Double-destruction question (obscure timing edge cases)

According to the FAQ for the App, "targets remain in play during their own destruction" (bold in the original).  This confirms something that we have suspected for a while, in the continual evolution of the Damage Dealing Spreadsheet.  So I have gone ahead and combined what were, for a while, two separate steps: "on destruction" effects on the defender, and non-defender "on destruction" effects.

I have a question about an edge case in the comments, that the grognards here might be able to help with:

"Some side effects may lead to the defender being destroyed "again" during this step.  Note that a defender which is double-destroyed in this fashion does not trigger its OWN "when this card is destroyed" effects a second time."

Does this mean that OTHER card destruction triggers *can* happen a second time?  It seems to, but that may just be an accidental wording, from back when there were two separate steps.  It doesn't make intuitive sense to me that you could double-destroy, but only if the effect is on a different card.

Can someone (who has more brain than I have at the moment) please come up with some specific cases where this could really happen, so that we can discuss it in concrete terms?  Or links to prior relevant discussion/rulings?  Thanks.

Christopher has said before that cards can’t be destroyed twice. For example, if something destroys Explosive Wagon, and the Wagon kills Bee Bot, you can’t destroy the Wagon again. Not only for it’s effect, but also for others. Dominion won’t draw twice from that either.

Also, cards remaining in play was’t “suspected” before, it was known.

Could (a perverse player's) Bee Bot choose the Explosives Wagon to be destroyed?  I understand that nothing would be triggered by that, but are you allowed to have Bee Bot try to do it?

[Pedantic digression: "Known" implies a binary nature of knowledge, where I prefer to view it as a sliding scale of certainty. Given how fluid the rulings on edge cases are, I don't like to use binary words like "known" until some time has passed without Christopher changing his mind, or the collective forum-ites coming up with very strong reasons why he *should* do so (even if he doen't :-).  Now, not only has time passed, but someone close to Christopher has stated it directly in print, not just in a comment thread, and in bold at that.  *That* seems high enough to pass the "known" bar -- for me, at any rate.]

Hm...

I just thought of a different, but related question.

What happens if Fixed Point is played during the "Destroyed but still in play" window?

For example:

Parse has Buffer Overflow out

Akash'bhuta plays Primeveal Eruption, which Parse cancels with Buffer Overflow

When Buffer Overflow is destroyed, it sticks around until Parse draws a card and Akash'bhuta plays the top card of her deck.  She plays Disrupt the Field, which destroys all Environment cards (none), plays a Villain card (Mountinous Carapace), and plays an Environment card (Fixed Point).

Now, Buffer Overflow tries to go to the trash.  Does it suceed?  On the one hand, it was destroyed before Fixed Point entered play.  On the other hand, indestrubility prevents cards from leaving play, not cards from being destroyed.

I have asked this question, and I am waiting for the answer.

I would argue that Buffer Overflow would not go to to the trash in that example.

It is still in play, and it cannot leave play.

That is an easy answer.

Also you can target Explosives Wagon a second time for destruction, it just doesn't do anything, because the destruction process is already underway, and there is no category for things being double-destroyed, or super-destroyed.

OK, how about my version then:

Sonic Mine is destroyed, hits Dynamic Siphon first, allows RC Wraith to use a power, puts Fixed Point into play. What happens? Does Sonic Mine keep doing damage? Does it stay out and trigger again when Fixed Point leaves?

It is easy.  The problem for me is that an already-destroyed-but-waiting-to-finish-triggering card feels very much like a One-Shot to me, in that it really shouldn't be in play, but it's considered in play because that's how things resolve in SotM.  And if it behaves like a One-Shot, it might be able to fit through the same loophole that One-Shots use to escape Fixed Point.

It would stop because the process of being destroyed is no longer possible.

But, I don't think that's true (not the ruling, the explanation). The card is destroyed, no questions there, it stays in play while performing it's effect. Nothing says that it is "still being destroyed." Case in point, you can draw from Ammo Drop before triigering Sonic Mine, which means it already was completely destroyed. And if it stays in play, and gets destroyed again, you can draw from Ammo Drop again.

But one-shots don't act when they are in the process of leaving play.

Destruction works as a process, something is selected for destruction, then you go through teh steps required by self-destruction text, then you finish the destruction.  The destruction can be cancelled mid destruction, just like Dynamic Syphon on Omnitron-X putting Throat Jab into play can cancel a damage dealing process right in the middle.

The remaining steps fail because the effect is being prevented.

Think like the app, Sonic Mine goes off hits syphon, Wraith puts Fixed point into play and a message pops up

Sonic mine cannot be destroyed due to Fixed Point's effect.

Except that it was already destroyed to trigger things like Ammo Drop.

That may change when Fixed Point comes into the game.

I don't know.

The ruling we have is cards stay in play during their destruction, not after it.

Actually, that's not true at all. The ruling is that if cards are destroyed, they stay in play (not delaying the destruction) until their card effects are resolved.

Sonic Mine would keep dealing damage (as its destruction was already triggerd and the effect already in proccess of resolving)

Fixed Point enters play.

Sonic Mine keeps resolving its damage. I don't see why Fixed Point would interupt an effect already in the proccess of resolving.

Sonic Mine would stay in play while Fixed Point is in play, and you would track it's negative HP.

If Sonic Mine still has 0 or fewer HP when Fixed Point leaves play, Sonic Mine also leaves play. It would not resolve its destruction effect twice.

If Sonic Mine has more than 0 HP, it would stay in play and be eligable to be destroyed again.

What am I missing?

The next step, which I am loathe to bring up, but maybe I will. Give me a few minutes to see if I can explain it clearly.

I thought we had an official ruling that the "When a target is destroyed" card effects happen after the card leaves play, while "When this card is destroyed" happen while it is in play.

I may be wrong about that though, I can't find it.

If that order is reversed then this is not at all simple and is ridiculously confusing.

It's not confusing. 

Under normal circumstances, destruction of a card immediatly sends it to the trash. Thats why "When a target is destroyed" effects after the target is already gone.

"When this card is destroyed" effects must remain in play to resolve its text (you can't resolve an effect from the trash). As soon as the effect is resolve, it too would immediatly be sent to the trash.

I don't see how these contradict one another at all

This was officially clarified for the App (sorry if I made it sound like it was known all along).

All on destruction effects happen at the same time, and you can choose the order. The effect on the card itself does not have to happen first.

However, you cannot stop the cards own effect from happening. So, If Haka tries to eat the Sonic Mine, he can put it under Savage Mana first, but that (i.e. the lack of text) cannot stop the card from triggering. The way the App handles this is to put it in a different "zone" to trigger, then puts in under Sonic Mine.

I wish this was true.

I had the following situation come up in the App, and I reported it as a bug. However, I was told everything was working correctly.

Key players: Volatile Parts, Stealth Bot, Sonic Mine (see where this is going?).

Something kills Stealth Bot, and she blows up destroying Sonic Mine, When Sonic Mine asks for targets, Stealth Bot is still there. However, she wasn't redirecting and damage.

Apparently, in this case, Stealth Bot still hangs around as being a target, however, since she was destroyed the rest of the text disappears (poof!), so no redirecting.

And you can 100% rule this out as not a bug?

Yes.

That doesn't make sense to me at all

I believe your memory is correct, but that the situation has evolved since then.  The current ruling, as referrenced in the initial post on this thread, is: "targets remain in play during their own destruction" (bold in the original). 

This ruling may or may not be intuitive to you, but it's at least objectively simpler than the previous ruling.

Pydro, could you IM me a link to that bug report on the Trello board?  I read it obsessively, and I don't recall seeing anything that exactly matches that, nor can my search-fu turn one up.  (Also, what's your name on Trello, so I can search better.)

This business about "being in play, but without ts text" sounds super-wrong to me.

Wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I posted it on the Mega Computer board, which isn’t public. Everything above is correct as of right now (I triple checked it).

I can upload the screenshot later, but not now.

Really?!  That second sentence seems wrong to me.  Well, unintuitive at any rate; I don't recall having seen a ruling on it one way or another.

Would Dominion also not trigger in this scenario?

My intuition would be that when Fixed Point leave play, any <=0HP cards would be destroyed "from scratch" – that is, they would trigger all effects that cared about their destruction, even if (most of) those effects had already triggred earlier.

Actually, it's more than just intuition.  In my other recent thread, opinion seems unamnimous that healing above 0HP will prevent a card from leaving play when Fixed Point leaves.  That implies that the card retains no memory/state of "I am really destroyed, even though I am in play".  And lacking such a memory/state, I would argue that all the "on destruction" effects have to happen when FP leaves play.

I've been meaning to ask for a while now – is the "Mega Computer board" just a nickname for the Trello board for beta testers, or is it something else entirely?

I know the Trello board isn't public, but I am a beta teter, so I can look at it.  That's why I asked for an IM, rather than a public link.

The Mega Computer is something separate. It’s a text based system that is used to test the rules of the game. Beta Testers test the actual app to make sure things are working.

Basically, the Mega Computer is used to test the rules before the graphical aspects are applied and it goes out to the beta testers.

Thanks for the help!

There are 4 main stages that changes to the app move through (and not necessarily in a linear way - we iterate at each stage quite a bit).

1. Internal development & testing - completely private between Handelabra Games and GTG
2. Alpha testing - this uses the text-based Mega Computer system, and has a small group of external testers.
3. Beta testing - this is a version of the real game on iOS, Android & Steam, and has a larger group of external testers
4. Public release

Each stage in fact has its own Trello boards =). We have quite a few for different parts of the project for internal use, and there's one each for Alpha and Beta. The only public board is SotM Known Issues, which we use to communicate info about major issues in released versions.

Any insight as to why Stealth Bot would still be a selectable target for damage after it has been destroyed?

Because the situation discussed is not after Stealth Bot's destruction, it's during Stealth Bot's destruction.

Even though Volatile Parts in on a separate card, it is still part of its destruction effect, so Stealth Bot is still in play until that damage is done and resolved.

But theres the thing. Volitile Parts is a reactionary trigger to Stealth Bots destruction and doesn't nessesarily require Stealth Bot to stay in play to resolve (in the same way that Explosive Wagon needs to stay in play to resolve its own on destruction effect). 

Why isn't it the case that Stealth Bot leaves play as part of its destruction, then subsequently have Volitile Parts trigger as a reaction to the resolution of Stealth Bots destruction?

Isnt leaving play an intigral part of the destruction proccess?

Keep in kind that while the target stays in play, the text does not unless it has an on destruction effect. This prevents Interpolation Beam from hitting Bunker who drew a card for the destruction of Interpolation Beam.

But why does it stay in play instead of being trashed immediatly? 

shrug

For one, programming-wise, they'd have to have a different destruction step for cards with on-destruction text and cards without.  And that would mean each card would have to be flagged as "having destruction text" or not.  And that status could change depending on if they were under Savage Mana when it was used, etc.  It would end up with a LOT more complications, I think.

Because that's what Christopher decided should happen. If the decision goes the other way, it causes other weird things to happen.

As we get deeper into the expansions, a lot of weird interactions are continue to come up where sometimes the answer is just going to be the above. The app has to do *something* consistent, but that doesn't mean you have to play it exactly like that on the tabletop.

Yes. It. Does.

Lol!  I know what you mean, Pydro.

Lmao. Yeah, thats not gonna happen. Official way or the highway!

I'm just trying to wrap my head around it.

If the card is still in play then Fixed point would stop it from leaving play.

A card cannot leave play if it is indestructible.

So if Sonic Mine-stealth bot interaction caused RC Wraith to use Dynamic Syphon and she put fixed Pint into play you would have:

A Stealth-Bot with no text that is in play, destroyed and unable to leave play.

A sonic-mine mid destruction that cannot be destroyed or leave play.

Does a resolution make sense to anyone on this?

Also if Kismet has a card destroyed, and it is player's choice order you could draw a card for Bunker, put it under savage Mana and then prevent the destruction via Lady Luck.

How does that resolve?

What? Really?  That strikes me as super-weird.  Of course, we're down the rabbithole into a region where there are no possible answers that don't appear super-weird in some cases.

I believe that, under the current rulings, those are both correct interpretations.

The Sonic Mine part seems sensible to me.

The Stealth-Bot one bothers me a lot.  I really don't like the idea of a face-up card with no text.

And follow up, would Sonic Mine finish dealing damage, and if it did would it lose its text afterwards?

Referring to the current state of the Damage Dealing Timing doc, Lady Luck would resolve during step 17.  After that, if the destruction was not prevented, the players would choose the order of resolution for Ammo Drop and Savage Mana in step 18.

Since Sonic Mine has an "on destruction" effect, its text would not leave play, so it would finish dealing damage.

Nothing said so far makes it clear whether or not it would lose its card text afterwards.  I would assume not, but I wouldn't be surprised to be overruled.

But the Mine was Being destroyed, it cannot be destroyed once Fixed Point comes into play.

So if something is in the process of happening and then cannot happen. . . what happens?

The Mine is not destroyed, but it was in the process of being destroyed.

As you yourself alluded to earlier, the definition of "indestructible" is "cannot leave play".  It is NOT "cannot undertake ANY of the many steps of the destruction process".  So the Sonic Mine keeps doing what it was doing until something tells it it can't (at the point it attempts to leave play).

At least, that's my take on it.

...If I'm right, it would have the ufonrtunate side-effect that even if Fixed Point was already in play when Sonic Mine took damage, the Mine would still "explode".

Personally, I think the baggage associated with keeping a destroyed target in play (NOT the same as not letting it be destroyed due to Fixed Point) is more than anyone should pack for a trip. The oddities with being the lowest hit point target are bad enough, letting it potentially soak up other destruction effects just starts to get silly. And someday we'll have a heal-on-damage effect that means that you can destroy a target, start processing its destruction, heal it, then destroy it again.

I'm much more comfortable with "has been destroyed" being a one-way ticket out of play, even as you still resolve all the effects contigent on that destruction. A limbo/meta state like "revealed" creates seems more appropriate.

Indestructible means cannot be destroyed or leave play.

Otherwise heroes would incap through Fixed Point.

Possibly, but I don't know of a good way to structure it otherwise without changing how Mountainous Carapace and Explosives Wagon work, and it's been confirmed that they work as intended.

I'm thinking with Captain Cosmic and Doctor Medico, I could construct a situation where a target got destroyed, then got healed above it's destruction threshold. That's one of the bits of baggage I find troubling. It's one thing to pull that off with Fixed Point, another to pull it off without it. And I find it very troubling that Fixed Point could undo an in-progress destruction, that's an ugly mechanical artifact. That's distinct from *preventing* destruction, I'm talking resolution already in progress. Couple that with the situation where we're now talking about re-destroying an in-destroyed target with other effects (such as bee bot), and what the heck happens to the trigger then. Maybe all we need is language that a target in the process of being destroyed can no longer be targeted. Since it remains a target, that leaves existing effects in play during resolution. Though I'd also like to make destruction a commited step in the resolution process (that is to say, once you've destroyed a target, it cannot be undestroyed prior to completing its destruction). This still allows the myriad effects that prevent destruction.

Oops, you're right.  The definition of indestructible does not address what happens when the indestructible state comes about in mid-destruction, so the rules are ambiguous.  I still like my interpretation, but I'm far less confident in it.

Well, maybe it's time that we (and by we, I mostly mean Christopher) should start re-assessing the importance of having MC and EW work that way.  If simplifying the overall rules structure comes at the cost of what is, in the grand scheme of things, a rather small change to 2 specific cards, that might be the lesser of two evils.

Heck, you could even issue errata for the cards to fix the functionality to be as originally intended.  And maybe should, since a lot of people (who don't read the forums) play them "wrong" as is.

It's definately not possible to save a target from destruction without Fixed Point.  Just like a destroyed target can't be destroyed a second time, it can't be saved by healing.  

Of course, Fixed Point makes all these rules weird and confusing, but that's Fixed Point for you.

If you could, that would certainly be disturbing, but I don't see how you could manage it.  Oh wait…

Bee Bot destroys Explosives Wagon while various effects* are making EW do between 1-3 damage to Hero targets; EW hits Dynamic Siphon on Dr. Medico; Doctor Medico then heals Bee Bot.

• For example, Mass Levitation plus The Contract

Yes, it can be done.  Disturbing.

I would be happy with either or both of those changes.

D'oh!  I kew that.  Where by "knew" I mean "knew that at one time, but forgot it in the interim".  It is clearly laid out in a comment to step 19 of the Damage doc.

It worked beautifully when I thought that on-destruct text on a card delayed the destruction until it resolved, and then other responses triggered when the card actually left play.

Kind of like effects that react to a power being used trigger after the power resolves.

Unless that is getting changed as well.

I really wish they said

"If this card enters the trash from play..."

it would save a lot of confusion.

Good to know undestructing by healing is covered (and disallowed). Some of the earlier conversation in this thread had me confused, I obviously need to review the damage doc some more. I still dislike the case of lowest-hit point effects hitting the already destroyed target :)

Once a target has begun the process of being destroyed, it cannot be saved by healing (even if it gets above 0 HP, it still goes away). It's on our list to talk to Christopher about what happens if a target becomes indestructible while it's in the process of being destroyed.

This isn't an urgent matter for the video game until Fixed Point arrives. Unless you can come up with a way to have The Matriarch shuffle her trash into her deck during the destruction of a Cohort, with the cards available in the video game up to Rook City... =)

Discussions pertaining to Rook City stuff are still underway and I'll post them when they are more settled. But at the moment, we're looking at making things that go after "the target with the lowest HP" only consider non-destroyed targets.

I tried, but the only thing I could find that triggers off of Villain target destruction was Ammo Drop, and nothing triggered off of Hero draws.