I know the rule is to do as much as the card as you can but does that apply to actions from an artifact as well?

I have a deck with 3 Hallowed Blasters (Action: Heal 3 damage from a creature) which has me asking a couple of questions:

1. It doesn't say up to 3 so does the creature have to have 3 or more damage in order for it to target? If I can do it regardless of how much damage the creature has then it leads to my next question.
2. Can I use the artifact on a creature with 0 damage? The reason why that matters is I also have a creature in my deck that says whenever I use an artifact I gain an Amber. So can I spam 3 heals a turn on a non-damaged creature?

I'm assuming that it gets treated just like steal would.

Quote

STEAL: If an ability steals more Æmber than a player has remaining in their pool, the ability steals only the amount remaining in the pool.

Consistently applying precedent has never really been a thing for FFG, sadly. If you email them, the game designers will usually make a snap judgment based on RAI, which may or may not survive to see print in the next FAQ. As of right now there's no way to answer this question.

1 hour ago, Joshuha said:

2. Can I use the artifact on a creature with 0 damage? The reason why that matters is I also have a creature in my deck that says whenever I use an artifact I gain an Amber. So can I spam 3 heals a turn on a non-damaged creature?

I would assume you could activate it but you have to try and heal 3 damage, so if your opponent is the only one who has damaged creatures you'd have to heal them.

I have sent in a question that would answer this...but I do fear WonderWAAAGH is correct.

1. It doesn't say up to 3 so does the creature have to have 3 or more damage in order for it to target? If I can do it regardless of how much damage the creature has then it leads to my next question.
   
   **The answer to this is - you do as much as you can. If you have one creature with 2 damage - this will remove the 2.
   
   
2. Can I use the artifact on a creature with 0 damage? The reason why that matters is I also have a creature in my deck that says whenever I use an artifact I gain an Amber. So can I spam 3 heals a turn on a non-damaged creature?
   
   
   **Yes...but here is where my question goes. Does the "do as much as possible" rule force you to pick a creature where you can do "more" of the effect. I hope beyond hope that the answer is that you can point this at any creature. If they try and thread the needle and say you have to target something that can do the "most"...this game will get so much more complicated and be much worse from a rules standpoint.
   

1 hour ago, barabelsftw said:

I would assume you could activate it but you have to try and heal 3 damage, so if your opponent is the only one who has damaged creatures you'd have to heal them.

No he wouldn’t. You can target any creature with Hallowed Blaster regardless if it has damage on it or not. Healing just attempts to removes the specified number or all depending on the card text. Only cards that check for if a creature was healed or not will care if any damage was removed.

In the OP’s scenario he could constantly use Hallowed Blaster each turn on his undamaged creature to trigger the creature that gives aember upon using artifacts.

I would assume (at least how we’ve been playing it at my location) is you can target any creature then you heal as much of the 3 as possible on it. Ie you can target a creature with less than 3 or even no damage.

13 minutes ago, papalorax said:

**Yes...but here is where my question goes. Does the "do as much as possible" rule force you to pick a creature where you can do "more" of the effect. I hope beyond hope that the answer is that you can point this at any creature. If they try and thread the needle and say you have to target something that can do the "most"...this game will get so much more complicated and be much worse from a rules standpoint.

No you don’t have to. The “do as much as possible” is just for the game text itself. You make the choices. You are not a computer, you aren’t forced to use the card at the perfect optimal configuration.

I sure hope you are right. There was a thread in the Facebook group about this and some people thought otherwise.

It was in regards to "Action: Ready and Fight with a friendly creature." with a creature. Could you pick an already ready creature and still fight (i.e. different faction)? I think the "do as much as you can" would say - you bet. Pick a friendly creature and do as much as you can.

I don't think you can choose an undamaged creature, c.f. a ruling on protectrix. She can't heal an undamaged creature solely to give it invulnerability. I think this is like fighting with no targets, if there's no damage you just can't heal.

But, note that nothing stops you healing enemies...

32 minutes ago, Hyperjayman said:

No he wouldn’t. You can target any creature with Hallowed Blaster regardless if it has damage on it or not. Healing just attempts to removes the specified number or all depending on the card text. Only cards that check for if a creature was healed or not will care if any damage was removed.

In the OP’s scenario he could constantly use Hallowed Blaster each turn on his undamaged creature to trigger the creature that gives aember upon using artifacts.

I disagree. Just like many cards do an effect (like twin bolt emission does 2 damage to two creatures) you need to pick 2 targets if possible. If you're only way to resolve most of the card ability results in a sub optimal decision, don't make that decision. If hallowed blaster said UP to 3 damage I would agree with you that you're never forced to pick a damaged creature.

But who knows I'm sure we'll get a FAQ soon to address some of these questions.

2 minutes ago, barabelsftw said:

I disagree. Just like many cards do an effect (like twin bolt emission does 2 damage to two creatures) you need to pick 2 targets if possible. If you're only way to resolve most of the card ability results in a sub optimal decision, don't make that decision. If hallowed blaster said UP to 3 damage I would agree with you that you're never forced to pick a damaged creature.

But who knows I'm sure we'll get a FAQ soon to address some of these questions.

Bad example, you're comparing not picking a target to picking a target. So yes with twin bolts you need to pick 2 targets, but they don't both need to have 2 health just like a creature doesn't need to have 3 damage. You pick a creature to heal then heal as much damage on it as possible up to 3, even if that amount is 0. That's the whole point of "do as much as possible" you still picked a target, you still tried to heal it.

When the FAQ comes out they will *probably* not allow you to heal 0. Probably.

FYI, Cleansing Wave poses a similar question.

10 minutes ago, TwitchyBait said:

Bad example, you're comparing not picking a target to picking a target. So yes with twin bolts you need to pick 2 targets, but they don't both need to have 2 health just like a creature doesn't need to have 3 damage. You pick a creature to heal then heal as much damage on it as possible up to 3, even if that amount is 0. That's the whole point of "do as much as possible" you still picked a target, you still tried to heal it.

Fair response. A better example is Guardian Demon. His text says he heals up to 2 Damage. Which means he can pick any creature to attempt to heal even if they have 1 or zero damage. If his text said "heal 2 damage" I would believe that you have to pick a target with at least 2 damage.

Or... hear me out... or we're just being subjected to more bad templating.

2 hours ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

When the FAQ comes out they will *probably* not allow you to heal 0. Probably.

FYI, Cleansing Wave poses a similar question.

I’ll agree to disagree. How does cleansing wave pose that? You attempt to heal every creature for every creature that actually healed you gain an aember for those with no damage you gain none because they weren’t healed.

2 hours ago, barabelsftw said:

Fair response. A better example is Guardian Demon. His text says he heals up to 2 Damage. Which means he can pick any creature to attempt to heal even if they have 1 or zero damage. If his text said "heal 2 damage" I would believe that you have to pick a target with at least 2 damage.

Except then the rule of “do as much as possible” become so pointless if the card can never be played if there is no target for it’s full effect doesn’t it not?

25 minutes ago, TwitchyBait said:

I’ll agree to disagree. How does cleansing wave pose that? You attempt to heal every creature for every creature that actually healed you gain an aember for those with no damage you gain none because they weren’t healed.

Similar =/= exact.

Let's entertain the notion that you can heal for 0. A creature healed for 0 would still qualify as being healed, yes? You just didn't remove any damage tokens. Cleansing Wave says "Heal 1 damage from each creature. Gain 1 aember for each creature healed this way." Would that not mean you gain an aember for each creature, regardless of how much damage was actually removed?

4 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

Similar =/= exact.

Let's entertain the notion that you can heal for 0. A creature healed for 0 would still qualify as being healed, yes? You just didn't remove any damage tokens. Cleansing Wave says "Heal 1 damage from each creature. Gain 1 aember for each creature healed this way." Would that not mean you gain an aember for each creature, regardless of how much damage was actually removed?

You can’t heal for 0 as healing is removing a damage token(s) and in this case no damage token is removed you can still however attempt to heal any creature even if it has 0 damage, if it has such it isn’t healed but he card/effect is still used. Ie this doesn’t mean it can’t be targeted just that the effect in that instance is moot on that target this is the whole point of do as much as possible.

4 minutes ago, TwitchyBait said:

You can’t heal for 0 as healing is removing a damage token(s) and in this case no damage token is removed you can still however attempt to heal any creature even if it has 0 damage, if it has such it isn’t healed but he card/effect is still used. Ie this doesn’t mean it can’t be targeted just that the effect in that instance is moot on that target this is the whole point of do as much as possible.

No offense, but that's a completely made-up ruling. Either you can heal for 0 or you can't.

5 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

No offense, but that's a completely made-up ruling. Either you can heal for 0 or you can't.

How is it a made up ruling? The rule book clearly states to play a card you must merely choose its house. So you play healing wave, healing is removing damage so every creature with damage has some removed. Creatures with no damage aren’t healed by definition of the effect. Your ruling here is that you can’t play a card if you can’t do it’s full effect which means there’s would be no point of ever putting in the “do as much as possible” rule.

If you can't remove damage then you can't heal, so you can't heal for zero. Are we agreeing on that?

1 hour ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

If you can't remove damage then you can't heal, so you can't heal for zero. Are we agreeing on that?

Yes, the heal effect does nothing if there is no damage to be removed. The card can still be used, often simply for the amber for playing certain cards.

I think there is room for confusion in the wording of heal. The RRG (p.10) defines healing as:

Quote

If an ability “heals” a creature, remove the specified amount of damage from the creature.

If an ability “fully heals” a creature, remove all damage from the creature.

That can be read either way. If an ability heals a creature, remove the specified amount of damage - reading it backwards, and inferring the negative, if no damage is removed, then you have not healed. That feels intuitively correct, but it requires a greater interpretation of the rules as written by the user.

Because heal doesn’t define a value, it is logical to assume that any value is valid. The amount specified therefore might be zero, and the removed damage equal to zero. As such, by ‘healing for zero,’ and removing zero tokens, you’ve technically still fulfilled the condition for heal. A purely RAW interpretation, but it’s technically supported.

I feel like the first interpretation is correct, but I don’t think it can be proved beyond reasonable doubt going by what’s written. We’ll need to wait for the FAQ to be totally sure.

A question I had regarding 'do as much as you can'.

In my deck I have the card 'Relentless Assault', an Action that reads: Play: Ready and Fight with up to three different friendly creatures, one at a time.

Say my opponent has only one creature which is defeated by my first creature I use from Relentless Assault. Then after that do I still ready two of my creatures even if I can't fight with them (do as much as possible), or should I read 'ready and fight' as one instance, where if they can't fight they can't be readied?