Ok, i got confused. Situation:

I play a dedicated buttler and discard a serpent from yoth from my hand to let the butler stay around. It always seemed to me, reading the text from Serpent of Yoth, my opponent has to sacrifice a character. I was told today that this is not true.

But if this indeed is not true why does FFG use 2 different wordings, that is "enters a discard pile" (muddy waters) and "enters a discard pile from play" (arcane hunter). Why add the wording "from play" if it always should be from play?

Also the latest faq mentions that the term "enters play" is an all-encompassing term and does include "put into play". The latest term bypasses all cost and play restrictions. Why should the term "enters discard pile" not be all-encompassing?

If indeed my opponent does not have to sacrifice a character when discarding serpent from yoth after playing a dedicated butler I'm afraid another combo in my deck is useless:

Can I play unbound - discard four characters (which after discarding enter the discard pile), destroy an opponents character with printed skill 4 or lower (using Unbound) and after that sacrifice my professor Nathanial Peaslee by using Ritual of Summoning for example. Then, still in the same phase I pay 2 to get my professor back and also the 4 characters I discarded when playing Unbound. My opponen does also gets his character back which i destroyed with Unbound. It seems to me this must be working. Its a nice combo but it needs two high cost cards on the table (professor and ritual of summoning). Furthermore i have to have an Unbound in my hand and lots of characters to discard. Does not seems a broken combo to me but now I'm doubtful if this is possible.

Sounds quite reasonable to me.

Originally this was ruled that a card doesn't have a text box (thus no effect) unless it at one point entered play.

However, that was silly and was eventually changed to rule the other way.

Effects that activate via entering the graveyard, regardless of how it got there, triggers unless it has a stipulation.

Based on what I read you are correct. Entering the discard pile from the hand, domains, play, or your deck will trigger Serpent's ability.

As for Mr... ahem. Professor Peaslee. Your combo is legit. The only card that has to be in play first is Peaslee himself. As for every other character, doesn't matter how they got in a discard pile.

Ok, ... I need to retract some of what I said.

I was half wrong.

Your combo still works. However the Serpent does not.

from the latest FAQ:

(v1.0) Card States
If a card has an ability that triggers in
response to said card entering the discard
pile, that effect does not resolve or
trigger if that card had blank text due to
a card effect, was attached to a domain
as a resource, was discarded from hand,
or was insane before it entered the
discard pile.

This rule needs to be abolished. It makes things to... wierd. I get blanking a text box while under a domain, and stipulating that certain effects don't work unless you put them in play... but... Serpent should trigger. It doens't. What threw me off was that aparently local sheriff and visiting author can accoridng to Damon's latest ruling at worlds. Which still kinda confuses me. I agree with him, but this just seems to undermine it. Technically its two different situations. Serpent is triggering off of the entering the discard pile... sheriff is activating from simply being in the discard pile. (it even specifically mentions this in the faq) I get the difference, but... sigh.

Gah this rule needs to go. Serpant should trigger, but currently it doesn't. We have cards with the wording of "from play" and cards without. Under this rule they act the same. Which ... is just another wording inconsistancy that has plagued this game for years.

Unclean, unclean, UNCLEAN!!!

Also.. for the record... aparently Serpent does trigger if it entered your discard pile from you deck. Figure that one out...

Magnus Arcanis said:

Yeah, that looks like an unintended omission. I don't think anything at all should be triggered if cards are discarded directly from your deck.

Thanks for all the answers. Hmm, didnt catch the "card states" quote in the faq. But yes, this implies Serpent indeed does not work. Too bad.
It does however seems weird because of the different (inconsistent) wording which is around.

But I'm pleased that Professor Beaslee still works. This makes my deck not totally useless.

jhaelen said:

Despite the ruling we do have, I'm incline to believe the exact opposite. I think all "enter the discard" effect should trigger unless they have a stipulation.

Once the card is in the discard pile its in a different card state than before. Since a card can use an effect if it references it's card state (in the discard pile), it shouldn't matter where it came from. Unless of course the ability would say otherwise.

This isn't how it works right now, but I've already suggested a change to Damon. Hopefully it'll pass as i belive it would make things cleaner and a bit more streamlined to how games normally interperet such card effects.

Magnus Arcanis said:

Well, considering that's how I played it a while, I definitely wouldn't want to see this change.

Do you know what happens if one player uses a milling deck? Let me tell you, it ain't pretty!

Every discard turns into a potential booby-trap; all kinds of uncontrollable things can happen. It was after one such game when I thought I must be doing something wrong and started rereading the rules to find to my relieve that I was playing it wrong and there should only be any effect if those cards had been in play before.

jhaelen said:

Could you please tell me what tings did turn into a booby trap at the moment your opponent discards? I cant find much cards else then Serpent from Yog. Maybe Muddy waters also helps your opponent a bit but not that much.

I did a search at cthulhu.dbler.com and almost every card that stated "enters your discard pile" also states the words "from play"
http://cthulhu.dbler.com/index.php?view=dS&tS=%22enters+your+discard+pile%22&rVr=&pTs=0&OldOne=&tX=1&exP=&cT=

I know that milling an opponents deck causes a yog or shub deck to get access to his huge discard pile. Also some cards do benefit from a large discard pile (the old yog for instance) but most of the times that can be avoided with Snow graves. Most important of all is that all these cards do not fire at the moment you let your opponent discard.

After doing a quick search... theres no way in the world this ruling would warp anything. I thought there was more, but aparently there is only 1 single card in the whole game that would act differently if my proposal would come to pass.

Serpent of Yoth

He is the only card in the entire game who has an "enter your discard pile" effect that would be treated slightly differently. Everything else would remain the way it was.

Best ways to utlize the Serpent would be with Magnus, a self mill deck (which you can already do), or to pay other resource sac or discard costs. None of these immediately jump out at me as game breaking.

Besides, even if it would. It would be a rather easy erratta no?

Not to mention, i think this would be a good step in cleaning up the confusion about how text boxes work while a card is not in play. Unless someone shows me a really good reason to not change this FAQ rule... my suggestion seems to make things the most simple and the most sense. Suppose I should write up my own entry and submit it, but I figured I'd leave that to Damon. Meh, I dunno.

Darkman said:

I still don't feel comfortable about changing the rule like that. I fear side-effects that may be overlooked.

It's always tricky to introduce rules or cards that have an effect with the potential to affect every card - present and future - in unforeseen ways. The Doppelganger was such a case. The Silver Key is such a card, as is the Descendant of Eibon. The forthcoming Hidden Agenda (Curse of the Jade Emperor, Silver Twilight) is another potential headache:

Hidden Agenda
4 cost | Event
Loyal.
Action: When this phase ends, immediately repeat this phase.

When this cards becomes official you basically have to go through every phase and game situation and consider its effect on every card that has an effect having to do with phases or a perticular phase.

It's extremely difficult when designing new cards to keep all of these game-changing effects in mind.

I don't see why the rule needs to change. What is hard to get about card effects only triggering from being in play and responses on a card leaving play only trigger when said card left play. Seems like a pretty easy rule to understand and to explain.

Honestly if you want to go about simplifying rules this is not anywhere near the top of the list of things that should be revised, overturned, or modified.

Penfold said:

I agree. This is no where near the top of the list. Especially when it would only (currently) effect one card.

Needing to change and should change I suppose are relative. As it stands now it I think it 'should' change. Its cleaner, and easier to understand for everyone.

I think we all agree that the omission of "from the deck" was an error. Otherwise it makes no sense for the Serpent's ability to trigger when hes discard from the deck, but not while he was insane, discard from the hand, or destroyed/sacifice as a resource. So if nothing else that should change.

If that were changed, we would have "enters the discard pile from play" and "enters the discard pile" mean the exact same thing. Which is rather silly to have two different wordings mean exactly the same thing. Chalk it up to a an incosistancy as the reason, it doesn't matter. Fact is we have clearly two different abilities that do the exact same thing.

Serpent of Yoth's ability not mentioning from play should be treated differently in my opinion. Since it did not mention a zone that it had to exit from, it shouldn't need a specific zone/card state to have exited from. Only thing stopping it is a strange rule that basically says because the repsonse window for it to trigger closed before it could trigger meaning that even though it its in the discard pile it doesn't regain its repsonse until after the next action window is open. Which by then its too late for any action other than an Action. Which is... sorta what Damon said give or take and how I pretty much interpret the current ruling. Honestly, it makes very little sense to me to basically have a time delay on when a card can and can't have a text box...

However, as a side effect. If the ruling would be removed/changed then we would still have other rulings to use. Mainly meaning that cards that entered the discard pile while they were insane (or blanked) would then trigger. Which makes the most sense. As when a card enters the discard pile its in a new zone/card state. Since the card's ability specifically mentions that it triggers while in this discard pile and presumeably that its no longer insane/blanked while in that new zone/card state then it should be allowed to trigger (however, most cards have "from play" so it would only work if the card actually entered from play insane (or blanked) or not).

This would have more of a dramatic effect, but not much.

Really though, this all stems from CoC being not sure on how to handle its' text boxes. Which is a far more important problem. Never-the-less, having no text box shouldn't stop an ability from triggering when it specifcially says that it can after a card switches zones causing previous condition(s) to no longer be in effect.