place. Similar rulings have been made where if a cost is not met, the card in question does not activate and fizzles (sent to discard if it was a tactic played from hand or action does not resolve if played from support/unit in play).

This one is not complicated! Rulebook on p.15: "All costs must be played and any targets chosen when the action is triggered, regardless of whether or not the effect resolves immediately." Once that Lobber Crew has lobbed, you aren't stopping him.

I refer you to my previous post that shows you what would happen if you were allowed to skip paying the cost (here, discarding the Lobber Crew) until the ability resolved... Nurgle Sorcerer and Lobber Crew would become locked in a never-ending duel of cheesy abilities. And nobody wants that.

Ok, I understand now, but then card layout does not make sense. arg.

If you can play out your Tactics from hand in response to Slaanesh's Domination, I don't see why this won't work either.

Whoops, didn't read Cyberfunk's helpful explanation of why this can't work - clearly he's right. Well at least we had a good rule in place to explain this, that's a good thing!

The card templating makes sense, it just isn't what you are used to. With maybe a few exceptions, the cards seem to be laid out in the following format.

1. Zone Restriction - the zone the card must be in play at for a power to be available (if there is one).
2. Timing Restriction - when the card can be played i.e. Action:, specific Phase, Constant, Forced.
3. Play restriction or check.
4. What the cost of the effect is (corrupt, resources, sacrifice, etc).
5. What the effect is.