Hello everyone!

Rebel player typing here. We finished Jabba's Realm a few weeks ago, it was a true beating for us during almost the whole thing. During the last chapter we faced Rancor, a beauty as you know, and we had a heated conversation about FEED text. It reads: ' At the start OR end of your activation, you may choose another friendly figure within 2 spaces. Recover DAMAGE equal to its Health minus the DAMAGE it has suffered. That figure is defeated'.

When the dust was settled Rancor could FEED twice a round, because it was stated that OR wasn't exclusive. Fine. Now we are gonna run Jarrod Kelvin, and, since his Little friend J4X-7 is very tricky, we face a real problem with Jarrod's Mechanical Master 4xp ability. It reads: 'Exhaust this card at the start of another hero's activation . J4X-7 may ready and activate at the start OR end of that hero's activation'.

Does it mean J4X-7 will be able to attack twice during another hero's activation? Once at the start, once at the end. Did we just get fooled with Rancor ruling?

Thanks in advance.

Background: Companions are like figures and can only activate if ready. They exhaust after their activation.

Jax "may ready" at the start of that hero's activation then "activate at the start or end of that hero's activation".

I.e. "J4X-7 may (ready) and (activate at the start OR end of that hero's activation)".

If Jax activates at the start, it is not ready at the end of the activation.

Mechanical Master makes Jax extremely powerful already (better than an average ally), I don't think it is intended to be activating three times.

(I guess the wording could've been better: 'Exhaust this card at the start of another hero's activation to ready J4X-7. J4X-7 may activate at the start or end of that hero's activation' . )

'J4X-7 may ready AND activate at the start OR end of that hero's activation'

It doesn't say anything about getting ready is mandatory during the start, it's modal. Start OR End, getting READY and ACTIVATE both at the same time.

Your game, your choice.

It's not my choice, we got an imperial player Who will defend his case. I feel a storm is approaching so I come here in search of answers. Answers that are supossed to come from people Who has played The game many more times than me.

We get completely destroyed by Rancor, and now we face a similar wording. OR is the word i am interested in. That is The epicentre.

I sent a question to FFG, in case they still answer rules questions.

Thank you Albert! I Will give It a try.

I sent it already. Sorry for the missing "I".

Jajajajaja. ok It seems i missed something during the reading. I really appreciate It. Stay in touch.

So here's my reading of the card ... (this is just the 3rd block of text on it)

• Exhaust this card at the start of ANOTHER hero's activation.
  • Key word is caps'd for emphasis. FFG is very particular about the inclusion of the phrase "another hero's" or just "a hero's" (just as they are with recover stm v discard stm)
  • What this means is that you can't use J4X twice on Jarrod's turn. This upgrade card belongs to Jarrod, so as such he would not be considered "another hero" besides himself
• (moving on) - J4X-7 may READY and activate at the start OR end of that hero's activation.
  • So yes, J4X does get an additional activation during a round, however my technical reading of this pays attention to that caps'd word ready
  • J4X does have to have his card EXHAUSTED first before it can be READIED. This means that hero turn-order is vital
  • To illustrate I'll give 2 examples how this plays out.
    • (as I believe it's intended to be used) = Jarrod activates first in the round, uses J4X, so J4X's companion card is now exhausted (similar to ally figure deployment cards). So Murne is the next hero to activate, and Jarrod uses his Upgrade card to ready J4X, now J4X can perform an additional activation before or after Murne's activation.
    • (pushing the limits of this card to sub-optimal use, but conditional benefits). Murne activates first in the round and Jarrod uses his upgrade card. Technically there's nothing on the card to prevent this, so J4X may activate before or after Murne. At the end of J4X's activation his companion card is exhausted. Imp goes. Then it's Jarrod's turn ... except J4X now can't go because his card is exhausted. So J4X only recieved 1 activation this round.
  • It's also worth noting that FFG is also super particular about "AND" v "OR" in their card wordings. If it says AND then you can do both. If it says OR you have to pick one. There's like a million cards in this game ... if I could remember an example I'd totally bring it up. But just bear in mind that AND v OR with these FFG cards is intentional and meant to be literal.

So yeah, J4X only gets at most 2 activations per round.

Hopefully that technical breakdown of the card cleared things up.

1 hour ago, thinkbomb said:

• • It's also worth noting that FFG is also super particular about "AND" v "OR" in their card wordings. If it says AND then you can do both. If it says OR you have to pick one. There's like a million cards in this game ... if I could remember an example I'd totally bring it up. But just bear in mind that AND v OR with these FFG cards is intentional and meant to be literal.

I think this is correct. I believe there was a ruling on Loku's Set Your Sights (another "at the start or end of your activation" ability) that said it could only be used EITHER at the start or end. I believe your interpretation is correct that all abilities that have an OR would follow this rule.

3 hours ago, thinkbomb said:

It's also worth noting that FFG is also super particular about "AND" v "OR" in their card wordings. If it says AND then you can do both. If it says OR you have to pick one. There's like a million cards in this game ... if I could remember an example I'd totally bring it up. But just bear in mind that AND v OR with these FFG cards is intentional and meant to be literal.

1 hour ago, Stompburger said:

I think this is correct. I believe there was a ruling on Loku's Set Your Sights (another "at the start or end of your activation" ability) that said it could only be used EITHER at the start or end. I believe your interpretation is correct that all abilities that have an OR would follow this rule.

Do either of you happen to have a source on this? The last major discussion I recall on this matter (linked) went the other way. Of course, it's more of a consensus than a ruling, but with nothing in the FAQ it's the best we've got without a (sourced) ruling from FFG.

Hmm, I guess that discussion did end with people deciding the other way. Though that's clearly not what's intended in the case of J4X's extra activation, and don't think it's what's intended for Loku or the Rancor either, though that could be wrong.

I would argue that if you don't want to allow J4X to activate twice per use of Mechanical Master (which would probably be way too strong), then you have to be consistent and disallow any of these start OR end abilities from being used twice.

I do wonder if there's a case out there that makes it clear which one is intended.

There should be a ruling (or confirmation) about Loku's Set Your Sights and Feed being possible both start and end. I have discussed it with the designers. (But it was not the intent for Feed.)

Note that there are plenty of abilities that use "either-or", or "choose one". The only border case I found in my less-than-exhaustive check was Call the Shots (Hera), which lists three options to choose from and has ", or".

In Mechanical Master, like in Set Your Sights and Feed, the "or" is in the timing spec, you are not actually choosing between options.

I'll let you know if Todd answers about the intent of Mechanical Master.

21 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

Though that's clearly not what's intended in the case of J4X's extra activation, and don't think it's what's intended for Loku or the Rancor either, though that could be wrong.

Just for the record, I do agree with you. I'm just saying a ruling on Mechanical Master would be preferable.

Me: Is Mechanical Master intended to give Jax one or two extra activations?

Todd: Just one activation.

Aha! What's The deal with Rancor? Do we just go the same way? 1 Feed per activation?

Rancor's Feed - we already know from before that by RAW it's either or both, while it was not the original intent.