Ok, Commander Beck says that you can resolve a command “as if” you had spent a token. It’s recently been ruled (in the new FAQ) that this “as-if-token” can be combined with a dial.

OK.

Then we have the Pursuant title card, which can be discarded to execute a Squadron command “as if you had spent a Squadron dial.”

I (suspiciously) couldn’t find the ruling anywhere in the FAQ, but I was under the impression that it had been ruled that Pursuant couldn’t be combined with a token.

My question is twofold: First, am I imagining that Pursuant ruling? That actually was a thing, right? Is that still the ruling?

Second: If the Pursuant is unable to combine its “as-if-dial” with a token, why is Beck able to combine her “as-if-token” with a dial?

1 hour ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Ok, Commander Beck says that you can resolve a command “as if” you had spent a token. It’s recently been ruled (in the new FAQ) that this “as-if-token” can be combined with a dial.

OK.

Then we have the Pursuant title card, which can be discarded to execute a Squadron command “as if you had spent a Squadron dial.”

I (suspiciously) couldn’t find the ruling anywhere in the FAQ, but I was under the impression that it had been ruled that Pursuant couldn’t be combined with a token.

My question is twofold: First, am I imagining that Pursuant ruling? That actually was a thing, right? Is that still the ruling?

Second: If the Pursuant is unable to combine its “as-if-dial” with a token, why is Beck able to combine her “as-if-token” with a dial?

It wasn't in the FAQ - it was a Response we'd had via offhand discussion with Developers.

Beck is contradictory.

18 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

It wasn't in the FAQ - it was a Response we'd had via offhand discussion with Developers.

Beck is contradictory.

I feared as much.

Anyway, I have always wondered why Pursuant and other such effects were prohibited from combining with tokens/dials. If this is a sign of reversal on that point, I’m not unhappy... but either way, we need to know what the rule is and why.

2 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I feared as much.

Anyway, I have always wondered why Pursuant and other such effects were prohibited from combining with tokens/dials. If this is a sign of reversal on that point, I’m not unhappy... but either way, we need to know what the rule is and why.

Prepared to remain unhappy.

Rules are *rarely* explained, and when they are, they're pretty well explained in one or two words, rarely a sentance.

The most famous explanation we got was the XI7 / AP interaction Ruling.

"Game Balance".

Full stop.

1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

Prepared to remain unhappy.

Rules are *rarely* explained, and when they are, they're pretty well explained in one or two words, rarely a sentance.

The most famous explanation we got was the XI7 / AP interaction Ruling.

"Game Balance".

Full stop.

Heh.

Doesn’t this open up a bit of a can of worms with Piett? If he’s on an Executor SSD, and has multiple Engineering tokens, for example... can I execute a token command “as if” I spent a dial, then add another token to it?

There are quite a few combinations now.

Piett, Yularen, Krennic, Nav Team, Ravager. All of these should work now with Beck.

Good thing you can't put Nav Team on Ravager!

10 hours ago, Tokra said:

There are quite a few combinations now.

Piett, Yularen, Krennic, Nav Team, Ravager. All of these should work now with Beck.

Yeah, but my question is this: given that we now have two (conflicting) precedents demonstrating how “as if you had spent an X” effects work, doesn’t that call into question how all such effects work?

A concrete example: Executor SSD. Piett. Two Engineering tokens banked.

On my turn, I reveal a Concentrate Fire dial (and I get a token). I decide to keep the dial for later.

I’m badly damaged, so I want to regain all the shields I can. So I exhaust Piett to spend one of my Engineering tokens and “resolve it as if I had spent a dial instead.”

Previous to the recent FAQ, we had been led to believe that “as-if” commands had to stand alone, meaning that Piett could only give me 4 Engineering points back (as if it were a dial). Now, given the Beck ruling, it appears that an “as-if-token” command can be combined with a corresponding dial... which begs the question, “Can an ‘as-if-dial’ be combined with a corresponding token?”

In other words, can I use that second Engineering token in conjunction with Piett, thereby gaining 6 Engineering points?

It’s not combining Beck with other cards that’s the potential issue here, so much as the Beck ruling opening up a gigantic hole in the rules which really could change the way we’ve been playing for some time now.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the previous precedent (that “as-if” commands must stand alone) was based on a response to a question about the Pursuant title, and that, to me, doesn’t sound like it carries as much weight as an official FAQ. So is the Beck ruling now the precedent to follow in resolving “as-if” command questions? Or do we revert to the way we’ve been doing it for years now, and call Beck a special case?

Frankly, it never made sense to me that you couldn’t combine an “as-if” token/dial with the corresponding dial/token, and I kinda hope this opens the door to doing that. But my personal feelings have nothing to do with how this ought to go. I just want a ruling that makes sense, and has some sort of understandable internal consistency.

We need clarification on this.

The answer is. We don't know, and I'm scrambling to get that answer before worlds.

Hard to judge it if I don't know the intent with the card either.

In cases like this, it's up to a TO's judgment. /shrug

Without better clarification from FFG all you can do is argue your case and hear their call. Better to do it prior to the day of, though.

Do it as Gamemaster do in RPG.

Roll a die 😁

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

Do it as Gamemaster do in RPG.

Roll a die 😁

"Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos! Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair."

-Tokra, probably

He's from Germany, after all. What do you expect.

On 3/4/2020 at 3:52 PM, Karneck said:

The answer is. We don't know, and I'm scrambling to get that answer before worlds.

Hard to judge it if I don't know the intent with the card either.

So Karnek, I read the rules questions email you sent, and the response from the Developers. Thank you for doing that. It definitely cleared up some of the questions I had about Beck, but I’m still confused about some things, and as a major tournament judge, I was hoping you might tell me how you’d rule the following scenario.

The response was pretty clear that Pursuant could not only combo with a Beck “phantom token,” but also that Pursuant could now combo the dial it gives you with an existing real squadron token. Cool.

But I’m specifically still confused about Admiral Piett. He’s clearly allowed to fuse his token-into-dial action with Beck’s “phantom token,” buying you (for example) six Engineering points if the two of them are working aboard (for example) an Executor titled Command SSD.

But what happens if Piett is on an Executor SSD *without* Beck, and that SSD has multiple Engineering tokens? Piett can turn one of them into a dial, but can a second Engineering token be used to gain you a token + dial-strength Engineering command, for a total of six Engineering points?

The Dev who responded said something in passing about how Pursuant doesn’t specifically exclude token use, but Piett does... but I frankly can’t see the difference between the replacement effects in this case. Granted, it’s sort of a corner case, as the only ways to currently have multiple tokens of the same type are to use Beck’s “phantom tokens,” or to have the Executor title, but I would very much like to know how you would rule it if I attempted to use Piett + two Engineering tokens on the Executor to gain six points at tournament.

Rationale behind the ruling would be appreciated, but at this point, I’m more concerned with a practical “how would this be ruled” than the understanding of exactly why. Thanks!

On 3/5/2020 at 7:22 AM, drumtier said:

He's from Germany, after all. What do you expect.

German chaos is the best organized chaos in the whole world!

6 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

So Karnek, I read the rules questions email you sent, and the response from the Developers. Thank you for doing that. It definitely cleared up some of the questions I had about Beck, but I’m still confused about some things, and as a major tournament judge, I was hoping you might tell me how you’d rule the following scenario.

The response was pretty clear that Pursuant could not only combo with a Beck “phantom token,” but also that Pursuant could now combo the dial it gives you with an existing real squadron token. Cool.

But I’m specifically still confused about Admiral Piett. He’s clearly allowed to fuse his token-into-dial action with Beck’s “phantom token,” buying you (for example) six Engineering points if the two of them are working aboard (for example) an Executor titled Command SSD.

But what happens if Piett is on an Executor SSD *without* Beck, and that SSD has multiple Engineering tokens? Piett can turn one of them into a dial, but can a second Engineering token be used to gain you a token + dial-strength Engineering command, for a total of six Engineering points?

The Dev who responded said something in passing about how Pursuant doesn’t specifically exclude token use, but Piett does... but I frankly can’t see the difference between the replacement effects in this case. Granted, it’s sort of a corner case, as the only ways to currently have multiple tokens of the same type are to use Beck’s “phantom tokens,” or to have the Executor title, but I would very much like to know how you would rule it if I attempted to use Piett + two Engineering tokens on the Executor to gain six points at tournament.

Rationale behind the ruling would be appreciated, but at this point, I’m more concerned with a practical “how would this be ruled” than the understanding of exactly why. Thanks!

I'm no judge, but will give my point of view to see if it helps. To me it cannot work.

Why? Because you decide to spend either your dial, token or dial + token to resolve the corresponding effect. Piett's effect lets you resolve a token as if it was a dial, but to reach that point of resolving , you had to spend only a command token and at that instance where you did, you had no chance of spending 2 tokens of the same type.

I may be wrong, but that is how I see it.

Alright, that makes more sense than anything I’ve yet read on this question. Thanks.

I’d still appreciate it if Karnek, Dras, or some other rules guru types would weigh in. Not throwing shade at you, Lemmi. I just want to make sure there’s some consensus on this, as it’s still not entirely clear.

9 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

So Karnek, I read the rules questions email you sent, and the response from the Developers. Thank you for doing that. It definitely cleared up some of the questions I had about Beck, but I’m still confused about some things, and as a major tournament judge, I was hoping you might tell me how you’d rule the following scenario.

The response was pretty clear that Pursuant could not only combo with a Beck “phantom token,” but also that Pursuant could now combo the dial it gives you with an existing real squadron token. Cool.

But I’m specifically still confused about Admiral Piett. He’s clearly allowed to fuse his token-into-dial action with Beck’s “phantom token,” buying you (for example) six Engineering points if the two of them are working aboard (for example) an Executor titled Command SSD.

But what happens if Piett is on an Executor SSD *without* Beck, and that SSD has multiple Engineering tokens? Piett can turn one of them into a dial, but can a second Engineering token be used to gain you a token + dial-strength Engineering command, for a total of six Engineering points?

The Dev who responded said something in passing about how Pursuant doesn’t specifically exclude token use, but Piett does... but I frankly can’t see the difference between the replacement effects in this case. Granted, it’s sort of a corner case, as the only ways to currently have multiple tokens of the same type are to use Beck’s “phantom tokens,” or to have the Executor title, but I would very much like to know how you would rule it if I attempted to use Piett + two Engineering tokens on the Executor to gain six points at tournament.

Rationale behind the ruling would be appreciated, but at this point, I’m more concerned with a practical “how would this be ruled” than the understanding of exactly why. Thanks!

Lemmi has it correct. Remember, when you choose to resolve a COMMAND you must decide in that beginning moment of when that command can resolve, if it will be as Dial only, Token only, or Dial+Token.

When you choose to resolve Piett, think of Piett like an interrupt in that moment right after you've declared your resolving the command as Token only.

So in example I am wanting to resolve Navigation command on a ship, but all I have is a Nav Token. "I am resolving THIS command as a Token! but AH HA! I have this card (Piett) that allows me to resolve this command as a DIAL instead!" So, that is why you cannot token into Piett/Dial and then ALSO throw another token on it. Because you already decided to start with, you were resolving that command as TOKEN. But after the command is RESOLVED its considered resolved as a dial instead.

In the very weird niche case of how does Piett / Krennic work, you treat the Con Fire command resolved as "Dial", not as "Token". And you do not get "Dial+token" effect because again, when you finished the command, it only resolved as "Dial".

Well, it’s an answer! Thanks for following up on that.

For the Record, Beck rulings are @Karneck 's baby.

I'm not getting any of that on me. I'm trying to stay somewhat respectable here 😄