Hello Wensdeil

I think that if the spell is neutral you can play it for 0 resources.

If an effect has is trigger at the beginning of the turn you can’t play an Action like that of Xirat’p before, from the FAQ:

D. Beginning of a Phase/Turn

1. Resolve “at the beginning of the turn/phase” triggered Constant/Forced Effects [Go to A ]

2. Action Window [Go to B ]

A. After a Trigger Condition

1. Resolve triggered Constant Effects (all effects exist independently of their source)

-Active player resolves his effects in any order of his choice [Go to C ]

-Next player resolves his effects in any order of his choice, etc. [Go to C ]

2. Resolve Forced Effects (all effects exist independently of their source)

-Active player resolves his effects in any order of his choice [Go to C ]

-Next player resolves his effects in any order of his choice, etc. [Go to C ]

B. Action Window

……..

Horatius said:

Wrong

1 Neutral spells don't have loyalty therefore can't be played.

2 Cacophonic Scream has restriction: Play at the beginning of your turn, not action: at the beginning of your turn… It's the same as Verena's Play during your turn. So it can be played through Xirat'p, but it has to be during Phase 0 Beginning of the Turn (it's a confirmed ruling).

1) I'm not so sure that if the card has no loyalty you can't play.

2) Yes, for the restriction you are right, I did not think about Cacofonic Scream, infact I was talking about effects that trigger at the beggining of the turn…

Horatius said:

I am sure

Why wouldn't you be able to play the neutral spell at 0 cost? Asuryan's cleansing allows you to spend 0 resources to satisfy the clause, wouldn't having 0 loyalty be similar? I can understand the desire to not allow neutral cards to be played for free, but then the way Xirat'p is written would need to be reworded.

I would also posit the lack of loyalty symbols is what makes neutral card not match your faction specific cards (ie Northern Wastes). That is why a card like Zealot Hunter mentions racial affiliation not loyalty symbols.

Asuryan's Cleansing: Action: Cancel and discard target unit or support card being played unless its controller spends all resources in his pool. (If no resources remain, opponent can spend 0 resources to spend "all.")

Zealot Hunter: Order Only. Forced: After this unit enters play, destroy a unit that does not share the racial affiliation of its controller's capital.

Xirat'p allows you only to play cards with loyalty, neutral cards don't have loyalty at all. Simple as that.

Virgo said:

Really? So neutral cards don't have loyalty, then what happens when I target a neutral unit with Madtoof Ironleg?

Limit one Hero per zone. Action: At the beginning of your turn, target unit you control gains P equal to its loyalty. Then, sacrifice it at the end of the turn.

Does the game implode? Or does the unit gain 0 hammers? It might seem nice to just assume that Xirat'p is ment to play racial cards, then the development team should have worded it as such. There are ways to make the card function as you are saying, but a person picking up the game is going to more than likely see it as neutral cards have no loyalty cost on them. From page 10 in the rulebook

I agree that netural cards don't have any loyalty symbols on them, but how is that not considered 0 loyalty?

Barakudas said:

It's time to stop posting.

You won't change the fact that neutral cards don't have loyalty.

Virgo is correct. Neutral cards do not have loyalty.

Doc9 said:

Doc9: It is good to see that we all agree that neutral cards do not have loyalty. I just equate that to mean the term 0. Could you answer these questions?

1)When Hag Graef Mine targets a neutral unit. "X" would become what? I know that the answer is 0 (OK I hope the answer is 0)

2)When Madtoof Ironleg targets a neutral unit. how many hammers does it gain? I also assume that this is 0

The point of this is simple: in these cases the card checks for loyalty, but I assume that that value is set to 0 (I I know what happens when I assume, especially on the internet). Unless you are contending that these cards couldn't target a neutral unit because they lack loyalty symbols.

Thanks for the responses, though if you are just going to scold me for asking questions, please save the bandwidth we all know that we use to much of.

Hag Graef Mine Action: Corrupt a unit that you control but do not own to (choose one): draw X cards, or gain X resources. X is that unit's loyalty.

Madtoof Ironleg: Limit one Hero per zone. Action: At the beginning of your turn, target unit you control gains P equal to its loyalty. Then, sacrifice it at the end of the turn

The cards you are talking about get 0 of whatever they get per loyalty not because they have 0 loyalty, but because they have no loyalty. This is a good example of card-game logic. In the real world, if I have no apples I also happen to have zero apples. In Invasion, I don't think there are zero loyalty cards. There are racial cards with at least one loyalty, then there are neutral cards with no loyalty. So while you are not crazy to suspect no loyalty = zero loyalty, it just doesn't work like that in this game.

For the purposes of card effects, Neutral cards loyalty cost is 0. Otherwise Paranoia would not prevent neutral cards from entering a zone, and it does. There is no written record that I (or Mallumo) can find that says whether Neutral cards are "zero loyalty cost" or "no loyalty cost", but there is an old answer from me on these forums about Paranoia that says neutrals have 0 loyalty, and I still think that is correct.

The rulebook says "loyalty cost (the number of loyalty icons under the printed cost minus the number of matching race symbols the player controls in play)" Neutrals have zero loyalty icons under their printed cost.

Developments, however, have no cost and no loyalty.

This is just painful now. Painful. I don't want to live in a world where neutral tactics have zero loyalty, supports have zero HP (since it's not on the card), and the rules don't say a dog isn't allowed to play football.

Mallumo is getting an official response about this from Lukas, so he can post it on the intarweb for all eternity. And then point and laugh at me forever if he says they have no loyalty.

Ah, come on, don't show any weakness. You're an authority, man! You can quote yourself as proof, that's pretty neat.

Anyway, here's the second authority quoting a mail from a third to support the first:

Lukas Litzsinger: Neutrals are considered to have 0 loyalty.

Jesus… The pain… It's overwhelming.

Entropy42 said:

Paranoia would prevent neutral cards, beacuse nothing is still fewer than 3.

Neutrals don't have zero loyalty icons. They have none.

But if it's official than so be it.

In that case developments with Kairos, who have no cost (ruling) would be destroyed with Chain Lightning because they have a cost of 2 or less.

Unfortunately, that's not the case…

Wait…why is that not the case? This new ruling would make the use of chain lightning against Kairos devs legitimate.

Budmilka_fr said:

It is the case, because development can't be even targeted with Chain Lightning

But Kairos turns them into units as well. They become units with 2 or less loyalty that also happen to be developments. So, anything that can effect units or developments will effect them. That includes chain lightning.

Dev-units don't have cost at all and thus can't be targeted by Chain Lightning.

Virgo said:

So, these devs can be destroyed by Chain Lightning because they have a cost of 2 or less

BUT

These devs cannot be targeted by Chain Lightning because they have a cost of 2 or less

I'm sorry, maybe it's just me, but I don't get it.

Also, how come a dev/unit can have no cost while neutral cards have zero loyalty ?