The revised version of Groundshiftin 3.13, along with a couple of bugs where it is working incorrectly, has led to some confusion over what is considered a passive ability. This post is an attempt to clear things up.
There are four main types of ability in Shadow Era that can be written on a card:
Activated ability - When a card is in play on the board on its controller's turn, the controller can choose to activate that ability by paying the cost shown in the little icon. (It is the presence of the activation cost that shows it to be an activated ability, and it is the requirement to act on the part of the player that led to the use of the word "activated".)
Passive ability - When a card is in play on the board, any abilities written on the card that are not activated abilities or peripheral abilities (see below) are considered passive abilities. Some passive abilities are written as single words in bold (ambush, defender, haste, stealth, hidden, protector, steadfast, meek) - these are keyword passive abilities. While an ability grants a keyword passive ability to another card (or itself), we treat that keyword passive ability as though it is written on the card it is being granted to.
Peripheral ability - When a card is not in play, its ability text may describe an effect that is relevant in certain situations related to not being in play. Cards that describe modifications to their own summoning cost are a good example, since the cost must be paid before the card is considered in play. Another example is an effect that relates to being "discarded from anywhere" since cards can only be discarded when not in play.
Immediate ability - When an Ability card is summoned and it is not a Support ability or Attachment ability, it is briefly in play to have its effect although it is not on the board.
Note that these are mutually exclusive. Whilst a card can have multiple different abilities, each ability is exactly one of the four types above.
I hope you found this useful!
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