Dominion > Rules Questions

Inheritance and Border Guard

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singletee:


If I Inherit a Border Guard, the consensus seems to be that I do not get to use the abilities of the associated artifacts with it. The Horn lets me topdeck a Border Guard during cleanup, and an Estate isn't a Border Guard, so I can't topdeck an Estate. Seems clear enough. Likewise, the Lantern causes my Border Guards to reveal 3 cards, and Estates aren't Border Guards, so that doesn't work either, right? Hold on, not so fast! Lantern works on all my Border Guards, including the one with the Estate token on it... which is the card my Estates gain their abilities from. The thing the Estate is copying reveals 3 cards, so the Estate also reveals 3 cards. To me, Lantern is statically modifying the abilities of all my Border Guards at all times, and my Estates should inherit (pun intended) those modified abilities. For it to work the other way, I would expect Lantern to be worded something like "When you reveal or discard cards with a Border Guard, reveal or discard one more": an ability that replaces one event with another as it happens.

Donald X.:
I appreciate that you posted the images! Otherwise I have to look them up.

That's an interesting line of reasoning. The question is, does Lantern modify Border Guards (thus the Estate with the token is modified), or does it modify the playing of Border Guards (thus Estates aren't played differently). The rulebook doesn't lock in an answer.

I don't think your alternate wording is the way to think of this; sure if I saw that there was some confusion to clear up and it was so worth clearing up as to mangle card text, I would have mangled the card text to make it clear, caring only about clarity and not about what the ruling would then be. It wasn't trivial to word though and your wording is not dazzling me.

I feel like the text looks more like shapeshifting than when-play-modification. Man that makes Lantern a 4th shapeshifting thing that doesn't change all cards with the same name at the same time, along with Band of Misfits, Overlord, and Inheritance. That weird thing majiponi found may be doable with Lantern too (or, might be doable if certain utterly innocent cards existed). It should say, "During your turns, Border Guards reveal 3..." Damn.

I am tentatively going with you and reversing that ruling - to, Inherited Border Guards benefit from Lantern. Let's not ask Stef to change it just yet. Maybe some people want to weigh in on their intuitive reading of Lantern.

trivialknot:
Singletee's argument makes sense to me.  But could you make the same argument about bonus tokens?

For example, say I inherit and train Border Guard (Training says "When you play a card from that pile, you first get +$1").  Your estates are not from the Border Guard pile, so intuitively they shouldn't get the +$1 bonus.  On the other hand, the Border Guard that has your inheritance token on it, that Border Guard has +$1, so shouldn't your Estates inherit that ability?

To further complicate matters, suppose that you also have Capitalism.  The Border Guard with the inheritance token now has the Treasure type (per the ruling that Capitalism affects cards with the +$1 token).  Do your Estates now inherit the treasure type, even though they don't have the +$1? (ETA: this is wrong, there is no such ruling)

faust:

--- Quote from: trivialknot on November 08, 2018, 08:51:26 am ---For example, say I inherit and train Border Guard (Training says "When you play a card from that pile, you first get +$1").  Your estates are not from the Border Guard pile, so intuitively they shouldn't get the +$1 bonus.  On the other hand, the Border Guard that has your inheritance token on it, that Border Guard has +$1, so shouldn't your Estates inherit that ability?

--- End quote ---
I think the token isn't really an ability of that the cards on that pile gain; it's more like a Project that gives you a global effect and the token just sits on the pile to remind you that playing cards from there triggers the ability. Being from some pile is not a card ability, otherwise you could ambassador inherited Estates to the pile of the Action you inherited.

Ingix:
The rulings about Enchantress and Adventure tokens (the token effect happens even under Enchantress) also point to the result that the token effect does not become part of the card.
Enchantress is also a good comparison in wording, as it also affects what happens to another card when it is played. From the difference in style it would support SingleTee's argument that Lantern works differently.

Fundamentally, we are at the point of copy cards in Magic for the first few editions. There are a few, most interactions about them are ruled on, but as more and more new effects happened, it became unclear how it all worked under the hood.

We have one card that modifies what happens when another card is played (Enchantress). We have one Event that modifies the text (or only the abilities?) of other cards (Inheritance). A decision has to be made how Lantern works, possibly in either of the above ways. If the old ruling is upheld, which suggests the "modifies what happens when another card is played" approach , the question about the interaction of Lantern and Enchantress needs to be answered. As discussed during online testing, the only reasonable answer to that seems to be that Enchantress' effect prevails, but again there should be a way to arrive at this answer by applying some rules.

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