Back during the previews I found on Discord that Donald tentatively ruled that with Sorcerer, if you're deck is empty, you don't gain a Curse. I wonder if this has been reversed? I'm not so sure it's right.
I don't remember that discussion, or if anyone made some great points during it. My initial reading today of Sorcerer is, that "wrong" means "not right" and if there's no card you are not right and so gain a Curse.
Yeah, that's what I was saying in my first post too. But as Dz made me realize, it seems to contradict the ruling on Bounty Hunter. If there's no card you don't have a copy in Exile, so by the same token, shouldn't you get +$3?
I see. The key thing about Bounty Hunter is it refers to an "it" which, if there was no card, doesn't exist. "If you didn't have a copy of it in Exile, +$3." We can't check if undefined is in Exile. Is the reasoning. And I mean, while I don't so much care how this goes in terms of power level (as usual the most important thing is making the card clear and understandable for normal use cases, not this exotic one), the idea is, you put something into Exile that wasn't there before, which requires actually putting something into Exile.
Man let's look at them all like that briefly. Intentions get you nowhere in terms of "what does this rules text do" but it's sure interesting for "how should this be phrased."
- Bounty Hunter is about exiling a new card. You have to exile a card to do that.
- Sorceress is about naming your top card. You need a top card to do that.
- Sorcerer is about the same thing; you haven't proven yourself by naming that card if there was no card. OTOH you haven't failed if we couldn't test you. It really comes down to wording.
- Giant is supposed to give you a Curse if it didn't trash something.
The ideal rulings with no card are: Bounty Hunter does not give +$3; Sorceress fails to Curse, Sorcerer dunno; Giant Curses.
Sorceress says "if it's the named card"; Sorcerer hides the "it" (not intentionally or anything) with "if wrong."
"Each other player names a card, then reveals the top card of their deck. If wrong, they gain a Curse."
"Each other player names a card, then reveals the top card of their deck. If it's not the named card, they gain a Curse."
Giant says "If it's face up, +$5, and each other player reveals the top card of his deck, trashes it if it costs from $3 to $6, and otherwise discards it and gains a Curse." Man, "his"? Ah, a mistake in the wiki, it doesn't have the current text in the corner there.
Bounty Hunter's "undefined" thing here produces: Bounty Hunter does not give +$3; Sorceress fails to Curse; Sorcerer does not Curse; Giant does not Curse. That's not so bad.
The wordings the cards would get if I valued "having the card text make these rulings clear" more than everything else I actually value more, would be:
- "If you Exiled a card you didn't have a copy of in Exile, +$3.
- "If you revealed the named card, each other player gains a Curse."
- Either "If they didn't reveal the named card, they gain a Curse" or "If they revealed a card they didn't name, they gain a Curse."
- "...from $3 to $6, and otherwise discards it. If they didn't trash a card, they gain a Curse."
Those wordings are not actually so bad, except Giant's. It's not like I have to be attached to Giant Cursing in the ubiquitous no-card case though. "...from $3 to $6. If it doesn't, they discard it and gain a Curse." No, that returns you to Bounty Hunter territory. Plus Giant is tiny text already. "...from $3 to $6, and otherwise discards it. If they discarded it, they gain a Curse." I mean that's not great.
Time does not permit working more on this today.