Dead for One Thousand Years

By Baranor2, in UFS Rules Q & A

It doesn't negate it, it just results in the ability no longer existing for anything to reference or resolve from.

If the card is destroyed, the ability still exists and has text to resolve from. Can we agree on that?

So what's so hard to comprehend about an ability that's completely blank being incapable of resolving because it doesn't have any text anymore?

This is one of them things that would be much easier to argue in person than on an internet forum, but heres my 2 piece.

The fact that it blanks a cards text box in my eyes should not stop the ability for a few reasons:

1. The card being destroyed argument. Much as was pointed out, if a card is destroyed/RFG it still resolves (even when as part of cost, well before effect generation). It's not because the card still has printed text, its because the ability is seperate from the card, and it has always been the case that things that affect the card do not affect the ability. You say the card still resolves because it still has text, but what if that card is added face down to momentum instead of destroyed. Does it still resolve? yep. Does it have text anymore? Not to the game state it don't. KFT and Tag along have to work from the removed from game pile technically speaking, and they are removed well before even the window opens for responses to cost being paid.

2. It dosent specifically target the ability. Many people have used examples like: If you play a card that says this attack gets +x speed and I play a card that says change the speed bonus of an ability into damage it would get a damage bonus as some sort of justification, but that example is never going to be parallel because it not only targets the ability specifically, but its not got the unique text blanking wrinkle this problem has. I would point out that i think 100% of the time in all prior cases, if something affects a played ability and has forced it to do something other than what was printed it specifies so.

3. Effects exist outside of the card they are printed on. I know this is a bit ambigious in the rulebook, but an argument can be made that as soon as costs are payed, before the reaction window, the ability already exists outside of the card it came from. This is more of a nuanced timing issue but it isnt really covered at all. A lot of people are treating this line like its some sort of floating effect from some other card though and I dont think thats a good way to judge. The rules state that it exists outside of its source after the generation of its effect, and the best I can discern is that an ability is generated after costs are payed, period. The rules make no allowance for reactions etc. I know a lot of people will shout golden rule, but i dont think that applys here either because DFATY with still work, just not to this secondary effect.

4. Common intuition. I know this is an argument that has no weight in this sort of discussion, but 9 our of 10 players upon first look at this card probably never though it canceled the effect.

i always thought it didnt cancel effects because after the one enhance goes through all of the rest with the same name are blanked afterwards. i thought that was powerful enough already :o

Tagrineth said:

If the card is destroyed, the ability still exists and has text to resolve from. Can we agree on that?

No actually. If the card is destroyed it is no longer in an 'in play' zone, therefore the ability no longer exists. Unless that ability is generated as soon as the cost is played, before the response window. My destroyed example was just the first thing that came to mind, Fred's facedown in momentum example is a much better choice as there isn't even a means to reference the ability once that happens.

I understand both points of view, and they both make sense to me.

But I think Proto presents a series of very strong arguments, the strongest of which is that, while the card is turned blank, the ability is not turned blank. I.e., the ability still knows what it was/would have been in the same way that an ability knows what it would have been if its card is destroyed (removed from play and invisible to the game state) as a cost.

I have no problem with it being ruled one way or the other, but if we stick with the current ruling, a "reminder text" errata for clarity would help. Something along the lines of, "(That ability no longer has any effect.)"

So is this just being ignored then?

It's been stamped three times =/

Yes, before the question of when the ability is generated, and therefore seperate from the card that generated it, was asked. So it's the same card, same question, different reason why it shouldn't work.

I think it's funny that when you activate Olcadan's Mentoring and pay the cost of commiting it you enter the 'step' in which you can destroy/negate/blank it BEFORE it generates an effect which would NOW be considered independant of it's source. So when the ability generates, it generates blank? But if you play a response ability that destroys a card in the staging area when a form is played, they pay the cost of commiting Olcadan's, you use the destroy ability, then the effect is generated independant of its source but it still has text? Even though the card no longer exists it still remembers word for word the text but can't remember from before it was blanked?