Kind folk,

I have a rules question.

In the FAQ it clearly states that when an action (an event or a card ability) has the template ' "do x" TO "do y" ' the "do x" part is considered an (additional) cost to play the card / use the effect.
As an example: when playing Pulled Under, one should pay the card cost (0 in this case), and then exhaust one character TO blahblah. Since exhausting the character is part of the cost, that implies that 1) if the effect is canceled, the cost is still payed and 2) you can only exhaust a character you control to pay the cost.

What to make then of Bootlegging Operation ?
When I opened the pack and saw it for the first time I was like "Wow, a good way to get rid of, say, an opposing Guardian Pillar, and drawing a card in the process as well !"
(also see Professor's post indicating the same, here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=35&efcid=4&efidt=362424 )

However, now i'm thinking that, because of the "do x" TO "do y"-template on this card, you can only use the ability from BO when it's attached to a location you control ... Am I understanding this right, and does BO only make sense when playing it on a location you control ? That definately makes BO less playable (unless you come up with something nifty like putting it on your own Laundromat, though that entails draining 3x a domain of 2 just to net you 1 extra card ... not so impressive), than Forced Foreclosure, which simply steals a location.

Am i interpreting the rules and the card right ? Or is Bootlegging Operation also usable to exhaust an opponents location ?

Kind regards,

Thomas

Bootlegging Operation
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Type: Support
Cost: 2
Subtype: Attachment
Game text: Attach Bootlegging Operation to a Location support card.
Action: exhaust attached location card to draw 1 card from the bottom of your deck.

Pulled Under
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Type : Event
Cost : 0
Subtype :
Game Text : Action: Exhaust a character with at least 2 T icons to choose and destroy an exhausted non-Ancient One characte

The rules never specify that payment must be done with cards you control. It does clarify that Payment costs come from draining your own domains, but nothing about other forms of payment. Look at Antarctic Wind for example:

Exhaust a character that is not committed to a story. Then, give that character 1 wound for each Polar event in your discard pile.

If you were limited to exhausting only your own characters this card would be effectively useless. Clearly the intent of this card is to exhaust (and subsequently wound) an opponent's character.

By the way - I'm drawing a blank. Which part of the FAQ covers the "Pay X to do Y"?

I think when we had this debate some months back though, Professor, that everyone kind of agreed (in the end) that you DID have to pay "actual costs" for things with cards you control....no ?

Specifically, Chris Long - former Champ - over on BGG forum commented that of course you could not Exhaust an opponents character, and then destroy another (of his) character(s)...in playing Pulled Under.

He said he's never, in all his years of competitive play, seen Pulled Under played (or allowed by judges to be played) in that fashion. Someone else pointed out that if you allowed that - where would it end ...you could argue that cards which say "Pay-1 to choose and wound a character" - for example - could be done by you draining an OPPONENTS domain in order to "pay 1" since, "the rules don't SAY you have to pay costs with your own characters"....

The conclusion reached was that - clearly - for the game to actually function in any sensible way - you HAD to accept (even if not 100% clear in rules as written) that costs did indeed have to be paid from cards / domains / things you controlled...or the game would become ridiculous, really quickly.

Thoughts ? Am I recalling our big discussion of this properly ?

TheProfessor said:

Your example, however, is not an example of a payment. In order to qualify as a payment it needs to say 'pay x to y'. It's just two separate effects, the second being dependent on the first.

The FAQ section clarifying costs is called '(v1.1) Paying Costs' (doh!) and can be found on page 9 of the current FAQ (i.e. v1.2).

I agree, though, that it would probably make sense to add a rule/clarification regarding the payment of costs using only cards you control. I'm not sure if we've always played it that way. I wonder how many cards there are that could be abused in such a way. The majority of paying costs seems to require exhausting the card itself or the card it's attached to. In the latter case, the card can typically only be attached to a card you control.

The rule book doesn't give us an explicit rule about using your own domains, but in the example on page 8 it does say:

Example : During his operations phase, Darin wishes to play a “Bag Man” from his hand. To do so, he must drain one of his domains that has at least 3 resources attached, one of which must be a Syndicate fac- tion resource “}” (“Bag Man” is part of the Syndicate faction).

So we get the "...MUST drain one of HIS domains..." in the example, which in my mind makes it a rule.

Good point that my example does not have the crucial "to" in it, which makes it a payment.

OK, so suppose I play Crowbar on one of my characters:

Attach to a character you control.
Action : Exhaust attached character and return Crowbar to your hand to wound a character with skill 1 or lower.

Then someone gains control over the character holding the Crowbar (via Necronomicon, or Blind Submission, or whatever).

As we know, I still control the Crowbar although I do not control the character.

Can I exhaust the character my opponent controls to wound a character with skill 1 or lower?

An answer of "yes" would mean that I can make the payment with someone else's character.

I also point to many cards that say things like "Exhaust a character you control to..." Why would it specify the control if it was mandatory to the rules?

e.g. A Call for Help:

Action: Exhaust a character you control with an (A) icon to search your deck for an [Agency] character and put it into your hand. Then, shuffle your deck.

TheProfessor said:

At least, that's what I thought so far

Thanks for your responses ...

So basically the answer comes down to: 'we really don't know, since it doesn't state anywhere that non-domain-drain costs in the form of 'do x TO do y' can only be paid with cards you control, though the general intuition seems to point that way anyway.

I'll post the question to the FAQ thread then, and hope there'll be a ruling in the next FAQ.

Any thoughts on Bootlegging Operation in particular ?
When taken as a given that costs can indeed only be paid by using (draining / exhausting) cards / domains you control, do you feel that Bootlegging Operation was given the wrong template, and should receive an errate for it to follow the Antarctic Wind template (two different effects divided by a '.', so that BO could indeed be used to exhaust an opponents Guardian Pillar (or whatever) ? Or do you think that my and Proffersor's first thoughts about BO were just plain wrong, and that's BO should only be allowed to be played (usefully) on cards you control?

Kind regards,

Thomas

When we asked Chris Long about this at BGG - he basically said the reason that there are "multiple wordings used" by FFG on cards which are effectively similiar - like "exhaust a character" or "exhaust a character you control" - is that they have "terrible proofreading // card writing skills" (appx).

Basically, he attributed a lot of the confusion to FFG not properly looking over their card-texts and making sure they are uniform and 100% clear - AS WELL AS CONSISTENT - with cards previously (and to be released in the future) that have the same type of effects or "ways to be played".

Instead, you get things like Pulled Under and / or A Cry for Help - which makes one think - "well, if Pulled Under doesn't have the "a character you control" text on it - then surely you can exhaust an OPPONENT's character to use its "destruction effect". - This "makes sense" on the surface, but Chris says he's never seen or heard of it being "allowed to be played that way" at any Tournaments - etc. - that he's been at over the years.

So...again....FFG's screw-up in proper proofing / word-checking - results in situations like this where we are genuinely unclear as to how they "want us to play" a particular card.

- To Professor : yeah, in the case you mentioned- you WOULD actually be able to Exhaust a character - temporarily under your opponents control - as a consequence of activating your Crowbar (still on that character). In a sense, the Crowbar "becomes" a sort of "Curse" - effect - hampering the character (from your opponents perspective) instead of helping him.

- Also good point on Antarctic Wind...excellent point really....if you played it that you can only Exhaust your own Characters (since you control them) - then A-Wind would be utterly useless. So how does that square with the Interpretation of Pulled Under by Chris and many other Vets ? I think I'll re-ask the question over at BGG - citing your A-Wind example Professor, then reply back here to let everyone know what Chris et al - thought.

Rosh87 said:

Uhmmm... exactly the opposite is true right ?
Since crowbar follows the 'do x TO do y'-template (namely: exhaust attached character and return crowbar to your hand TO wound a character with skill 1 or lower), the exhausting (and returning to hand part) is part of the cost . It is not as you see a sort of consequence or effect . Therefore you cannot use it in the case you lost control of a character that you attached crowbar (which you still control) to.
When you lose control of the attached character you still control the crowbar, but you simply cannot activate it, since you're not able to pay for the cost.

Rosh87 said:

Again, i'm not following.
Antarctic Wind was actually a bad example, since the text on antarctic wind doens't follow the template at all. It says: 'Exhaust a character that is not committed to a story. Then, give that character 1 wound for each Polar event in your discard pile.' There is not a 'cost' and an 'effect', divided by the 'TO'-template. There's simply two effects, so there's really no reason for confusion here.
Indeed it would be strange to interpret as if AW could only be played on your own guy, not only for 'card usability' reasons, but simply because there' s really nothing on the card indicating that it could only be played on characters you control. That's the whole point. :-)
There's nothing to 'square' here with the Interpretation of Pulled Under, since that one DOES follow the template, while AW doesn't.

The question was, and still is:
1). GIVEN that the 'do x TO do y'-template (which PU has, Crowbar has, Bootlegging Operation has, but AW doens't have) indicates a cost (which we know as a fact because of the FAQ, as noted earlier in the thread), then does this imply that these cost can only be 'paid' with cards you control (as would seem intuitive to most of us, including Chris Long at BGG, but hasn't been officially verified) ?

2). Do you all feel (this is a matter of opinion more than of a simple rules-question): that if the answer to 1) would indeed be positive (ie: only use your own cards to pay for costs in the 'do x TO do y'-template), do you think Bootlegging Operation is worded accurately, or was given this template by accident, and should be reworded to follow the, for example, Antarctic Wind style (with two different effects, instead of a do 'cost' TO do 'effect' ).

All this was already stated earlier in the thread, so i don't really understand your post ... ? ;-)

And @ the Professor:

Thanks for your responses, we're clearly on the same page (pun intended).

I don't think you can allow Crowbar to work and not Bootlegging - there is no difference in the language.

As to Long's argument that FFG is sloppy, well that's just an opinion, not an official stance.

Okay - I posted on BGG - and here is what Chris and the others said there.

-

(Daniel Ach posted)

Rosh87 wrote:
In that case, EVEN IN THE updated FAQ entry for Pulled Under, FFG did NOT specify that you must Exhaust a "character you control" in order for the desired effect to resolve.

This is the crux of the argument, and I agree that FFG should clarify this in the next FAQ. However, given the debate before, this seems to be settled for the moment by appealing to Collective Knowledge.

Rosh87 wrote:

Clearly you are allowed - and MEANT - to exhaust an OPPONENTS character - in order to produce the effect of Wounding that character, with the A-Wind. But ....does that entirely square with the way Chris and others have interpreted Pulled Under ?

Yes, the cards can be inconsistent, but this is pretty simple. Page 9 of the FAQ where it says "Costs are any resources paid in order to play a card, as well as anything before the “to” part of a card ability." In this case Pulled Under, Crowbar, and A Call for Help all have costs. It so happens that the cost for these is "exhaust a character". Since costs can only be payed by the controller, you must exhaust a character you control in order to get the effect (i.e. whatever comes after "to".) Antarctic wind does not stipulate a cost. There is no phrase that includes the "Do X to get X" structure. This is simply an action and therefore you can exhaust ANY character, including an opponent's. The logic applied to Pulled Under then, is inappropriately applied.

Rosh87 wrote:

This again seems in direct conflict with the "majority" interpretation of Pulled Under, and the other cards mentioned.

For the crowbar example, it doesn't conflict. This is a very clever detail you picked up on, and works just like you described because the card says so. If it said instead, "Action: Exhaust a character to wound a character with skill 1 or lower" then you would have to exhause one of your own characters, but since it says attached character, then you get to exhaust the character your opponent just took control of. It's a pretty good deterrent it seems to me.

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(Chris Long posted)

danach81 wrote:
Antarctic wind does not stipulate a cost. There is no phrase that includes the "Do X to get X" structure. This is simply an action and therefore you can exhaust ANY character, including an opponent's. The logic applied to Pulled Under then, is inappropriately applied.

Daniel is absolutely right, there is no conflict here because Antarctic Wind has no cost, and therefore the comparison is invalid.

However...

Rosh87 wrote:
For the crowbar example, it doesn't conflict. This is a very clever detail you picked up on, and works just like you described because the card says so. If it said instead, "Action: Exhaust a character to wound a character with skill 1 or lower" then you would have to exhause one of your own characters, but since it says attached character, then you get to exhaust the character your opponent just took control of. It's a pretty good deterrent it seems to me.

In the situation Josh describes, the Crowbar is now essentially useless. Even though you retain control of the Crowbar, you cannot activate it, because you cannot pay the cost of exhausting the character.

The only thing that FFG perhaps needs to add to the FAQ is a blatant statement that you can only pay costs with your own cards. But trust me, this is already a rule. If you know that, there are no inconsistencies in the card rulings. Only sloppy card templating.

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radynski (Chris Long) wrote:
In the situation Josh describes, the Crowbar is now essentially useless. Even though you retain control of the Crowbar, you cannot activate it, because you cannot pay the cost of exhausting the character.

Interesting...so even if it says "exhaust attached character," it won't enable you to use it to pay the cost. I didn't think of it that way, but it makes sense since you no longer control the character so can't exhaust it as the cost.

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(Chris Long)

Yes, and this has been the case since the very beginning of the CCG. I remember when the first expansion came out and there was a card called Sniper Rifle which read something like "Exhaust attached character to choose and wound a character with skill equal to or lower than attached character."

The question that was raised at the time was whether or not you could attach it to your opponent's character, and then exhaust one and wound another. The ruling at the time, directly from FFG, was that you can't do that because you must pay for costs with your own characters.

So, it looks like for Bootlegging Operation, until we get an official ruling or errata that will definitively announce the intent of this card, it seems that it can only be placed on your own location that subsequently must be exhausted to gain the effect. It does make this card less playable, and seems to go against what many have intuited as the intent of this card, especially considering its cost. To align with this intent, it seems the text should be:

Attach Bootlegging Operation to a Location support card. Action: Exhaust the attached location. Then, draw a card from the bottom of your deck.

However, it may be that it is meant to attach to your own location (although it can clearly attach to any location, but would then be useless for the ability).

Yep, I agree ...

For the time being, i've swapped out the BO's in favor of Forced Foreclure.
We'll see what the FAQ brings !