Foolish Words on-guard on a character played through WHCtK/ACM

[CDavis7M]

Mordakai raises a good point. I looked into this more.

The question is, does the rule "An on-guard may only be revealed if it could have also been played during the movement/hazard phase. This means all targets of the card must have existed during the movement/hazard phase in order for the card to be revealed." even apply to Foolish Words? I looked into it and I think NO, it does not.

There are numerous rulings/clarifications where it is unclear exactly which portion of the rules that they apply to. This is even an issue with statements in the Standard Rules and how the apply to the Starter Rules. This is something I've frequently had to look into.

Anyway, if you look at the CRF (version 15 (15.2 actually), 1999/07) you can see that this on guard rule is in the Turn Sequence Rulings. But it is also in the Complete Errata Listing. But if it is "errata" then by definition of "errata" it must be a change/correction to some specific line of printed text. So I went back back to the original ruling in the CRF (version 4, 1997/05/15) and I saw that this rule is specifically errata to the statement on page 61 of the Unlimited Rules: "In the first two cases, the card is handled as if it had been played during the movement-hazard phase (i.e., short-events are discarded, long-events last until your opponent’s next long-event phase, etc.).."

Basically the rules errata is stating that not only is the card "handled as if it had been played during the movement hazard phase" (as originally printed) but also "all targets of the card must have existed during the movement/hazard phase" (per the errata). By the way, this same wording (from Unlimited) is still used on page 67 of the Lidless Eye rules.

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So, the on-guard errata "all targets of the card must have existed during the movement/hazard phase in order for the card to be revealed" only applies "in the first two cases," which are (1) The company decides to face the site's automatic-attack and (2) The company plays a card that potentially taps the site.

Given that Foolish Words is not revealed based on these two cases, I don't think the errata applies. And as was already stated, there are several other cards having their own reveal on-guard allowance that would not work if this rule did apply.

So I agree. Foolish Words can be revealed on guard and played on a character that was brought into play during the Site Phase. The errata on "all targets must have existed" does not apply to on-guard cards revealed by their own card text.

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Again, if not such paragraph was in the card, I totally agree that you cannot play it on a character that was not present in the m/h phase, but it's an specific way of playing that card on guard, it would be contradictory to me that a rule in the rulebook supersedes the text on the card.

There are several rules in the rulesbook (especially in MEWH) that supersede card text. After looking into this a lot I've realized that it's more "Restrictions vs Allowances" rather than "Card Text vs Rules Text." It's incorrect to say that card text overrides the rules (which I see thrown around). Instead, allowances of the cards can happen without an allowance in the rules. And a specific allowance in a card can even override a specific restriction in the rules. But a general allowance in a card does not overcome a specific restriction in the rules (or specific restrictions on cards).

[CDavis7M]

To be honest I am not 100% sure about this, too. My understanding is, however, that Foolish Words' card text doesn't explicitely overrule that "all targets of the card must have existed during the movement/hazard phase in order for the card to be revealed". So it is not a simple case of "card over rule".

I think that the rule "all targets must have existed" only applies to cards revealed according to the rules and does not apply to on-guard cards revealed by their own text. But besides that maybe it's worth repeating but there is no such thing as "card over rule" in MECCG. I could be mistaken but I think a lot of statements like this were something imported from Magic. I thought this before because in looking through old MECCG rulings I found mentions of Magic rulings and all sorts of misconceptions related to that. Like, "Cards in the discard pile do not remember how they were played" is based on old Magic rulings even though the original question that gave rise to this ruling was easily answerable using the MECCG rules without resorting to Magic... Anyway, I hadn't played Magic since like 1995 but I recently started looking at some of my old cards and reading some of the card interaction rulings and I realized that even more misconceptions in MECCG were due to Magic than I had previously guessed.

While this was never specifically stated, here is my understanding of how MECCG works. Every ruling I've seen is consistent with this approach. It is based on the understanding that the rules (and some cards) provide allowances and some rules (and cards) provide restrictions.

• One allowance does not prevent another allowance. For instance, the allowance to play "one and only one" a character in the organization phase provided by the rules does not override the allowance in A Chance Meeting that brings a character into play.
• An allowance does not override a restriction. For instance, the allowance in A Chance Meeting does not override the MEWH restriction against playing characters with six mind or greater. And We Have Come to Kill does not override the restriction on minion Card Dum. If you play WHCTK at minion Carn Dum the character must still have it as their home site or be an Orc/Troll. Because of this it is clear that "card over rules" is incorrect.
• A specific allowance does override a restriction if it specifically references that restriction. The phrase "even a hobbit" in A Chance Meeting specifically overrides the restriction on Hobbit character cards. Thrall of the Voice and Open to the Summons also have specific allowances that overcome specific rules on playing/starting 6+ mind characters and agents. But these cards do not specifically reference other restrictions, like the restrictions of the 3 Stone Trolls from the Hobbit.

My understanding listed above is not just MECCG specific. I think all games are designed based on this same understanding of allowances vs restrictions in the rules.

[panotxa]

I need some help with this:

The mechanism is not redundant. Foolish Words does not "directly affects the company or a character in the company" which is a requirement for revealing an on-guard card. Foolish Words does not modify any attribute of the character card nor does it create an action that affects the card (e.g., discard from corruption, etc.). Because of this, Foolish Words needs to have the statement

Where this definition of affecting the company or a character comes from? I was convinced that Foolish Words affected a character…

Thanks!

[Mordakai]

And We Have Come to Kill does not override the restriction on minion Card Dum. If you play WHCTK at minion Carn Dum the character must still have it as their home site or be an Orc/Troll. Because of this it is clear that "card over rules" is incorrect.

Provided that you could play WHCTK at minion Carn Dum, which is not the case. But I think your reasoning is quite fair and accurate. And yes, I use the "card over rule" tag pretty loosely in my statements, probably because as a non-Englush speaker (and writer) it's easier for me. I was refering to the "idea" rather that the "mechanics".

My main point in this specific case is that any card that specifically states something under some kind of "if revealed on guard" statement is pretended to be played (and affect the game) only in that way, ignoring the "regular" way to reveal on guard cards, which have a generic set of cans and cant's in the rulesets. If it still must meet the ruleset requirements, cards like Searching Eye, Near to Hear a Whisper and some others would be impossible to reveal from on guard status (and pretty dumb, indeed).

If FW can't be played on a character that entered the game via WHCTK/ACM, then the statement

If placed on-guard, it may be revealed and played when a character in the company declares such an attempt.

would be contradicted, because that character is indeed "in the company", so it meets all the requirements stated in the card.

[CDavis7M]

I need some help with this:

The mechanism is not redundant. Foolish Words does not "directly affects the company or a character in the company" which is a requirement for revealing an on-guard card. Foolish Words does not modify any attribute of the character card nor does it create an action that affects the card (e.g., discard from corruption, etc.). Because of this, Foolish Words needs to have the statement

Where this definition of affecting the company or a character comes from? I was convinced that Foolish Words affected a character…

Thanks!

It's from the On Guard rules. This rule was clarified in the CRF, which states "The card must affect the company or a character in the company that site phase."

Foolish Words does not "affect" (i.e., have an effect on) the character. It "targets" the character that it is played on but it does not "affect" the character card itself, and not that site phase. For reference, the White Hand rules say "target or affect," so it seems like targeting without affecting is possible like how I am interpreting it based on the definition.

I was just pointing out that Foolish Words could not actually be revealed on-guard according to the normal rules. It needs its own card text.

Directly Affects.PNG (255.27 KiB) Viewed 1811 times

[CDavis7M]

And We Have Come to Kill does not override the restriction on minion Card Dum. If you play WHCTK at minion Carn Dum the character must still have it as their home site or be an Orc/Troll. Because of this it is clear that "card over rules" is incorrect.

Provided that you could play WHCTK at minion Carn Dum, which is not the case. But I think your reasoning is quite fair and accurate.

Right, I was remembering Carn Dum because of the other cards that lets you play Ringwraith followers, which are not Orcs or Trolls.

My main point in this specific case is that any card that specifically states something under some kind of "if revealed on guard" statement is pretended to be played (and affect the game) only in that way, ignoring the "regular" way to reveal on guard cards, which have a generic set of cans and cant's in the rulesets. If it still must meet the ruleset requirements, cards like Searching Eye, Near to Hear a Whisper and some others would be impossible to reveal from on guard status (and pretty dumb, indeed).

Yes, the other cards are why I looked into it more and I agree with the conclusion but my reasoning is slightly different as I restate below.

If FW can't be played on a character that entered the game via WHCTK/ACM, then the statement

If placed on-guard, it may be revealed and played when a character in the company declares such an attempt.

would be contradicted, because that character is indeed "in the company", so it meets all the requirements stated in the card.

But what about all the various cards that say "playable if/at/on ____" but which are not playable by a Fallen Wizard player? If a Fallen Wizard player cannot play those cards, then their card text is contradicted. My point is that it is not enough to meet all requirements on the card, the player must also meet all requirements in the rules and on other cards in play.

If the on-guard requirement "all targets must have existed" actually applied to Foolish Words then it would legitimately contradict the card text as happens in many other cases. However, my position is that this requirement is errata to a specific section of the rules which only applies when hazards are revealed according to those rules. Because Foolish Words (searching eye, etc.) are not revealed according to the rules that have received the errata, then the errata does not apply.

The more I think about it, the more sense this makes. The entire point of the "all targets must have existed" rule is to separate the hazards that cannot be revealed on guard from the hazards that can be revealed on guard and what circumstances allow it. Since Foolish Words already has specific card text indicating that it can be revealed on guard and in what circumstances, there is no reason for the other less-specific rules to apply.

[Theo]

Good catch on Foolish Words not effecting any company entity.

Reasoning seems solid in general. I nitpick that I would say "may only" is both an allowance and a restriction. My one real issue is with:

So, the on-guard errata "all targets of the card must have existed during the movement/hazard phase in order for the card to be revealed" only applies "in the first two cases," which are (1) The company decides to face the site's automatic-attack and (2) The company plays a card that potentially taps the site.

This requires interpreting "this is a slight modification from the rule printed on page page [sic] 61" to inherit the portion "In the first two cases." This could have been the intent, but we are not privy to intent, only to text. There is no indication in any of the texts for such inheritance for this rule.

Moreover the wording is "modification from the rule", not "to", which to me suggests that the original rule would still stand, and this new rule would be an additional rule. Why would an additional rule inherit the clause of another rule?

If there was meant to be a substitution into just the portion of the original rule (to explain such an inheritance), we would have been left with no guidance about revealing having any other effect… except that such guidance appears in CRF 4 immediately following the portion shared, again with no mention of anything like "In the first two cases" clause. (It also predates CRF 4, falling somewhere between CRF 1 as of 8/27/96 and this one two months later:)

-=- The spirit of the on-guard card is to represent a hazard threat that existed during a company's movement/hazard phase, but of which the company was not aware. The actual rule that portrays this spirit is: an on-guard may only be revealed if it could have also been played during the movement/hazard phase--this is a slight modification from the rule printed on page page 61 of the METW Unlimited Rulesbook. Practically, this means all targets of the card must have existed during the movement/hazard phase in order for the card to be revealed.

-=- IMPORTANT: A revealed on-guard card retroactively takes effect as though it were both declared and resolved immediately prior to the chain of effects during which it was revealed.

I would think we need these rules to apply to all on-guard cards reveals (as their text suggests by lacking additional specificity). If this doesn’t apply to all, revealing Near to Hear a Whisper would seem to not mean anything about its effects being played, and the timing for other such cards would be uncertain. In the one case of Foolish Words, we would have the "and played" text to perhaps imagine it being played according to normal rules, but would we run into passive timing being too slow without the retroactivity? I forget what’s been argued on that front.

[CDavis7M]

I would think we need these rules to apply to all on-guard cards reveals (as their text suggests by lacking additional specificity).

Some of the rules are clarifications and some are errata to the on-guard rules. We don't need the errata to the on guard rules to apply because the entire point of the errata rule is to determine which cards of all the various hazards can be revealed on guard and which cannot be. If hazards have card text that specifically allow themselves to be revealed on guard then they don't need a rule clarifying whether they can be revealed or not -- they can be revealed.

If this doesn’t apply to all, revealing Near to Hear a Whisper would seem to not mean anything about its effects being played, and the timing for other such cards would be uncertain. In the one case of Foolish Words, we would have the "and played" text to perhaps imagine it being played according to normal rules, but would we run into passive timing being too slow without the retroactivity? I forget what’s been argued on that front.

The errata to the on-guard rules does not apply to Foolish Words because Foolish Words is not played according to the on-guard rules. The other clarifications to on-guard cards do apply to Foolish Words.

[Theo]

the entire point of the errata rule is to determine which cards of all the various hazards can be revealed on guard and which cannot be

Not quite. I would think it is to offer clarification for the opening sentence, "An often confusing point is when and if certain hazards can be revealed as on-guard cards."

The CRF placed allowances and restrictions. You want to interpret the restrictions only in the context of the allowances. Unlike in the original rules, there is no indication that the CRF restrictions are limited to only the CRF allowances. I'm not sure how else the authors could have written restriction rules that would be acceptable for you to apply to all on-guard cards other than exactly what they did: "an on-guard card may only be revealed if...".

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If hazards have card text that specifically allow themselves to be revealed on guard then they don't need a rule clarifying whether they can be revealed or not -- they can be revealed.

Except, according to the intelligence,

An allowance does not override a restriction.

[CDavis7M]

the entire point of the errata rule is to determine which cards of all the various hazards can be revealed on guard and which cannot be

Not quite. I would think it is to offer clarification for the opening sentence, "An often confusing point is when and if certain hazards can be revealed as on-guard cards."

The CRF placed allowances and restrictions. You want to interpret the restrictions only in the context of the allowances. Unlike in the original rules, there is no indication that the CRF restrictions are limited to only the CRF allowances. I'm not sure how else the authors could have written restriction rules that would be acceptable for you to apply to all on-guard cards other than exactly what they did: "an on-guard card may only be revealed if...".

In this case, it's not about allowances vs restrictions. It's about whether this is a specific errata or a broader clarification. The NetRep said that the "all targets must have existed during the M/H phase" rule is errata to p. 61 of the Unlimited Rules. Foolish Words is not played using the rules on p. 61 so the errata to those rules doesn't apply.

Not only that, Foolish Words would be prevented from being revealed on guard according to the On-Guard rules on p. 61 without the errata. It is the card text of Foolish Words that lets it be revealed.

The on-guard rulings in the CRF begin with: "An often confusing point is when and if certain hazards can be revealed as on-guard cards." This is because most cards revealed on guard follow the rules and lack specific card text. There is no confusion about cards like Foolish Words that have card text specifically stating when they can be revealed on guard.

CRF 15 is confusing because it's not clear about the ruling be errata. But the original rulings are clear.

[panotxa]

Thanks for the accurate answer.

I thought - and still think - that targeting always implies affecting the targeted card (no matter if it doesn’t modify its atributes or is not a body/corruption check) and that part from the MEWH rulebook saying “target or affect” is due either to poor wording or to include cases of affecting a card without targeting it (like long-event hazards not having a target but affecting an entire entity of things, per Annotation 3). But I can see your points too.

As usual, the more I play this game the less I know how to play it…

I need some help with this:

The mechanism is not redundant. Foolish Words does not "directly affects the company or a character in the company" which is a requirement for revealing an on-guard card. Foolish Words does not modify any attribute of the character card nor does it create an action that affects the card (e.g., discard from corruption, etc.). Because of this, Foolish Words needs to have the statement

Where this definition of affecting the company or a character comes from? I was convinced that Foolish Words affected a character…

Thanks!

It's from the On Guard rules. This rule was clarified in the CRF, which states "The card must affect the company or a character in the company that site phase."

Foolish Words does not "affect" (i.e., have an effect on) the character. It "targets" the character that it is played on but it does not "affect" the character card itself, and not that site phase. For reference, the White Hand rules say "target or affect," so it seems like targeting without affecting is possible like how I am interpreting it based on the definition.

I was just pointing out that Foolish Words could not actually be revealed on-guard according to the normal rules. It needs its own card text.

Directly Affects.PNG

[CDavis7M]

I thought - and still think - that targeting always implies affecting the targeted card (no matter if it doesn’t modify its atributes or is not a body/corruption check) and that part from the MEWH rulebook saying “target or affect” is due either to poor wording or to include cases of affecting a card without targeting it (like long-event hazards not having a target but affecting an entire entity of things, per Annotation 3). But I can see your points too.

What are you basing this on? Because to me this statement is inconsistent with the definitions in MELE.

MELE states: "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. Some possible targets are: characters, corruption checks. strike dice rolls, items, sites, and companies. A card that states it is playable on or with a character or a certain entity targets that entity. Cards which affect an entire class of other cards do not target (e.g., Wake of War).." So "targeting" is making a choice for an "action" and it is the "action" itself that actually affects the game. Nothing here implies that targeting also "affects" the card.

MELE also states: "Action: Any activity in the game(card play, a corruption check caused by Lure of the Senses, etc.). Each action is not immediately resolved when it is declared. An opponent and yourself have the opportunity to declare other actions in response." and "Chain of Effects: A series of actions declared in response to one another before any of them resolve. Actions in a chain of effects are resolved in the reverse order from which they were declared (last in, first out)." "Effects", which "affect" the game, are declared and resolved in a chain of effects. When Foolish Words is played, there is no declared/resolved activity in the game using the character card, only the Foolish Words card. If there is no effect changing the game state of the character card then it is not "affected," at least not until an effect is triggered.

Based on the MELE definitions of "target" and "action" I think that while "targeting" a card often involves "affecting" that card, it does not have to. "Targeting" is simply a choice made by the players and "affecting" requires an actual change to the game state (position/orientation of a card or a modification to a dice roll or to the attributes of a card). When Foolish Words is played (on guard or otherwise), it "targets" a character because the character it is played on is chosen by a player. But the action of playing Foolish Words (moving the Foolish Words card to be placed with a character card) only "affects" Foolish Words (it is moved) not the character card that is targeted (the character card is not moved nor are any character attributes affected).

Foolish Words does not affect the character cards and it doesn't even have a triggered ability that affects the character card. It's triggered ability only affects dice rolls.

[panotxa]

What makes me think that targeting always affects is that part from the targeting definition from MELE: “A card that states it is playable on or with a character or a certain entity targets that entity. Cards which affect an entire class of other cards do not target (e.g., Wake of War).”
.

The lack of definition of what “to affect” means in the rulebook (at least I didn’t manage to find it) and the way the term “affect” pops up after the first sentence, makes me think that affect is, when not talking about an entire class of cards, “to be playable on or with a character or a certain entity”…

[Konrad Klar]

I think that even mere being on X affects the X.
If Foolish Words does not affect a target character,then what about Endless Whispers?
I am unable to prove it now.
To be decided arbitrarily.

[Theo]

In this case, it's not about allowances vs restrictions. It's about whether this is a specific errata or a broader clarification. The NetRep said that the "all targets must have existed during the M/H phase" rule is errata to p. 61 of the Unlimited Rules. Foolish Words is not played using the rules on p. 61 so the errata to those rules doesn't apply.

First, the NetRep didn't say that it was an errata to page 61. The NetRep said it was a change from page 61, and also placed the rules under the errata for the game.

But if it is "errata" then by definition of "errata" it must be a change/correction to some specific line of printed text.

I'm not sure where you are getting this notion of specific line of text from. Errata definition means errors. ICE regularly used the term to encapsulate any change to the existing ruleset. Page 61 is referenced as the entire set of on-guard rules (under the header PLACING A CARD ON-GUARD). Any card that is placed on-guard (which includes Foolish Words), would reasonably need a set of rules to govern that mechanic. The vagueness you are attributing to CRF 15 not mentioning a specific line of text being replaced is because there is no specific line of text being replaced, but a change to the broader ruleset.