Yay for a new FAQ. After combing it over, here are a few questions I had:

1. When is a card considered "played"? When it resolves, or when it goes on the stack? Cards which are "just Played" reference cards just placed on the stack, so I assume they are considered played at that point.

2. Can I play a Tactic with no valid targets? "Triggering Card Effects" says " If a player cannot fulfill any requirements to trigger a card effect, he cannot attempt to trigger it. " But a played tactic is not a triggered card effect, AFAIK. The FAQ says " If a card effect specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are legal when it is played and again when it resolves. " So if it doesn't check until it is played, it sounds like I can play it but the effect will be canceled. This is not how I would assume it works, but I can't find any rules that explicitly say you can't play a tactic/effect unless it has a valid target.

3. Rip Dere 'Eads Off! - says a revealed Hero/development is not considered to have "entered play", but then says " the Hero that entered play last is immediately sacrificed ". So if the Hero (who was a development) doesn't enter play, then the existing Hero in the zone is the only (and thus last) Hero to "enter play", and so must be sacrificed? This is the opposite of how I previously thought this card works.

4. Flagellants - " cancel the next 2 damage dealt " " A unit has been dealt damage, if at least one damage is applied to it after damage cancellation effects occur during the Apply Damage step ." A unit (or capital) is not dealt damage until after the Apply damage step. Cancellation effects occur between Assigning and Applying, so how do the Flagellants cancel damage if they only cancel damage that has been dealt (not damage that is assigned).

5. Iron Discipline in reaction to an attachment -

I don't understand this ruling. Playing a support card is an action (FAQ: " Other actions are playing a unit, support.... from hand .") with a card effect (Card Text: " Until the end of the turn, cancel any other action that targets this unit unless the action's controller pays an additional 4 resources ") that targets a unit (all but 3 support cards in the game say "target unit"). Which one of my statements was incorrect? The ruling implies one of them is, but I don't understand which one is.

Answer: Iron Discipline is intended to refer to "Actions" not just the generic action. And "attach to target unit" on an attachment is not an "Action", therefore Iron Discipline does not affect it.

6. In the Redirecting Damage section, it says " Some card effects allow for damage to be redirected from one source to another. " Is "source" supposed to be "target", or does redirecting the damage also change the source of the damage? Does it then also change the type of the damage (i.e. from combat to non-combat). I always assumed the source of the damage was unchanged, and combat damage was still combat damage, all that was being changed was how it was assigned. Now I'm not so sure.

Entropy42 said:

Those two came to my mind as well. I think the "next 2 dealt" is meant as a pre-emptive canceller, but I still would've preferred they just remove the "next" from the Flagellants wording, leaving it "sacrifice to cancel 2 dmg assigned to your capital". I suppose the current wording does allow their use against non-combat capital damage, kick them in response.

Yeah, I thought Flagellants was actually more clear before they released the FAQ. They still would have been useful for non-combat damage in their old form, as it was "next 2 damage assigned", and non-combat damage is still assigned and applied, just with no action window in between.

The other question I had was in the Redirecting Damage section. It says "Some card effects allow for damage to be redirected from one source to another." Is "source" supposed to be "target", or does redirecting the damage also change the source of the damage? Does it then also change the type of the damage (i.e. from combat to non-combat). I always assumed the source of the damage was unchanged, and combat damage was still combat damage, all that was being changed was how it was assigned. Now I'm not so sure.

I think source should have been target instead. Could have been a typo. But I do think redirecting damage changes the type of damage. Like say if I was to use blessing of valaya to redirect 2 damage from a dwarven unit to swordmaster of hoeth, they would still take the 2 damage because it's no longer counter as combat damage.

The new FAQ also never clarified whether the 10 cost DE epic spell 'Your will is mine' lasts until end of turn or until end of game. I don't think it counts as a conditional action, which is apparently what blessing of valaya now falls under.

Sining said:

Is there a rule that makes you think the type of damage changes? To me, the word redirect just means change what something is hitting. Like if I redirect a bullet and it hits you, you still got hit by a bullet, and the source was still a gun. In terms of game mechanics, I just think of redirect as a combat step that allows you take X damage tokens assigned to a unit, and reassign them somewhere else. Though I have to admit, the fact that you can redirect combat damage to a unit that was not involved in combat does seem strange (following my claim that the damage type is still "combat damage") I can't really point to anything that supports my interpretation either.

Sining said:

As a general rule of thumb, when the effect doesn't say whether it ends at end of turn, it's down to whether the card physically moves somewhere or marks something with tokens. For example, Forced March and Your Will Is Mine both physically move cards around and hence don't end at end of turn. Blessing of Valaya is a conditional action - it creates a nebulous effect which is not indicated by tokens or card placement, so it ends at end of turn.

Iron Discipline ist not working because playing an attachment targets not.

jogo said:

There are only 3 attachments in the game which do not say "target unit": Griffon Standard, Grimgor's Spike, and Gromril Armor. (Strange that they all begin with 'G') So I don't understand the assertion that playing an attachment does not target a unit. It seems that most of them do.

Playing a support is taking an action, but not an Action: , latter being what ID can counter. Small, but important difference. Similarly, playing a support opens up the possibility of playing something in response, but you can't play a support in response to an Action: .

Dam said:

Why do you say that Iron Discipline can only counter "Action:", but not any action? The card says "ACTION: Target one unit. Until the end of the turn, cancel any other action that targets this unit unless the action's controller pays an additional 4 resources (per action)."

Because that is what James said when I sent in the rules question to find out if it can stop, e.g., Attachments being played. It has to have the magic "Action" word on it for Iron Discipline. Or was it Nate? I forget. Anyway, that's the upshot. IIRC it's in the new FAQ too.

Clamatius said:

It seems to me they should have put card errata on Iron Discipline then, rather than just putting a Q&A in the FAQ, because the card pretty clearly does not say " Action: ". Unless I'm misunderstanding this, and all cards that say "action" actually mean " Action: "?

Wasn't playing attachments and units considered actions?

Kinda. And that was why I thought originally that Iron Discipline would stop, say, a Choppa being attached.

But apparently units and supports are considered an action in that they start an action stack - they aren't actually actions and therefore you can't stop them with ID.

On a similar note, when you attack with a unit on Sack Tor Aendris it's considered to be attacking as if it's in the battlefield - but it isn't, so it doesn't get abilities that work only in the battlefield. The "considered... as if" thing seems consistent in that regard.

Clamatius said:

I'm sorry to belabor this point, but again I don't understand that assertion. The FAQ directly says, "Playing a unit, support, development, or quest card from hand are actions with restrictions built into them. The restrictions are: They cannot be played in response to anything. They must be played during the owner’s Capital Phase."

Yep, that's exactly why I thought that ID would cancel a Choppa. But here's James's response:

Any other action for the purposes of this ability means any other cards with the bolded "Action:" before the ability (I say for the purposes of this ability because playing a unit/support card from your hand is also an action with restrictions, but does not apply in this specific case).

For your example, Iron Discipline could not be played in response to Choppa being attached because the "Attach to a target unit in your battlefield" is not an action. Iron Discipline's effect also does not interact with "Attach to a target unit in your battlefield" for that same reason.

Yeah, that makes sense based on what you've said before. I just think it would have been a LOT more clear if they errata'd ID to say " Action " (like Bright Wizard Apprentice does), rather than giving a very vague Q&A about it. Or better yet, not have actions and Actions . There are a lot of words, why use the same one for 2 different things?

I appreciate the clarification though, at least now I understand what they were trying to say about the card in the Q&A, though I'm not sure how I'd apply that knowledge to similar questions in the future. The current ruling seems to imply that anywhere a card says "action" it means " Action ". Though the only other cards I know of with that wording are Nordland Halberdiers and Gryphon Legionnaire.

Anyway, this thread has become extremely focused on Iron Discipline. Anyone have any insight into the 5 other questions?

Ah yes, like Infiltrate and Infiltrate! It's only a matter of time till we have action, Action and ACTION! *rolls eyes*

Anyway. Yes. Your other questions. Here we go (to the best of my meagre knowledge, at least):

1) A card is considered played at declaration.

2) No, I'm pretty sure this works the same way as Magic. So, for example, if you play Tzeentch's Firestorm, you need 2 targets to declare it. If one of them goes away before it resolves, the spell still resolves. If both of them go away then the spell fizzles.

3) I think this was a miswording, because otherwise it becomes a nightmare - you'd have to keep track of when the development was played containing the hero vs. the time the "real" hero was played. I'd treat it as reading "the hero who entered play last (or was revealed last) is sacrificed". It's a good point though, feel free to send it in to James to get it fixed in the next FAQ version.

4) Didn't Flagellants get errata in the FAQ? I don't have it handy and I'm too lazy to download it again. I'll come back to that one.

5) We have discussed ID to death already.

6) 99% sure that's a mistake and the "source" there should read "target". I do not think that the source of the damage changes if the damage is redirected.

Clamatius said:

I never even noticed there were 2 cards with the same name, thats terrible.

@2 My questions 1 and 2 were really based around the same idea. My friend wanted to play a 0 cost spell that targets an attachment (Vaul's Unmaking) so he could do damage and gain resources via his support cards. I said that wasn't allowed (because in MTG was not and I didn't make sense to me for W:I either), but then when I went to find the rule to show to him, I couldn't find anything that said you couldn't do it. I laid out all the relevant passages I could find in my original post, and they seem to indicate to me that you can declare the spell and pay costs, then you check targets and cancel it if they are invalid, then check again on resolution and cancel if invalid. But in either case, if a card is "played" once its declared, the cancellation doesn't prevent you from playing the spell.

@4 New: “ Action: Sacrifice this unit to cancel the next 2 damage dealt to your capital this turn. ” Old: " Action: Sacrifice this unit to cancel the next 2 damage assigned to your capital this turn. " They changed "assigned" to "dealt" which goes against my understanding of the timing of cancellation and dealing damage. My guess is that the Flagellants are intended to be able to block, absorb dmg equal to their HP, and then also sacrifice to prevent damage to the capital. To do this, they have to be activated after damage is assigned. In the old wording, maybe you can argue that by then it is too late to cancel the "next 2" damage assigned, so the only hope is to cancel the next 2 damage dealt. Unfortunately, there is no damage cancellation step in the game after the apply step, and "dealt" doesn't trigger until after apply is complete. Gifts of Aenarion and Steel's Bane also have this "cancel damage dealt" wording.

2) You have to have the targets to declare it, so he can't remove a nonexistent attachment. That said, even if it gets cancelled it still counts as played.

4) "dealt" and "applied" when it comes to damage seem very interchangeable, honestly. The damage templating is pretty messed up on a lot of cards. In short, yes, the errata was intended so that you can block with the Flagellants, put the damage on them and then cancel the damage to the capital too via their ability. Previously that was impossible.