Dimension Ripper triggers against your Rabid Bitten/Mind Controlled ally [reviewed]

[Awer]

The wording of Dimension Ripper currently reads:

"When your hero deals combat damage while Dimension Ripper is in play, each player in combat draws a card from the other player's deck."

The wording assumes that when combat occurs, there's always at least two players "in combat". However, Dimension Ripper triggers "as usual" and both players in the game draw a card from each other's deck when your hero deals damage with it to your own ally that attacks your hero due to Rabid Bite or Mind Control, even though in that case, all the entities participating in the combat "belong" to a single player.

Of course, whether there's some kind of bug here, in Dimension Ripper's wording or functionality, depends of the definition of when players are considered to be "in combat", and/or whether Rabid Bitten/Mind Controlled entities "switch their side" for the duration of the effect. Since I don't know the details of what the rules say about those things, I'd hope that somebody in official capacity could maybe shed light on the issue.

[Martin JF]

I think the definition of Combat damage is damage not caused by abilities. But if someone has more knowledge of the rules, feel free to correct me.

[Warr Byrd]

While the Rabid Bitten or Mind Controlled ally is still under your ownership, it is under your opponents control from the time the card is played until after combat resolution. This works in a similar manner to allies stolen by Transference, Dimension Ripper, or Night Prowler; the stealer controls the ally while it is in play, but if a Retreat is used on the stolen ally, it returns to the original owners hand.

[Airact]

When something attacks something else, it's called combat. It doesn't matter if it's your own ally that attacks you or if you can't strike back.

Works as intended

[pyrogene]

When something attacks something else, it's called combat. It doesn't matter if it's your own ally that attacks you or if you can't strike back.

Works as intended

Not the point the OP was talking about.

each player in combat draws a card from the other player's deck

The confusion is whether the ally under MC or Rabid is considered under the original player's control at time of combat. Since there is actually nothing to suggest that control of the ally has changed, it is indeed misleading. (ie. The hero hitting with DR draws and the owner of the ally hit with the DR draws by right if you go purely by the wording.)

Since it is too late to change the card text, it will either have to be a ruling change that determines all allies attacking during that turn to belong to the player having his turn OR that DR in this instance should draw 2 for the player with the DR.

Flavour-wise, it makes sense for MC to change control of ally but not so much for Rabid Bite.

[Seth]

Wow! Nice find in the OP, I never noticed that wording on DR. He is correct, and this should be considered a bug. There's nothing about the wording of either Mind Control or Rabid Bite that would cause a creature to change controllers.

[Awer]

Thanks NinjaDucky and others for your replies .

If the "hijacker" (meaning the player who uses Rabid Bite/Mind Control) does or would gain control of the hijacked ally for the duration of the combat, then I assume that it would also lead to some peculiarities. For the duration of the said combat, for example:

-Hijacked Aldon would have to give his bonus to himself and the hijacker's allies.
-Hijacked Kurt's attack would have to be updated based on the number of the hijacker's allies.
-Hijacked protector would have to start protecting the hijacker's allies and stop protecting its original controller's allies. (This might not make much difference in practice, but anyway.)
-Effects of cards like "War Banner" and "Book of Curses" would also have to "switch on/off" for the hijacked ally for the duration of the combat.

As for changing the card text, I assume that their available options include reprinting affected cards or taking the "errata"-path (like MTG), though I'm not sure whether choices like these sound very appealing to Wulven. Rule changes to the "controller-issue" can result in mentioned side-effects (unless that's how it already works).

In the mentioned hijack-situation, one and the same player drawing 2 cards would treat a single player as two players, which doesn't exactly sound right either. I suppose that the wording could also be interpreted so that only one player would draw a card from the "other player's" deck, but that "other player" wouldn't get to draw a card since he's not involved in the combat. In multiplayer like 2v2 though, how to resolve via the current wording who exactly is that "other player" would presumably be a problem.

Everything I've said here, of course, is just based on my own comprehension about the issue, which might not be perfect - after all, I lack a lot of information that people wiser than me probably have.

[AnAdolt]

I'll provide my assessment of this issue but I'd like to remind that I'm not on the Design Team so don't take my opinion as an indication of how it will/should be.

The part of Dimension Ripper's description mentioning "each player in combat" should refer to players directly involved in a particular "battle" where an attack is made. So with Mind Control and Rabid Bite, regardless of controller/owner status of the ally, only the player attacked and the ally attacking should be considered "in combat". The standard will help future game modes with more than 2 players in a match as these more complex games need proper boundaries to reduce confusion and make it easier to balance.

[pyrogene]

I'll provide my assessment of this issue but I'd like to remind that I'm not on the Design Team so don't take my opinion as an indication of how it will/should be.

The part of Dimension Ripper's description mentioning "each player in combat" should refer to players directly involved in a particular "battle" where an attack is made. So with Mind Control and Rabid Bite, regardless of controller/owner status of the ally, only the player attacked and the ally attacking should be considered "in combat". The standard will help future game modes with more than 2 players in a match as these more complex games need proper boundaries to reduce confusion and make it easier to balance.

By that definition, if an opponent's ally attacks my hero which is equipped with DR, shouldn't it be the case that only I will draw? Since only 1 player (hero) is in combat.

[Seth]

@AnAdolt: I completely agree. It's going to be important to fix this interaction for the sake of the future. Leaving it as it currently functions will be horrible on multiple levels.

@Pyro: A player is not the same thing as a hero. I would find it to be a natural reading that a player is "involved" in a combat if he/she controls at least one ally and/or hero in said combat. The issue is only if a single player controls all allies/heroes in the combat.