Yewstance |
For instance, personally I think the fact that I can play cards in between steps, but not in between turns, is just dumb, and unless it serves a genuine purpose it could happily discarded to the bin of gratuitous irrelevant technicalities. Though if I ever find myself in a convoluted situation in which it matters, and notice, I'll still probably try and play it correctly, because I'm like that.
For the record, I can think of heaps of ways it matters. This would mean you can play a card after redrawing your hand but before someone else does start-of-turn effects, and even before they flip a blessing. Examples of what would be allowed if you can play a card between turns include...
- You're on the last turn of the game (0 cards are in the blessings discard pile), you discard your entire hand at the end of your turn to draw Holy Candle from your deck, then play it before the next turn starts and the blessing deck 'would' be flipped. This gives the players effectively another full hand draw worth to dig for a card that save's them.
- Similar thing; if the card on top of the blessings discard pile is something you want, and you have a card in your deck that lets you draw the top card of the blessings discard pile, you can discard cards from your hand, redraw, then play a card to draw from the blessings deck before it's flipped over.
- Any cards that refer to "this turn", or "End of this turn" or "current player" or anything to that effect become confused. If I play Strength on Character B, and it says "at the end of the turn, I have to discard/recharge it", does that mean it stays displayed indefinitely? "The" turn was never defined, since I played it outside a turn.
You could, in this hypothetical, also play cards that you've just drawn before the next start-of-turn effects occur, giving you more openings to draw cards that let you or other players move away from hazards and the like. There could be other weird corner cases. For example, there would be ways to encounter a card whilst no turn is currently occurring (there's several cards that let you "examine and encounter" a card, which is not confined by exploration timing restrictions), which could lead to weirdness. What if a bane refers to the current player when there is none?
I think the biggest thing that would get me is how gamey it would be to say that "This is the last turn of the game. I end my turn and redraw my hand, including Holy Candle. I play Holy Candle before the next turn, and now we have more turns". Also, for every collectable card game I can think of, cards are never played 'between turns' (partially because it would be awkward for any effects that last for 'a turn'); the conclusion to one player's turn is immediately followed by the start of the next player's, so it also is somewhat intuitive to at least some players coming into PACG.
Long story short; I'm very happy that the rules never say you can play a card between turns, I'm pretty confident 99% of PACG players already are aware of that or play like that (I don't think I've ever seen anyone reset their hand, then try to play a card explicitly before the next blessing was flipped or before start-of-turn effects occurred for the next player).
Irgy |
There's a difference between being technically different, and "mattering" in the sense I meant it. Even if there's specific circumstances where the difference is critical, the game isn't better or worse designed overall if you can play that candle or not play it in that one case. What really matters is whether it's intuitive. Maybe what's intuitive to you and intuitive to me is different though (which is fine).
My guess would be that about 50% of people would play that situation wrong if it ever came up. Like I said though, I'll try and get it right if it ever comes up for me.
Re Alhazra and Climber's Gloves, sounds like the start of another entry to your power-combos thread!
Yewstance |
Oh, there's a few things like that in MTG in general; online and physical. I will, however, state that MTG has been perfectly consistent in its rules for well over a decade (with very rare, and very, very corner-case exceptions). But it has also had 24 years to hammer out the kinks. And the 'core rules', which can be taught in as little as 10-20 minutes, or a well-designed digital tutorial (as in various MTG digital games), will cover concepts that will describe any concept that will be necessary in play 99% of the time (unless you go straight into a tournament). That's my personal opinion... and it's a super biased one, as I've played the game for more than a decade.
As for the Alahazra and Climber's Gloves... that's really annoying, because I'm almost certain the FAQ post for it is literally designed to cancel the super-powerful combo that would otherwise exist with a character in the class deck that has the item.
...Unfortunately, I don't think the FAQ fixes the problem.
Can Climber’s Gloves be used every time I shuffle a location deck?Not quite. It can only be used once per check or step.
Resolution: On the item Climber’s Gloves, add the following sentence to the end of the second power: "You may not use this power more than once per check or step."
I don't see why stating explicitly that it can only be used once per step prevents it from being used over and over between steps, which the rulebook even calls out as allowing you to play cards without restriction, and also infers strongly that 'between steps' is, by definition, not a step. So when Alahazra, Bride of the Sun role, has the power...
When you examine 1 or more cards from a character or location deck, you may examine an additional card (□ and then you may shuffle that deck).
I really don't see, mechanically, why she can't examine 2 cards in a location deck, shuffle it, examine the top 2 cards with Climbers Gloves, shuffle it, examine the top 2 cards with Climbers Gloves, shuffle it, ad nauseam. However, unlike a lot of the other combos I've pointed out otherwise, this is clearly one that we have pretty clear clarification is explicitly unintentional. It appears to be a faulty FAQ, which is very different to me than a card that doesn't have a FAQ clarifying it at all (like, say, how Olenjack is broken with Tears of Death, since he's not affected by the same FAQ that explicitly nerfed the much weaker power available to Zadim). At least the presence of the Climbers Gloves FAQ would immediately suggest to a player that they're not allowed to infinitely re-use it.
(As an aside, it's not an easy FAQ to fix. There's some inelegant fixes that would explicitly call out the 'between steps' rule or use awkward temporary Display powers or even change Alahazra's power somehow. I could write up some things that would close the exploit, but they're all incredibly clumsy, and the intent is pretty clear, I'd argue.)