Hi everyody,

I play LS, have a X-Wing Escort on the table and my opponent have 2 Vehicles.

X-Wing Escort : Interrupt : When this unit leaves play, your opponent must sacrifice a Vehicle unit he controls.

During the game, we had a timing problem with the card "A New Hope" that I played during my turn :

Action : Each player chooses up to 3 units he controls. Return all units not chosen to their owner's hand.

My questions :

1/ Who choose first? That is important because I can choose to return my X-Wing Escort if my oppponent decide to not return his vehicles unit in his hand.

2/ When the Interrupt of my X-Wing Escort? That was after all the units are returning in the hand of their owner? I mean, we need to finish the action before trigger the Interrupt effect?

Thanks for help!

T he active player has the opportunity to resolve the
first interrupt to a triggering condition , followed by his
opponent. In this way, players execute one interrupt at a
time until both players consecutively pass. Resolve each
interrupt completely before the next is executed.

An interrupt effect is considered to be resolved before
the triggering condition is allowed to complete -- often
cancelling or changing the outcome of the triggering
condition.

Page 24

Sounds like the sacrifice takes place before the cards are returned to hand. However, it's unclear whether it comes before, or after, the units are SELECTED to be returned.

We'll likely need official clarification on this. Presumably, when the tournament rules are released, we'll get advanced timing rules.

How is it unclear ? It clearly says, the interrupt happens first.

If I had to guess this would be the resolution:

You play A New Hope (Action: if you wrote the text down correct, each player MUST choose, is not optional), targeting 3 cards (A, B, C), your opponent targets 3 cards (A, B, C). Your X-Wing Escort (Interrupt) triggers (at the end of the ANH resolving, b/c the card must be removed from play to trigger). If your opponent has a Vehicle unit left in play, X-Wing Escort rolves, if not the effect fizzels.

Toqtamish said:

"An interrupt effect is considered to be resolved before the triggering condition is allowed to complete."

Before any part of the effect goes off? Before it's completely resolved, but after the triggering condition is met? Something else? Because there are multiple steps in the resolution of many effects, such as A New Hope, to wit:

1. The active player chooses which player has to select his units first.

2. The units to be returned to hand by the chosen player are selected.

3. The units to be returned to hand by the other player are selected.

4. The selected units return to hand.

Questions abound. First, when does X-Wing Escort's effect happen? Before step 1? Between 1 & 2? Between 3 & 4? Do the units get returned to hand one at a time, or all at once? Does one player return all his units, then the other? Does it alternate between them?

The X-Wing effect takes place after it leaves play (thus it can never trigger while it is play).. both players pick thier cards up at the same time.. It does not say player A picks up, then player B picks up.. Thus as you are picking up your x-wing and 2 other cards, I am also picking up my cards.. x-wing triggers.. Do I have a Vehicle Unit on the board? Yes, it dies.. No, effect fizzels. It does not say anything about a card in hand.

I think you guys are thnking a a little to deep on somethings. Follow the only rational logic possible.

The question with A New Hope is not so much about who picks up their cards first. Obviously, they're all picked up at the same time. What needs to be clarified is who CHOOSES their units first, because that can absolutely make a difference in what units one or another person will pick.

Toqtamish said:

"1. The active player chooses which player has to select his units first."

That is an absolutely arbitrary determination without any evidence to support it from the ruleboook. The rules simply do not cover who chooses units first when a card requires both players to choose X units.

For now, I am playing it as whoever played the action selects first, although I could see a vaild argument for making the active player select first.

This needs to be addressed in the FAQ.

The order of action of interrupts is more clear based on the rulebook. The active player's interrupts would be played first and resolve before the inactive player uses their interrupts, and all interrupts would resolve before any actions that triggered them.

And now I just made a liar out of myself…

I've chosen to make the active player choose his targets first, because that is most consistent with manner in which actions and abilities occur in this and basically any other similar game I've ever played. ALTHOUGH, I could see a valid argument for the person who played the card having to choose first.

Back to the OPs point though, the way the rules read, interrupts occur before the events that triggered them. But in order for X-Wing Escort's event to even trigger, at least part of the action from A New Hope would have to occur before the interrupt triggers; it would have at least had to have NOT been chosen as a target. The way most other CCGs/TCGs play, the targets of a card must be chosen when the card is played, regardless of whether additional actions will take precedence over the card being played, and the choosing of targets is not considered a part of the card's/action's effect. I assume this game will not stray from that model, but the rules need to specify that.

The way most interrupts occur in this game, they preclude the circumstance that triggers them from occurring, or they change some integral aspect of that circumstance (ie. the target, the damage done, etc). X-Wing Escort's ability seems as though it would be more appropriate as a reaction, but then you'd be stuck with a serious question of how you could play a reaction from a card no longer in play, and I assume that's why they made it an interrupt instead. Sticky situations like this is what led the designers of Magic to eventually adopt the "stack."

I think the way the designers would INTEND for this to resolve is that A New Hope is played, the active player chooses up to 3 targets, the opposing player chooses up to 3 targets. All units not chosen return to hands. Interrupt from X-wing Escort triggers assuming it wasn't chosen, opponent sacrifices a vehicle unit (if he has one left, obviously). The way the rules are written, however, one certainly would not be able to glean this to be the order of resolution.

You know, after all that, something occurred to me. X-Wing Escort shouldn't have the ability it has as an interrupt, nor should it even be a reaction. It doesn't NEED to be either. It should simply say on the card, "When this unit leaves play, your opponent must sacrifice a Vehicle unit he controls," or "When this unit leaves play, you may force your opponent to sacrifice a Vehicle unit he controls." Then, the rules could be left exactly as they are, and there would be no conflict whatsoever…unless you apply the same concept to Leia Organa, that is, another card with a seemingly unnecessary labeling of a leaves play effect as an interrupt.

The leaves play interrupt on False Lead seems absolutely appropriate, however, as it could actually prevent a victory condition from occurring when the interrupt is triggered and resolved in the manner prescribed by the current rules. But if you resolve False Lead the way that X-Wing Escort is seemingly intended to resolve, you could end up with a scenario where the dark side wins a game by reaching 12 on the Death Star before the interrupt effect resolves.

Surge1000 said:

You are joking right. The stuff I posted earlier in this thread was taken right out of the rulebook.

EDIT: What you have quoted and have attributed to me, was said by Xenu's Paradox .

Interrupts do just what they say, interrupt another in game happening. They jump in line ahead of the resolution of things.

So here's how I'm playing this one.

1. A new hope is played
2. Both players choose 3 units to stay in play. At this point all non-chosen units leave play. This is ONE effect, but it doesn't resolve yet because…
3. UH OH! Here comes an interrupt. Because the X-Wing Escort would have left play, he gets to jump out ahead of the effect that caused him to leave play, and make the other player sac a vehicle.
4. At this point #2 resolves. The 3 chosen units stay in play, all others are removed…. finally!

Toqtamish said:

Yeah, I did a bad editing job on my cut and paste and attributed a statement to you that clearly was not yours. I'm really sorry about that. I stand by my statement regarding the active player choosing who gets to select his units first, however. That is in no way supported by the rulebook.

zmobie said:

We all agree that interrupts are supposed to resolve before the effects that trigger them. The problem with how you've timed out the order of effect resolution is that if you play strictly by the rules as they are written, the interrupt effect of X-Wing Escort would resolve BEFORE the effect that triggered it, that is, before it leaves play, which is occurring simultaneously as "all non-chosen units leave play," assuming X-Wing Escort is one of the units leaving play. I would argue then that the opponent sacrifices a vehicle unit (if X-Wing Escort's owner chooses to exercise the interrupt), before all non-chosen units (including X-Wing Escort) return to their owners' hands.

Now, some of the confusion that other people are having is that it seems that people are assigning "each player chooses up to 3 units" as an effect of A New Hope, but I'm arguing that choosing targets should be considered tantamount to the "cost" of playing a card, just as spending resouces to play that card would be. It MUST be interpreted that way for this scenario to work out at all because otherwise you would have an X-Wing Escort trying to force an opponent to sacrifice a vehicle unit before targets are even technically chosen by A New Hope.

In any case, I stand by my argument that most "leaves play effects" would be better off not as interrupts but as simple conditions predicated upon that unit leaving play. It would certainly make the timing rules seem much less capricious.