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[Donald X.]

I play Merchant Ship. I buy Bonfire to trash it and Villa to go back to my Action phase, more to do. I gain the Merchant Ship with Rogue and trigger a shuffle with Vassal and it plays a Merchant Ship. Is it the same Merchant Ship? It matters. If it is Vassal stays in play, otherwise it doesn't.

But there's no way to know. Throne Rooms care "is this that card" in just the way I was trying to get rid of in other cards.

So, the ruling in these situations is, once you've shuffled a card into a deck, there are no cards that are "that card." For my example, Vassal does not stay in play.

Edit: Later in the discussion below, this turned into: "In the circumstance where you can no longer move a card, it's also no longer "that card" for effects that track a specific card."

[spineflu]

so if you top-decked it with mountain village harbinger, then vassal'd it, it would be the same merchant ship? or once it is face-down, it is anonymous and couldve been any merchant ship?

basically: is the shuffle the key operation, or is the returning-to-deck?

[mxdata]

I'm confused - why does it matter whether it's the same card or not?  Wouldn't Vassal stay in play in either case by virtue of playing a Duration card?

[AJD]

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

[singletee]

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

Right, so why would Vassal ever stay in play? It's not a Command and it's not Throne-like.

[mxdata]

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

Oh!  Okay, that makes sense now.  Thanks!

[mxdata]

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

Right, so why would Vassal ever stay in play? It's not a Command and it's not Throne-like.

Right, I got confused by the talk about it staying out and wasn't even thinking about it not being Throne Room-like

For clarification: When the original card was trashed, would it or would it not have the duration effect on the next turn?

[GendoIkari]

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

Right, so why would Vassal ever stay in play? It's not a Command and it's not Throne-like.

Yeah I’m missing something. Even if it were considered the same Merchant Ship; the Vassal wouldn’t have cause it to be played multiple times... it would have caused it to be played a second time. It wasn’t responsible for the first play; so it doesn’t get credit for playing it multiple times no matter what.

I could see the argument if Vassal played Merchant ship, then both were Bonfires, gained back, and same Vassal played same Merchant Ship again. Then the Vassal played Merchant Ship multiple times; and we need this rule to stop Vassal from staying out.

[GendoIkari]

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

Right, so why would Vassal ever stay in play? It's not a Command and it's not Throne-like.

Right, I got confused by the talk about it staying out and wasn't even thinking about it not being Throne Room-like

For clarification: When the original card was trashed, would it or would it not have the duration effect on the next turn?

It would; removing a Duration card from play never stops it from still working normally next turn.

[AJD]

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

Right, so why would Vassal ever stay in play? It's not a Command and it's not Throne-like.

Yeah I’m missing something. Even if it were considered the same Merchant Ship; the Vassal wouldn’t have cause it to be played multiple times... it would have caused it to be played a second time. It wasn’t responsible for the first play; so it doesn’t get credit for playing it multiple times no matter what.

Scepter and Royal Carriage stay in play, even though they're not responsible for an Action being played the first time, only the second time. In the scenario in question, Vassal is responsible for playing the card a second time like those.

[spineflu]

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

Right, so why would Vassal ever stay in play? It's not a Command and it's not Throne-like.

Yeah I’m missing something. Even if it were considered the same Merchant Ship; the Vassal wouldn’t have cause it to be played multiple times... it would have caused it to be played a second time. It wasn’t responsible for the first play; so it doesn’t get credit for playing it multiple times no matter what.

I could see the argument if Vassal played Merchant ship, then both were Bonfires, gained back, and same Vassal played same Merchant Ship again. Then the Vassal played Merchant Ship multiple times; and we need this rule to stop Vassal from staying out.

it might matter for a new card and we're getting this ruling in terms of existing cards ahead of time.

[Donald X.]

so if you top-decked it with mountain village, then vassal'd it, it would be the same merchant ship? or once it is face-down, it is anonymous and couldve been any merchant ship?

basically: is the shuffle the key operation, or is the returning-to-deck?

The current version of the rule is, if card X causes a Duration to be played multiple times, like Throne Room or Royal Carriage, then card X remains in play with the Duration. But if card X causes a Duration to be played only once, like Herald or Vassal, it's cleaned up as usual this turn.

Right, so why would Vassal ever stay in play? It's not a Command and it's not Throne-like.

Yeah I’m missing something. Even if it were considered the same Merchant Ship; the Vassal wouldn’t have cause it to be played multiple times... it would have caused it to be played a second time. It wasn’t responsible for the first play; so it doesn’t get credit for playing it multiple times no matter what.

Scepter and Royal Carriage stay in play, even though they're not responsible for an Action being played the first time, only the second time. In the scenario in question, Vassal is responsible for playing the card a second time like those.

Correct. Vassal (and other cards will do this too, e.g. Herald, Golem) is just like Royal Carriage here. If it played a Duration card for a second time, it should stay in play. But there's no way to know if it did or not, in this very contrived example.

[Donald X.]

so if you top-decked it with mountain village, then vassal'd it, it would be the same merchant ship? or once it is face-down, it is anonymous and couldve been any merchant ship?

basically: is the shuffle the key operation, or is the returning-to-deck?

We let you remember a topdecked card, e.g. I can gain a Nomad Camp and trash it from the top with Watchtower. So the shuffle is the key thing. We can conceivably know the 10th card down and well. When we do, we do know it; that's not a rules hole to fix and this situation was never happening to start with, and is even less likely there.

[Donald X.]

For clarification: When the original card was trashed, would it or would it not have the duration effect on the next turn?

Trashing a Duration card doesn't stop it from functioning (except for below-the-line stuff e.g. Bridge Troll's cost reduction).

Ideally there would be no way to get Duration cards out of play until the Clean-up that they're done. Procession has been fixed; Bonfire and Mandarin have not.

[J Reggie]

So if I gained the Merchant Ship with Graverobber, the Vassal would stay out?

Edit: what if there are multiple Merchant Ships in the trash? Do I get to choose which one I gain?

[Donald X.]

So if I gained the Merchant Ship with Graverobber, the Vassal would stay out?

Edit: what if there are multiple Merchant Ships in the trash? Do I get to choose which one I gain?

In the OP I am making a ruling that specifically says, it's a different Merchant Ship now, Vassal does not stay out. Prior to this ruling, there was no way to know f Vassal should stay in play or not.

[mxdata]

So if I gained the Merchant Ship with Graverobber, the Vassal would stay out?

Edit: what if there are multiple Merchant Ships in the trash? Do I get to choose which one I gain?

I don't think it matters which card was used to gain it - only that it was gained from the trash, so this ruling would apply equally well to Graverobber, or Lurker for that matter, and any potential future gain-from-trash cards

As for the second part of your question, yes, you can obviously chose which one you gain, in an in-person game at least (though the online implementation doesn't give you the option so I wonder how the server would treat this?), so I would think that the principle would be the same - if it doesn't get shuffled back (for example, returned to the top by Watchtower or retrieved from the discard pile by Mountain Village), then it counts as the same card being played twice.  That's just my interpretation though

[J Reggie]

The reason it would matter which card was used to gain it is because Graverobber topdecks it. My question would also apply to gaining it with Rogue or Lurker and then revealing Watchtower etc. So is it being in the trash that makes it stop being "that card" or only being shuffled into a deck? I'm sorry if I'm not understanding something obvious.

I guess the simple solution would be to not trash your durations with Bonfire.

[spineflu]

The reason it would matter which card was used to gain it is because Graverobber topdecks it. My question would also apply to gaining it with Rogue or Lurker and then revealing Watchtower etc. So is it being in the trash that makes it stop being "that card" or only being shuffled into a deck? I'm sorry if I'm not understanding something obvious.

I guess the simple solution would be to not trash your durations with Bonfire.

so if you top-decked it with mountain village, then vassal'd it, it would be the same merchant ship? or once it is face-down, it is anonymous and couldve been any merchant ship?

basically: is the shuffle the key operation, or is the returning-to-deck?

We let you remember a topdecked card, e.g. I can gain a Nomad Camp and trash it from the top with Watchtower. So the shuffle is the key thing. We can conceivably know the 10th card down and well. When we do, we do know it; that's not a rules hole to fix and this situation was never happening to start with, and is even less likely there.

[Worblehat]

For clarification: When the original card was trashed, would it or would it not have the duration effect on the next turn?

Trashing a Duration card doesn't stop it from functioning (except for below-the-line stuff e.g. Bridge Troll's cost reduction).

But it should stop it from functioning - if there's no card in play, how can one be sure that the players will remember all the effects on that player's next turn? If this Bonfire-a-Duration scenario ever came up in my group (and why on earth would it?? ) I'd certainly say that it means there's no duration effect on the following turn.

To me, that's the key issue in these kinds of discussions. Duration effects must be represented by cards in play; one Duration represented by the card itself, two by Throne Room or whatever caused a second copy of the effect. And in the case of Bonfire, the number of Duration effects on the following turn must be zero because there's no way to have any cards in play to remind everyone. (Again, not that there's any reason I can imagine why anyone would Bonfire a Duration...).

Using this interpretation of trashing Durations would allow the errata on Procession to be lifted. Go ahead, Procession a Caravan, you get two cantrip effects and draw no extra cards at the start of your next turn (that's something I could see occasionally being worth doing, at least).

[mxdata]

For clarification: When the original card was trashed, would it or would it not have the duration effect on the next turn?

Trashing a Duration card doesn't stop it from functioning (except for below-the-line stuff e.g. Bridge Troll's cost reduction).

But it should stop it from functioning - if there's no card in play, how can one be sure that the players will remember all the effects on that player's next turn? If this Bonfire-a-Duration scenario ever came up in my group (and why on earth would it?? ) I'd certainly say that it means there's no duration effect on the following turn.

To me, that's the key issue in these kinds of discussions. Duration effects must be represented by cards in play; one Duration represented by the card itself, two by Throne Room or whatever caused a second copy of the effect. And in the case of Bonfire, the number of Duration effects on the following turn must be zero because there's no way to have any cards in play to remind everyone. (Again, not that there's any reason I can imagine why anyone would Bonfire a Duration...).

Using this interpretation of trashing Durations would allow the errata on Procession to be lifted. Go ahead, Procession a Caravan, you get two cantrip effects and draw no extra cards at the start of your next turn (that's something I could see occasionally being worth doing, at least).

But that's based on the usual principle that an action can still continue to be played from the trash.  E.g., if you Throne Room a Tragic Hero, and it gets trashed on its first play, you can still get the +3 cards +1 buy and the treasure on the second play

And this is precisely why Procession got its errata - because without that errata you could do exactly that.  But in practice, it could be easy to forget that you'd processioned a duration on your previous turn.  So, to prevent that confusion, the non-duration qualification was added to Procession

EDIT: I just realized I misread the second part of your post.  It's certainly true that if it worked that way, we wouldn't need the errata, but that would be an actual change in the rules, not just a minor difference in interpretation - you'd be adding a rule that stops Duration cards, and only Duration cards, from working when trashed, as opposed to changing the way one particular card (Procession) works to avoid a potentially confusing effect of an existing rule

[crj]

If this was at all common, I'd be suggesting that instead of trashing cards from play, Bonfire should put tokens on cards to designate that they should be trashed when discarded from play.

If such a mechanic were introduced, it could also deal more neatly with Improve, Scheme and self-trashers - albeit not identically.

It would, IMHO, be way cleaner. But a lot of trouble to go to for a corner case.

[Donald X.]

For clarification: When the original card was trashed, would it or would it not have the duration effect on the next turn?

Trashing a Duration card doesn't stop it from functioning (except for below-the-line stuff e.g. Bridge Troll's cost reduction).

But it should stop it from functioning - if there's no card in play, how can one be sure that the players will remember all the effects on that player's next turn?

If I got to make the game from scratch today, sure. It's bad to have an effect you're supposed to remember without the card reminding you. I would totally get rid of that.

I'm not making the game from scratch today though. I'm dealing with not just an existing game with all its cards, but also an existing body of players. So like, ideally you wouldn't be able to "play" a card without putting it into play - if you can't put it into play, you fail to play it, and nothing further happens. A similar thing. I considered this change when doing the errata to fix Band of Misfits etc. People absolutely hated it. So I didn't do it. In a new game though, sure, don't let cards function without being in play, absolutely.

As things stand, the fix here is to not provide ways to get Duration cards out of play, since with the errata to Procession there's just Bonfire and and Mandarin. Bonfire is easy. Mandarin would look weird. But, it's something I can consider still when those sets get reprinted.

[Donald X.]

If this was at all common, I'd be suggesting that instead of trashing cards from play, Bonfire should put tokens on cards to designate that they should be trashed when discarded from play.

If such a mechanic were introduced, it could also deal more neatly with Improve, Scheme and self-trashers - albeit not identically.

It would, IMHO, be way cleaner. But a lot of trouble to go to for a corner case.

The cleanest way to do Bonfire is just, trash up to two Coppers from play. You are almost always trashing Coppers, and they aren't Duration cards. Putting tokens on cards to remember to do things later is in no way clean.

[Jeebus]

So if I gained the Merchant Ship with Graverobber, the Vassal would stay out?

Edit: what if there are multiple Merchant Ships in the trash? Do I get to choose which one I gain?

In the OP I am making a ruling that specifically says, it's a different Merchant Ship now, Vassal does not stay out. Prior to this ruling, there was no way to know f Vassal should stay in play or not.

The reason it would matter which card was used to gain it is because Graverobber topdecks it. My question would also apply to gaining it with Rogue or Lurker and then revealing Watchtower etc. So is it being in the trash that makes it stop being "that card" or only being shuffled into a deck? I'm sorry if I'm not understanding something obvious.

I'm not clear on the answer to this question. I play Merchant Ship, buy Bonfire and Villa. I Graverobber the Merchant Ship onto my deck. I play Vassal. So the Vassal stays out, since nothing got shuffled? But as J Reggie says, if there are several Merchant Ships in the trash, how do we know if this was the same one? I would think that any card that is trashed can never be "that card" either, since the trash pile is an unordered pile where you can have several copies of cards.