Lythian Sledgehammer, Rust Weevil (under consideration)

[Shadaba]

Hi. There's some very subtle stuff going on here that I would not expect most people to be aware of or understand, but there is a reason for the behaviour you are seeing and I don't consider it a bug.

1. Rust Weevil takes combat damage and now Sledgehammer is due to lose 1 additional durability at the point it loses the usual 1 (to make 2 lost in total).
2. Rust Weevil is killed and exiled. (His "on killed" ability would blow up Sledgehammer here except Sledgehammer can't be destroyed in this way.)
3. Sledgehammer loses 1 durability from being used but Rust Weevil is no longer in play to give the additional 1 durability loss so only 1 durability is used up.

I hope that makes sense. Thanks for reporting.

I'm sorry, but this is highly unintuitive to me and, I believe, not the only way we could interpret the rule book.

I don't understand (and even disagree with) two design choices that were made here that do not necessarily follow from the combat resolution ruling:
1) Some event (extra durability loss) was already triggered (in step 2.3.1), but for some reason (in step 2.4) it is checked again whether the sourcing card is still in play before the triggered event is fully resolved.
2) Separately, and specifically for this example, I do not understand why the 'losses additional durability' is resolved so late. There is nothing on the card that specifies that the durability needs to be lost at the same time as the normal durability loss. "Additional" does not necessarily mean "additional, and at the same time", although that seems to be your interpretation.

To expand on the first of these points: more generally for some reason it was chosen in SE to check at each point in the resolution whether sourcing cards for triggered events are still in play. I think this is a mistake, because it leads to unintuitive outcomes. I'm also not aware of anything in the rulebook stating this is necessarily necessary.

An alternative would be to adopt the following: an event can be triggered to be resolved. If the card that triggered the event disappears in the mean time then the event still resolves, because the event - after being triggered - is now independent of the card being in play.

As a metaphor, think of an archer shooting an arrow: first the archer shoots (triggers an event). Then the archer is killed. Then the arrow still arrives (event resolves). The triggering of the event (shooting the arrow) makes its effect independent of the source (the archer).

This interpretation - which does, as far as I know, not seem to contradict the official rulebook or the later combat resolution ruling - would also finally allow us to use the last durability of an item to cause a desired effect, rather than just destroying the item, because the triggered event could still resolve even after the destruction of the item. The destruction of the item only prevents new events from being triggered.

I hope you'll consider this alternative interpretation of the rules. I sincerely think it would be much more intuitive.

[WolfCyr]

Why not find a consensus and remove "additional" from the description ? I know the card is already printed, but would make the things easier, or editing the official rulebook and specify in it that durability reduction trigger after all over effects.

[Gondorian]

Well, now that the bug tracking system has returned (the server was being migrated last night), we can go back to the original bug that was fixed more than two years ago:

SE-766 - Rust Weevil should cause additional durability loss at time of usual durability loss

Hopefully this confirms for mindy that my explanation earlier was not an attempt to avoid fixing a bug to do with timing. We had to do additional work to accommodate the use of "additional" in the text! With regards that, here's the bug description that refers to that very important word:

"Rust Weevil will currently cause a weapon to lose 1 durability as soon as he takes the combat damage from it, but the word "additional" in its text suggests that the 1 durability should come off when the usual 1 durability comes off. Note that this means that if the weapon would have otherwise lost 0 (e.g. Golden Katar on defense) then it will still lose 0 and not 1. The game currently will cause you to lose 1."

So hopefully we can at least agree on the point where durability loss should happen. As for whether it should still work if Rust Weevil has left play in the interim, I want to think about that further because it's not as clear cut as some other things.

For instance, one of the fundamental rules of the game is:

Rule 1: If a card is currently having an ongoing effect and then leaves play then the effect should end at that point, whether that be an ongoing effect from a passive ability (e.g. Aldon the Brave leaving play should mean the +1 attack modifier ends) or an ongoing effect that came from an activated effect (e.g. Gold-Laced Shield leaving play after activating its ability should mean that the +2 attack modifier ends).

If you disagree, then please accept we are not going to change it! For us, and the majority of players, it is intuitive and practical. Consider the physical game where at any time you can just look over the board at the appropriate time and see what's still around to modify or respond to something, as opposed to having to remember what was around previously. Since the digital version of Shadow Era is meant to be an authentic simulation of a real-life trading/collectible card game, the game engine we have coded does exactly the same, looking over all the cards in play to see which are relevant to the situation.

Beyond that fundamental rule, there's another one:

Rule 2: If there is an explicit timing involved with an effect and a card is not in play at that time, then it should not have the effect, whether that be a passive ability that was waiting for a trigger (e.g. Wrath of the Forest) or a delayed effect of an activated ability (e.g. Necromancer's Shroud).

For me, the ability of Rust Weevil is not an ongoing effect like in Rule 1 and the delayed effect does not explicitly mention a timing either like we look for in Rule 2. There was a timing mentioned, but it is "When Rust Weevil is dealt combat damage by a hero" which happens before he leaves play. The question is about this "additional" that will happen when normal durability is lost. We've already seen why it can't happen immediately, but should it carry over to a later step of the combat phase even if he left in the mean time?

I don't know and will need to think about it further, but clearly this is a corner case with Lythian Sledgehammer (any other weapon that kills him will cause his other ability to trigger at the point of his death to destroy the weapon), so I can't possibly prioritise this over other work right now and it needs to go onto a todo list.

[Shadaba]

Hi Gondorian,

Thanks for the extra thoughts. I appreciate that you'll think about it.

Just to clarify my position:

"Rust Weevil will currently cause a weapon to lose 1 durability as soon as he takes the combat damage from it, but the word "additional" in its text suggests that the 1 durability should come off when the usual 1 durability comes off. Note that this means that if the weapon would have otherwise lost 0 (e.g. Golden Katar on defense) then it will still lose 0 and not 1. The game currently will cause you to lose 1."

I do not agree that this is what is suggested by the word additional. First, I would expect from the current wording that rust weevil would cause the loss of one durability also when there is 0 durability lost otherwise (because 1 in addition to 0 equals 1). In addition, I do not agree that the word 'additional' indicates that the timing necessarily coincides with the usual loss of durability.

Example: "Susan had a piece of cake. After brushing her teeth, Susan had an additional piece of cake." To me, there is nothing wrong with this sentence (apart from the obvious fact that cake after brushing your teeth is a horrible idea). As I said above, "additionally" does not necessarily mean "additionally and simultaneously".

In addition (I'm using that word a lot, it seems), "additional" is not a key word, as far as I know, so even if you define it very precisely for this one case it might still be confusing and non-intuitive to new players. Unless you do choose to make it into a keyword?

For me, the ability of Rust Weevil is not an ongoing effect like in Rule 1 and the delayed effect does not explicitly mention a timing either like we look for in Rule 2. There was a timing mentioned, but it is "When Rust Weevil is dealt combat damage by a hero" which happens before he leaves play. The question is about this "additional" that will happen when normal durability is lost. We've already seen why it can't happen immediately, but should it carry over to a later step of the combat phase even if he left in the mean time?

My preferred ruling would be: yes, triggered effects and events should carry over to later resolution, even if the card leaves play in the mean time. I can think of a few cases in which the outcome would be more intuitive and natural, and I can think of no cases that would become less intuitive. However, perhaps I'm missing something. Of course, I do understand, and agree, that all of this is rather low priority. Again, thanks for considering.

Cheers.

[Gondorian]

Example: "Susan had a piece of cake. After brushing her teeth, Susan had an additional piece of cake." To me, there is nothing wrong with this sentence (apart from the obvious fact that cake after brushing your teeth is a horrible idea). As I said above, "additionally" does not necessarily mean "additionally and simultaneously".

Sure. The word "additional" does not imply "additionally and simultaneously", but the additional part must happen in the context of something else happening - never before what it is in addition to. Try flipping that example round and having the additional piece of cake first!

[Shadaba]

Try flipping that example round and having the additional piece of cake first!

Are you saying I've had enough cake and can't have any more?

[jpm]

Sure. The word "additional" does not imply "additionally and simultaneously", but the additional part must happen in the context of something else happening - never before what it is in addition to. Try flipping that example round and having the additional piece of cake first!

I think a way to make the ruling more clear would be to edit the text on hammer to if your hero WOULD kill an opposing ally in combat it is INSTEAD exiled and it's controller takes 1 damage. From when your hero kills an ally in combat it is exiled and its controller takes 1 damage.
This change would make more obvious the fact that the ally is not in play and therefore cannot have abilities trigger.

[mindy]

ok so now you say that card effects end when they leave play and so rust weevil ability doesnt work because it died. but then you also said traps can still work when they are destroyed. and when i reported that i destroyed survivalist with an ally and that ally was killed by a trap and the enemy still drew a card you said it was correct functioning. so even when attachments are destroyed they can still work. but not allys? you see how it all is so confusing?

[Gondorian]

ok so now you say that card effects end when they leave play and so rust weevil ability doesnt work because it died. but then you also said traps can still work when they are destroyed. and when i reported that i destroyed survivalist with an ally and that ally was killed by a trap and the enemy still drew a card you said it was correct functioning. so even when attachments are destroyed they can still work. but not allys? you see how it all is so confusing?

To anyone else reading your post, I'm sure it is very confusing! You've brought three different cases with no context.

In an attempt to help other readers follow what you're talking about:

1. Traps still triggering while they are due to leave the board from being destroyed fits with all other cards in the game that can still respond to their own destruction before leaving. I already said we are considering a special rule for traps, but for now we're leaving them consistent with all other cards. The related post for this is here: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....l=1#post571690

2. For Survivalist and ally and trap, all those things were considered happening at the same time, so we resolve as much as we can unless there's some conflict between the effects, and, again, this is a situation where cards get to respond to their destruction (or something that happened at the same time). The related post for this is here: http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....l=1#post592798

3. For Rust Weevil, his on-killed ability is an example of where an ally card (Rust Weevil) gets to respond to his own destruction (to blow up the weapon). It's all consistent with other on-destruction effects above. The only sticking point, which I already covered above, is that his on-combat-damage ability wording could be interpreted as having two different timings (the trigger and later the resolution in later combat phase step) and we have to decide whether to honour the effect if he leaves play in between.

To resolve this question, I'll have to do an exhaustive look over all other effects in the game looking for any other split-timing situations to see if a precedent is set anywhere. (The examples in 1 and 2 are not trying to do anything in the future, so they are not relevant and don't help with this.) It might be the case that this is treated as a bespoke effect that requires its own special ruling. In the mean time, there's a ruling and known behaviour, which should be sufficient to cover this minor corner case while other work takes priority.