"Discard" defense token for effect

By Vineheart01, in Star Wars: Armada Rules Questions

so im rather confused about this wording.

Most effects state "spend" to resolve an effect, which of course flips a green to a red and a red is discarded.
But some effects specify flatout "discard" - until Agate showed up i always assumed it was a typo, but Agate makes no sense if its a typo because otherwise the card is literally describing the usual effect.

Can you opt to "discard" a defense token, even if its greenside, for these effects and bypass Accuracy blocking or something?

Would have to check the specific card you are questioning to be sure, but generally - yes, that's literally the point. The distinction between 'spend' and 'discard' is always meaningful. Agate is certainly the most recent example, but that game has had them before, too - IE., 'Admonition' title, 'Intel Officer', etc. Discard means discard - it goes away permanently, straight from green if that's what the token is at.

Yes, there are 3 terms which involve the currency of defense tokens, and although they can end with similar results , they are all different Method:

Exhaust - Turn the Token from Readied to Exhausted.
Discard - Remove the Token from the game and return it to the Supply.

Giving us the overarching:

Spend - If the Token is Readied, Exhaust it. If the Token is Exhausted, Discard it.

This is doubly and triply important a distinction, because in some cases they do not overlap... You cannot Exhaust an Exhausted defense token, for example - it just simply doesn't happen. Which makes Exhaust effects, such as Overload Pulse, inherently less "powerful" than Spend defense token effects, such as Boarding Troopers.

Discard can thusly be doubly potent, because with discard the token's state is not taken into account - its simply removed.

But in no case is one of the actual above any of the others... You might have spent that exhausted token, and it ended up discarded , but you didn't actually discard it, you spent it.

For game triggering terms, we only care about the Means, not the Ends.