Brain Burn damage: Increased by one or doubled?

This has come up twice now in our game, and it seems to severely affect Visionary’s usefulness in certain scenarios in our games:

Brain Burn states that it does 1 psychic damage to her for each card put from the trash onto the bottom of the villain deck.

If some effect is in play that increases damage dealt to heroes by 1, and Visionary plays Brain Burn, destroying 9 cards, is the final damage done to her 10 (how I am interpreting the card) or 18 (how my brother is interpreting the card)?

It seems if it’s the latter that it makes the card nearly useless for its given purpose of wiping out cards in the trash that some other effect would cause to be put into play.

I agree with your brother.

If it were going to be 10, it would say “Visionary takes X damage, where X = the number of cards burned”. But the way it is, she’s taking one damage per card, and if that one damage gets bumped to two, then she’s taking two damage per card.

I also agree that it will add one to each point of damage you would take. So you’ll have to be careful when playing that card, just imagine if it was increased by two…

However, note that, because it is 1 damage per card, and she is dealing the damage to herself, she could place Twist the Ether on herself and take no damage in most situations (or back to 1 damage each in the situation you originally described).

yeah, or Wraith could stun bolt her. Or heck, if Smoke bombs are in play then Visionary will brain burn her hp down to where its the lowest of all heroes, and all the rest will be redirected and soaked.

And if you have a Decoy Projection out you can just redirect all 18 damage to it.

No, I think you can redirect the first 6, based on the way we’re interpreting this. It’s not a lump of 18 damage, it’s 9 hits of 2 damage.

While I’ll admit that currently 18 points of damage seems to be correct, I’d watch for any changes to the enhanced edition. In addition to it being explained that the enhanced edition will attempt to be more consistant in wording, I’ve also heard from Chris (when he came to Indianapolis back in November last year) that he was planning on streamlining multiplicative damage.

I disagree folks, though I admit that I’m not sure. I think it does 10 points of damage, not 18.

Brain Burn reads:

The Visionary deals herself 1 Psychic damage for each card removed from the villain trash in this way.

Given that, as noted, there are other cards that say things like ‘a hero does X damage where X equals something or other’, I see the logic that since Brain Burn doesn’t use that same terminology, than Brain Burn is likely referring to separate attacks.

As TheJayMann notes, however, there has been recognition that the wording of the cards is not always consistent, and there is precedent for the wording on Brain Burn to refer to a single attack. Consider, for instance, Haka of Battle:

Draw 2 cards, then discard 1 or more cards. Increase the next damage dealt by Haka by 1 for each card discarded this way.

This is, admittedly, not a perfect example, as even if this refers to multiple separate increases, they would all still affect the next damage, so it is moot as to whether Haka of Battle refers to one increase or to many increases. Still, the similarity in wording between Brain Burn and Haka of Battle (or Haka of Restoration) suggests to me that the intent of Brain Burn was for there to be a single attack against Visionary.

Now about the Haka of Battle, due to the fact that Haka isn’t actually dealing damage with the use of that card, you will add up all that total to one lump sum when it is actually added into one of his attacks thus it isn’t really the same.

With Brain Burn I see it as putting a card back in the deck one card at a time until you choose to stop thus dealing damage each time you transfer a card. Now since there is a inconsistance of wording then there is the chance it may get the variable worked into it in the enhanced edition. Sadly none of the creators have come on to comfirm or deny this so were just going to have to wait…

But it’s not “until you chose to stop”, it’s “until the condition is met”, you move 9 cards from the trash to the bottom of the villain deck, when you deal yourself 9 lots of 1 damage, even if you want to stop early.

I agree with the individual damage side of this discussion.

Hmmmm… however if the doubling is correct then doesn’t Haka’s Savage Mana allow each 2 damage to be applied to a different target per the wording?

I am official undecided now!

But it’s not “until you chose to stop”, it’s “until the condition is met”, you move 9 cards from the trash to the bottom of the villain deck, when you deal yourself 9 lots of 1 damage, even if you want to stop early.

I agree with the individual damage side of this discussion.

Hmmmm… if the doubling is correct then doesn’t Haka’s Savage Mana allow each 2 damage to be applied to a different target per the wording?
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If I remember the wording correctly, you deal one target two damage per card. Only one target is ever specified, so that same target would be taking the damage, you can’t choose another. Just like Fanatic’s deals one target one melee and one radiant, they both have to be dealt to the same target.

I think the problem here is that you’re arguing intent vs. card text. I’m fairly confident that as the card is written, the damage would be doubled. As for designer intent… until we see errata, a correction via the enhanced edition, or comments from one of the >G crew, it seems like playing it as written is the right choice. At least, that’s my $0.02

The wording is as ‘vague’ as Brain Burn (i.e. not particularly, just inconsistent with other heroes)

Power: Destroy all cards beneath this card. Haka deals 1 taret 2 toxic damage for each card destroyed this way.

If Savage Mana allows for each 2 damage to be increased (hence my initial agreement on doubling re the OP) because it is not an x damage total then why would you not allow a choice for each damage application? It is in essence a separate damage dealing effect each time, why apply a different ruling to the first clause of the same sentence?

If the intent is only one target then it should be reword something along the lines of

Power: Chose a target. Destroy all cards beneath this card. Haka deals the target 2 toxic damage for each card destroyed this way.

But as I say I am officially confused and not in either camp with regard to the OP anymore!

Ah, good old English ambiguity. Just like a little pink dog house (which, if I’m not mistaken, can have at least five different interpretations).

I guess the only thing that can be agreed on is play it the way you feel it should be played until stated otherwise.

That is definitely not what it says on the card.

The first step is, verbatim, “Put the villain trash on the bottom of the villain deck.” Then, Visionary gets dealt damage for the cards moved. There’s nothing about the wording of the card that seems to give the option to stop moving cards- it’s an all or nothing deal. For comparison, Ra has a card which does something similar to the Environment deck. It says something along the lines of ‘You MAY put UP TO x number of cards from the Environment trash on the bottom of the Environment deck’.

Hey man, from what I have been reading what other people type on here, this is the first I am reading put the villian trash on the bottom of the villian deck. If that’s the way it is worded then yeah they would only add the one to the total damage. People really need to put the entire text from a card, because I go by what they show here. Sorry about the confusion.

“Put the Villain trash on the bottom of the Villain deck.
The Visionary deals herself 1 psychic damage for each card removed from the Villain trash in this way.”

The problem is that as written it is ambiguous, as per my first post, when I read it I see it as a single instance of damage, and my brother read it as x individual instances of damage, where x is the number of cards.

Another reason I feel it is a single instance of damage is that, as Visionary does it to herself, putting her in the same team as Legacy, his leadership skills… lead her to do more damage to herself?

Particularly problematic here when the +damage is coming from buffs to your team, and Legacy can buff hero damage twice, which would make the 9 card situation do more damage to Visionary than her max HP, all due to a ‘buff’ from Legacy.

I really think we need an official ruling regarding damage done by heroes to themselves and buffs to damage at least, as this has been a problem in some other situations as well (see: Fanatic).

I think if you’ve spent a lot of time playing Absolute Zero, you’ll have a pretty good idea how heroes dealing damage to themselves in the presence of buffs works. It really can’t work any other way without destroying his effectiveness.

Yes. When an effect such as Galvanize increases a Heroes damage, it’s increased even when that Hero damages his- or her-self.

I didn’t think so at first, but the more I read Brain Burn, the more I’m convinced each card is a seperate instance of damage. I’ll still eagerly await an official clarifaction. But as devestating as it can potentially be to Visionary, there’s enough ways to mitigate it. Twist the Ether, Lead from the Front + Fortitude, Smoke Bombs, Imbue Fire + Flesh of the Sun God, etc. etc. It’s just a tricky card to use, but they’re plenty of those.

Lead from the Front won’t actually work, since it only lets you redirect damage from villain cards, but the rest of your ideas are perfect examples of how to deal with it.

D’oh! I always forget this!