[Vengeance] Impulsion Beam and Arcane Cadence

This came up today -- our Argent Adept player played Arcane Cadence (his one play for the turn while the Impusion Beam was out), and then wondered: what became of the 5th card that it directs him to play?  (Note that the card is to be played, not placed into play).

• Option 1: It gets trashed because it can't get played.  This was my first thought, but I couldn't find any support in rules or errata.
• Option 2: It remains revealed but is never placed or replaced anywhere, lost forever in space time until La Capitan rescues it.  This seems to be such a counterintuitive and counterproductive option that it should be rejected.
• Option 3: Because "nothing happens," it goes back where it came from: on top of AA's deck.  This is what we ended up doing, because the resulting state of the game best reflects the prevented effect never having occurred at all.

For reference:

Arcane Cadence: Reveal the top 5 cards of your deck.  Put one into your hand, one on top of the deck, one on the bottom of the deck, one into the trash, and play one.

Impulsion Beam:  Each player cannot play more than 1 hero card per turn.  Each hero cannot use more than 1 power per turn.

Arcane Cadence puts a card into play. That is different than a player playing a card, which is what Impulsion Beam prevents. There is a difference between a card being "put into play" and "playing" a card in SotM.

For instance, Omnitron-X can play a card in his play phase but still use his power to put the top card of his deck into play.

Thanks for the response -- I assumed that would be the case too, but I was tripped up by Arcane Cadence explicitly stating "play" and not "put into play."  The relevant section in the Spiffrata collection seemed to reinforce this.

“Playing” cards vs. “putting cards into play”

“Playing a card” means putting a card from the top of a deck or a hand into play. “Putting a card into play” is a different action than this. This means that effects that prevent cards from being played do not also prevent bringing cards into play in other ways (for example, by an effect which brought a card back from the trash into play).

Don't trust Foote, I think he's wrong in this instance.

I have no concrete idea what would happen to the card and I'm pretty sure you can't play it (because it is play and not put into play as you rightly point out) but I would hazzard a guess that it is discarded without effect.

Idk. I think this gets around Impulsion. But I'v been wrong a lot today. Wait for Ronway I guess.

I remember someone pointing out the difference between "play" vs "put into play" due to Matriarch's ability and Darken the Sky. She can't play the top card of her deck if a fowl is put INTO play, but she can do so if it was PLAYED.

So I think Arcane Cadence does not allow you to play the fifth card.

The definition of playing a hero card is "Hero cards are played from players' hands" (per the rulebook). Since the card that Arcane Cadence is playing doesn't come from your hand, I'd say it gets played. Just like how Omnitron can put cards into play from his trash even when prevented from playing cards.

EDIT: Way too many uses of the word "play" and its variants. To clarify, I would have the 5th card be put into play, and not prevented by Impulsion Beam's effect.

Good question. I agree that your option 3 was a good choice. I wonder if putting the card FACE UP on the deck might have been even better, so it's still revealed.

Option 2B: The revealed card remains in revealed limbo, but is available for selection during future Arcane Cadences (which would then leave a different card in revealed limbo).

2B or not 2B, that is the question.

If cards can't be played you can't "Play the top card of the deck," so you shouldn't get the card play from Cadence.

A revealed card that should be played but cannot is an interesting connundrum, and I would solve it the way you solve a limited card being forced into play when there is already a limited card in play, put it in the trash.

That is in no way official, since that rule is spelled out in the rulebook, but it makes sense.

I'm an agreement with anyone that says you would not be able to play the card from Arcane Cadence, as you can only play 1 card. Now what happens to the card is a mystery, i'd probably go with is goes to the trash.

"Play the top card of the deck" is the method of playing villain cards. Playing a hero card means putting a card from your hand into play. Since the card in question doesn't get put into the player's hand, but is being put into play by another card, I'm not seeing the reasoning for saying it would be another played card. The hero is not playing a second card.

I realize that the card says "play one" rather than "put one into play," but "put one into play" is the accurate way to describe what the card is doing.

It's possible I'm misinterpreting something here, or there may be a relevant ruling I don't know about. But this is how I see the interaction, and why.

Yeah, I think it's a really arbitrary technicality. It should be "put into play," but was likely shortened for word space. Besides, there's nothing else you can do with it. I'd say play it.

"Put one into your hand, one on top of the deck, one on the bottom of the deck, one into the trash, and play one."

should probably read

"Put one into your hand, one on top of the deck, one on the bottom of the deck, one into the trash, and one into play."

It would certainly fit the rest of the text.

It's a card that's been revealed from the top of the deck. Arcane Cadence says to play it. If hero cards can't be played (which is the condition after the first card is played), it can't be played, so it goes back on top of the deck, above the card placed there by Arcance Cadence (because it was only revealed by Arcane Cadence).

Seems clear to me. 

I'm in agreement.

What makes this unclear is that what Arcane Cadence says (play a card) and what the card actually does (put a card into play) are two distinctly different things.

Since there's precedent for the act of putting a card into play ignoring effects which prevent cards from being played, this distinction becomes important for this interaction.

It says it plays the card, that means it does play the card. No cards in Sentinels of the Multiverse says one thing and does another, they do exactly as they say.

Except the Cursed Acolyte. He always says one thing and does another.

I think the difficulty here is that the rulebook definition of “Play” specifies the cards are only played from a hero’s hand. The card played by Arcane Cadence does not come from the player’s hand, but rather from Cadence’s strange little limbo area.

Unless someone wants to argue that the played card goes into the players hand first before it enters play?

We know that "play" doesn't just mean from your hand. We have a ruling that Timeshift can be used even if hero cards cannot be played, becauase it says to "put into play" and not "play", which are two different things. If you can only play cards from your hand, this ruling is irrelevant.

Page 1 of the rulebook

Whenever a card says that you can do something that isn't provided for in the basic rules, the card is correct.

Arcane Cadence says to play the card. While the glossary states that cards are played from the player's hand, it does not state what happens when something is played from another source. Since we are in this situation, the card is right. That means we do what the card says, which is to play the card.

Except that “put into play” and “play” are distinctly different, and we know that. Timeshift bypasses the Impulsion Beam, I think that is clear. The question is what does Cadence do? The text days to “play” the card, but the rulebook definition said that cards can only be played from hand. If Cadence read “put into play” as suggested earlier in this thread, I don’t think there would be any confusion about its interaction with Impulsion Beam.

[Edit: Ronway ninja’d]

That's a stretch. It also says that if two cards contridict each other, we abide by the one that was in play first, which would be impulsion beam.

I'm of the opinion that it goes back on top of the deck. Using the concept that hero cards can only be played from the hand to justify Arcane Cadence as a valid means to play a card doesn't sit right with me. "Play vs Put into Play" seems to be the only relevant differentiation, not "play a hero card."

See, that's the thing. If "play" only means "play from your hand", then there is no reason at all for the distinction between "put into play" and "play" by hero cards. Timeshift would have worked anyways if it says "play" because it wasn't from your hand. The fact that we have the distinction, shows that play doesn't just mean from your hand.

Also, if it was meant to work like Timeshift, it would have been worded like Timeshift. It seems very strange to have two situations that work the same way, but have different wordings.

We have a ruling that cannot trumps can.

Edit: Apologies, misread the put into play.

Heedless Lash, in Infernal Relics.

Were there any hero “put into play” effects before Infernal Relics though? I’m wondering if it’s just a terminology issue and the card may have been worded differently if the deck has been released later.

I don’t have it in front of me, but doesn’t the Font of Power say to “play the top card of each hero deck?”

[Ninja’d again… You’re too fast, Ronway :P]

Atlanten Font of Power does, and Bunker won't play a card if in Recharge or Turret Mode (just tested this out in the Mega Computer).

I think that’s fairly definitive, then. The Atlantean card is clearly not being played from hand, but Recharge/Turret stops it nonetheless. The Arcane Cadence card should follow the same logic and not be played.

I still have no idea where it should wind up, though.

Rabit's reasoning is sounds great to me. Since it was revealed and it cannot be played, it'd go back ontop of the deck.

Where is that ruling? Just for reference.

Page 11 of Spiff’s doc. He has a link there.

Thanks.

But revealed cards only go back to the deck when it says to put them there.  They are discarded or shuffled into the deck as much or more often than replaced.

I'd be fine with shuffling it in or replacing it, but I'm going with put it in the trash, because the only similar situation, where a card would be played but cannot be because of Limited status those cards are always put in the trash.

Would like official word, but I don't like putting it on top of the card the card specified to put on top of the deck.  Doesn't violate any rules or anything, I just prefer the other option, since it doesn't affect the rest of the card's intent, and works with the only similar situation I can think of.

Only because the card that revealed them said to do so. My interpretation has always been that, if the revealing card doesn't say otherwise, the revealed card is still on top of the deck, just temporarily revealed.

But yeah, we can probably go around and around without an official word on this, as it's all opinion.

For all intents and purposes, I believe revealed cards never leave the deck to begin with. You just get to see what they would be.

If it just said to reveal the card, I would think it went back to the top of the deck.  But because Arcane Cadence says "Reveal the top 5 cards of your deck... and play one." the card leaves the deck and is attempted to be played.  When it can't be played I would then put it in the trash pile.

My cards don't say anything. They're incapable of speech.

Revealed cards aren't still part of the deck.  Otherwise at the point you put the revealed card on top of the deck it would be on top of three revealed cards.  That is absurd.

So just put the "played" card underneath the top card. Simple.

All you're really doing is rearranging some of them, and moving the rest to other places.

There’s a valid point to every one of those arguments, but, like rabit said, it’s all just opinion at this point. Any reasoning could be correct - we just need to hear what the Anvil in the sky has to say about it.

I think we’re in agreement that the card can’t be played, regardless.

Christopher is the Hammer, Adam is the Anvil.

You have that backwards.

One of the wiki pages has it backwards then.

Anvil is based off Adam's Mage character from World of Warcraft, and is drawn to look like him, while Hammer is based off Christopher's Paladin (including the 'Wings of Light' and drawn to look like him

http://sotm.wikidot.com/villain:anvil-and-hammer

It's correct on the complete references list, though.

"Hammer is the Christopher, Anvil is the Adam."

.livnA eht si madA ,remmaH eht si rehpotsirhC

The Hammer is my...

Sorry, wrong hammer.

Not quite official word, but I just had a relevant interaction with the App beta.  A card which was revealed, but couldn't be played, ended up in limbo.  The dev said it was a bug, and that it should have gone into the Trash.  App devs aren't as authoratative as Christopher, but they're close…

Which cards caused the interaction?  

Rook City Wraith and Hostage Situation.

I’m afraid that I don’t see how that works. Could you explain?

Sleuth: Power: Reveal the top card of the Environment deck. Discard it or play it.

Hostage Situation (in part): Hero cards cannot be played.

Sleuth allowed RCW to "play" the top card of the Environment deck.  Hostage Situation prevented this.  Hmmm.  Now that I look at it again, this seems wrong.  It seems like HS is being interpeted by the app as "Heroes cannot play cards", but that isn't actually what it *says*.

I'll go log a bug on this...

Or then again, I could be totally misremembering things. *blush* 

It *wasn't* Hostage Situation that prevented things, HS was the card that ended up in limbo.  The actual preventing card was Rooftop Combat, which (correctly) prevents Environment cards from being played.

Okay, that makes more sense.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure we can take that as a given that Arcane Cadence would work the same way.  The difference is that Sleuth gives the player the option of discarding the card if you don't want to (or can't) play it, while with Arcane Cadence there is no alternative option you can take besides playing the card.  

My point is that when a "reveal, then play" effect happens, but the play is prevented, the card that would have been played goes into the Trash.  At least, according to the App devs.

How to test:

Bunker plays Adhesive Grenade.

RC Wraith uses Sleuth.

If Wraith has the option to play or discard choose to play, see what happens.

*Result*

Wraith is given the option, chose play, it prevented it and returned the card to the top of the deck.

So as of right now that seems the appropriate thing to do, return it to the top of the deck.