MasterJediAdam said:

I remain skeptical that intent is matched, mainly because the majority of units with protect also has shielding (and almost viceversa, as well).

Nonetheless, I concur that Rules as written this appear to be the most correct interpretation, thus that's how it should be played.

Best

Geki

geki said:

They're meant to synergize; it's just that you're supposed to put the shield token on the unit that you want to Protect rather than on the unit with Protect.

This sounds bad, but now that I have played a few games, I have a new way to think about the Protect trait and shielding/shield tokens:

1) Characters with the Protect trait take damage instead of the intended target. Therefore, Guardian of Peace, which specifies it can protect characters , can take damage instead of its intended target by whatever source - say an action card or the result of a strike.

2) The controlling player of the card with the protect trait cannot reassign damage to that card greater than its remaining damage capacity.

3) Shield tokens do not increase the damage capacity of the unit it is shielding. This means that with Guardian of Peace, it would not increase its damage capacity from 2 to 3.

4) Removing shield tokens from a shielded unit happen at the interrupt level, as the triggering condition is the assignment of damage.

Therefore:

1) In the case of Guardian of Peace, the owner cannot reassign more than two damage to her if she is undamaged. If the source of damage is greater than two, the remaining affects the opponent's intended target.

2) If Guardian of Peace has a shield token, the owner may chose to reduce the total amount (which if undamaged is two) of damage to one. If Guardian does not have a shield token, she will be immediately destroyed, as she has taken terminal damage.

Applicable card text and rulebook text:

Guardian of Peace says: Shielding. Protect Character . (If a Character card you control would be damaged, you may place the damage on this unit instead.)

Rulebook pg 23 [emphasis added by me]

Using Shields says: A player may discard a card’s shield token to prevent one damage or one focus token that would be placed on the shielded card by an attack or an enemy effect (i.e. it cannot prevent damage and focus tokens placed by its controller’s costs or effects).

Rulebook pg 25 [emphasis added by me]

Protect [trait] says: A card with the “Protect” keyword may take damage instead of any friendly card in play with the specified trait. In other words, if a friendly card in play with the trait specified by a “Protect” effect would take damage, the controller may instead place any amount of that damage on the card with the “Protect” keyword. ( Damage beyond a protecting unit’s remaining damage capacity may not be re-assigned to the protecting unit .)

Shielding says: When a card with the “Shielding” keyword is declared as either attacker or defender, its controller may immediately place one shield token on any friendly unshielded participating unit, or to the engaged objective card, if unshielded.

MasterJediAdam said:

I think most of us agree on all of these points. The main counterargument hinges upon the Protect trait making the controller of the unit with Protect the new source of damage ("controller may instead place any amount of that damage…player who controls these two cards may instead choose to place the damage"). That would render shield unusable since it only works on attacks or enemy effects.

I think it will be a pretty straightforward ruling, and the usage of the word instead in the rules led me to not even question the source of damage post-Protect until I read the discussion here. Nonetheless, it would have been nice if the rulebook explicitly classified Protect damage as redirected damage.

Surge1000 said:

It actually uses the word reassigned; is there a qualitative difference between reassigned and redirected?

MasterJediAdam said:

Not really. Again, I didn't think there was any controversy at all, but the argument went something like:

p23 - using shields - "cannot prevent damage and focus tokens placed by its controller's costs or effects"

p25 - protect - "controller may instead place any amount of that damage on the card with the 'Protect' keyword"

Protect = controller's effect

Damage placed on "protect" keyword character is a result of the exercising of a controller's effect, protect.

After reading that argument I thought, #1) the source of the damage token on the character with protect is still an effect of the opposing player's unit/ability based on my interpretation of the rules, but I can see how someone might intepret that because protect is a controller's effect, and the damage tokens seem to be placed on the controller's unit via a mechanic exercised by its controller, it's not quite as clear as it could be if #2) - the rulebook explicitly stated that damage placed in conjunction with the usage of the keyword protect is still considered damage placed by an opponent's effect. I suppose I initially did a poor job of explaining my position if you thought I was focusing on semantics (reassigned, reallocated, redirected, etc).

protect is not changing the source of the damage, it is still coming from an opponents unit. if you character is dealt 3 damage then you can only redirect 2 of it to your guardian because it only has 2 health.

the rules for protect clearly state that you can't direct more than your remaining health, so if it has 0 damage on it then your max protect damage is 2, you could then prevent 1 with shields.

TGO said:

The argument is that Protect is an effect controlled by the owner of the card that has it. So damage that is re-assigned via Protect is part of the "controller's effect" and therefore ineligible to be shielded, because shields " cannot prevent damage and focus tokens placed by its controller's costs or effects ".

That is an interesting argument. I guess I just don't see it worded that way at all. The source of the damage does not change, it is merely reassigned to a different target instead of its originally intended target.

MasterJediAdam said:

That is all the ability is doing. The ability is not preventing the original damage and creating new damage, just redirectig it.

TGO said:

Concur

MasterJediAdam said:

I agree with both of you on this, the source of the damage does not change. But it is a "controller's effect" that re-assigns it.

Frankly I think the intent is for shielding to work in this case. I am only playing devil's advocate because I do see how it can be interpreted the other way. Hopefully the FAQ will clear it up soon.

I know I'm adding to this a little late but I wanted to say my interpretation. The 'Protect' ability allows you to move damage from a protected unit to the unit with 'Protect'. But the damage is still coming from an enemy attack or enemy card effect.

The rule of 'shielding' as I understand it, only applies to enemy attacks or enemy card effects. I think the 'i.e.' is there just to let you know that you cannot remove the shield if you, as the controller of the shield, place a focus or damage on your own unit. For example, there are cards such as 'Let the Wookie Win' that says 'Deal 1 damage to a target friendly unit. Then, deal 1 damage to a target non-Vehicle unit.' If the unit I damage has a shield, I cannot remove it.

Yes, you are the controller of the 'Protect' ability but no where does it say a shield doesn't work on a 'Protect' unit. I think that would have to be somewhere in the rules. All it says in the rules is that you can remove a shield as long as it comes from an enemy attack or effect. It doesn't matter what card the shield is placed on, as long as you are not placing a focus or damage on it from what you have played.

Cheers.

It's been 13 months since last post. Why resurrect this.

Wow! Didn't notice the year, thought it was this February. It was listed at the top of the forum list. Sorry all.