Just got the Alchemist class deck last night and while looking over Mother Myrtle's role card I realized there's a ridiculous exploit that can be done with her Preservationist role.
The power:
"At,the start of your turn, you may display an ally that does not list Diplomacy in its check to acquire. During your turn, you may recharge a card to draw a displayed ally."
The key part is how the second sentence pairs with the Mastiff who's power is:
"Display this card to draw 2 cards. At the end of the turn, discard this card."
It would seem the two of these together enable Mother Myrtle to draw two cards, pull the Mastiff back into her hand and repeat, continually gaining a profit of one card for the transaction. Yes this could kill her, but she need only play cards between cycles and recharge them herself or heal them in some way.
Now while Mastiff does have Diplomacy listed in it's check to acquire, Mother Myrtle's power doesn't specify that for returning the card to her hand only for displaying it. I assume it is supposed to?
This doesn't seem like an infinite hand exploit, more like a dangerous way to get all of Mother Myrtle's cards into her hand. Still, it might not be intended.
Her base power actually allows for her to recharge a very large percentage of the cards in her deck(Anything Alchemical, Liquid, Arcane or Divine) as well as carry various ways to heal discarded cards. So as long as she's playing lots of cards while doing this then it's really not very dangerous for her I feel like.
I think her power is intended to only allow her to draw an ally she displayed with the same power. If you didn't display it via her power, you can't draw it via her power either.
Thus, if you displayed the Mastiff for the Mastiff's power, you can't draw the Mastiff via her power.
I've always treated it that you had to remember why you displayed the card.
I remember a time when cards weren't supposed to have memory, but that ship may have sailed some time ago.
Yeah I'm sure that it's not the intent to be able to do this, which is why I brought it up. However, given cards to what they say and not what they don't, I wanted it clarified to proper wording to match the intent.
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I remember a time when cards weren't supposed to have memory, but that ship may have sailed some time ago.
I think we can take the idea that cards don't have memories too far. Cards might not have memories, but you do. You have to remember that if you failed the Wisdom check against the Bunyip, the difficulty of your checks is increased by 1 for the rest of the turn.
Or, consider Olenjack with the Immortal Dreamstone. Olenjack will have allies displayed both for his power and for burying the Immortal Dreamstone. But he can't return the ones from the Dreamstone to his hand before resetting it. And he can't banish the ones displayed for his power to play them like the ones from the Dreamstone.
Now, granted, both Olenjack and the Immortal Dreamstone are a bit more clearly worded.
Banish this card to add 3 random allies from the box to your hand. You may instead bury this card to display the allies; you may banish any of these displayed allies for its power as though you had played it as an ally.
When you attempt a check, you may display any number of allies; for each ally displayed, add 1 (□ 2) to the check. Return the displayed allies to your hand before you reset it.
The Dreamstone says these displayed allies. Olenjack says the displayed allies. But both are clearly looking for an antecedent to identify which allies they are talking about. And that antecedent is the allies described earlier in the power.
Mother Myrtle doesn't seem to have such a clear reference to an antecedent. But, the fact that it is one power makes me feel that it should work that way. It would perhaps be a clearer if it said "During your turn, you may recharge a card to draw any of these displayed allies." Or something like that.
And that is all just opinion from me.
There are quite a few ways to intentionally break the game in your favor, especially post-role. They even printed some boons that directly let you draw your deck if you like (see: WotR AD6).
Now, this may not be the *intent* of this card, in which case clarification would be great. But there are equally strong or stronger things that have been left as-is (see: Sword of Iomedae infinite loops that generate infinite mythic charges AND infinite drawing power).
Also, I have an irrationally-strong love of Mastiff already. So if something's going to be the linchpin of PACG's pun-pun, it might as well be it.
I think there's an implication that "displayed ally" is referring to the ones displayed by this power; and as Hawkmoon and Mike Selinker say "cards may not have memories, but you definitely do".
A clarification would be nice. Infinite loops tend to be frowned upon (as Restoration and cards of that ilk were worded deliberately to prevent that).
It sure seems like you should only be able to get the allies you displayed as part of the power, not an ally you displayed for some other reason.
Otherwise I'm totally playing that scenario in Season of the Shackles with Mother Myrtle where you display Heartbreak Hinsin next to the scenario card during setup just so I can steal him away from the good Lady :D
(also, this wouldn't qualify for PACG's pun-pun; that honor probably goes to pre-errata Radillo instead or anyone else that allows for infinite looping of the Scrying spell to fully examine every location deck and put a desired card on top/bottom of each)
Chief Technical Officer
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I think her power is intended to only allow her to draw an ally she displayed with the same power. If you didn't display it via her power, you can't draw it via her power either.
Thus, if you displayed the Mastiff for the Mastiff's power, you can't draw the Mastiff via her power.
Yep. Added to FAQ.
So with the clarification of her ability, what is the point of the ability? Just for the few allies that wouldn't normally not go back to your hand? Seems like a not overly useful ability to me.
See the description of her power in the original post. This does not concern allies which are displayed by using their power.
It's a curious, minor power she has, but she is able to display certain allies as sort of a way of extending her hand. The ally sits there, not subject to damage, until she wants it.
I puzzled over this power for a while, until I realised that you don't have to retrieve the allies on the same turn you displayed them. So over the course of several turns you can build up a bank of allies in addition to your normal hand size.
I think anyone who manages to keep her alive long enough to get a role-card deserves to be allowed to exploit any power they like. Just started playing her through S&S and she is super, super squishy