Govern the Storms

The place to ask and debate all rules issues related to MECCG.
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Konrad Klar
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It is a problem of particular card that it does not define a scope of its effect.
If not CRF entry, Gandalf (from METW) could tap to test a gold rings in other company. Because Gandalf is not a resource, a target of his tapping action could be also an opponent's gold ring.
It is the problem of Many Turns and Doubling that it does not define the scope of its 1st effect "as attack against Ranger's company".
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Bandobras Took
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As a side note:

I am not arguing for how the card was intended to be played, merely how it would be played based on the text it currently has. A far more straightforward solution than several pages of argument would be to simply add "Playable on a sorcery-using character" to the beginning of the card.

@ Theo: Connecting the dots would be easier if there weren't two different sets of numbers leading to two different pictures. :)
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Theo
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Bandobras Took wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 2:24 pm As a side note:

I am not arguing for how the card was intended to be played, merely how it would be played based on the text it currently has. A far more straightforward solution than several pages of argument would be to simply add "Playable on a sorcery-using character" to the beginning of the card.
I think we could still argue about whether the "a sorcery-using character's company" should be "the company of any sorcery character" or "the company of the sorcery-using character", right? At least the corruption check might be more clearly the explicitly targeted sorcery-using character.
Bandobras Took wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 2:24 pm @ Theo: Connecting the dots would be easier if there weren't two different sets of numbers leading to two different pictures. :)
... I hate when they do that. :P
Konrad Klar wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:21 am It is a problem of particular card that it does not define a scope of its effect.
Indeed. This is part of my motivation for considering skill cards implicitly targeting the character with that skill. In that framework, many fewer cards do not define the scope of their effects. Even the existing CRF Friendship rules are clarifications rather than the errata that they would need to be if this framework wasn't true.
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rezwits
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To me I can only really explain by example:

Doors of Night is in play.

Let's say I have Dwar the Ringwraith leaving Dol Guldur headed for Carn Dum.

And let's say I have Hador leaving Dol Guldur headed for Buhr Widu.

Hador's company leaves first, and my opponent plays Foul Fumes

Hador uses Govern the Storms, cc passes.

Hador arrives safely at Buhr Widu with the site untapped.
Dwar has to return to Dol Guldur.

n.b. working on img hover popups, might need some code injection tho...

edit: [DAMN, I made an error, I put The Grimburgoth 1st and changed to Hador (only halfway) non-ranger, but forgot to finish the changes MY BAD!...]
Too worried about pop-ups :)
Last edited by rezwits on Sat Jan 19, 2019 4:37 am, edited 7 times in total.
As of 4/3/21 4:03:21
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Bandobras Took
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Congratulations, your example fails to conform to the card text.
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rezwits
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The card text could make one believe that they both would be able to get to their destination sites, untapped.

But that's just not the case...
Magic. Sorcery. Cancel all hazard effects for the rest of the turn that: force a sorcery-using character's company to return to its site of origin or would tap its current or new site. Unless he is a Ringwraith, the sorcery using character makes a corruption check modified by -4. "'...he can govern the storms... He has strange powers and many allies.'"-LotRII
Magic. Sorcery. Cancel all hazard effects for the rest of the turn that: force a (sigular) sorcery-using character's (not characters' and not even character(s)' because there is no such thing, that I know of, could be but...) company (singular) to return to its (singular due to) site (singular) of origin or would tap its (singular) current or new site (singular). Unless he is a Ringwraith, the sorcery using character makes a corruption check modified by -4. "'...he can govern the storms... He has strange powers and many allies.'"-LotRII

This all applies to the SINGULAR case, i.e. The SOLE SINGULAR CASTER'S COMPANY... I don't see what's so confusing?

I often use the EXACT OPPOSITE, to justify as in "What WOULD/COULD they HAVE PUT" Example:
Magic. Sorcery. Cancel all hazard effects for the rest of the turn that: force all sorcery-using characters' companies to return to their site of origin or would tap their current or new site. Unless he is a Ringwraith, the sorcery using character makes a corruption check modified by -4. "'...he can govern the storms... He has strange powers and many allies.'"-LotRII
but the SIMPLE FACT is ICE didn't write THE ABOVE TEXT on Govern the Storms...

They wrote Singular NOT Plural.
As of 4/3/21 4:03:21
my current rulings foundation is based on:
All of the rules and rulings found in these PDFs at:
https://cardnum.net/rules
If you have other collected rulings that are not
listed please feel free to email them or PM me...
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Bandobras Took
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in·def·i·nite ar·ti·cle
noun GRAMMAR
a determiner ( a and an in English) that introduces a noun phrase and implies that the thing referred to is nonspecific (as in she bought me a book ; government is an art ; he went to a public school ).
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rezwits
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So because they didn't use "the", all is lost?
They stuck mostly to their (ICE's) "Spell template."

There's more to understanding something spoken or written, than deciphering grammar; for example, reason, logic, deduction, inference, context, history, etc, help too...

Like I said, I use the logical opposite, of what they could have written... but didn't... So just for the caster's company, for all "sorcery companies", or even just for all companies, but it's mostly clear. So go with what's close, that's what I do... sorry...

To me nothing will really ever be 100% clear... the closest is 99.9...9% or simply Zero.

So...have fun! [-me_wh-]

p.s. I know I know, some people would classify those other means all as, "Assumptions", and I know people have that funny running joke about the word assume, but it's more of a riddle/puzzle than a joke, it often prevents people from using Ockham's razor... which is a PITY...
As of 4/3/21 4:03:21
my current rulings foundation is based on:
All of the rules and rulings found in these PDFs at:
https://cardnum.net/rules
If you have other collected rulings that are not
listed please feel free to email them or PM me...
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Bandobras Took
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rezwits wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 8:12 pmThere's more to understanding something spoken or written, than deciphering grammar; for example, reason, logic, deduction, inference, context, history, etc, help too...
And reason, logic, deduction, inference, and context all go with the fact that the card (unlike every other Sorcery card) does not have the phrase "Playable on a sorcery-using character." We can't even go with the template argument because the two most similar cards (from the same set, no less) have that big phrase "Playable (. . .) on a Ranger."
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CDavis7M
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Wow, so much going on here. But first things first - Govern the Storms.
Magic. Sorcery. Cancel all hazard effects for the rest of the turn that: force a sorcery-using character's company to return to its site of origin or would tap its current or new site. Unless he is a Ringwraith, the sorcery using character makes a corruption check modified by -4.
I think Brandobras had it right in the 3rd reply:
Bandobras Took wrote: Mon Jan 07, 2019 3:11 am While the card is in effect:

If a company would be forced to return to its site of origin, or its current or new site would tap, check for the presence of a sorcery-using character in the company.
Govern the Storms has no playability conditions (and no active conditions). There are 2 effects in the card text. There is (1) cancelling of all returning/site-tapping hazard-effects targeting a company with a sorcery-using character and (2) the corruption check action targeting the sorcery using character. These are not conditions for playing Govern the Storms. They are effects.

-----

Update: Thinking more on this, cancellation of effects is not an "action" that needs to be declared and resolved. It is simply an "effect" that is in play that causes the resolution of certain other actions to fail. (This is different from canceling attacks, where the attack is resolved and then it can be canceled.)

For example: Snowstorm is in play, Govern the Storms is played during the organization phase and its effects are in play, a company with a shadow-magic user has placed a new site card and will travel through a wilderness.

What happens when Snowstorm's return-to-origin effect is triggered by the companies movement? The cancellation doesn't need to be declared or resolved. The cancellation from Govern the Storms will simply invalidate the resolution of Snowstorm's return-to-origin effect (negate the effect).
CRF - Terms - Timing wrote:The validity of an effect, including the hazard limit, is checked upon declaration and upon resolution.
But with Govern the Storms, there is also a corruption check action to be performed. One issue is that there is no passive condition for triggering the corruption check later upon. Compare to Promptings of Wisdom with a similar cancellation effect and a passive condition for triggering the corruption check "If so tapped, target ranger makes a corruption check" (the tapping active condition for cancelling is the passive condition for triggering the corruption check).

Govern the Storms should either be "playable on" a particular company OR if it will work on multiple companies, it should establish a passive condition for the corruption check (e.g. "if a hazard effect would... cancel the effect and make a CC"). I would assume that the intended way to play Govern the Storms is to trigger the corruption check upon declaration of a hazard effect that would "force a sorcery-using character's company to return to its site of origin or would tap its current or new site."

---------------

So, all the way back to the original post:
Khamul the Easterling wrote: Sun Jan 06, 2019 7:48 pm If I understand it right (and if there's no erratum I'm currently unaware of) the company benefiting from the effect (unless it has another sorcrey-using character, too) need not be the company with the character on which this card is played. Correct?
No. There is no particular company benefiting from the effect. The card is not played on a company. But if a company is to benefit, they need to have a sorcery-using character otherwise the cancellation won't take effect.
Last edited by CDavis7M on Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:41 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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CDavis7M
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By the way, as silly as it is, Escape is not playable on a character or an attack. You can use it to wound your own character without an attack. The attack cancellation cannot be declared (active conditions not met), but the wounding can be declared and resolved. This is an effect and so is not prevent by the "cannot be played for no effect." There should be something to prevent this. And I think that's why Diversion is worded differently.

Diversion is better written and has playability conditions to prevent silliness. It's playable on a character facing an attack.
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