Hello people, yesterday i have a problem whith this card, i tell you the situation,

A player remove all my icons of a character with only M and P with the scourge, and he discard Dark Star to give my character I simbol, i said that this can´t be do it because you can´t give a simbol than a character don´t have with the scourge, this situation had been clarified for a spanish player, but the other player insist that it´s possible. I hope ktom read this and clarify this strange situation.

You are correct. The Scourge reads:

Any Phase: Kneel The Scourge to choose 1 character. That character loses a Military, an Intrigue, and a Power icon until the end of the phase.
Response: After a character loses an icon from The Scourge , choose and discard 1 card from your hand to have that character gain that icon until the end of the phase. Any player may trigger this effect.

While he can discard Darkstar to trigger the Response (thus putting him into play), the Response is expressly limited to giving back icons that were taken away by The Scourge.

Amuk said:

Thanks, its very sad that the other player told me that him had reason because it was a judge of Stanleck…….

As an additional backing, you are correct Orion. You cannot return something that was never taken in the first place.

But I can also understand the opinion of your opponent. I think ktom has to clarify some things on how constant effects work.

A character without icons is targeted by an effect that makes it lose additional icons. Then you trigger an effect that lets this character regain such icon.

So "gaining an icon w/o technically having that icon afterwards" is still called "gaining an icon".
Therefore the opposite of this situation, which is "having no icon and then losing that icon", is called "losing an icon".

Does the number of icons you eventually have not affect the process of losing icons?

Are constant effects only applied if they have a technical effect?

Or is applying the constant effect enough to say that it was applied?

When you have a situation like this with the total is what matters, if you start with 0 icons and have 1 of each removed you still have zero icons, if you add 1 icon to the character, 0-1+1 = 0, just as with strength you can never functioanally have less then 0, but all effects are counted and added each time the total is checked.

That's not the problem here but thanks for your help.

It was just brought to my attention that the original poster's scenario happened at Worlds in front of ktom, Damon, and Nate and was never questioned. I don't know if that means we have been incorrect on the ruling in the past or not, but I guess it is a legitimate move.

Bomb said:

Considering that Damon was spending pretty much all of his time with Chthulu and Netrunner, I have a hard time believing this happened "in front of Damon," too.

In fact, from your description, it sounds like someone used the "Scourge + Darkstar" thing in a game, no judge said "you can't" and no player called a judge over to ask "can you." If that is actually the case, you cannot say that the ruling you have from the board has been "overruled" and that this is now a legitimate rule because:

1. Judges are not scrutinizing your game as they walk past, even if they stay and watch for a bit. You cannot be sure that the "I discard the Darkstar to give you back your intrigue icon" situation was fully understood or appreciated by the judge to be returning an icon that the character did not effectively have at the time.
2. Even if the judge did understand, 95 times out of 100, they are not going to answer a question that wasn't asked. Judges will not correct your mistakes as they are walking by, especially if there are triggered effects involved.

So, unless someone actually asked Nate directly "can he discard the Darkstar to give the character back an icon that was lost in the '0 - 1' sense?" and Nate answered "yes," (and your third-hand description doesn't sound like that was the situation at all), you cannot say this ruling has been overturned.

It is still not a legitimate move.

ktom said:

I apologize ktom. It was not my intention to implicate you specifically. I was not there nor did I observe any of the match ups online to see the scenario happen.

ktom said:

I apologize, I don't really know.

ktom said:

I had no idea that you do not intervene on any game unless a card or rule has been brought up in question as to being played correctly. I sincerely apologize for that assumption.

I believe the same exact ruling you are stating above. I just wanted to make sure it was indeed still correct because all 3 of you are the most credible authorities we have and I just wanted to make sure when I see The Scourge that it is played correctly… Again, my apologies…

I'll add to the non-intervention stance they take. I was playing Netrunner with Lucas (the designer of the game) watching the entire time. During the whole game, my opponent forget to trigger one of his passive abilities that caused him to discard a card. Lucas didn't say anything. The next game he watched was the finals. The same thing happened, except my opponent's opponent was not particularly friendly towards Lucas. Lucas called out every time my original opponent forgot to use his ability and forced the other guy to discard several cards.

Lessons learned: One, don't expect judges to intervene on/correct your play mistakes unless you ask them something directly. Two, don't piss off the judge. They may then decide to only intervene on play mistakes that benefit your opponent, LoL.

Bomb said:

Bomb said:

The topic of "role of the judge" is brought up on the boards every so often, usually in the context of sportsmanship, and what is the proper sportsmanship for the people who are supposed to be policing it in the players?

mdc273 said:

In Lukas' defense, judges will often be a bit more vocal during the finals. (But Lesson #2 still stands.)