May I assign strikes? (ethics)

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rezwits
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In this specific example during the game there are two types of Creature (combat) Situations that can arise:

A. A creature where the Resource Player assigns strikes.
B: A creature that lets the Hazard Player assigns strikes.

SItuation A

The Hazard Player announces:
Lesser Spiders
Spiders. Four strikes. "...along the ground and the branches, hairy legs waving, nippers and spinners snapping, eyes popping, full of froth and rage."-Hob
  • If I am the Resource player and I ask the Hazard player, "May I assign strikes?"
    • If the Hazard player says "Yes." I feel 100% obliged, that I am not cancelling, and I will begin to assign strikes.
    • If the Hazard player says "No." Then I will wait and ask him again in about a minute. Patiently, assuming he is thinking.
Situation B

As the Hazard Player, I announce:
Ambusher
Men. Two strikes. Attacker chooses defending characters. "...suddenly Wormtongue rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl like a dog he sprang on Saruman's back, jerked his head back, cut his throat, and with a yell ran off down the lane."-LotRVI
  • If I ask the Resource player, "May I assign strikes?"
    • If the Resource player says "Yes." I feel 100% obliged, to directly start assigning strikes, not going back and interrupting myself and announcing Rank Upon Rank.
    • If the Resource player says "No." Then I will wait and ask him again in about a minute. Patiently, assuming he is thinking.
That's all, simple clean, with class, ethics, responsibility, and courtesy.

(Basically there is an on going rant, that ICE didn't clarify the rules or they are sloppy in their wording because there is no step by step process that ends a stalemate of THINKING, because we don't use chess clocks!
Last edited by rezwits on Wed May 06, 2020 12:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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:
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If you have other collected rulings that are not
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rezwits
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The reason for this post is for one simple reason:

In Poker there is no time limit, and bluffing is a paramount, but in poker that's the rules. But even in WSOP, they let the other players call a clock to cut the BS.

MECCG, is similar in that it's timing rules are like poker, heck the Hazard Phase COULD last for DAYS!!! I just think there should be some kind of agreement when the possible bluffing can end, for times sake.

I mean this is basically a post about, DON'T ASK "Cancel?", it doesn't mean anything...

Laters...

n.b. The PROBLEM here is, it's called a STALEMATE, "You go first! No you go first". Both players want the other player to commit or even over commit... and it's called a STALEMATE, and in Chess do you know what happens when there is a stalemate? Both players agree to end the game. I mean they COULD, go on and on making move after move but where's the fun in that?
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...
Goblin King
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Sadly, stalling does creep its way into the competitive high levels of most card games.
I personally do not have to worry about such situations because I will never compete at those levels.
If for some strange reason someone would be interested in stalling in a casual game with me, I will readily concede and move on with my life.
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CDavis7M
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I agree. I have seen people play a hazard creature and then ask if I want to cancel. But this is a silly question because if the resource player says "no I don't want to cancel" and then the hazard player taps Hoarmurath for an extra strike, the resource player has every right to say "no wait, I do want to cancel." And in this case, why even bother asking if the resource player wants to cancel at all? It just creates an awkward situation between the players while having no impact on game play.

I hadn't thought about it as a bluff, but you are right. The hazard player is feeling things out to see if they should bother playing their cards now or if they should hold them and wait. But last-in-first-out timing means that there is always a chance earlier played cards will be wasted.
strikes.PNG
strikes.PNG (146.8 KiB) Viewed 4822 times
Any cards that modify the strikes must be played before strikes are assigned. If the hazard player says "yes, you may assign strikes" they are inherently saying "I will not play anymore hazards that affect the number of strikes." Of course, hazards that affect prowess of the attack or individual characters could still be played during the Strike Sequence. So nothing is lost in that respect by agreeing to begin strike assignment.

As the resource player you could just start assigning strikes. But the hazard player could always ask you to "back up" per the timing rules. So really, asking "may I assign the strikes?" is the only practical way to get past the bluffing.

--------

In a related situation, at the beginning of the site phase the resource player should announce "This company will face the automatic-attacks -- any guard?" This prevents the hazard player from "forgetting" and needing to "back up." Weariness of the Heart being an easy example where the hazard player could gain advantage by "forgetting" to reveal the creature.
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Theo
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rez, I totally get where you're coming from. To have the most card play time (vs. yammer time), the players need to agree on a convention that minimizes player communications while also avoiding the chance of either player requesting a back up when doing so could potentially lead to misusing what should have been hidden information.

This rule hasn't been brought up yet:
MELE wrote:You always have the option of declaring the first action in a chain of effects during your turn.
(Presumably this gives a similar option for continuing to play onto a chain of effects started by passive conditions.)
I think my opinion on this has changed over the years (probably multiple times), but I don't see anything in the sentence to suggest that players only have ONE chance to play, that a failure to use the option of declaring an action equates to declaring that you are ready to move to the next stage of the combat (/phase) procedure. Precedent from CRF Annotation 25a suggests that transitions occur when "both players agree" to transition. Under this reading, if neither player is unilaterally willing to agree to transition, then the rules do seem to allow for a stalemate.

One stopgap measure (which maybe is the best under "the law of parsimony") is to say that once a player passes their chance to play they are also declaring that they are ready to move to the next stage (except if their opponent declares something). But because the resource player always has the option of starting a new chain first, this does not result in the conclusions in the original post. Instead, regardless of who assigns strikes, the resource player must be the first to declare whether they are willing to transition. This is consistent with the quote (and your agreement :wink: ) in this post.

An alternative stopgap is to say that the resource player always gets the first AND last option; then the hazard player must always be the first to declare whether they are willing to transition. This has the advantage of the resource player being "in control", which maybe has a similar essence as the resource player getting to choose the order of passive effects (Annotation 10). But again, this should be regardless of the procedure for who assigns strikes.

If we weren't so stubborn in wanting to follow the "right" rules, most of the time one of us would just be willing to unilaterally agree to transition.
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CDavis7M
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Theo wrote: Wed May 06, 2020 11:11 pm
MELE wrote:You always have the option of declaring the first action in a chain of effects during your turn.
(Presumably this gives a similar option for continuing to play onto a chain of effects started by passive conditions.)
I think my opinion on this has changed over the years (probably multiple times), but I don't see anything in the sentence to suggest that players only have ONE chance to play, that a failure to use the option of declaring an action equates to declaring that you are ready to move to the next stage of the combat (/phase) procedure.
Have you been able to come up a situation where it would matter for the resource player to begin a chain of effects? I have tried and came up with nothing. There actually is an ICE ruling saying that if the Resource player gives up their option to begin the chain of effect, then hazard player can start the chain of effects with no possibility for the Resource player to "back up."
ICE Digest 517 wrote:The resource player always has the option of starting a new chain of effects. If you are about to play a hazard, you can ask if the resource player wishes to start a chain of effects. If the resource player declines, then he can not take back that right.
But the situation didn't make sense because the Resource player would rather play their CC causing resource cards in response to the corruption card (not before), which is the entire reason why corruption cards were changed to only being playable at the start of the chain of effects in the first place.

Anyway, the whole idea of asking "may I assign?" is to avoid time-wasters like "actually, please 'back up' and take your hazard back to hand because I will be taking my option to start the chain of effects." You either agree to move on with strike assignment or you play the cards you have. Thinking more on it, asking "may I assign?" would also work to force an on-guard creature to be revealed since it would then be past the point at which the company decided to face the site's automatic-attack.
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Theo
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Rezwits is familiar with this non-combat situation. :wink: Summons From Long Sleep causes such a situation if the resource player wishes to also discard the reserved creature before the hazard player can declare an attack with it.

In combat... basically any situation where the resource player wishes to deny the hazard player targets to keep their hand choked. One example:
1) Solo Galva taps during org phase to remove a corruption card.
2) Declares movement and enter movement/hazard phase.
3) Hazard player (H) plays a creature.
4) Galva discards cram to untap. Untap resolves.
-) Hazard player wishes to play Darkness Under Tree, but does not have priority.
5) Galva cancels creature with a Concealment, which retaps Galva as an active condition.

Hazard player has no opportunity to play Darkness Under Tree.
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CDavis7M
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Theo wrote: Fri May 08, 2020 2:38 am Rezwits is familiar with this non-combat situation. :wink: Summons From Long Sleep causes such a situation if the resource player wishes to also discard the reserved creature before the hazard player can declare an attack with it.

In combat... basically any situation where the resource player wishes to deny the hazard player targets to keep their hand choked. One example:
1) Solo Galva taps during org phase to remove a corruption card.
2) Declares movement and enter movement/hazard phase.
3) Hazard player (H) plays a creature.
4) Galva discards cram to untap. Untap resolves.
-) Hazard player wishes to play Darkness Under Tree, but does not have priority.
5) Galva cancels creature with a Concealment, which retaps Galva as an active condition.

Hazard player has no opportunity to play Darkness Under Tree.
Neither of these situations 2 require that the Resource player start the chain of effects...

(1) If the Hazard player plays the creature using Summons, the resource player can respond by discarding summons, which will negate the ability to play the off-to-the-side creature as if it were in your hand. This is the same result as if the resource player had begun the chain of effects by declaring the discarding effect, thereby preventing an attack from being declared since it could not be declared first.

(2) As you said, the active condition rules cover this situation. It has nothing to do with being declared before or after Darkness Under Tree since Galva will tap during declaration and Darkness would only tap at resolution.
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Theo
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1) CoE ruled differently.
CoE #50 wrote:*** Quoting Digest #45:
1) You can play Marvels Told on a Summons from Long Sleep in response to
a creature being played from it (before the creature has resolved), to
discard the Summons. The creature still attacks, but without the +2 bonus.
2) It seems like my point wasn't clear. I agree that Darkness will not be resolved either way. The difference is that if Darkness is declared first it is still declared, and failing to resolve it is still discarded and removed from the hazard player's hand. The resource player can insure that it remains in the hazard player's hand.
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CDavis7M
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Add another one to the list of incorrect CoE rulings.

There is no rule allowing a card placed off-to-the side to be played at all. The only way a creature reserved on Summons can be played is by Summon's own effect "You may play a reserved creature as though it were in your hand." If Summons is not in play when the creature would resolve then there is no rule or effect allowing that creature to be played. Therefore, the conditions for playing the creature have been negated and the creature cannot resolve.

As for (2), I see your point. It doesn't matter for effects but you could still force the guy to hold his card. Good catch.
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Theo
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As far as I know, ICE never ruled otherwise on Summons From Long Sleep.

It is not a stretch to me for CoE to rule the way it eventually did. Otherwise, "fizzling" the declared play by removing the keyability would cause it to stay reserved. (Similarly, my impression is that when the play of a card from hand is declared, the card immediately ceases to be considered in hand, otherwise fizzling would simply cause the card to remain in your hand.)
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CDavis7M
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I think you are misreading the 'as though it were in your hand' part. The MEDM rules specifically say
MEDM p. 1 wrote:Any card placed off to the side absolutely cannot be targeted or otherwise affected by the game except by cards that specifically affect cards placed "off to the side." ... Usually the host card will state some mechanic that affects the cards placed off to the side with it.
Unless stated otherwise, when a host permanent-event is removed from the playing surface, any cards placed off to the side under it are discarded.
The effects of Summons From Long Sleep are the only effects that allow the reserved creature to be played. The normal rules on "playing creature hazards" in this game absolutely have no effect on the reserved dragon off-the-side. Therefore, when Summons is removed from play the reserved creature is also removed from play regardless of whether there was declaration of the creature being "played as though it were in your hand".
Theo wrote: Sun May 10, 2020 7:25 am As far as I know, ICE never ruled otherwise on Summons From Long Sleep.
I didn't know before but now I know that ICE did. It was easy to find because you can search with Ctrl+f.
ICE wrote:Subject: [Van]METW digest 503
Question 1: Can a dragon stored with Summoned from a long sleep be canceled by Marvel's tolding SFALS when the attack is announced?
Answer 1: Yes. Your opponent responds to the attack by Marvel's Tolding the Summons. It resolves in reverse order. The MT discards the Summons. The Dragon is discarded because the Summons is gone. You have no Dragon left to attack.

Question 2: Hmmm... Van, I didn't figure you'd rule it that way. SFLS says that the reserved card is played as though it were in your hand. Since a hazard creature when "announced" is immediately played out of your hand, I figure the announcement of an attack from a resevred Dragon/Drake would immediately remove it from SFLS thus making it impossible for MT to cause its discard. Why don't you see it this way?
Answer 2: I think you are misreading the 'as though it were in your hand' part, but I will check with ICE to see which ruling they intend.
Spoilers: Van never overruled this.

---------

By the way, I thought about your point (2) more.
Theo wrote: Sat May 09, 2020 3:31 am 2) It seems like my point wasn't clear. I agree that Darkness will not be resolved either way. The difference is that if Darkness is declared first it is still declared, and failing to resolve it is still discarded and removed from the hazard player's hand. The resource player can insure that it remains in the hazard player's hand.
There actually is no different end result in this situation. It is incorrect to say that "the resource player can insure that it remains in the hazard player's hand." The resource player cannot do this because if there was sufficient hazard limit to play Darkness Under Tree then there is sufficient hazard limit to place it on-guard instead. In this situation, the hazard player will still go through just as many cards as if they they had been able to declare Darkness Under Tree first.

----------

I can see why the designers conceptually allowed for the resource player to start the chain of effects -- it is their turn after all. And I can also see why they allowed for a player to respond to their own declared effects (regardless of whether their opponent declared an effect in between). However, I see no difference in game play by having these rules in the existing rules framework. Although there were some differences before the Annotations were brought about with the METW Companion.
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Theo
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CDavis7M wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 6:37 am
Theo wrote: Sun May 10, 2020 7:25 am As far as I know, ICE never ruled otherwise on Summons From Long Sleep.
I didn't know before but now I know that ICE did. It was easy to find because you can search with Ctrl+f.
Ah, nice find. It being so easy for you, should I conclude that you similarly mistyped the name of the card?

---
CDavis7M wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 6:37 am The effects of Summons From Long Sleep are the only effects that allow the reserved creature to be played. The normal rules on "playing creature hazards" in this game absolutely have no effect on the reserved dragon off-the-side. Therefore, when Summons is removed from play the reserved creature is also removed from play regardless of whether there was declaration of the creature being "played as though it were in your hand".
This is 1) unbased, 2) implying that the "played as thought it were in your hand" creature does... nothing? Unknown?

Play means play. If playing the creature from Summons From Long Sleep did not remove it from the Summons From Long Sleep, then there would be no consequence to the creature (if it were even allowed to attack under your made-up variant of play) if it were to be defeated (attack is not yet concluded, so the creature cannot be affected by the game). Do you believe that was the intent? Or is your made up variant of play supposed to be the same as the normal version of play in all ways except that you can still discard the creature?

Some ICE netrep rulings were not incorporated into the CRF because they were reconsidered. There was ample time, but the one you quoted never made it. Call CoE incorrect if you like, but here I think they did their due diligence; no reason to overrule a ruling put on pause because its fundamentals were called into question.

---
CDavis7M wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 6:37 am There actually is no different end result in this situation. It is incorrect to say that "the resource player can insure that it remains in the hazard player's hand." The resource player cannot do this because if there was sufficient hazard limit to play Darkness Under Tree then there is sufficient hazard limit to place it on-guard instead. In this situation, the hazard player will still go through just as many cards as if they they had been able to declare Darkness Under Tree first.
Not only does this not create the same situation (may prevent you from discarding a card at the end of the turn), it is not even possible if you've already placed a card on-guard. I know that you know these; it seems like you are deliberately trying to mislead. It is rather annoying.
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CDavis7M
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Theo wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 10:55 pm Some ICE netrep rulings were not incorporated into the CRF because they were reconsidered. There was ample time, but the one you quoted never made it. Call CoE incorrect if you like, but here I think they did their due diligence; no reason to overrule a ruling put on pause because its fundamentals were called into question.
This ruling was not overruled. It's true that the game designers reviewed the CRF but you clearly misunderstand how the CRF was created and what it includes. It seems like you believe that if a ruling was not entered into the CRF then it must be incorrect. That's not how the CRF worked. You also don't understand Van Norton's role as ICE Netrep. I could give you a history lesson but it seems like you wouldn't appreciate my effort. Feel free to discover how the CRF worked on your own time.
Theo wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 10:55 pm Not only does this not create the same situation (may prevent you from discarding a card at the end of the turn), it is not even possible if you've already placed a card on-guard. I know that you know these; it seems like you are deliberately trying to mislead. It is rather annoying.
But in the situation you created an on-guard card was NOT already played. And if it were already played then there would be no hazard limit remaining to play Darkness Under Tree. Furthermore, I'm not considering missteps, such as playing an on-guard card before playing actual hazards, to be meaningful to how the game should be played.

----------

The whole point of this post is - why don't we say "may I assign the strikes?" in order to skip past bluffing and BS time-wasting. And then your response is to bring up a whole different way to waste time that has no result on game play.
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Theo
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Sorry you feel that way. If you don't appreciate the effect on gameplay, I can understand why you would think it doesn't matter.

There are numerous ways to increase hazard limit while preserving the problem illustrated by the example. My previous responses was speaking to these generalities.

There is still the issue that a Darkness Under Tree on-guard will eventually return to hand, and may be less useful (if player was counting on being able to discard to draw one at end of turn) than simply sending it to discard.

This isn't tricky.
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