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[Bench of Bishops]

Hey, there are a few places where wiki articles say things that aren't completely correct, such as:

• "Spoils may be gained only through Bandit Camp, Marauder, or Pillage." or "...if you have a Province, you can gain a Prize, a unique card which cannot be gained any other way!" - Diadem and Spoils can also be gained via Thief
• "Fortress - the only card that can never be removed from your deck" - it can be removed from your deck via Ambassador or Masquerade
• "Rogue - a weak card, but the only one capable of stealing non-Treasure cards from other players" - Masq also allows stealing - you just usually end up stealing bad cards. But not always, if you're both well trashed. Or if you were hoping for an estate, for example to use your Baron or Remodel on, and you didn't have one in hand before you played Masq. Of course Masq, and even Amb, can be used with Possession for powerful stealing, though this is an edge case.

Is it nitpicking to want to update those? Ok, it definitely is nitpicking, but would it be reasonable nitpicking?

I guess the changes I'd recommend are minor wording changes like:

• "Spoils may be gained only through Bandit Camp, Marauder, or Pillage, or from another player via Thief."
• "...if you have a Province, you can gain a Prize, a unique card which cannot be gained any other way!" - this one probable doesn't need changing, since it's too awkward to word in a caveat about Diadem - maybe an asterisk? Diadem's page does already mention the Thief loophole.
• "Fortress - the only card that can never be trashed from your deck"
• "Rogue - a weak card, but one of the only ones capable of stealing non-Treasure cards from other players"

[werothegreat]

Feel free to make an account and correct them!

[Bench of Bishops]

Ok, will do! I also edited my initial forum post with my suggested wording changes. I'll get to making the changes in a few hours 

[werothegreat]

Bear in mind that if any of these are in the Official FAQ or other rules, you should not change that, but instead add a rules clarification.  It looks like Spoils already has one for Thief.

[Rubby]

• "Fortress - the only card that can never be trashed from your deck"

This should say "...that can never be removed from your deck via trashing." It most definitely can be trashed; that's why it works with trash-for-benefit cards.

• "Rogue - a weak card, but one of the only ones capable of stealing non-Treasure cards from other players"

"one of the few" would sound better.

[TheOthin]

It's probably worth saying these in ways that acknowledges that for most intents and purposes, the original generalization is true. Spoils and Diadem can be stolen, but they're reliant on either you or your opponent having the card designed to gain them. Rogue isn't the only way to steal other cards, but it's the most... prominent? Standalone? And Fortress is similarly unlikely to actually leave your deck, even though it technically could.

[Beyond Awesome]

I kind of do see it as nitpicking. Also, the new wording makes it sound as if Thief can straight up gain spoils or Diadem which is not true. It can still them from an opponents deck. I would make it a seperate sentence saying that if someone is attacked by Thief, the Thief can steal those treasures. Or, maybe just mention it in the Thief wiki.

Also, the odds of Fortress is a super nitpick. You would either have to pass or donate the card or be possessed and have that happen to you. So, it is not something that will happen too often, and it should be fairly obvious the card works that way. I think the best wording is that the card can never be "destroyed," in the sense that once it's trashed it goes straight into your hand. I don't know. Something like that.

With that said, people on this board like the nitpick and get into edge cases all the time.

[Rubby]

Also, the odds of Fortress is a super nitpick.

Not sure exactly what this means or refers to, but it doesn't take an edge-case freak to agree with the OP that it would be better for the wiki not to contain false information.

To say Fortress "can never be removed from your deck" is factually incorrect. Adding "via trashing" would make it correct, so why not do so?

[TheOthin]

"Via trashing" can come off as weakening the statement more than necessary, and it sounds kinda awkward: of course it can't be trashed out of your deck; it says that right on the card. The important thing is to emphasize is that when cards leave your deck, it's almost always through trashing; it's just that there are some rare exceptions. I'm honestly thinking it'd be best to leave the "can never be removed from your deck" intact and then just add a note afterwards along the lines of "(barring Masquerade and Ambassador)".

[Rubby]

Lots of the card blurbs on the page in question (the Dark Ages page) say stuff that it says "right on the card"; there's no reason for them not to.

Agreed that trashing is to be understood as the common/default way for cards to leave the deck. That's why "via trashing" doesn't feel weakening to me; it feels like the clean/precise/obvious way to make the statement correct. And to me "(barring Masquerade and Ambassador)" feels way more awkward than "via trashing" in that context. But I guess it's a purely subjective argument.

[werothegreat]

Maybe we should just put a disclaimer on the main page: "EVERYONE STATEMENT ASSERTED HERE MOST LIKELY HAS AN EDGE CASE.  PLEASE CALM YOUR NERDRAGE THE FUCK DOWN.  Thank you."

[Watno]

So should the Scout page say "You'll never want to buy this card"?

[werothegreat]

So should the Scout page say "You'll never want to buy this card"?

I'm *so* looking forward to 30 more "How does this combo with Scout?" threads.  I don't think we ever did one for Prince.

[jaketheyak]

I don't even see the edgecase for Fortress.
Exactly how does Masquerade or Ambassador remove Fortress from your deck?

[Rubby]

I don't even see the edgecase for Fortress.
Exactly how does Masquerade or Ambassador remove Fortress from your deck?

In the sense that the Fortress will not be in your deck anymore.
"Deck" being defined as "all of your cards".
And yes, it's unfortunate that "deck" is also used to mean "draw pile", an issue perhaps even more worthy of our nerdrage than edge-case-proofing card blurbs on the wiki.

[jaketheyak]

Right, so in one sense the statement on the wiki is wrong, but in another sense it is right.
Given that the statement is only wrong for one definition of the word deck (and only in very narrow edgecases), how about we just leave it alone?

Also, Masq doesn't steal cards.
It might ultimately amount to the same thing, but if we're going to insist on nitpicking we might as well nitpick correctly.
If Masq stole cards it would be an attack.

And, well, Spoils has the exception spelled out just after the rule is stated.
Like it or not, that's the official FAQ, and you can't change that without a nice long chat with Jay and Donald.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

Pass the popcorn, please.

[jaketheyak]

[Drab Emordnilap]

We could just have an edge-case filter, where all edge cases in the wiki are tagged appropriately, and you can enable/disable edge case visibility in your account options.

[Rubby]

Right, so in one sense the statement on the wiki is wrong, but in another sense it is right.

"Can never be removed from your draw pile" is right? Every time you draw it you're removing it from your draw pile.

Also, Masq doesn't steal cards.
It might ultimately amount to the same thing, but if we're going to insist on nitpicking we might as well nitpick correctly.
If Masq stole cards it would be an attack.

As far as I know there is no established definition of "stealing" as a Dominion term, so I'm not sure what the basis of this assertion (or the statement on the wiki, for that matter) is.

Anyway, I'm not bothered by any edgecase-able statements on the wiki or by anyone's opinion of them. I was just enjoying some light pedantic pedantry. At least I think I was. But I think I'm getting bored with it now.

[eHalcyon]

Right, so in one sense the statement on the wiki is wrong, but in another sense it is right.
Given that the statement is only wrong for one definition of the word deck (and only in very narrow edgecases), how about we just leave it alone?

If you define deck as "all of your cards", then Masquerade and Ambassador can remove it from you deck.

If you define deck as "draw pile", then trashing attacks can remove it from your deck (and put it into your hand!), as can Smithy and other draw cards, as can just your regular clean-up phase.



As to whether these things need to be changed in the article, meh.  They are edge cases, and I don't think strategy articles need to spell out every edge case unless it's really exceptional.

[GeoLib]

I propose footnotes for edge cases so that the wikis can continue to be readable but not wrong.

[jaketheyak]

Also, Masq doesn't steal cards.
It might ultimately amount to the same thing, but if we're going to insist on nitpicking we might as well nitpick correctly.
If Masq stole cards it would be an attack.

As far as I know there is no established definition of "stealing" as a Dominion term, so I'm not sure what the basis of this assertion (or the statement on the wiki, for that matter) is.

Hmm... you're right, it's not an officially defined term, but I was thinking in terms of the way a Thief steals a card directly from your deck.
Which doesn't gel with the way Masq works.
But it doesn't gel with the way Rogue works either.
Man, Rogue kind of sucks...

[Moneymodel]

This all raises an interesting question: is your hand your deck? Or is it one of the things you return to your deck at the end of the game, like Island or Duration cards or Prince?

[Rubby]

This all raises an interesting question: is your hand your deck? Or is it one of the things you return to your deck at the end of the game, like Island or Duration cards or Prince?

By official terminology, the latter. In common usage (including throughout the wiki), also the former.

An even more unfortunate ambiguity is "action". Very often in IRL I hear something like "I have two actions, but I don't have any actions", and it can mean entirely opposite things at different times, even when spoken by the same person. Even in official usage, "Action" has two different meanings. It's a constant source of confusion for newer players.