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[() | (_) ^/]

Analogy: "Pick someone you know. Visit him at home today and ten years from now." If this person changes houses 5 years from now, would you in 10 years go to his old home to visit him?

I don't think that analogy helps you.

No, you visit the same person you visited 10 years ago.

Decoding the analogy, I see same person = same action being played, thus Feast again.

[() | (_) ^/]

How about this:

You play TR-BoM, choosing to make BoM a Feast.

TR plays it the first time.  It sees BoM as a Feast.  It is trashed and you gain some card, doesn't matter what it is.  BoM goes into the trash, losing its Feast identity.

TR now has to play "it" a second time, where "it" is a Feast that has become a BoM in the trash.  The thing is, TR doesn't know what's happening in the trash.  It doesn't know that Feast changed; it lost track of it.  As far as it knows, it is still a Feast.  So TR plays Feast a second time.

That seems to me to be what DXV is saying.

[blueblimp]

Analogy: "Pick someone you know. Visit him at home today and ten years from now." If this person changes houses 5 years from now, would you in 10 years go to his old home to visit him?

But what does the home represent and what does the person represent?  I can't quite parse this analogy to make sense of either perspective.

It's a loose analogy, but the person represents the physical card, and the home represents the name of the card. The idea is that you would visit him (play the card) based on where his home is now (what the name of the card is now), not where his home was (which card it was) when you picked him (picked the card).

[blueblimp]

How about this:

You play TR-BoM, choosing to make BoM a Feast.

TR plays it the first time.  It sees BoM as a Feast.  It is trashed and you gain some card, doesn't matter what it is.  BoM goes into the trash, losing its Feast identity.

TR now has to play "it" a second time, where "it" is a Feast that has become a BoM in the trash.  The thing is, TR doesn't know what's happening in the trash.  It doesn't know that Feast changed; it lost track of it.  As far as it knows, it is still a Feast.  So TR plays Feast a second time.

Obviously we can't use the lose-track rule precisely, since we don't have the Dark Ages rulebook yet, but here's the relevant bible entry:

The "lose track" rule is this (don't hold me to this precise wording okay): If card A is doing stuff with card B, and something other than card A moves card B somewhere else, card A can no longer keep moving card B. It "loses track" of it.

To me, this seems pretty clear that losing track only applies to moving cards. It's also explained that this is really only because you might physically not know where the card is anymore (so you can't physically do it):

If you want to handle certain potential cards, you need this rule. A "don't lose track" rule doesn't cut it, because you could really lose track. Consider Throning "Shuffle this into your deck, then +2 Cards."

So you're perfectly able to know anything about the card you like, no matter where it is. You just can't be asked to move it somewhere, because maybe you don't know where it is anymore.

[pst]

(Before I thought two rulings didn't agree that well. Now I try to adjust and see it in such a way that it does make sense.)

So I'm curious what makes Throne Room remember that the card it played was a Mining Village.

Thinking algorithmically it's always best to take note of all the instructions on a card before starting to execute it. Just executing one line at a time might mean that we miss the last part if we have to burn the card at an earlier step (hypothetical example from Donald X. earlier). So playing a card entails copying it into temporary local storage and then executing orders from that copy line by line.

I think we should see it like "Play that card twice" doesn't mean exactly "Play that card. Play that card." Instead the setting-up is done only once, and then we follow those copied instructions twice. So Throne Room doesn't have to remember that the card it played was a Mining Village, because it doesn't have to look at the card a second time.

[LastFootnote]

I'm still a little fuzzy on why Procession/Band of Misfits works the way it does. If Procession thinks it's playing a Village twice and knows nothing of Band of Misfits, why does it try to gain an Action card costing $6 rather than one costing $4?

[blueblimp]

(Before I thought two rulings didn't agree that well. Now I try to adjust and see it in such a way that it does make sense.)

So I'm curious what makes Throne Room remember that the card it played was a Mining Village.

Thinking algorithmically it's always best to take note of all the instructions on a card before starting to execute it. Just executing one line at a time might mean that we miss the last part if we have to burn the card at an earlier step (hypothetical example from Donald X. earlier). So playing a card entails copying it into temporary local storage and then executing orders from that copy line by line.

I think we should see it like "Play that card twice" doesn't mean exactly "Play that card. Play that card." Instead the setting-up is done only once, and then we follow those copied instructions twice. So Throne Room doesn't have to remember that the card it played was a Mining Village, because it doesn't have to look at the card a second time.

This explanation is consistent (and is the only way I can justify the ruling). But... why should Throne Room copy the card rules into its memory? It doesn't indicate anywhere on the card or in its FAQ that it would do this. It also seems really complicated, because now TR is in charge of remembering everything about another card.

[noon]

Fun thing to do Reread the thread and think "Buy only Money" when you see BoM

BOBoMinator achievement: Buy Only Band of Misfits (no other actions). Probably a pretty decent strategy sometimes.

[pst]

This explanation is consistent (and is the only way I can justify the ruling). But... why should Throne Room copy the card rules into its memory?

I meant that copying a card into memory is part of what you always do implicitly when playing a card (because of all that burning, if nothing else). So when TR (or KC, Procession, Golem) instructs you to play a card you also do that.

[AJD]

I think we should see it like "Play that card twice" doesn't mean exactly "Play that card. Play that card." Instead the setting-up is done only once, and then we follow those copied instructions twice. So Throne Room doesn't have to remember that the card it played was a Mining Village, because it doesn't have to look at the card a second time.

Is that consistent with how Throne Room interacts with Conspirator?

[ftl]

BOBoMinator achievement: Buy Only Band of Misfits (no other actions). Probably a pretty decent strategy sometimes.

I doubt it. If there's cards under $5 worth playing, then it's worth buying at least some of them, I think.

[pst]

Is that consistent with how Throne Room interacts with Conspirator?

I think so. Why not? "Play that card twice" sets everything up for executing the card, then does that two times, each time increasing the number of actions played by one.

I find Crossroads a bit more problematic for my view, because that means that the whole card should be "copied" (or at least the name as well, and not only the play instructions).

[() | (_) ^/]

Is that consistent with how Throne Room interacts with Conspirator?

I think so. Why not? "Play that card twice" sets everything up for executing the card, then does that two times, each time increasing the number of actions played by one.

I find Crossroads a bit more problematic for my view, because that means that the whole card should be "copied" (or at least the name as well, and not only the play instructions).

I don't know... if Conspirator fits, then Crossroads fits.

Conspirator fits because it is counting actions played.  TR+Consp. yields +2 coin, then +1 card +1 action +2 coin.

Crossroads fits because it, too, is counting actions played (just the one kind of action "Crossroads" actually).  TR+Crossroads yields 3 actions and +[V₀] cards, then +[V₁] cards.

[RiemannZetaJones]

But with Scenario 1, that means that the wording "play it twice" and "do this twice: play it" mean different things. Which, IMO, is extremely non-intuitive.

There is precedent for these two phrases having different meaning in Dominion, though, since some cards (Steward) allow you to trash two cards, whereas Remake has "Do this twice:..."

The mental model of the Throne Room learning the card text of something else, then executing it twice, explains how TR-Feast works (and TR with any card that trashes itself). But this does not seem to be consistent with Donald X's ruling on Procession being played on BoM-as-Fortress. That ruling is plainly wrong.

[fencingmonkey]

Let me start by saying that I don't think this particular situation is probably going to come up a lot, but it's a good discussion to have nonetheless.

I think a lot of the issue comes from assuming that TR/BoM/Feast can be resolved by examining TR/BoM and BoM/Feast and then combining them, and I don't think that's correct. We can see that if we Throne Room BoM with any card that doesn't trash itself (Bishop, say) that's exactly the same as TRing a Bishop. No problem, it's clear from the card wording. We can also see from using BoM on Feast that it stops being a Feast as soon as we trash it. But in the specific case of Tr/BoM/Feast I think it works a little bit differently...

TR: we play 1 card twice. Note that it's "THIS card" and not "THIS BoM" which we can see from the usual TR/BoM interaction. We also fully resolve the first play before we do anything on the second play, standard TR stuff.
BoM: resolving this card fully means that it becomes Feast for as long as it's in play.
Feast: resolving this card fully means that BoM is no longer in play, which means it's back to BoM again. Right? So when we start to resolve the second part of TR... remember, we're not resolving "THIS BoM" or even "THIS BoM which is now exactly the same as Feast" but "THIS card" which happens, at the time we resolve it, to be BoM again. It's wonky, but TR/Feast has always been kind of wonky, so this just amplifies that.

My takeaway is that, in the unlikely event that you drew TR/BoM, had Feast AND ANOTHER <$5 card on the board that you wanted to play instead of Feast... you probably could. But if it gets ruled differently I'll play that way. I still don't think I understand all of the Trader corner cases so we can just add on to that pile.

[Razzishi]

edit: never mind.  I probably didn't actually know what I was talking about.

[dondon151]

I don't claim to know the ruling here well or anything, but in my mind, at least, to make sense of all of these interactions with Band of Misfits, it makes sense to draw a distinction between when a card enters play vs. when it is played, and when it leaves play vs. when it is discarded/trashed.

[werothegreat]

BOBoMinator achievement: Buy Only Band of Misfits (no other actions). Probably a pretty decent strategy sometimes.

I doubt it. If there's cards under $5 worth playing, then it's worth buying at least some of them, I think.

Not really.  Band of Misfits would be able to be any of the cards you needed.  The only problem is there's only 10 of them, and they cost $5.  University to the rescue!

[Donald X.]

The mental model of the Throne Room learning the card text of something else, then executing it twice, explains how TR-Feast works (and TR with any card that trashes itself). But this does not seem to be consistent with Donald X's ruling on Procession being played on BoM-as-Fortress. That ruling is plainly wrong.

Well it will be hard to talk me out of it, since it's in the rulebook.

I checked and it was actually Doug Z. who argued for that ruling. The idea is that Band of Misfits has left play and so it stopped being Fortress. The madness has ended; at the point at which Procession checks, the card is in the trash and costs $5. It had a different cost when we trashed it, but there we are asking for the cost when it's in the trash.

This is a different question from Throne Room-BoM-Feast, which really gets into, what do all of these words on Throne Room mean. To be a playable card game, Throne Room cannot be computer code, and it isn't. Normally this doesn't matter, but in some cases we end up saying, wait, what does "it" mean. The main set rulebook could be clearer on what "play" means, but you have to be able to say "it" sometimes.

[RiemannZetaJones]

The mental model of the Throne Room learning the card text of something else, then executing it twice, explains how TR-Feast works (and TR with any card that trashes itself). But this does not seem to be consistent with Donald X's ruling on Procession being played on BoM-as-Fortress. That ruling is plainly wrong.

Well it will be hard to talk me out of it, since it's in the rulebook.

I checked and it was actually Doug Z. who argued for that ruling. The idea is that Band of Misfits has left play and so it stopped being Fortress. The madness has ended; at the point at which Procession checks, the card is in the trash and costs $5. It had a different cost when we trashed it, but there we are asking for the cost when it's in the trash.

This is a different question from Throne Room-BoM-Feast, which really gets into, what do all of these words on Throne Room mean. To be a playable card game, Throne Room cannot be computer code, and it isn't. Normally this doesn't matter, but in some cases we end up saying, wait, what does "it" mean. The main set rulebook could be clearer on what "play" means, but you have to be able to say "it" sometimes.

Fair enough, but it is surprising to me that the Procession knows where to look for the card it played in order to determine its cost, even though it tried to trash it; I assumed that to avoid having to avoid an analogue of the lose-track rule come into effect, it'd be easier to have the Procession determine the cost at the time at which the card was played, which is consistent with TR just reading the card all at once, and then playing that text twice.

Edit in case the above comes off as presumptuous: I'm actually glad the rules are more complicated, since I'm that sort of insufferable twerp who gets off on this sort of thing.

[Razzishi]

But with Scenario 1, that means that the wording "play it twice" and "do this twice: play it" mean different things. Which, IMO, is extremely non-intuitive.

There is precedent for these two phrases having different meaning in Dominion, though, since some cards (Steward) allow you to trash two cards, whereas Remake has "Do this twice:..."

The mental model of the Throne Room learning the card text of something else, then executing it twice, explains how TR-Feast works (and TR with any card that trashes itself). But this does not seem to be consistent with Donald X's ruling on Procession being played on BoM-as-Fortress. That ruling is plainly wrong.

So I know what I'm talking about next time I try to write a post on the topic of Procession-Band of Misfits-Fortress, what is the ruling?

edit: Ok, I think I'm piecing this together, but it's certainly hard to find things without a central depository of knowledge.  Well, less than a day left until we get such a thing.

[RiemannZetaJones]

But with Scenario 1, that means that the wording "play it twice" and "do this twice: play it" mean different things. Which, IMO, is extremely non-intuitive.

There is precedent for these two phrases having different meaning in Dominion, though, since some cards (Steward) allow you to trash two cards, whereas Remake has "Do this twice:..."

The mental model of the Throne Room learning the card text of something else, then executing it twice, explains how TR-Feast works (and TR with any card that trashes itself). But this does not seem to be consistent with Donald X's ruling on Procession being played on BoM-as-Fortress. That ruling is plainly wrong.

So I know what I'm talking about next time I try to write a post on the topic of Procession-Band of Misfits-Fortress, what is the ruling?

The Procession plays the BoM as a Fortress twice, then tries to trash it, but it's a Fortress so it gets sent back to hand. Then the Procession tries to gain a card costing $1 more than the card it played, which is now a BoM in hand, so it gains a card costing $6 (if such is to be gained).

[Donald X.]

Fair enough, but it is surprising to me that the Procession knows where to look for the card it played in order to determine its cost, even though it tried to trash it;

It put it there! "Lose track" only applies when some other thing moves the card; a card keeps track of cards it moves itself, which is essential so that for example Procession can find the card in play in order to trash it (since it moved from your hand). And of course "lose track" only prevents moving, not information-getting.

[dondon151]

How can cards possibly know anything

[werothegreat]

Fair enough, but it is surprising to me that the Procession knows where to look for the card it played in order to determine its cost, even though it tried to trash it;

It put it there! "Lose track" only applies when some other thing moves the card; a card keeps track of cards it moves itself, which is essential so that for example Procession can find the card in play in order to trash it (since it moved from your hand). And of course "lose track" only prevents moving, not information-getting.

But Fortress (or Band of Misfits pretending to be Fortress) does not end up in the trash pile.  Surely that must confuse Procession.