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Middle-Earth => Archives of Minas Tirith => Topic started by: Gil-Estel on August 10, 2008, 02:39:49 PM

Title: discard all conditions
Post by: Gil-Estel on August 10, 2008, 02:39:49 PM
Let's say I playing vs a fully equiped Hobbit deck. All kind of conditions lying around and I have Saruman's Power. But what if he has Scouring of the Shire? Does that get discarded immediately along with the rest or does SotS his trick first? Like saving a few conditions and then gets discarded as well?
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Anvar on August 10, 2008, 03:39:50 PM
Saruman's power is about to discard conditions, so Scouring of the Shire can do its response action. It can save a number of them from being discarded until it is full of tokens - at that point all conditions not so protected are discarded.

That's what I reckon, at least.
Anvar
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Pepin The Breve on August 10, 2008, 07:22:56 PM
  I Think Anvar is right. If there are say, 8 conditions on the table and you use Sarumans Power he/she can prevent four of this conditions of being dicarded and them get allong with the rest to the discard pile. So you choose the four conditions (adding tokens on Scouring) and when it gets 4 tokens it´s gone  :ninja:

  Notice that some cards like Siege Engine prevents one or more conditions of being discarded. So if some player try to discard them all with, say, Sleep Caradhras, the text of Siege Engine could bu used to prevent all others to go away...

   Hope this help...
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Elf_Lvr on August 10, 2008, 09:23:39 PM
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Anvar and Pepin have this right.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Kralik on August 11, 2008, 11:11:33 AM
This isn't a direct comparison, but Plundered Armories has a clarification by Decipher that states when all minions are discarded, they are discarded at the same time. Below:

If a minion bearing a [Moria] weapon is discarded due to losing a skirmish, Plundered Armories takes effect before optional actions triggered by winning/losing that skirmish occur. When an effect discards “all” minions (thereby discarding their weapons), they are discarded at the same time. None of those minions may have weapons played on them with Plundered Armories.

I think it would be the same with conditions: if you discard ALL conditions, it is done simultaneously with no chance to use Siege Engine, SotS, etc. Those conditions would be discarded before they could prevent others from being discarded.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: TheJord on August 12, 2008, 04:45:30 AM
Kralik is correct
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Elessar's Socks on August 12, 2008, 06:00:56 AM
Oh, so that's where the "simultaneous" ruling went.

I gotta agree with Anvar here. Scouring of the Shire triggers before it's actually discarded ("is about to be discarded from play"), giving it time to protect conditions, including itself.

If Scouring was worded like "Response: If a condition is discarded from play, play it from your discard pile" (similar to Plundered Armories), then it wouldn't work.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Pepin The Breve on August 12, 2008, 08:32:56 AM
   I think Elessar is right. Same with Siege Engine. It´s game text says "when one or more machines are about to be discarded..." So it responds to this situation (of discarding all conditions) preventing it and changing the effects wich now is "disacard Siege Engine Instead" (paying the costs...).

   I recall reading some example of this in the rulebook with a similar case envolving Siege Engine althought i´m not 100% sure...
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: SomeRandomDude on August 12, 2008, 08:46:47 AM
Anvar is correct.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Kralik on August 12, 2008, 09:31:55 AM
TheJord is correct. :P

Actually, I was just throwing my 2 cents out, but I'm not the rules guru here. The reasoning behind SotS makes sense, since it can "protect" itself, but a question on Siege Engine:

If there is only one Siege Engine in play, and all conditions must be discarded, who decides the order? As far as I understand it, either they are discarded all at once (and Siege Engine cannot be used) or they are discarded in some arbitrary order. If Freeps chooses the order, Siege Engine goes first and cannot save itself. If Shadow chooses the order, some other machine gets to survive and Siege Engine is discarded per its game text.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Gil-Estel on August 12, 2008, 10:19:10 AM
Anvar is correct.

Stop being Bib here...he's the one to answer this way and only then we turn in to believers.....
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: TheJord on August 12, 2008, 11:43:14 AM
Consider this alternative version of Kralik's example. I have Plundered Armories and the Free Peoples player decides to stay. I cannot discard the minions one at a time to activate PA.

You cannot decide what order to discard the conditions, they all get discarded, simultaneously (a rare occurence in LOTR)
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Pepin The Breve on August 12, 2008, 12:35:21 PM
Well, you people have a point here but the trick is: Siege Engine responds to discard of one or more machines. So it´s actions take place before the condition itself (or any condition) is discarded, doesn´t matter if the freepeople player can or not choose discard Siege Engine first...

When i have time i will search where is teh example cited in the rulebook (or some sort of) that envolves this card to shead some more light into my argument...
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Elf_Lvr on August 12, 2008, 01:08:19 PM
The point is in the wording, "about to be discarded." The action of Saruman's Power is about to resolve, saying all conditions are to be discarded simultaneously. Since any one of those conditions is  "About to be discarded..." the Response effect then triggers before the conditions are discarded (because about to discard comes before discard, obviously) and the conditions can be saved.

The "About to be..." is what separates Plundered Armories from Scouring and Siege Engine.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Elessar's Socks on August 12, 2008, 02:27:51 PM
If there is only one Siege Engine in play, and all conditions must be discarded, who decides the order? As far as I understand it, either they are discarded all at once (and Siege Engine cannot be used) or they are discarded in some arbitrary order. If Freeps chooses the order, Siege Engine goes first and cannot save itself. If Shadow chooses the order, some other machine gets to survive and Siege Engine is discarded per its game text.
They're discarded simultaneously.

Let's say you have 5 conditions in play, including Siege Engine. Opponent plays Sleep, Caradhras. At this point Siege Engine triggers: one or more (5) conditions are about to be discarded. As a response you can discard Siege Engine to prevent that, saving the other 4 conditions.

In fact the simultaneous ruling is needed for Siege Engine to work correctly. If conditions were discarded one at a time, Siege Engine will "see" only one condition about to be discarded, meaning it can only ever protect one (since it'll be discarded as the cost before it has the chance to protect others). But because conditions are discarded simultaneously, it can protect the rest of the lot at one go.

In contrast Scouring of the Shire does not discard itself as the cost. As the Free Peoples player, you get to choose the order in which to protect the conditions, triggering it once for each condition. (Incidentally, you can't trigger it more than once for the same condition, because after the first time, the "about to be discarded" situation for that particular card will be prevented.) It's only after you're done responding that the game moves on; at this point the rest of the conditions are actually discarded.

With SotS it's like having a bunch of conditions falling to the ground like leaves. You freeze time, place a support under some of them, and then resume time--the rest of the conditions drop, but the ones supported stay in play. ;)
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Kralik on August 12, 2008, 06:57:26 PM
ES, your explanation makes a lot of sense. :gp: What say you, TheJord?
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: lem0nhead on August 13, 2008, 01:14:34 AM
ES is right socuring of the shire and siege engine can prevent others being discarded. Order is irrelevant, what is happening is some conditions are about to be discard and it thus sets off its abiltity.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Gil-Estel on August 13, 2008, 01:37:40 AM
Thanks for all the thorough and well thought answers!
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Pepin The Breve on August 13, 2008, 01:50:56 PM
Hey here it is, from the CDR:

"You have three tokens on Fortress Never Fallen when you use its special ability. You select three Shadow conditions to be discarded (including my Siege Engine), and discard Fortress Never Fallen. I use the response special ability on Siege Engine, which technically saves all three conditions, but then I discard Siege Engine to pay its own cost."

Guess people get it right here!  :up:
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Pepin The Breve on August 13, 2008, 01:53:23 PM
I cut this part  :roll:

"FORTRESS NEVER FALLEN 4 U 276 The effect of this condition’s special ability when the card has more than one token is simultaneous. Several conditions are discarded at the same time. Siege Engine responds to these discards by preventing all of them."

  Done.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Elessar's Socks on August 13, 2008, 02:08:06 PM
Nice find, Pepin The Breve. Once again Decipher shows its wiliness by squirreling away a generic ruling in a specific example, in a specific CRD (checked the Comprehensive Rulebook and August 2007 CRD). At least it's not entirely under helper text this time. ;)
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Kralik on August 13, 2008, 09:52:28 PM
That's good to see, Pepin. What CRD did you find that in? Checked the same ones as ES. :)
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: Pepin The Breve on August 14, 2008, 03:43:14 AM
That's good to see, Pepin. What CRD did you find that in? Checked the same ones as ES. :)

Augut 9, 2005. At the FNF individual card rulling section...  :up:

Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: TheJord on August 14, 2008, 09:25:56 AM
I must fall in line with ES' philosiphical explanation. As SotS is being discarded it can protect itself and others being discarded.

Things happenening simultaneously in LOTR rarely happens so this is why it has caused so much confusion!
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: SomeRandomDude on August 17, 2008, 05:33:57 AM
someone should dig through all the CRDs and find every single D ruling and compile them.

@GE, sorry for just saying that, but I had to chip in my 2 cents, and everything needing to be said had been said.
Title: Re: discard all conditions
Post by: CCCORNIV on February 05, 2010, 05:10:15 PM
 I was in a discussion about this today.  I'm glad to see that Siege Engine protects ALL of the machines.  I thought it did, but there was enough doubt for me to search the forum for an answer. :)  It makes me feel better about the machine deck I just built. :up:  It killed 7 companions at site 7 and overwhelmed the ring-bearer, even though I didn't get the siege engines out until late in the game.  It was a fun deck to play.