Suppose I use Special Delivery to destroy Dextre or Bad Penny. What happens to them? The text on Special Delivery says if it destroys a creature it is purged but BP and Dextre go somewhere else when destroyed (hand and top of deck respectively).

I could see both sides of the argument on whether they are purged or go back but then I found this in the rules glossary:

ACTIVE PLAYER:

The active player is the player taking the current turn. The active player makes all necessary decisions for all card abilities or timing conflicts that need to resolve during their turn.

Based on this I believe that the active player would get to chose whether Special Delivery or BP/Dextre's would trigger first, thus deciding whether they are purged or returned.

Is my logic sound? I'm going to help TO a tournament this weekend and just want to be sure I'm making a good judgement call if this comes up.

Thanks in advance for your input.

This is actually a really tough one. On one hand the timing may be at issue. If this is a timing issue then the active player decides. However Destroyed says it occurs before the card leaves play.

Page 7:

CARD ABILITIES When resolving a card ability, resolve as much of the ability as can be resolved, and ignore the rest. Unless otherwise specified by the ability, the active player makes all decisions while resolving an ability. For details on specific terminology that can be found in card ability text, see the Glossary

Page 9:

ACTIVE PLAYER The active player is the player taking the current turn. The active player makes all necessary decisions for all card abilities or timing conflicts that need to resolve during their turn.

Page 10:

DESTROYED When a card is destroyed, it is placed in its owner’s discard pile. If a card has a “Destroyed:” ability, the effect resolves automatically when the card is destroyed, immediately before it leaves play

Page 11:

PURGE When a card is purged, it is removed from the game and placed facedown beneath its owner’s identity card. Purged cards no longer interact with the game state in any manner.

Honestly I do not know. I would love to see an FAQ on if this is a timing issue or not. Is triggering Destroyed: something that happens after Special Delivery is completed? Or does it interrupt Special Delivery? If it is timing related then the active player chooses and can choose either to purge or let the Destroyed: trigger go off. If Destroyed: must be obeyed then the purge might be prevented. Based on what we have so far I would tend to agree, the active player would choose.

I think that this one is straightforward. You have two different effects trying to trigger on the same condition, a card is destroyed. That's a timing conflict. Timing conflicts are decided by the current player. If the current player, say, chooses that Bad Penny's own effect happens before Special Delivery's effect, then Bad Penny is no longer destroyed after Bad Penny resolves and Special Delivery never happens. Alternately, the current player could decide to resolve the Special Delivery effect first, and thus Bad Penny will be purged and Bad Penny's own effect will never resolve.

The keyword rules are just ambiguous enough, and the game has no mechanism for replacement effects just yet. I assume we'll see something in the coming weeks, since they've tackled these very things before in other games.

Personally I don't see reason why the purge wouldn't happen regardless. The card doesn't need to be in play in order to be purged (as there are multiple cards targeting discard pile for example). Do you see anything wrong with purging that creature even if it is in hand? Or on top of the deck? I don't see any reason why it would be wrong. It's still a card, it's still a creature, ok it's not in play, but it's not a problem is it?

The way I see it is that Special Delivery says if said card gets destroyed, purge it. Bad Penny's ability is if the card is destroyed and is triggered by being destroyed. Special delivery's full text specifically says if that card is destroyed purge it. I believe it gets purged, regardless of the destroyed trigger ability, it is still being destroyed which would make it be purged.

“ Purged: When a card is purged it is removed from the game and placed facedown under its owners identity card. Purged cards no longer interact with the game state in any manner”

so the order is irrelevant as purge doesn’t require the card to be in the discard pile.

theres two ways it could play out as the active player does choose the order of effects.

option 1: the card is destroyed, both effects trigger conditions are met, the active player chooses to resolve Penny’s return to hand effect first. The card was still destroyed it’s location is just in the hand instead of discard pile, it is then purged from the hand and removed from play.

option 2: the card is destroyed, both effects trigger conditions are met, the active player chooses to resolve purge first. The card is removed from play and can no longer interact with the game state thus Penny’s effect now wont occur.

Either way the card winds up purged.

For me:

Quote

When a player uses an artifact, they exhaust the card and then resolve its abilities.

on page 6 of the rulebook leads me to believe that the artifact effect occurs completely before any triggers on the opponents cards. The active player uses the Omni ability and it resolves its abilities before the destroyed ability can resolve on the opponent's card. Once the destroyed has been changed to a purge, the creature is no longer destroyed.

A lot of this could have been solved by wording the card "If this damage would destroy that creature, purge it instead."

25 minutes ago, DailyRich said:

A lot of this could have been solved by wording the card "If this damage would destroy that creature, purge it instead."

Yeah, 'instead' is usually the first clue that something's a replacement effect.

Yes I would prefer the instead wording as well :(. It looks like people on the facebook thing otherwise but I would agree it's purged no matter what's the order...

3 hours ago, DailyRich said:

A lot of this could have been solved by wording the card "If this damage would destroy that creature, purge it instead."

Except that would mess with other effects. Say you have something that gives you aember when a creature is destroyed or it has a destroy effect, none of those would work if it said “instead”.

the way it currently stands both effects can take place unless the active player decides to resolve purge first.

I agree that regardless of timing, bad penny should be purged. In the case of a card such as dust imp however, am I correct in thinking that the owner would still get 2 æmber regardless of timing? Or is that up to the active player?

1 hour ago, Troutyo said:

I agree that regardless of timing, bad penny should be purged. In the case of a card such as dust imp however, am I correct in thinking that the owner would still get 2 æmber regardless of timing? Or is that up to the active player?

Both would occur, destroyed effects go off as long as the creature is destroyed unlike constant effects. So in this instance dust imp would be purged and you’d gain two amber in whatever order the active player chose.

3 hours ago, TwitchyBait said:

Except that would mess with other effects. Say you have something that gives you aember when a creature is destroyed or it has a destroy effect, none of those would work if it said “instead”.

the way it currently stands both effects can take place unless the active player decides to resolve purge first.

Yup, that's how replacement effects work.

ACTIVE PLAYER (p9):
The active player is the player taking the current turn. The active player makes all necessary decisions for all card abilities or timing conflicts that need to resolve during their turn.

I am going to go with the active player decides.

1 hour ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

Yup, that's how replacement effects work.

Agreed, I was merely clarifying to the poster that as it stands now it doesn’t replace destroyed effects so changing the wording to instead would completely alter the play, not just clarify.

I think it's much simpler than a timing issue. I don't think there is any indication that triggers can fire and resolve in the middle of an effect.
Special Delivery says do three damage, if that destroys the creature purge it. This is one effect and must completely resolve before any triggers can fire because of the effect.