Nazgul are Abroad and Half an Eye Open

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Jambo
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Free hazards could stack 2, 4, 6 instead of 1, 2, 3 and it could be per movement/hazard phase rather than per turn.

However, like I mentioned above the more important issue is whether the cards placed with TNaA have to actually target a Nazgul creature to be free or whether the cards simply have to have the potential to target a Nazgul creature. Once this is clarified, defining the number of free hazards will be easier to judge as will be the hazards that can be placed with the cards (e.g. Morgul Horse, Long Dark Reach, Fury, etc). Same for HaEO.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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actually target creature, thought that was decided. This card was about boosting nazgul attack.

Morgul horse if used for keyability targets the creature, if used for the tapped perm it doesn't? even though it's a short-event when tapped, it's also still a creature by type, right? :?
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Jambo
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The reason I included creature in the card was to distinguish between Nazguls played as events and a Nazgul actually played or about to be played as a creature (or one in hand which is undefined). But it all depends if the rules allow for such a distinction. Otherwise, including creature on the card is superfluous.

Frodo seems to imply that cards targeting a Nazgul creature will target Nazguls as events and will include those cards which have the potential to target a Nazgul but could actually be used to target a non-Nazgul creature, e.g. Long Dark Reach, Words of Power (virtual), Fury of the Iron Crown...
Frodo
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Yes, let’s stack 2 per card, per m/h (per mh just makes it easier to keep track of). So text should read “Twice per m/h, hazards targeting Nazgul creatures do not count against the hazard limit.” The reason why this targets Words of Power is because you must reveal a Nazgul creature from hand to use Words of Power.

To be honest… I’m not sure whether cards that merely mention the word “Nazgul” in their game text (like both versions of The Nazgul Are Abroad, or Long Dark Reach, or even Eowyn) automatically are targeting Nazgul. This may very well be the case. Even if it isn’t, the rules judges might change their mind, and make that the case. So we have to be careful about using this word “target,” and the way to be so careful is simply to say “targeting Nazgul creatures” (or Nazgul hazards, but I think we don’t want it that way, right?) I hope for HEO we wrote unique dragon creature; if we didn’t, we should! Potential doesn’t matter, it’s whether it targets it as a creature or not. But Long Dark Reach… ugh, that one baffles me. Oh boy… this one is really confusing. Perhaps it CAN target Nazgul creatures, but since it does not target them when the playability of the card (i.e., whether it counts against the hazard limit) is established or not, I would say it can never be a free hazard by our clause.

Ooh, I just thought of an analogy. You play Scorba on someone. Scorba resolves, but before strike assignment the opponent plays some resource. You then play Agburanar at Home (before strike assignment, which is legal). Now, is Scorba retroactively considered free? I doubt it.

Nazguls on the table played as events are EVENTS. They are not creatures. They are not creatures by type, they are Nazguls by type. Nazguls in hand are not undefined; they are both creatures and permanent-events.

Frodo
Jambo
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Frodo, that analogy is sound and would also be applicable to Two or Three Tribes Present and named creatures. Cards cannot retrospectively become "free". Whether they count against the hazard limit or not must be determined upon declaration/resolution, so we should be able to use this to our advantage. There's one funny card mechanism and that's Fell Beast. However I do believe that although Fell Beast must fully resolve prior to a Nazgul creature being played for its keyability effect, there's no doubt about either effect of Fell Beast targeting a Nazgul creature. Right? If so then we could have:
New TNaA wrote:When this card is played, take up to four hazards from your discard pile or sideboard and place them face down with this card. If there is a Nazgûl in play, you may play non-creature hazards placed with this card that have the word “Nazgûl” in their game text (except Long Dark Reach, Morgul Horse) as if they were in your hand. You must discard an additional Nazgul event to play Scimitars of Steel in this manner. Twice per movement/hazard phase, hazards targeting Nazgul creatures do not count against the hazard limit. Discard when any play deck is exhausted.
As far as I am aware this allows cards to be played from underneath TNaA if there's a Nazgul in play as a creature (as "Nazgul in play" doesn't restrict it to Nazgul events). I do think the Morgul Horse used to aid a Khamul machine and Long Dark Reach should remain as exceptions.

This version doesn't prevent Two or Three Tribes, nor Fury, nor virtual Words of Power, however, if Two or Three Tribes and Fury are used to target a non-Nazgul creature, they would at least count against the hazard limit. Right? If space is still available for text on TNaA, one or more of these cards could be added to the list of exceptions.

Thoughts?
New HaEO wrote:When this card is played, take up to four hazards from your discard pile or sideboard and place them face down with this card. If an "at Home" Dragon manifestation is in play, you may play non-unique short- or permanent-event hazards (except Parsimony of Seclusion) placed with this card that mention a named Dragon or the word “Dragon” in their game text as if they were in your hand. Twice per movement/hazard phase, hazards targeting unique Dragon creatures do not count against the hazard limit. Prowess of Age can only be played to give a prowess bonus. Discard when any play deck is exhausted.
I removed "title" from "...in their game text or title...", as the only card this seemed to enable was Dragon-sickness. Do we really want a corruption card under HaEO?
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Bandobras Took
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Jambo wrote:I removed "title" from "...in their game text or title...", as the only card this seemed to enable was Dragon-sickness. Do we really want a corruption card under HaEO?
Given the abilities of Itangast At Home and Scorba At Home, I'd say yes.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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I also like Dragon's sickness from under HaEO, but can live without it.

I think it's a pitty hazards targetting athomes are not free. They're the same dragons after all. I agree you don't want to incourage more play of ahunts, but now we have to include the athomes for this card so why not let them interact with the hazards? because of Tidings?

also, why mention short or permanent event especially, which non unique dragon hazard long events are there and would these be problematic? Pits of Angband, okay, anything else? Otherwise maybe just mention it with the exceptions.
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Jambo
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Ok, no problem to put Dragon-sickness back.

We can cut that short- and perm- text out if it's only Pits of Angband that people are worrried about and then list that in the exceptions. Was there any other reason for the for long-events being excluded?

Are we getting there? Sure not. ;)
Frodo
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Wait, I thought we agreed on the last page that there’s nothing wrong with infinite hazards on unique dragons? Let’s keep this.

Yes, Dragon-sickness should remain legal. It will finally see the light of day now from HeO and allows a cool if difficult combo with Dragon’s Curse. Two or Three Tribes and virtual Words of Power are not overpowered (esp with ToTT not being free) and should also remain allowed.
> I think it's a pitty hazards targetting athomes are not free. They're the same dragons after all.
Good point Thorsten. So let’s just say “Hazards targeting unique Dragon hazards…” in order to remove the possibility that any card which has the WORD Dragon in it (like Two or Three Tribes) would be free. Ahunts are not so much of a worry because a HaE deck still needs Dragon *Creatures* to take advantage of the dragon keyability cards.
>also, why mention short or permanent event especially, which non unique dragon hazard long events are there and would these be problematic? Pits of Angband, okay, anything else? Otherwise maybe just mention it with the exceptions.
Because writing “non-unique event hazards” sounds really, really strange. Thus, we need to say *which* event hazards are allowed. We can’t just say “hazards” because this would allow creatures as well.

Here would be the newest Half an Eye, then:
New HaEO wrote:
When this card is played, take up to four hazards from your discard pile or sideboard and place them face down with this card. If an "at Home" Dragon manifestation is in play, you may play non-unique short- or permanent-event hazards (except Parsimony of Seclusion) placed with this card that mention a named Dragon or the word “Dragon” in their game text or title as if they were in your hand. Hazards targeting unique Dragon hazards do not count against the hazard limit. Prowess of Age can only be played to give a prowess bonus. Discard when any play deck is exhausted.
LASTLY
However, we still have the problem with Fury. This card simply can’t be allowed the way it is currently being used in play, whether it counts against the limit or not. I proposed two solutions on the last page: 1) to have a line saying this card is removed from the game (this is better than exclusion I think, because it allows for SOME USE on Nazguls), or 2) to add it to the list of cards that require the discarding of a Nazgul to play it. Allowing only non-unique hazards is not a good option because that forbids Pale Sword.

So option 1 would look like: “Fury of the Iron Crown is removed from the game when played.”

Option 2 would look like, “You must discard two Nazgul events from play in order to play Long Dark Reach, Morgul Horse, Fury of the Iron Crow, and Scimitars of Steel from under this card.” (if we wanted these cards on the list).

Yes, this would mean Scimitars is now defined as a discard of two cards only to play it. I think that’s the perfect amount. For M-Horse, this would trim the Khamul machine significantly to the point where this combo would probably not be worth it for a Khamul machine, only other M-Horse combos. For Fury, you simply could not afford to play Fury that many times in a game unless that was the ONLY card you were playing and you weren’t using Nazguls for their built-in tapping abilities at all! Btw, that’s another reason I like solution 2: Thorsten once pointed out it was cool that Nazguls could not be tapped or discarded from table normally when using TNAA, and solution 2 is kind of a roundabout way of getting people to **use their Nazguls on table differently**: not for the age-old purpose of tapping Ren and Uvatha, etc., but for actually enhancing a creature attack (Fury), enhancing a Nazgul attack (Horse/LDR). It’s neat to imagine someone actually making a strategic decision to NOT use Adunaphel to (yawn) tap the opponent’s wizard but in a moment of desperation, discard her and Uvatha to throw down a Fury on a Thief, etc.

I say we go ahead and try this mechanism of Solution 2 given people’s interest or at least luke-warm interest in it. Unless we have any strong dissenters left who think that this method is still creating some obvious problems, let’s adapt it for playtesting, and keep in mind the backup idea.

LASTLY, PART 2
Can we talk about the “discard when any deck is exhausted” issue, and review the pros and cons of this line one more time?

Frodo
Jambo
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Infinite hazards on unique dragons could get very ugly if you're using Long Dark Reach which makes Dragons extremely playable. Combined with cards like Prowess of Might, Prowess of Age, Passion of Wrath and Dragon's Desolation you've effectively got a Dragon without the -4 prowess that Long Dark Reach typically imparts. Two hazards per m/h phase, with 2 HaEO in play, will still afford such a combo, but then at least you have 2 haEO in play and will have earned the right, perhaps.

Do Ahunts really need a free hazard boost? Like at Homes they're events and so extremely easy to play already. Free hazards on top, I'm not convinced. I still think this should remain with Dragons as creatures, since they're the ones that clog the hand and it's them that tend not see much play. If you want to play Ahunts or at Homes and these cards, I think they should count against the hazard limit.

Regarding Fury, one could just list it on the list of exceptions. It's easier, and there's nothing wrong with just playing this card from within the play deck. However I do like the discard two Nazguls clause, if you can convince me how it won't make Scimitars actually discard 3 Nazgul events in total? ;)

Discard when any play is exhausted. This was, if I recall correctly, done to ensure that cards placed with this card are appropriately discarded when any play deck is exhausted. It could be changed to say "discard any cards placed with this card..." if you wanted TNaA or HaEO to remain, or it could say "discard when your play deck is exhausted", although the latter is not used by any othe MeCCG card.
Last edited by Jambo on Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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I'm with Jambo on the infinite hazards for dragons (and have been all along Frodo, see post april 26 :wink: )

I don't like free hazards for ahunts either, it's easy indeed to stack a few ahunts in any deck. But for athomes I think the situation is different, typically they are already on the table so opponent knows what he's getting into, and events played on the athome don't have any effect if you don't enter the site, you can only place one card on guard anyway. It's just Tidings that bothers me. But, wouldn't it be nice to actually see Exile of Solitude played for once, outside a Dragon Hunt tourney that is?

The two perm discard option is okay, I think it will discourage the use of these hazards in general yet still leaves room for specific situations in which it could be put to good use. Nazguls are popular in most decks and will be more so, thus discarding two nazguls is very ugly, since your opponent can then also play them (or the Ringwraiths!), and if he has a few in play already that means you will have less of yours in play, so discarding two will hurt more.

I wouldn't advise remove Fury from play anyway, because that could be unfair to your opponent who also plays Fury. I don't think many people would play Fury from TNAA now, not in a dedicated strategy, but they still might.

I would go with 'discard when your playdeck is exhausted.' Fact that ICE didn't use that shows they're not without faults :wink:
What's strange about 'non unique event hazards?' oh well, I'm not a native speaker...
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Jambo
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It should be "non-unique hazard events" anyway :P. Sounds better that way, and there's nothing weird sounding about that imho.

Regarding at Homes, hazards underneath HaEO can still be played on at Homes, they just aren't free! That's pretty convenient and arguably circumvents the greatest issue here; that of having to retain hazards like this in the hand! Whether these hazards are free or not isn't a big deal, particularly as the at Home is already likely to be in play! If their opponent is brave enough to attempt to take on one of their at Homes, hazard boosting the "at Home" is conveniently under HaEO and only requires a HL of 1 to play! There is no issue as I see it.

Plus, hazards targeting at Homes would normally be played on guard. On guard cards can never be free, so making them free is pointless. Actually this brings up a good point. Can cards from underneath HaEO even be played on guard? Moreover, if they're not revealed, would they return to hand or back underneath the HaEO? If possible it would have to be back underneath HaEO as it would be too exploitable otherwise. Maybe playing them on guard isn't possible.

So, we'd have:
New HaEO wrote:When this card is played, take up to four hazards from your discard pile or sideboard and place them face down with this card. If an "at Home" Dragon manifestation is in play, you may play non-unique hazard events (except Parsimony of Seclusion) placed with this card that mention a named Dragon or the word “Dragon” in their game text or title as if they were in your hand. Twice per movement/hazard phase, hazards targeting unique Dragon creatures do not count against the hazard limit. Prowess of Age can only be played to give a prowess bonus. Discard when your play deck is exhausted.
Frodo
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Ok, I think we're almost there!

One thing missing from the discard clause is "Discard this card when there are no cards with it", which I don't think there's a global rule about for hosts, although maybe there is; still, we should perhaps have the words written down.

So here's the New and last (i think) TNaA:
When this card is played, take up to four hazards from your discard pile or sideboard and place them face down with this card. If there is a Nazgûl in play, you may play non-creature hazards placed with this card that have the word “Nazgûl” in their game text as if they were in your hand. You must discard two Nazgul events from play in order to play Long Dark Reach, Morgul Horse, Fury of the Iron Crown, and Scimitars of Steel in this manner. Twice per movement/hazard phase, hazards targeting Nazgul creatures do not count against the hazard limit. Discard when any play deck is exhausted.
Jambo, any way I try to explain the Scimitars clause doesn't add much clarification, unless you think that this would work: "You must discard two Nazgul events from play in order to play Long Dark Reach, Morgul Horse, and Fury of the Iron Crown in this manner (one more Nazgul if Scimitars of Steel)."

Otherwise, I think we have to simply say in rules clarifications that this line is setting the playability discard to 'two."

With HaE, I forgot to mention that Pits of Angband *cannot* be on the list. It's too powerful, even just for the resource dragon-faction benefit of it. I'm still not convinced that hazards targeting Dragons can't be infinite, but maybe Jamie is right. Let's try it with Jambo's suggestions I suppose, and see how it plays out.

Regarding On-guards... oh man!! Super nice-catch, Jambo. We either have to say that they can't be placed on-guard, or that they return to this card. Uh... how can we say they return to the card if the card was discarded, though? (exhausting, marvels, empty). I think this alone means we can't allow onguard cards for at least TNAA, because consider this combo: opponent has 3 companies (not unlikely), a player stacks 3 scimitars and nothing else on TNAA, then plays one onguard on each, discards TNAA, gets Scimitars back and now they play for only their normal nazgul discard of one.

So for TNAA, it would say "...as if they were in your hand (not onguard)."

We could write the same for HAE to keep them even, but I don't think it's necessary and it makes the silent at-home combo not possible, so let's leave it out, then.

Are we done?

Frodo
Jambo
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I'm fine with that Joe. Given that this is a new 'style' of MeCCG hazard, I think we just have to make clarifications for these in the virtual cards guide. That can be for scimitars and on-guards. For what it's worth I don't think cards underneath these can be played as on-guard cards. There's a strict playability clause for playing cards from underneath TNaA and HaEO, e.g. Nazgul in game text, and there's simply no way for on-guard cards to circumvent that.
New TNaA wrote:When this card is played, take up to four hazards from your discard pile or sideboard and place them face down with this card. If there is a Nazgûl in play, you may play non-creature hazards placed with this card that have the word “Nazgûl” in their game text as if they were in your hand. You must discard two Nazgul events from play in order to play Long Dark Reach, Morgul Horse, Fury of the Iron Crown, and Scimitars of Steel in this manner. Twice per movement/hazard phase, hazards targeting Nazgûl creatures do not count against the hazard limit. Discard when any play deck is exhausted.
New HaEO wrote:When this card is played, take up to four hazards from your discard pile or sideboard and place them face down with this card. If an "at Home" Dragon manifestation is in play, you may play non-unique hazard events (except Parsimony of Seclusion, Prowess of Age and From the Pits of Angband) placed with this card that mention a named Dragon or the word “Dragon” in their game text or title as if they were in your hand. Twice per movement/hazard phase, hazards targeting unique Dragon creatures do not count against the hazard limit. Discard when any play deck is exhausted.
If people feel that they should be discarded when there's no cards left with it then that's easy enough to add. However they still do have a use when on the table in that they allow free hazards to be played from hand. It's hard to imagine it would make much difference anyway. I don't think I've seen anyone play all cards from underneath one yet.

I thought about chopping out Prowess of Age entirely. There's Dragon's Desolation, Prowess of Age and Prowess of Might and the latter two won't see the light of day if Prowess of Age is allowed for half its function. Plus it would save us some space. :)
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Thorsten the Traveller
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With the rules on accountability I suppose cards can't be played as on guard, that is, not without showing it to opponent. You can still play a card on athome though, not as on guard, right? I can play Exile during m/h phase on athome just hoping guy might enter? If I can only play Exile as on guard, then we really need to invent some other option:
"if played on guard, show it to your opponent"

I thought we established that discard upon empty only increases the recycling ability. Ok so now Fury/Scimitars are no longer a problem, but do you still want to be recycling TNAA each turn? I can also play Summons from under HaEO, so you want to be recycling that each turn? Just play HaEO and summons, discard HaEO and a cave drake 2@12, and then play them both again with third HaEO to repeat the trick each turn. Who needs Dragon boosters anyway when you have Summons?

btw.@Memories Stolen. Your average dragon is 2@15, your average char 4/8. Even with 2x Memories he'd be 2@12, so your average char would have to roll more than average to even tie. Either way, with unlimited hazards it's easy to compensate for Memories' loss of prowess.

Pitty for PoA, it's about the only way you'll ever effectively play Crash of Battering Rams. :cry:
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