Helms of Iron, Scimitars of Steel #1

Any rule erratum or clarification submission for the upcoming 2019 ARV should be posted here.
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Konrad Klar
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Helms of Iron wrote:Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. Discard the Nazgûl when this card is brought into play. All Orc, Troll, and Man attacks with body have their body modified by +1; and all Orc, Troll, and Man attacks with no body have 4 body. ...on the front of their iron hems was an S-rune, wrought of some white metal.-LotRIII
Scimitars of Steel wrote:Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. Discard the Nazgûl when this card is brought into play. All Orc, Troll, and Man attacks receive +1 prowess. Day drew on. The goblins gathered again in the valley. There a host of Wargs came ravening and with them came the bodyguard of Bolg, goblins of huge size with scimitars of steel.-Hob
There are doubts whether the cards require a specified player's Nazgûl permanent-event (so "discard" action targets it), or whether rather they merely require a presence in play a player's Nazgûl permanent-event (not specified at declaration, any one is discarded at execution of the cards).
Article "a" in phrase "Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play" suggests second option.
Articles "the" in phrase "Discard the Nazgûl this card is brought into play." suggests first option.

Related thread:
Helms of Iron, Scimitars of Steel and (un)specified Nazgûl permanent-event


I propose the following erratum (that support 1st option):

"Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. Discard a Nazgûl permanent-event you have in play. All Orc, Troll, and Man attacks with body have their body modified by +1; and all Orc, Troll, and Man attacks with no body have 4 body. ...on the front of their iron hems was an S-rune, wrought of some white metal.-"

"Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. Discard a Nazgûl permanent-event you have in play. All Orc, Troll, and Man attacks receive +1 prowess. Day drew on. The goblins gathered again in the valley. There a host of Wargs came ravening and with them came the bodyguard of Bolg, goblins of huge size with scimitars of steel.-Hob"

P.S. I'm expecting that there may be a competing erratum proposals for the cards. Because current voting system does not give a voters an other options than "Yes|No", it would be fair to publish the proposals in other threads. For this reason I have titled this thread "Helms of Iron, Scimitars of Steel #1". Of course only common sense prevents a voting "Yes" for two, or more, contradicting erratum proposals.
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CDavis7M
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Was there a #2 post? I can't find it.

I preferred the language from the linked discussion thread, which just made the discard the active playability condition.

"Discard one of your Nazgûl permanent-events in play to play this card."
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CDavis7M
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Thinking more on this, the discarded Nazgûl permanent-event must be specified and discarded immediately (outside of the chain of effects) upon playing "Helms of Iron" or "Scimitars of Steel."


Normally, you could expect the playability conditions to be listed upfront. You would expect to see "playable on a Nazgûl permanent-event." BUT if the Nazgûl permanent-event were the target of the action of playing the card (by "playable on"), then it would become an active condition for playing the card. And then you would need to check for the entity (the Nazgûl permanent-event) at resolution. And this would not let the card work.
Helms of Iron wrote:Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. Discard the Nazgûl when this card is brought into play. All Orc, Troll, and Man attacks with body have their body modified by +1; and all Orc, Troll, and Man attacks with no body have 4 body. ...on the front of their iron helms was an S-rune, wrought of some white metal.-LotRIII
Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. is a playability condition for playing "Helms of Iron" or "Scimitars of Steel." But it does not define an active condition for playing these cards. Conditions that become active conditions are defined in the CRF. Targeting creates an active condition. This statement does not define any active conditions.

Here, the idea here is to have the Nazgûl permanent-event be discarded at declaration without needing to check for it later. And the card does so: "Discard the Nazgûl when this card is brought into play." This statement does not mean: "discard the Nazgûl permanent-event at resolution" and it also does not mean "discard the Nazgûl permanent-event as an active condition for performing some other action."

Instead, discarding the Nazgûl permanent-event is the active condition for the action of bringing "Helms of Iron" or "Scimitars of Steel" into play (as indicated by "when this card is brought into play"). Therefore, the discarding is an active condition for playing, and the discarding happens immediately at declaration.



These cards already work. Instead of fixing these cards, the proposal actually breaks the card such that the Nazgul does not have to be discarded at declaration of "Helms of Iron" or "Scimitars of Steel."
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Konrad Klar
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CDavis7M wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:33 pm Therefore, the discarding is an active condition for playing, and the discarding happens immediately at declaration.
Not sure whether you noticed (or whether you agree) that having a card in play and discarding it are conditions that mutually preclude each other.
CDavis7M wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:33 pm These cards already work. Instead of fixing these cards, the proposal actually breaks the card such that the Nazgul does not have to be discarded at declaration of "Helms of Iron" or "Scimitars of Steel."
They are working mess. If they are so written that may be read in such way that Nazgûl permanent-event must be in play and that this Nazgûl (this time not necessarily permanent-event) are active conditions, this is reason to fix them.
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CDavis7M
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Konrad Klar wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 8:50 pm Not sure whether you noticed (or whether you agree) that having a card in play and discarding it are conditions that mutually preclude each other.
It is essentially the same as "discard a Nazgûl permanent-event you have in play."
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Bandobras Took
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I don't see how a rules method that consists of reading cards with any words you want, regardless of what's actually written on them, could possibly lead to problems.
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CDavis7M
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Konrad Klar wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 9:54 am
Helms of Iron wrote:Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. Discard the Nazgûl when this card is brought into play. All Orc, Troll, and Man attacks with body have their body modified by +1; and all Orc, Troll, and Man attacks with no body have 4 body. ...on the front of their iron hems was an S-rune, wrought of some white metal.-LotRIII
Scimitars of Steel wrote:Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. Discard the Nazgûl when this card is brought into play. All Orc, Troll, and Man attacks receive +1 prowess. Day drew on. The goblins gathered again in the valley. There a host of Wargs came ravening and with them came the bodyguard of Bolg, goblins of huge size with scimitars of steel.-Hob
There are doubts whether the cards require a specified player's Nazgûl permanent-event (so "discard" action targets it), or whether rather they merely require a presence in play a player's Nazgûl permanent-event (not specified at declaration, any one is discarded at execution of the cards).
Article "a" in phrase "Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play" suggests second option.
Articles "the" in phrase "Discard the Nazgûl this card is brought into play." suggests first option.
After considering how the card is actually played, I don't have doubts. Here is how it these cards work, using Scimitars as the example:
Scimitars of Steel wrote:Playable only if you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play. Discard the Nazgûl when this card is brought into play. All Orc, Troll, and Man attacks receive +1 prowess.
The condition for playing the Scimitars of Steel permanent-event is that "you have a Nazgûl permanent-event in play."
The action resolved when Scimitars of Steel is resolved is "Discard the Nazgûl."
The Nazgûl is the target of the discarding action. Therefore, the Nazgûl must be targeted at declaration per Annotation 8.
Since the Nazgûl is targeted, it is necessarily known at declaration.
MELE wrote:Targeting: Choosing a specific entity through which a card or effect will be played out. An entity chosen as such is the "target of the action.
It's clear that the Nazgûl is a "target" because the Nazgûl is chosen as the specific entity for the discard action.

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The proposal attempts to make it so that the Nazgul is "not specified at declaration, any one is discarded at execution of the cards." However, if you follow the rules on targeting and active conditions, the proposed changes still require the Nazgûl to be identified at declaration. So the proposal is unnecessary and misleading.
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