So if I I roll blank blank hit with Kylo can I use my lock and avoid taking the strain?

The card text reads: While a friendly ship at range 0-2 performs a primary attack, if it has 1 or more blank results, that ship must gain 1 strain token to reroll 1 blank result, if able. As for how it works, I can see two arguments to its interpretation:

1. Option #1: Your plan works. Since there's no greater weight given to mandatory abilities, compared to optional ones, you have the right to modify in the order you choose. You have to use Malarus' ability sometime, but if you use a lock to reroll first, then even if you reroll back into blanks, Malarus would be unable to resolve (can't reroll a reroll, and therefore, you can't "pay the price" of a strain token).
2. Option #2: You must Malarus first. Since the ability queue does NOT function during attacks, Malarus triggers automatically , as soon as you have 1 or more blank results on a primary attack. Because of this, you have to fully resolve Malarus before activating any additional triggers... which means gaining strain and rerolling 1 die. From there, you can continue to modify as normal.

I'm honestly not sure which one I support more. There are merits to both interpretations... I've gotta think on it, and hear other opinions.

page 30 of the RR:

page 10 of the RR:


these are both from page 2 of the RR:

the ability queue is not used for dice modification while attacking or defending. however, that basically just means you can add/use abilities after resolving other abilities with the same timing. this is in contrast to using the ability queue, which makes you put all the abilities that share a timing in the queue before resolving any of them, preventing you from adding abilities to the queue that share timing with abilities already in the queue, once you've started resolving the queue.

since the attacking player owns both the lock and malarus's ability and there are no rules stipulating you have to resolve mandatory abilities before optional ones, you are free to spend the lock to reroll all of your blank dice, thus preventing malarus's ability from resolving, since you cannot reroll a rerolled dice and you cannot pay a cost for an ability that cannot be resolved.

that being said, i'm open to Malarus triggering automatically as well, but since it's a player's ability and you can normally use abilities and effects in any order you like while modifying dice, i don't see a precedence or any instructions forcing you to resolve Malarus's ability before anything else, even if there is a must in the card text. it would be more of an interesting ability if this was the case, though. it's a tough design call. how much should you be rewarded for taking a lock? should you be rewarded less for taking a lock if Malarus is in your list? i mean, of course you should be punished for rolling blanks, no matter the situation. i never roll blanks.

I'd let Kylo do his ability first, but it's not a hill I'm willing to die on.

On 9/24/2020 at 11:29 AM, theBitterFig said:

I'd let Kylo do his ability first, but it's not a hill I'm willing to die on.

I agree, this seems like the way it works. I also just plain “hope” it works this way, because Malarus sort of sucks otherwise, at least for a significant portion of lists.

Even if you build around the idea of taking and using Target Locks frequently, I’m still pretty skeptical of Malarus; you can’t always have a lock, and I never want to find myself skipping shots because I’m afraid I’ll pick up Strain.

I would also say that yes, you could spend a lock to re-roll a blank to avoid Malarus. And that even though his ability is a *must*, its not (or me) a *must do as soon as able* ability. Just a "at some point during the timing window, you have to deal with this" ability.