Yoga Short Kick reads: "E Discard 1 momentum: For the rest of this turn, your opponent must discard 1 random card before they commit foundations to make a control check succeed."

Now, I know from the whole Bison* debacle that, when you attempt to play a card, the card stays in your hand until all costs have been paid and a control check has been made. Soooo... I whack my opponent with YSK, but they half-block {no foundations needed} and attempt to reverse with Feline Spike. But - oh no! - they only flip a 6, and start turning foundations sideways. YSK has a problem with the foundations turning sideways, so we decide to roll a die to determine the card my opponent will discard. FSpike's number comes up and is discarded. WTFHAPPENS?

Before anyone says, "But the TR says that doesn't work!"

• 302.2 To attempt to play a card, a player reveals it from their hand and makes a control check. If their check is equal to or greater than the difficulty of the card they are attempting to play the player puts that card into their card pool to the right of any other cards played this turn, then they have played that card.

In other words, the card is revealed, the control check is made, if the control check passes then (and only then) place the card into the card pool. There's a lot more text on what happens when you fail the control check, most importantly the sentence "If they does so {commit foundations to pass the check} they are successful and continue on as normal {by placing the card into their pool etc}" The card never leaves the hand until the control check has been passed. And that's when Yoga Short Kick jumps in -- between making the control check, and passing it.

So... the way I see it, there's a couple of things that could happen from the above example:

1. The Spiker attempted a control check, and Yoga Short Kick made it so that even if he committed foundations to pass, he would be unable to place the card into his pool. So he either fails the control check {and ends his turn, if it were his turn}, or commits to pass and then treats the Spike as though it had been discarded from his pool, like Cody*** would.
2. After the control check has been made and the attempted card discarded, play simply resumes as though nothing ever happened. {the Spiker cannot attempt another reversal, and cannot commit foundations for the control check}. If it were his turn, the turn would not end.
3. Ditto #2, but since a control check was made for an illegal card, the card discarded for the control check is shuffled back into the deck.
4. Ditto #3, but since no reversal was ever legally attempted, the Spiker can attempt another reversal.
5. ??????

Help me Rules Arbiters, you're my only hope.

I do believe that cards you are attempting to play are put in a "special zone". Basically when you are making a control check to play a card, that card goes to a middle zone between your hand and the card pool (represented by putting the card down infront of you). It therefore does not count as being in your hand (or your card pool), until it is played or not. So in this instance, you could not make your opponent discard his feline spike.

babelfish666 said:

This is exactly how it works. More relevant example of this is Zhao Daiyu. She can't make you discard your last card before you get to play it.

inb4peoplewhineabouttheTR

Tagrineth said:

Maybe nobody'd whine if it made some goddamned sense.

This had **** well better be resolved in the new TR.

And to be frank, playing against Zhao, I'd really like to be able to discard the card I'm trying to play on occasion. As it stands her ability is basically "Commit: your opponent has -2 handsize."

Tagrineth said:

So Tag, does this mean that I can bypass Zhao's ability by, for example, playing a jank attack that she doesn't want to hack, dumping all but 1 card to Dark Hado, and then playing my attack that actually matters? {so her discard ability will have no cards to discard}

Come to think of it, that should've been obvious anyway. This is a ruling that actually makes sense! God does exist!