Regarding wording of costs/abilities

[Kosmiker]

context Thread


This is an issue that I've been seeing since Prophecies but here it goes anyway. Right now we have different effects with different "wording format" and sometimes even the same kind of effect with different "wording formats". Might be better to give some examples...

Regarding the "discard a card" the most common and consistent form is having a colon after the "discard cost", this is indeed consistent with cards like Knight of Unaxio, Corpse Shifter and Soulbound Armor just to name a few... except for Abomination Factory, that one doesn't deserve a colon but perhaps it's because it's an armor (who knows) but if we forget the Abomination Factory, this same use of the colon was also not used in cards like Death Collector, Tiger Wulf or even Anmor's Elixer (among many other cards).

One could assume that these belong to a special category in the "wording/format department" because these ain't "discard card" effects but no, that wouldn't answer why cards like Splicer's Crown that has an "exile cost" now has a colon (as opposed to Death Collector). Something is not right here... but hey! We, theoretically, could again say that this is another special ruling regarding the special case because Death Collector affects itself as opposed to Splicer's Crown that has the ability to target friendly homunculus allies. We might be into something here, it looks indeed that is the case if we look closer at like Tiger Wulf vs Hellfire Besieger. Heck! Who would have guessed that? I bet some players didn't knew that!

But... oh oh! We have problem here... this was almost correct if it wasn't for the fact that Knight of Unaxio has the colon and targets himself... still didn't figured that one out but for now let's just say it's in the "discard effect" category and in there doesn't matter if it targets itself or not.

Ok, I have to give my hat. It seems we don't have exactly a consistency problem here... it's more a case of "why to complicate?" Isn't there any way to make it clearer and simpler? Especially coherent with all cards? That's all I'm asking.

I just don't want to end up with a rule book like this:

[Gondorian]

Hi there. I'll do my best to keep this clear and short, despite the temptation to answer in a similar style to your post ...

Both the "A effect and B effect" and the "A effect: B effect" wordings are valid as a way of showing that B effect doesn't happen until after A effect happens. Older cards tend to use the "and" variant because we didn't discover the importance of using the colon variant until a bit later.

The "A effect: B effect" variant does three extra things that the "A effect and B effect" variant doesn't:

1. It addresses the situation where A effect is attempted but doesn't actually complete. (e.g. "exile this ally" when that ally has steadfast will not actually exile it). We've defined the ":" as meaning that all effects before it must complete fully before you get the effects after it.

2. Unlike "A effect and B effect", the player does not need a basic understanding of boolean logic to know that B effect depends on A effect happening. Instead, we can rely on our definition of what ":" means in an effect.

3. It makes the ordering very clear that we have A then B. Sometimes people wonder if both A effect and B effect should happen "at the same time" or wonder if B might happen first for some reason. With the colon wording, there should be no doubt that A happens first since B won't happen unless A completes fully, as already covered.

Where we don't care about A effect fully completing, we can use the "and" variant. When we really do care, we use the ":" variant. If in doubt, we use the ":" variant because maybe we will care about it fully completing in future.

If you have specific cards that you think should have their wording improved, please can you PM me about them so I can take a look.

Other notes:
* In 3.13 we have fixed up the wording of Abomination Factory to use the colon wording.
* Effects before the colon are still considered effects and part of the ability, so they will get cancelled by Stoneskin.

Cheers!