Can you play a card even if it's not "required" for the specific event?

[DrSnooze]

So, we were playing the other night and my friend had an armor card in his hand. He felt that he didn't need it at that time, so after a victorious combat he wanted to recharge it to "reduce" the damage that he took, which was 0. We weren't sure if that was allowed.

Ultimately we decided against that, and he instead discarded it at the end of his turn.

[Mike Riley 302]

You can always discard any number of cards at the end of your turn. I don't know of any benefit that would be gained by "discarding" a card outside of the normal times. In fact, discarding a card for no reason is probably going to HURT more than it would help.

[austinmonster]

He wasn't discarding though, he was recharging. Recharging doesn't have any real negative effects overall. In essence, the guy was trying to get a card he felt he didn't need out of his hand without reducing his deck size overall.

I know the devs have said multiple times here that "this isn't M:TG." A lot of those little "Technicalities" that magic players love to play aren't really allowed in this game; There's no real timing rules, for example.

That being said, I'd love to hear an official answer to this - I'm curious.

[Thazar]

Magic armor has the line that you may recharge rather than discard this card during reset of your hand if you are proficient. This leads me to believe that you probably should not be able to do what you suggested.

But that is just a suggestion based upon the card text of another card so take that for what it is worth. They have added language to other cards that did not really make sense now that will make more sense in the future with newer packs.

*They called it future proofing in other threads. :)

[Throknor]

DrSnooze wrote:

So, we were playing the other night and my friend had an armor card in his hand. He felt that he didn't need it at that time, so after a victorious combat he wanted to recharge it to "reduce" the damage that he took, which was 0. We weren't sure if that was allowed.

Ultimately we decided against that, and he instead discarded it at the end of his turn.

While I can appreciate the argument about reducing 0 to 0, if you win a fight there is no damage-taking step. In other words you don't take 0 damage - you skip the damage calculation entirely. And by skipping it there is no opportunity for anyone to play a card relating to a player taking damage.

[Mike Selinker]

Throknor wrote:

While I can appreciate the argument about reducing 0 to 0, if you win a fight there is no damage-taking step. In other words you don't take 0 damage - you skip the damage calculation entirely. And by skipping it there is no opportunity for anyone to play a card relating to a player taking damage.

This.

[Vic Wertz]

Rules: "Armor" wrote:

If the armor doesn’t reduce the type of damage you’re being dealt, you can’t play it.