These scenarios came up against one of my opponents the other night during an event.

1. Shadow Self vs. Assault - My opponent had a creature next to Shadow Self with 7 damage. I ask the Tournament Organizer if it is possible to attack the neighbor that has 3 power with my Ancient Bear and effectively kill both creatures from the attack. They say that since the Assault is before fight, that would work as the Shadow Self would take 2 damage from assualt and die. Everyone agrees and we proceed.

This leads to a more interesting play a couple turns later that I am still not sure if it was resolved properly.

2. Shadow Self vs. Tendrils of Pain - I had forged a key on my previous turn and my opponent plays Tendrils of Pain with multiple creatures and multiple Shadow Self in between them with varying damage already. They start by dealing 1 damage to each creature, which deals enough to kill one of the Shadow Self. They put it in their discard pile and then deal 3 more damage to each of their remaining creatures, which kills a couple that were no longer protected. I say that doesn't seem right, and that I thought it would just deal 4 damage to everything once, leaving them with a bunch of dead Shadow Self and their other creatures still alive. They say that since there is the period, like in Key Hammer, you do the action of 1 damage then 3 damage. The Tournament Organizer was not much help in this one and we deferred to continue with the opponent's explanation since it was not beneficial to them to play it that way.

This of course made me think back to my previous question and if it was answered correctly.

The FAQ in KeyForge Compendium says the damage is dealt simultaneously, but not whether it is two instances of damage resolved one at a time, with damage checks in between, or if it is two sets of damage dealt or if it is just one set of damage for 4.

Thanks for any help you can point out.

https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/64-tendrils-of-pain
https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/310-shadow-self
https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/345-ancient-bear

30 minutes ago, KandyKidZero said:

These scenarios came up against one of my opponents the other night during an event.

1. Shadow Self vs. Assault - My opponent had a creature next to Shadow Self with 7 damage. I ask the Tournament Organizer if it is possible to attack the neighbor that has 3 power with my Ancient Bear and effectively kill both creatures from the attack. They say that since the Assault is before fight, that would work as the Shadow Self would take 2 damage from assualt and die. Everyone agrees and we proceed.

This leads to a more interesting play a couple turns later that I am still not sure if it was resolved properly.

2. Shadow Self vs. Tendrils of Pain - I had forged a key on my previous turn and my opponent plays Tendrils of Pain with multiple creatures and multiple Shadow Self in between them with varying damage already. They start by dealing 1 damage to each creature, which deals enough to kill one of the Shadow Self. They put it in their discard pile and then deal 3 more damage to each of their remaining creatures, which kills a couple that were no longer protected. I say that doesn't seem right, and that I thought it would just deal 4 damage to everything once, leaving them with a bunch of dead Shadow Self and their other creatures still alive. They say that since there is the period, like in Key Hammer, you do the action of 1 damage then 3 damage. The Tournament Organizer was not much help in this one and we deferred to continue with the opponent's explanation since it was not beneficial to them to play it that way.

This of course made me think back to my previous question and if it was answered correctly.

The FAQ in KeyForge Compendium says the damage is dealt simultaneously, but not whether it is two instances of damage resolved one at a time, with damage checks in between, or if it is two sets of damage dealt or if it is just one set of damage for 4.

Thanks for any help you can point out.

https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/64-tendrils-of-pain
https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/310-shadow-self
https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/345-ancient-bear

The assualt ruling is correct, assault deals damage BEFORE fighting resolves so if the assault damage would kill shadow self it’s not around for damage from fighting to then resolve.

Tendrils is pain is indeed two different instances of damage you first deal 1 to everything, shadow self absorbs all damage from its neighbors, if this damage kills shadow self it is destroyed. Then you deal an additional 3 after if your opponent forged a key. If these occurred at the same time you’d get something worded more like “deal 1 damage to all creature OR 4 damage if your opponent forged a key on their last turn”

First ruling was correct, since the damage came from seperate effects (assault keyword and fight resolution damage).

The second is debatable. Personally, I would argue that the entire action is a single effect so all damage is dealt simultaneously, but I can see why people would argue they are separate effects. Could use a clarification.

Wow, you made me re-read Tendrils. Always thought it was a straight 3 if the opponent had forged, not 1+3.

On 3/25/2019 at 11:26 AM, Palpster said:

First ruling was correct, since the damage came from seperate effects (assault keyword and fight resolution damage).

The second is debatable. Personally, I would argue that the entire action is a single effect so all damage is dealt simultaneously, but I can see why people would argue they are separate effects. Could use a clarification.

I agree, the first ruling was correct as assault is definitely triggered before the actual fight damage. I would also think that the "tendrils of pain" damage is all one instance of damage so this may have resolved differently but I do see why people would think that those are two separate damage occurrences (though I don't see it that way).

Hmm, interesting. I think I may have read the rules wrong.

Under damage on page 10: "If multiple creatures are damage d by a single effect, that damage is dealt simultaneously."

I had previously understood the above as "all damage done by an effect is simultaneous". This text was clearly changed due to questions about positron bolt. But in this situation the specific wording comes into play, that it's talking about damage applying to multiple creatures and not multiple parts of damage.

That 1 damage definitely hits all creatures simultaneously. But the additional 3 may be dealt (simultaneously) afterward.

As FFG have already got some cards that use replacement effects, i.e. "do X, if Y has happened do Z instead" I would have thought that were this intended to be one of those cards it would be worded like:

Deal 1 damage to each creature. If your opponent forged a key on their previous turn, instead deal 4 damage to each creature.

As it is the damage is split into 2 separate portions of damage.

Also it seems Keyforge doesn’t have any form of rules governing when damage checks are made so we can only assume that as soon as a creature has damage equal to its power it is destroyed and place in the discard pile, even before all of the effects of an action card resolving are complete. This tends to create more potential issues when you have triggered events (or 'nested effects' using other FFG game terminology) when creatures die as well but that’s a whole other discussion.