Following an
interesting use case from ket_the_jet, I am extremely confused about what
Star-glass does and doesn't do. The closest approximation I have is to think about when cards cancel an effect, but I'm not sure there's much justification to say "remove game text" = "cancel." I was surprised to find very few official rulings or TLHH discussions about this card, so there isn't a ton of precedent to go on. Does this just mean everyone else understands how it should work? The handful of times it has come up it's because Gemp essentially ignores all text on minions hit by
Star-glass, undoing effects and making it as if the card were played with blank text from the start. It would seem widely accepted that this is in error, but there's little in-depth reasoning of why. Feel free to
remove this post's text ignore the rest of this post and provide a simple explanation
So I'm trying to think about how multiple cards could be affected one way or another by getting their game text removed. An example is
Gollum, Vile Creature. Suppose he uses his game text to add 2 strength. At the game's very core, what happens? Whence doth thy strength bonus come? It could be that:
every time you use his ability, Gollum's game text is implied to have "Gollum is strength +2" appended to it
that modifiers can't be reapplied if their source text doesn't exist anymore
that modifiers, once initially applied, cannot be changed
that there's some nebulous holding pen for modifiers
someone tells me what actually happens and removes all this confusion for me
The first three all have Gollum as the source of the strength bonus, which seems the most consistent considering Gollum is the source of the strength bonus. It doesn't feel right to say that once
Star-glass'd Gollum would lose his strength bonus, but if it's
or
I'm having trouble seeing why it couldn't be possible. As far as
, you can't reapply the bonus from
Merry, From O'er the Brandywine if he has a run-in with
Ulaire Cantea, Lieutenant of Dol Guldur. Likewise,
No Defense can cause a once-applied bonus to disappear (even from the weapon's text, such as the ability on
Axe of Erebor). What I'd like to find is that
is correct, but currently I'm leaning towards
or even
.
So you might say I'm arguing that
Star-glass should indeed remove existing bonuses and cancel out effects that would otherwise persist. The issue is that if
Star-glass can remove an effect, removing the game text from a card is completely different from that card being discarded. Nothing says that they are the same, but discarded cards already no longer apply their game text. Why should there be a distinction? I certainly don't expect any difference, yet the question become unavoidable. If there's no distinction at all,
and
seem absurd but I'm left without an acceptable alternative.
Another card I'm thinking about is
Steadfast Champion. If
Star-glass is used on a minion while
Steadfast Champion is out, that minion loses the ability to assign itself to Gandalf in the next assignment phase. Now, suppose there was a card that removed all game text from a condition. If I used that on
Steadfast Champion,
no minions can assign themselves to Gandalf, right? Even though it had previously given game text to all minions? What if
Steadfast Champion is discarded *during* the assignment phase (I don't think this is possible), do minions still get the text?
Which brings us back to
Her Ladyship (side note, very little discussion about this card either). Does Shelob's text effectively read "Aragorn cannot be assigned to a skirmish until the end of the turn," does it read "Aragorn gains: 'Cannot be assigned to a skirmish until the end of the turn,'" or does it read "Until the end of the turn, Aragorn gains: 'Cannot be assigned to a skirmish'"? If it's either of the first two, it seems logical that
Star-glass should let Aragorn back into the fray. At the same time, wouldn't they imply that if Shelob is discarded the effect is removed? There's no writing I can find to say that if a card is discarded "until the end of X" effects must stay except in the rules specifically for events, but to say that they are removed goes against all current understanding of the game so I'm taking it as an unwritten rule.
EDIT: The closest thing I could find is under phase actions: "Each phase action lasts for the duration of the phase named in the boldface word (unless otherwise specified)." It seems the jump the game makes is that the phase action lasts regardless of whether or not you can spot the card the action came from (unless, of course, that card is an event).At the moment I'm just throwing all this out there and what opinions I do have aren't very solid. The most appealing answer is that removing game text is akin to the text being discarded (but the minion itself stays on the table), except that I don't see why it shouldn't remove strength bonuses from the card's ability too. If
Star-glass essentially means "cancel/ignore that minion's game text," there seems to be consistency in how Gemp handles it but then the commonly held understanding of the card is wrong. The only way I can think of to arrive at that conclusion is by process of elimination, though.
If this post seems confusing, it's because I'm extremely confused. If I hold on to one line of thinking, I'm left with either no good rationale for thinking that or conclusions that go against how the game is played. Excuse the lack of cohesive reasoning.