First, the relevant cards…

If Hanyatl's 12:3 happens to be face up on top of a players deck due to the effect of prism of Many Views, can you trigger the response of the Prophecy without actually having played the action of the Prophecy?

I assume that you can trigger the response of this particular Prophecy, but am curious what the consensus thinks.

Hellfury said:

jhaelen said:

On thing to consider though is that this card's "in play state" is face up on top of your deck. It cannot trigger its response from anywhere else that I can tell.

A problem with it "being played" is that how do you mark if it has been played or not? The state is the same when it is put face up on top of your deck from the prism just as it would be when you played the action of the prophecy.

Very good question… I would go so far as to say because it's response effect clearly states discarding it from the top of your deck as the trigger it is naming an out of play area that it can be triggered from, meaning Prism of Many Views essentially allows you to play your prophecies without having to actually draw them.

My first thought after seeing this card was "can you try to tigger random face down card on your deck?".

I wonder what "put face up on top of your deck" means. I'd understand it as the same state as with Prism.

Also this card does state that it triggers from out of play so its not a problem. I wonder if you put it face down but know its there, but i guess not as this would be really strange to trigger effect that's not even visible.

Penfold said:

I agree, any effect that causes the card to be face up on top of your deck would allow it to be played from that position. This is especially good if we see Prophecy cards with higher costs

It would also be especially devastating if an expensive Prophecy gets milled.

It is of course too early to tell if Prophecies will be something used a lot, but if it does then mill becomes just a tiny bit more relevant as a strategy.

Non mechanic wise i find prophecy cards design to be really great thematically.

I say X happens. If it does happen i get a good responce. If it doesnt happen i get punished by drawing my prophecy card again but i can keep claiming this will happen by playing it again. Really fun idea.

YEah, this is what I call inspired design. If the cards are not horribly difficult to pull off and have good, though possibly situational effects then I think they will see a fair amount of play socially. I think competitively it could be extremely interesting to see if anyone can find a way to really make them sing in a deck. The search your deck for two cards that MU gets is an example of a really sweet effect. I'm guessing that they probably have the best prophecy, since it is a mechanic introduced in their box, but I hope to see more of these as the expansions roll-out.

Hellfury said:

Regarding the marking: Well, if you cannot remember if your opponent played the Prophesy or not, I suppose, she'll be happy to put some kind of marker on it to remind you of it.

I'll postpone sending a rules question to Damon since it's still some time until the cards are published and I'm pretty sure we'll see another preview until then, and probably one focusing on new concepts like the Prophesy cards.

jhaelen said:

The exact way you portray the analogy is flawed. The Prophecy has to be in this state in order to trigger its response. Cards in hand do not have any such specific qualifiers that match this. Thus, the argument fails.

Otherwise I think it would be a good analogy as they both (hand and deck) are an area of cards out of play that can be affected by cards in play (Discard from hand, draw, discard from deck, etc.) and in both cases what was hidden is now revealed..

I agree though that there may be some new rule we are missing in order to properly adjudicate the mechanics of Prophecy and the interaction with prisms. I was only asking to see what people thought about it given the info we know about the card.

Just to be clear, you do know that I am talking about the player who owns the deck with the prophecy on top triggering the response and not the opponent triggering the ability, right?

I ask as I can see what I wrote in the OP being understood differently as I do not think I wrote that out exactly as I had intended to portray the situation.

Prophecies might have some rule explanation in booklet just as "drive insane" had in yugoth contract. It would be a really good thing to do. Though considering FFGs approach to not confusing players om not sure it will.