Hello,

I am sorry if this has already been discussed somewhere else (in this case, please redirect me).

We have just finished our 3rd League in Liege (see cenacle-hd.bb-fr.com/t2379-ligue-3-liegeoise-non-le-jeu-n-est-pas-mort#28636 , in French). We had a great fun playing different experimental decks in order to complete special achievements (such as "Win with an all-MU deck, and the like).

One of the "killer card" of the league was the rather new Stygian Eye, which reads:

"""Attach to a non-Ancient One character. Take control of attached character.
After Stygian Eye leaves play, shuffle it into its owner's deck.
Forced Response : After attached character is readied, it goes insane."""

According to the FAQ,

"""(1.7) Duration of Effects
If a triggered effect has no specified
duration, then the effects of that
ability expire at the end of the current
phase. “Put into play,” “Remove from
play,” and “ Take Control ” effects are all
an exceptions to this rule, and unless
specified by a specific duration are
considered to be permanent effects.
With “take control” effects, control of
the card in question is granted to the
most recent “take control” effect."""

This is very different from the well-known Infernal Obsession: even if the Eye is discarded/destroyed/bounced, the character does not go back under its owner control... It works the same as the Repo Man ability.

Considering that:

• the Eye has the ability to destroy itself by driving the character it is attached to insane,
• the Eye costs less than Infernal Obsession,
• there is (and, obviously, there will be) no way to counter the Eye unless by bouncing the targeted character,

I think this card is broken. It is quite possible that designers have forgotten the above FAQ excerpt.

See the rule discussion here (in French): cenacle-hd.bb-fr.com/t2368-stygian-eye

For an example of deck using the Eye (still in French): cenacle-hd.bb-fr.com/t2380-yog-miska-hastur-j-aime-beaucoup-ce-que-vous-faites

What do you make of that?

I'd say it's not overpowered. Khopesh gets shuffled back into your deck as well... and you can flat out kill people with it (assuming no Toughness). Compared to Khopesh, Stygian Eye is weaksauce.

The Kopesh isn't better than the Eye.

Kopesh, when not used with specific characters, will most likely destroy 2 opposing characters and destroy one of your own. Your opponent can destroy the Kopesh before you get to use it. Invulnerability, Toughness counter the Kopesh. To some extent, so do flood.

The Eye only fears a disrupt. Once it's on the table, that's it, your opponent lost a character and you've won one. Only Ancient Ones are off-limit. If your opponent is willing to destroy the Eye, it's only great for you. Getting the Eye back in your deck might need another cards, but so does a well used Kopesh (that is, with character without Thoughness).

+1/-1 where the Kopesh would most of the time do only -1/-2. A differential of one against one of two.

While I'm not ready to say whether the Eye is broken or not, it is definitely better than the Kopesh.

The best, of course, is to put The Kopesh on a character you've stolen with the Eye. ^^

Insanity != Removal. Delay my character a turn potentially, or remove it from the board? Hrm, I still say Khopesh >> Stygian Eye. There are TONS of ways to recover from insanity, unless you combo Stygian Eye with Granny Orne or a free Shotgun Blast or Deep One Assault... but at that point it's bad card economy.

AUCodeMonkey said:

I'm not sure you're following his point. I apply Stygian Eye to your character. I use it in stories, or whatever, it readies, goes insane. The Stygian Eye goes back into my draw pile. The character remains mine, even though it is insane. There is nothing about Stygian Eye that would indicate that control should change when the Eye is removed.

Control is one of those things that doesn't have an ending time.

Ahh, I missed the part where you take control of the attached character. Yeah, that's a little kind of nasty. Disregard my previous obstinance.

So Stygian Eye is generally better than Khopesh. But still faction-wise Hastur is not quite up to prime time, while Cthulhu is.

I asked Damon about this, he says because the control is granted by a passive effect it is only active as long as the card is in play. When it leaves play so does the passive effect granting control. He did say this ruling needed to be put into the FAQ because the current "take control" language is not very clear that it is referencing lasting effects and not passive effects. I don't have it in writing though so I don't recall exactly how he worded it but it made perfect sense. Something about the Necronomicon creating a lasting effect so its wording required the end of phase addition.

He said until it is included in the FAQ though that the proper way to rule it was permanent control.

To me, that sounds like more of an excuse for sloppy card text than something built into the rules.

As for playing the Stygian Eye provides permanent control until the FAQ is updated, I guess that's too bad for the 4 regional tournaments happening within the next few weeks.

Yipe said:

Penfold said:

How shall we play the Repo Man, in this case? Shall we assume that all stolen support go back under their owner wontrol when he leaves play? Then, RM becomes quite useless...

RM creates a lasting effect. An alteration to the game state regarding that card now independent of RM. Stygian Eye, as I understand it, and all attachments, grant control while they are in play.

Yipe you can say it is sloppy wording on the card, or you can trust that this is the way it was supposed to be and your understanding of the rules is not as complete as you believe. This could be blamed on sloppy wording in the FAQ. The card is very clear, very straight forward in its wording. The FAQ entry is not. The ruling about all effects ending at the end of the phase... *that* sounds like a FAQ entry meant to deal with sloppy wording. A way to avoid having to errata all the cards that should have said "...until the end of the phase." which is the wording on all the cards in all the other LCG's and even on many if not most of the cards in this LCG. I think this is some milk Hata spilled and Damon is trying to clean up some of that mess.

This of course is supposition. I don't know for sure, but it makes sense considering how all of their LCG's those Damon designs, as well as those he doesn't all use this same kind of wording and internal logic and rules... and we have some weird hodge-podge of stuff with this one game in this sphere.

Penfold said:

I'm under no illusions as to my understanding of the rules - it's average, at best. Clearly-written card text and a concise FAQ would go a long way toward helping CoC halfwits such as myself.

Penfold said:

I could agree with you, but the fact that _to take control_ creates a lasting effect by itself is all the problem is about. The fact that the card is an attachment changes nothing, especially because the "take control" part immediately follows the playing restriction of this support, which occurs only at the time it is played: "Attach to a non-Ancient One character. Take control of attached character."

I agree with Yipe: this is *very* poor wording.

A question for Tournament Organizers regarding Stygian Eye and the 2012 regional championships - how are you going to rule on this card for your events?

Penfold said:

This was written incorrectly, that it was NOT-permanent control, but that a FAQ inclusion was going to be made to clarify.

mzi said:

Still not seeing it. The play restriction is a passive that clearly states when it is active. "Attach to..." is not functionally different from "While committed" in regards to the passive saying exactly when it is active and for all intents and purposes could be ignored except during those times.

Got a response from Damon. The FAQ talks exclusively about TRIGGERED EFFECTS. The Stygian Eye is a passive effect, not Triggered.

So the Stygian Eye works as intuited - when it is in play control is taken, when it is removed from play control is returned to original owner.

It makes sense. Unless specified otherwise, every triggered effects are active only until the end of the phase, except "Put into play", "Removing from Play" and "Take Control". That's in the rules. What's implied from it and from Damon's response is : Every passive effects are active until the card granting them are removed from play.

I have a bunch of questions, divided in three major themes :

(1) Specifics cards :

So, the Repo-Man's passive ability isn't permanent either and the stolen supports get back to their original controller when the Repo-Man leaves play.

What about the Scholarly Plagiarist ? Does the moved success token get back too once the Plagiarist dies ?

(2) Removing from Play in passive effects :

What about passive effects "removing from play" (destroying, sacrificing or discarding) a card ? As for "take control", these effects are explicitly permanent when used in triggered effects. "Take Control", as for every other passive effects, is in effect only as long as the card granting it is in play. That's Damon's response.

Since "Take control" isn't permanent in passive effects, shouldn't we think the rest of "removing from play" effects as equally transient when used in passive effects ? Currently, I can think of O'Bannion's Ledger, Y'ha-nthlei's Statue and every Day/Night cards as cards using passive effects to destroy, sacrifice or discard. Obviously, there is something missing here, either by me or in the rules, as that's just unplayable.

(3) Passive effects with wording close to triggered effects :

About false triggered effects in Passive (passive effect with a "when") :

Does the Family of Fisher gain and keep its icons every time he commits with other Deep One ? Since that's technically not a triggered effect, there is no reason to think otherwise. Should we read "While" and not "When" ?

Same thing with Friends of Family.

Stygian says take control of attached character as its passive. If the attachment is no longer in play there is nothing to give you control.

I am not sure you can intuit all the things you wrote from Damon's ruling, especially since we didn't actually get to see the wording of his question or answer.

What I'm basically saying is that there is nothing in the rules and the FAQ about the duration of passive effects and that brings different problems with passive effects written like a triggered effect or borrowing effects usually seen in triggered effect, such as destruction or sacrifice.

That observation isn't based on Damon's clarification (it's much more a clarification than a ruling) as it doesn't exist yet. I thought all these situations were already taken care of in the rules, but since I was rightly showed I misremembered the lasting effects segment of the FAQ and there is no rules about the duration of passive effects (except, and that's a widespread convention as I can't find it anywhere in the current rules and FAQ, that the passive effect ends when the card granting it leaves play), it does bring now new questions about passive effects that should be addressed.

I suspect that attachments that delineate a specific thing on the card they are attached to and other cards passive effects cannot be treated equally.

If I had to take a bet, all those other cards being characters operate in a slightly different manner than an attachment.

In AGOT they have a clear distinction between a passive effect, a constant effect, and a definition for a lasting effect. These all seem to be wrapped up into the same broad category in this game but each is handled slightly differently because of the timing rules and wording.

I'm hoping that we'll see some of that level of precision brought to this game. The rules seem to be becoming more sophisticated (detailed timing breakdowns, and more timely responses to rules questions with more detailed answers) and while not really an increase in user "friendliness" (but certainly not a decrease) the FAQ makes it easier for me at least to understand the underpinnings of the game. Sadly it seems like it is done in spurts in between sets being released rather than the entire document rewritten (or revised) in one massively coherent sweep. Given the choice between Damon designing new sets and a piecemeal updating of the FAQ or lack of new sets and new FAQ written from the ground up, I'll take the former.

I agree : CoC needs a new rulebook, rewritten from scratch. The original LCG rulebook is a nice thing to learn the game but it's really a horrible reference rulebook. The FAQ is better written but still needs a better attention (there are still a few contradictions in it). Hopefully, a new rulebook would also help the design team to streamline their wordings : how many time a same effect is written differently from cards to cards, with sometime rules problem arising from it. Getting through 4 different chief designers didn't help either.

Passive Effects go away when the card leaves play. OK, so things like "take control" no longer apply. You ignore that language, and you no longer have control over the card. But things like "Wound" don't get un-Wounded when a card leaves. You just no longer Wound things.

I think the idea is that you don't erase history, you just stop doing the thing the card told you to do from now into the future. "Take control" is a persistent effect - as long as the Stygian Eye is in play you are allowed to take control. But a thing like wounding is a one time deal - it happened, it's over, it can't be undone.