Consuming Fear

[Illusionator]

[EDIT: NEVER MIND, I was incorrect. I constructed a test game so I could have a replay to give Gondorian, and it turns out Consuming Fear works consistently and as-expected when attached to both Death Mage Thaddeus and Plasma Behemoth. Please see my "My bad" message toward the end of this thread for details. My apologies for wasting people's time on this!]

I have been using Consuming Fear heavily since Dark Prophecies came out. I have discovered over time that its effects are surprisingly complex, and a bit difficult to explain to someone who isn't intimately familiar with its idiosyncrasies.

It seems like Consuming Fear should be easier to explain to a player who encounters it. I have read all the Consumer Fear threads here on the forums, and I have not seen these subtleties discussed, so I wanted to mention them here.

The crux of the issue with Consumer Fear (awesome card, by the way) is ambiguity in the card text about exactly when the effects of Consumer Fear take place. This ambiguity seems to have also affected the actual implementation of Consuming Fear in Shadow Era 2.0.

The card text description of Consuming Fear is: "Each time target opposing ally attacks or activates an ability while Consuming Fear is attached, that ally loses 2 base attack and its health is reduced by 2."

The ambiguity is: Does Consuming Fear's effect take place before or after the activation of the attack or ability of the ally that Consuming Fear is attached to?

Just to be clear, everything below is from me watching what actually happens when I use Consuming Fear on an opponent's ally. My description below is simply describing what I have observed that Consuming Fear does in its implementation in the iPhone 5 version of Shadow Era v2.000 (and, I would assume, on all other devices), NOT what is written on the Consuming Fear card.

Here is what I have observed that Consuming Fear actually does:

If the ally attacks, Consuming Fear removes 2 base attack and 2 health BEFORE the attack takes place. This is consistently true on every opposing ally to which I have attached Consuming Fear. This is fine and good.

However, if the ally uses an ability, the answer is more complicated. Let's suppose that the opponent plays Death Mage Thaddeus (which is a 0/4), and you immediately play Consuming Fear onto Thaddeus. I have found that Thaddeus can use its ability ("target opposing hero or ally takes 2 damage") TWICE before Consuming Fear kills it. The first time Thaddeus uses its ability, its base attack remains at zero (because it can't go negative), its health is reduced from 4 to 2, and Thaddeus successfully administers 2 damage to an opposing hero or ally. The second time Thaddeus uses its ability, the ability is again successful in administering 2 damage to an opposing hero or ally, even though Consuming Fear reduced the health of Thaddeus to zero. AFTER the Thaddeus ability resolves, Thaddeus is killed by Consuming Fear. This would seem to imply, in the case of using abilities, that Consuming Fear reduces the attack and health by 2 AFTER the ally's ability is used.

However, the answer for abilities is different if the ally has an odd number of health points. Let's suppose that the opponent plays Plasma Behemoth (which is 3/5), and you immediately play Consuming Fear onto PB. I have found that PB can use its ability ("target opposing hero or ally takes 4 damage") TWICE before Consuming Fear kills it. Weird, because this seems inconsistent with the effect of Consuming Fear on Thaddeus, above. Let me explain why: The first time PB uses its ability, its base attack is reduced from 3 to 1, its health is reduced from 5 to 3, and PB successfully administers 4 damage. The second time PB uses its ability, its base attack is reduced from 1 to zero, its health is reduced from 3 to 1, and PB again successfully administers 4 damage. The THIRD time PB uses its ability, PB is killed by Consuming Fear BEFORE the PB ability takes effect. This would seem to imply, in the case of abilities, that Consuming Fear reduces the attack and health by 2 BEFORE the ally's ability is used, but this is inconsistent with the Thaddeus scenario, above.

The only consistent description I can think of that describes how Consuming Fear is actually implemented is the following:

"Each time target opposing ally attacks while Consuming Fear is attached, that ally loses 2 base attack and its health is reduced by 2 before the attack. Each time opposing ally activates an ability, the ability resolves if the ally's health is at least 2, and then that ally loses 2 base attack and its health is reduced by 2."

The above description for Consuming Fear is the only one I can come up with that correctly describes the effect of Consuming Fear on all allies I have used it on, including Death Mage Thaddeus and Plasma Behemoth.

From the above, the effect of Consuming Fear seems a bit too complicated and ambiguous. I would suggest resolving the ambiguity and changing the text of Consuming Fear to read as follows:

"Each time target opposing ally attacks or activates an ability while Consuming Fear is attached, that ally first loses 2 base attack and its health is reduced by 2."

The boldface "first" above is the only change I'm suggesting for the card text. If this card text change were made, the effect of Consuming Fear on Death Mage Thaddeus would need to be changed so that Thaddeus can only activate its ability once, not twice, before Consuming Fear kills it.

[Unruler]

This card makes OP class even more so.

[Shadowborn]

This was discussed before I remember . A CFed Mystic can return CF without being affected. What's happening is the way effects resolve. When your ally attacks, it goes through 2 phases. Attack phase and then Combat phase. Attack phase is right after clicking on attack but BEFORE the two allies fight so CF triggers after you press the attack button but before the combat animation. In terms of abilities, the ability triggers first (just like in the attack phase). So a 1 health PB's ability triggers first before CF kicks in and kills PB

[Shadowborn]

That's why a 2 attack ally can still "attack" with CF attached, but it won't deal any damage because after the "attack" resolves its damage goes down to 0 and then it enters combat to deal 0 damage

[Illusionator]

In terms of abilities, the ability triggers first (just like in the attack phase). So a 1 health PB's ability triggers first before CF kicks in and kills PB

Thanks, Shadowborn. However, I'm still confused. You say that a 1 health Plasma Behemoth's ability triggers first before Consuming Fear kicks in and kills PB. But that is not what I have found to be the case. When I attach CF to opponent's PB, and PB's health gets down to 1, when PB uses its ability, PB is killed by CF BEFORE the ability triggers. That is what I have observed to be the case. (I've only used CF on a PB once, so I've only seen this occur once.)

Conversely, when I attach CF to Death Mage Thaddeus, and Thaddeus' health is 2, when Thaddeus uses its ability, CF kills Thaddeus AFTER the ability triggers. I've seen this happen a bunch of times.

This seems inconsistent to me. What am I missing?

[Drakkon]

I'm going to take a crack at this.. with Yu-Gi-Oh! mechanics.

CF is attached to PB. PB has 1 hp.

Chain link 1: PB pays the cost and activates his effect.
Chain link 2: CF activates to make PB -2/-2

Chain resolves backwards.

CF resolves killing PB.
PBs effect fails to resolve as PB is no longer face up.

[Illusionator]

I'm going to take a crack at this.. with Yu-Gi-Oh! mechanics.

CF is attached to PB. PB has 1 hp.

Chain link 1: PB pays the cost and activates his effect.
Chain link 2: CF activates to make PB -2/-2

Chain resolves backwards.

CF resolves killing PB.
PBs effect fails to resolve as PB is no longer face up.

Hi, Drakkon. Thanks for the reply. If your description above of the Consuming Fear mechanics is correct, then why is Death Mage Thaddeus with CF attached able to activate twice before CF kills it? In your description above, when Thaddeus activates for the second time, it seems like the second activation of the Thaddeus ability would fail to resolve, because the health of Thaddeus is reduced to zero and CF has killed it. But in actuality, the Shadow Era 2.0 code allows the Thaddeus ability to activate twice before killing Thaddeus, even though the health of Thaddeus has gone to zero.

I guess my point is, CF behaves differently when attached to Thaddeus than when attached to Plasma Behemoth.

Bottom line: When an ally has Consuming Fear attached and activates an ability, does the ability resolve before reducing the health by 2 (as in the case of Thaddeus), or after reducing the health by 2 (as in the case of Plasma Behemoth)?

[Illusionator]

it's no mystery. dmt activates and deals damage with his ability at the same time. pb has 2 steps. activate ability with resources (might die now) then choose target.

Hi, cycle. Thanks very much for your reply. But I'm still confused. I'm so sorry I'm being so dense.

From the card text, it seems as though Death Mage Thaddeus (DMT) and Plasma Behemoth (PB) would have the same mechanics when using their abilities. When DMT activates its ability, it uses zero resources. When PB activates its ability, it uses 3 resources. Even though DMT uses zero resources to activate its ability, from the standpoint of game mechanics, it seems as though both DMT and PB would use 2 steps to activate ability. Both DMT and PB will activate their ability, then choose a target.

Per your note above, let's assume Consuming Fear takes effect after the ally activates the ability, but before the target is chosen. Let's also assume that Consuming Fear (CF) is attached to DMT, and DMT has health of 2. When DMT activates its ability, it seems like CF will take effect and kill DMT before DMT has a chance to target. But that is not what I have found. If DMT has health of 2, and CF is attached, I have found that DMT will successfully target and deal 2 damage with its ability before CF kills it. Why is that?

[Gondorian]

Thanks, Shadowborn. However, I'm still confused. You say that a 1 health Plasma Behemoth's ability triggers first before Consuming Fear kicks in and kills PB. But that is not what I have found to be the case. When I attach CF to opponent's PB, and PB's health gets down to 1, when PB uses its ability, PB is killed by CF BEFORE the ability triggers. That is what I have observed to be the case. (I've only used CF on a PB once, so I've only seen this occur once.)

Conversely, when I attach CF to Death Mage Thaddeus, and Thaddeus' health is 2, when Thaddeus uses its ability, CF kills Thaddeus AFTER the ability triggers. I've seen this happen a bunch of times.

This seems inconsistent to me. What am I missing?

Sounds like a bug with PB and CF, but we need to see a replay.

[Airact]

The ability triggers first, then CF triggers and after that it resolves in the order of Active player's trigger first, then Non-active players trigger second. In those cases activating abilities triggers before CF triggers and resolves first (assuming the CF is controlled by the opponent) as well. This would mean that you are able to save Death Collector from Consuming Fear by activating it's ability when it's on 2 health, making it go to 1 and have 2 less attack (meaning you really shouldn't do that unless you want to disrupt a chain).

Attacking, however, is a bit different. It's done in multiple phases (unlike activating abilities which is just a single trigger). First you announce the attack (like, "This guy is going to attack that guy"), then the attacker starts attacking, then the combatant who has priority (in most cases, the attacker, but Defender-ability reverses that) deals combat damage, then the other side deals combat damage, then combat ends and play continues. Consuming Fear activates in the "attacker starts attacking" phase of the combat which means it's already attacking and anything that forces it to not attack (that's not removing it from the board) doesn't do anything to it.

At least that's how I understand it. In activated abilities, costs don't matter as paying doesn't use timing windows but rather it just happens.