Do "When Destroyed" triggers happen when cards are removed from the game?

Unforgiving Wasteland

Whenever a Target would be destroyed by Damage dealt by an Environment card, remove that Target from the game instead

Bee Bot

This card cannot be played during your play phase.

When this card is destroyed, Unity deals 1 Target 2 Projectile Damage, and you may destroy 1 Ongoing or Environmental card.

This makes it sound like Bee Bot's effect would not happen, since Unforgiving Wasteland is replacing "being destroyed" with "remove from game".  Is that right, or is there a more clear definition of "Destroy" than what's in the rulebook?

That is 100% correct.

There's no better definition for destroy than what is in the rulebook, it is the definition for the game.

And you're correct in your conjecture about Bee Bot, would be destroyed is replacing is destroyed, so the card is not destroyed and no destruction triggers apply. Unity has a sad in the Wasteland.

I'm having a difficult time figuring out a lot of situations based on the rulebook, particularly since so many of them are different (e.g. Discard in the glossary of my printed Enhanced Edition rulebook, but not in the PDF version.  It is in the Rook City PDF, but the definition is different, though much more clear.), not defined in the rulebook (e.g. Removed from play), or ambiguous (e.g. Deal the target with the highest HP 2 cold damage and 2 fire damage.  Do you reevaluate targets between each type of damage?  Are they simultaneous, and thus you can choose their order?).  There seems to be some support for ambiguous situations by saying "players choose what to do" which is fine, I guess, but I like to play the game the correct way.

For damage like that (2 cold and 2 fire) you deal the target cold first then fire.

If it was worded "Deal the highest HP 2 cold, deal the highest HP 2 fire" it would recheck between targets.

I.E. Char's method versus Undivided Attention from the Chairman's deck

Char gives another good example, since Char deals lots of targets 2 shots of damage.  You can choose what order Char hits targets, but when Char deals damage to a target you resolve both parts of the damage before moving on to the next target.

Although the definition of "indestructible" leaves something to be desired, since it also means "can't be removed from the game" as well as many other things.

It cannot be destroyed or removed from play. If a target is indestructible, it stays in play even if it is reduced to 0 or fewer HP.

Yes, but this is the problem.  It means two things, one of which is completely unsuggested by the term "indestructible", which suggests that it should only be impossible to destroy, rather than impossible to remove from the play area by any means.  Instead of "indestructible" they should have used "unremovable" or something.

Into the Stratosphere specially lists on the card itself that it doesn't work on indestructible cards.  

It's not a problem with the term, it's a problem of your perception of the term. >G needed a term and chose Indestructible, then they defined it in the rulebook, it's what it means for this game, I would not walk into a game of HeroClix and expect Indestructible to mean the same thing there as here.

[quote=Unsafe_Bet] Instead of "indestructible" they should have used "unremovable" or something.[ /quote]

Because? People who come across a term they haven't encountered before in a game tend to reach for the rules to see what it means, rather than guessing.

And Indestructible works better thematically, and I'm pretty sure that's a high priority in the way >G create games.

"Indestructible" is a lot more understandable, and does cover the vast majority of cases that come up.

It's also completely understandable for someone to think that a game term will mean what the word means in real life. It's one of the reasons so many people have difficulty with "incapacitation" in Tactics being only slightly inconveniencing, not actually, you know, incapacitating. I don't think Unsafe is off base. His assumption just turned out to be wrong in this case. 

I expect the word to mean what the word means.  If you created a game and used the term "card" in that game to refer to a six-sided object which is rolled to produce random numbers, I'd call that bad game design.  The English language (or any other) is a tool which can be used correctly or incorrectly in the pursuit of any project.  Giving a misleading name to an important piece of rules text was an unfortunate decision, one of the relatively few mistakes that >G made in creating this mostly-excellent game, which I'd correct if given the chance to create a still-better version.

Because? People who come across a term they haven't encountered before in a game tend to reach for the rules to see what it means, rather than guessing.

Nonsense.  When a word's meaning seems obvious, they have no reason to second-guess the assumption and check a rulebook, particularly not when playing a game with such simplistic rules (and built-in teamwork, ensuring that only one player really needs to know the details of how it functions) as SOTM, where a rulebook is barely even necessary, and a glossary is easily overlooked until you have to look up a term whose meaning doesn't seem obvious.  I'd never even look at a word whose meaning I figured I already knew, because why assume that the game pointlessly revises the meanings of common-enough English words?  If Into the Stratosphere didn't say "non-indestructible", there'd be every reason to assume that it works on a Galvanize or an Advanced Matriarch's Cohort, if that was the first indestructible card you encountered.  Tempest's player would be annoyed if he played this differently-written ItS, only to have you rebuke him with some highly counterintuitive wording from the rulebook.

And Indestructible works better thematically, and I'm pretty sure that's a high priority in the way >G create games.

That's the closest part of your argument to validity, but I still think it's not the best choice, though it might be a reasonably decent one.  "Can't leave play" or "unremovable" or "permanent" would all work better IMO.

I'm not sure I understand your argument at all Unsafe_Bet.  Into the Stratosphere is the only card that could potentially remove an Indestructible card from play but it says on the card itself that it can't be used on Indestructible cards.  

"Indestructible" might not be the perfect word, but it is the best word. 99.9% of the time when a card leaves play it is because it is destroyed. If you want to have a word that prevents that, having the perfect antonym would be the most intutive decision. Is it the clearest for all situations? Maybe not, but for 99.9% of the time it is clearer than any other word. Let's say it did say "Can't leave play," there would be many questions asking "How does a card leave play without being destroyed?" Which is better, to have a question each time the word came up, or have a question the rare times that an exception comes up.

Regardless, you have yet to give a good alternative to "indestructible." Everything you gave will lead to many more questions. For example, the card doesn't leave play, but was it destroyed to trigger "on destruction" effects? The way SotM is setup, this question is wide open, but by having the word indestructible, the question is completely eliminated.

However, there will be other specific cases. For example, if it said cannot leave play, how does it interact with Savage Mana? The card is still in play, so would Savage Mana work or not?

Essentially, it comes down to the following: if you can't have a perfect word, you want the most intuitive word, which would be the perfect antonym to the situation that comes up 99.9% of the time.

I also want to add that the argument of "I shouldn't have to read the rulebook" is ridiculous.

Isn't this a bit moot? What do you want G+ to do about it, make up a new word and replace everyone's games?

Is it really the only one that exists as of yet?  I thought for certain I'd noticed others.  At the very least, it limits the options for future design.  "Temporarily remove a thing from play while knowing that it will come back" is a nice piece of technology for card games to have access to.

Why not 100%?  You should always keep your eyes on the outliers, since they are what requires such attention.  Obvious answers are easily produced.

Let's say it did say "Can't leave play," there would be many questions asking "How does a card leave play without being destroyed?" Which is better, to have a question each time the word came up, or have a question the rare times that an exception comes up.

Actually now that I think about it, that one may not be a great suggestion, since it might give some folks the idea that the card still counts as "destroyed" even though it doesn't leave play.  However I don't know how many people would think to ask your question.

I also want to add that the argument of "I shouldn't have to read the rulebook" is ridiculous.

Considering that the rulebook is like eight pages and three of them are just character bios, and the whole thing is in large print, not having much need to read what little they did print, since someone else can just explain it to you, seems eminently reasonable.  There's no reason there should be anything hidden away in the rules which you'd always need to know but would never think to go looking for.  The purpose of a rulebook is to enable you to look up answers when a question occurs to you, and "can I not-destroy this indestructible card" is not a question many people would think to ask.

They could issue errata and correct future printings.  I'm not even saying I want them to, just that the option exists.  We already have to mentally rewrite the rules on the cards in the case of old copies of Solar Flare etc. (since the replacement cards are the wrong size and can't actually replace them).  For that matter, they could print replacement cards again, if this ever became a large enough issue to require such measures.

Its hardly a big enough issue (if its even one at all) to reprint the game and issue errata.

Its ok not to like the games definition of a term. But within the context of the game system its found in, indestructable is clearly defined. Take it or leave it.

Just leaving that there. There is no better term. Also, while six-sided cards are a great straw man, the word 'destroy' is a better example. One does not rip a card to pieces when it's destroyed; you look up what the word means in the context of the game. That's just how games work.

Well, you can tear the cards up when destroyed if you're playing an Iron Man type of tournament.

Or Chaos Confetti.

Iron Man is a registered trademark and not part of the Sentinels' Multiverse, Tony Stark has more than enough money to sue >G. Yeah, yeah, I know what it really means!

Highlander TCG tournaments involved a format known as The Iron Man. If, during the course of the tournament, your Immortal lost his head, you were obligated to destroy your persona card.

Sentinels Legacy.

Highlander itself is also used as a type of tournament.

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE

Yes. One of each card except basic lands.

I believe Magic has also used Iron Man format unofficially.

I believe the size incompatibility of the replacement cards is only an issue for earlier printings of the game, which had cards that were slightly larger than the standard card size. At least in my case, the replacement cards fit perfectly with my more recently acquired decks for Ra and Fanatic. 

As far as the "indestructible" thing, I see the point you are making, but I don't believe there's a better keyword for it. Any word you use will require you to look up its in-game definition at some point (like you have to for most other game terms even when they are common words: "what does destroy mean? Does it go out of the game completely or just in the discard pile? OK, then what does discard mean?"), and will probably cause more questions about its interaction with the "destroy" action than "indestructible" does about its interaction with non-"destroy" game-removing actions. 

And besides, most people will read the whole rulebook before their first time playing (or they SHOULD) so they'll read that bit anyway.

My errata'd cards were a hair too big.

[apologies for the tangent] Jagarciao, is that a new cosplay in your avatar? Marvin the Martian?

Ha. It's an old Halloween costume. Trying to get into the spirit to come up with something for this year. I try to always do an old school cartoon character. 

Ok, so I have a follow-up question to this. In Time Cataclysm, Fixed Point prevents destruction. Can a target be reduced to 0 HP? If so, does it automatically go poof once the environment is destroyed (as it is the only exception)?

Yep. In fact there has been a ruling that you can go into negatives with Fixed Point. However, it isn't destroyed if it can bring its hp to at least 1 before Fixed Point leaves.

Any target can be reduced to 0hp or fewer - note on several villain cards it says "When X is reduced to 0hp or fewer, flip this card" or whatever (I think Apostate's flip condition says that, which is how you can get away with insta-killing him via Suckerpunch or other such cards since then you're not reducing his hp, you're just destroying him). It's just that normally you don't continue counting once you get to 0hp because any overkill damage in the hit isn't really needed.

With Fixed Point, you track the hp into the negatives and, as Pydro says, if a target goes into the negatives but then heals back up again to at least 1hp by the time Fixed Point goes away, that target isn't destroyed. Any targets that are at 0hp or fewer when Fixed Point goes away suddenly go "Oh crap, I have no hitpoints left, urgghhhh" :D.

Negative HP are definitely a thing. It is so much fun to play against the Matriarch on Advanced in Atlantis, those Krakens can beat on Huginn and Muninn all day on her Her Avian Majesty side!