rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad

LSJ ? - Wormwood and Orun In Play, What Happens

25 messages from 10 participants · 04 December 2005 – 12 December 2005
original thread on Google Groups

Rehlow

Let's say Wormwood is in play with 4 counters on it. I have a Laibon in play who is printed as being a 8 capacity vampire. Previously I played 2 Orun cards on it. My predator calls Ancient Influence. The vote passes and I choose my Laibon. What does Ancient Influence treat its capacity as? We thought that Wormwood would first treat its capacity as 4 and then the two Orun would raise the capacity by 4, and Ancient Influence would "see" it as 8 capacity. This didn't actually come up, but I was playing a Gehenna deck that got Wormwood to 4 counters and was ousted by an Ancient Influence while at 1 pool. Relevant card text below. Thanks. Later, ~Rehlow Wormwood Gehenna. Do not replace until your next discard phase. Requires at least one other Gehenna card in play. Put 10 counters on this card. Burn 1 counter whenever another Gehenna card is put in play. A vampire whose capacity is greater than X is treated as if his or her capacity is X (minimum of 1), where X is the number of counters on this card. Orun Master: trifle. Put this card on a Laibon. For non-Orun cards played by Methuselahs other than this Laibon's controller, this Laibon is considered to have 2 additional capacity. A Laibon gets an additional vote for every three Orun he or she has. If this Laibon successfully bleeds for more than 2 or successfully performs a (D) action against a non-mortal minion, he or she burns one Orun. Burn this card if this Laibon has more Orun and Aye than his or her capacity. Ancient Influence Worth 1 vote. Called by any vampire at +1 stealth. Successful referendum means each Methuselah may choose a ready vampire he or she controls. Each Methuselah gains an amount of pool from the blood bank equal to his or her chosen vampire's capacity. Each Methuselah also burns 5 pool. Only one Ancient Influence can be played in a game.

firstco...@aol.com

Rehlow wrote: > Let's say Wormwood is in play with 4 counters on it. I have a Laibon in > play who is printed as being a 8 capacity vampire. Previously I played > 2 Orun cards on it. My predator calls Ancient Influence. The vote > passes and I choose my Laibon. What does Ancient Influence treat its > capacity as? We thought that Wormwood would first treat its capacity as > 4 and then the two Orun would raise the capacity by 4, and Ancient > Influence would "see" it as 8 capacity. I'd guess you're right. > A vampire whose > capacity is greater than X is treated as if his or her capacity is X > (minimum of 1), where X is the number of counters on this card. So, Wormwood makes your capacity 4. (Wormwood doesn't affect how other cards view your capacity, though.) > Put this card on a Laibon. For non-Orun cards played by Methuselahs > other than this Laibon's controller, this Laibon is considered to have > 2 additional capacity. So, for Ancient Influence, you are considered to have a higher capacity. If it said you HAVE more capacity, I imagine Wormwood would screw with it, but you don't have higher capacity--you're simply affected as though you do. Probably like the Mata Hari rulings. -- Brian

LSJ

firstco...@aol.com wrote: > Rehlow wrote: >>Let's say Wormwood is in play with 4 counters on it. I have a Laibon in >>play who is printed as being a 8 capacity vampire. Previously I played >>2 Orun cards on it. My predator calls Ancient Influence. The vote >>passes and I choose my Laibon. What does Ancient Influence treat its >>capacity as? We thought that Wormwood would first treat its capacity as >>4 and then the two Orun would raise the capacity by 4, and Ancient >>Influence would "see" it as 8 capacity. > > I'd guess you're right. Correct. >>A vampire whose >>capacity is greater than X is treated as if his or her capacity is X >>(minimum of 1), where X is the number of counters on this card. > > So, Wormwood makes your capacity 4. (Wormwood doesn't affect how other > cards view your capacity, though.) > >>Put this card on a Laibon. For non-Orun cards played by Methuselahs >>other than this Laibon's controller, this Laibon is considered to have >>2 additional capacity. > > So, for Ancient Influence, you are considered to have a higher > capacity. If it said you HAVE more capacity, I imagine Wormwood would > screw with it, but you don't have higher capacity--you're simply > affected as though you do. > > Probably like the Mata Hari rulings. Right. -- That is my story, be it bitter or be it sweet. Keep a little and let a little come back to me. LSJ (vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep (remove spam trap to reply) http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

CthuluKitty

This is indeed a curious interaction. One thing I wonder about, and this seems really wonky, is if this cominbation of cards can actually raise or lower your capacity in certain bizarre situations. Say your vampire is capacity 6 with 3 Oruns. Another player's Wormwood would then see that vampire as capacity 12, and by card text the vampire would then have its capacity reset to the number of counters on Wormwood, whether that's lower or higher. Seems very odd, but possibly consistent with cardtext. LSJ, what's your ruling on this?

LSJ

[ quoted text not captured ] Wormwood isn't inspecting the vampire's capacity. It just limits it. [ quoted text not captured ]

Chris Berger

LSJ wrote: > CthuluKitty wrote: > > This is indeed a curious interaction. One thing I wonder about, and > > this seems really wonky, is if this cominbation of cards can actually > > raise or lower your capacity in certain bizarre situations. Say your > > vampire is capacity 6 with 3 Oruns. Another player's Wormwood would > > then see that vampire as capacity 12, and by card text the vampire > > would then have its capacity reset to the number of counters on > > Wormwood, whether that's lower or higher. Seems very odd, but possibly > > consistent with cardtext. LSJ, what's your ruling on this? > > Wormwood isn't inspecting the vampire's capacity. It just limits it. > Umm... doesn't Wormwood check to see if the vampire's capacity is greater than X? Even if it doesn't, Orun doesn't care if the card is "inspecting his capacity." A card played by another methuselah simply treats the vampire as if he were 2 cap higher. So a Wormwood with 8 counters will treat a 6 cap vampire with 2 Oruns as if he were a 10 cap, right? And if he were a 10 cap, it would cause him to be treated in all respects as an 8 cap. Of course, then the Oruns would raise his capacity to 12 for the effects of other cards...

LSJ

Chris Berger wrote: > LSJ wrote: > >>CthuluKitty wrote: >> >>>This is indeed a curious interaction. One thing I wonder about, and >>>this seems really wonky, is if this cominbation of cards can actually >>>raise or lower your capacity in certain bizarre situations. Say your >>>vampire is capacity 6 with 3 Oruns. Another player's Wormwood would >>>then see that vampire as capacity 12, and by card text the vampire >>>would then have its capacity reset to the number of counters on >>>Wormwood, whether that's lower or higher. Seems very odd, but possibly >>>consistent with cardtext. LSJ, what's your ruling on this? >> >>Wormwood isn't inspecting the vampire's capacity. It just limits it. > > Umm... doesn't Wormwood check to see if the vampire's capacity is > greater than X? "A vampire whose capacity is greater than X is treated as if his or her capacity is X (minimum of 1), where X is the number of counters on this card." > Even if it doesn't, Orun doesn't care if the card is > "inspecting his capacity." A card played by another methuselah simply > treats the vampire as if he were 2 cap higher. So a Wormwood with 8 > counters will treat a 6 cap vampire with 2 Oruns as if he were a 10 > cap, right? And if he were a 10 cap, it would cause him to be treated > in all respects as an 8 cap. Of course, then the Oruns would raise his > capacity to 12 for the effects of other cards... You might have a line for everything up until "Of course, then the...". There's nothing to give a double-count to Orun. Baseline (to avoid paradoxes and loop-backs and other problems): Wormwood snags the vampire's actual capacity and clamps it to X. Orun will add to that X (or to the vampire's real capacity if it is less than X) for cards played by other players. [ quoted text not captured ]

Jeroen Rombouts

"LSJ" <vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com> schreef in bericht news:6KMkf.10012$wf....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net... > > Baseline (to avoid paradoxes and loop-backs and other problems): > Wormwood snags the vampire's actual capacity and clamps it to X. > Orun will add to that X (or to the vampire's real capacity if it > is less than X) for cards played by other players. > I get the clarification. The only thing I wonder: why does Wormwood's effect go first?

John Flournoy

[ quoted text not captured ] Two reasons: 1) "to avoid paradoxes and loop-backs and other problems" as LSJ said. 2) Because Wormwood's effect is a continuous effect already in play before and after any card is played that would qualify to trigger Orun. -John Flournoy

Chris Berger

LSJ wrote: > Chris Berger wrote: > > > Even if it doesn't, Orun doesn't care if the card is > > "inspecting his capacity." A card played by another methuselah simply > > treats the vampire as if he were 2 cap higher. So a Wormwood with 8 > > counters will treat a 6 cap vampire with 2 Oruns as if he were a 10 > > cap, right? And if he were a 10 cap, it would cause him to be treated > > in all respects as an 8 cap. Of course, then the Oruns would raise his > > capacity to 12 for the effects of other cards... > > You might have a line for everything up until "Of course, then the...". > There's nothing to give a double-count to Orun. > I wasn't giving a "double-count" to Orun, if that even means anything for continuous effects in play. The Wormwood sees the vampire with Orun on it as a 10 cap and raises his capacity to 8 for all effects. Then when another methuselah plays *another* card, it sees this 8 cap vampire with 2 Oruns on it... It seems like it works perfectly logically, without the need for issuing errata to Wormwood (which I assume is what you're doing to make it work the other way?).

andrea....@infinito.it

[ quoted text not captured ] Why? the way i see it: I play something that interacts with capacity, he is a 6 capacity so wormwood at 8 does not kicks in, 2 orun will bring him to 10... Isn't that more "natural"? Andrea

Chris Berger

andrea....@infinito.it wrote: > > Why? > the way i see it: I play something that interacts with capacity, he is > a 6 capacity so wormwood at 8 does not kicks in, 2 orun will bring him > to 10... > Isn't that more "natural"? > The question in that case is... Wormwood is a card played by another methuselah. Suddenly Orun doesn't apply to it? It's a continuous effect that sees a vampire with >X capacity and sets his capacity to X. So, then should we be given a list of which cards played by other methuselahs Orun applies to and which it doesn't? Will Orun not apply to Signet of King Saul? What about Games of Instinct?

John Flournoy

[ quoted text not captured ] The original question was about your own Wormwood and other cards played. The question raised isn't about what happens when someone else plays Wormwood. (How Orun interacts directly with Wormwood is kinda irrelevant: My 6-cap has an Orun. A Wormwood played by somebody else with 6 or more counters, no matter how many Oruns I have, still won't reduce my capacity to less than 6. A less-than-6-counter Wormwood still sees me as bigger than it's limit no matter how many Oruns I have, and reduces me accordingly. My own Wormwood doesn't ever see my Oruns and doesn't directly affect that.) The relevant question occurs when I have my own Wormwood in play, and my vampire has an Orun on it: what capacity do cards - other than Wormwood or Orun - played by other Methuselahs see me as? The limit set by Wormwood, or that limit+the bonus granted by my Orun? For instance, if I'm an 8-cap with 4 Oruns on me, and I have Wormwood in play with 7 counters on it, can I block somebody else's minion with the Signet or not? LSJ's answer previously in this thread would indicate that the Signet would see me as a 7-cap with a bunch of Oruns and disable me from blocking. In other words, Wormwood does not prevent Orun from increasing your effective capacity, it just alters the baseline capacity prior to Orun's effect, for all cards played by other Methuselahs. No particular errata needed. -John Flournoy

LSJ

Chris Berger wrote: > The question in that case is... Wormwood is a card played by another > methuselah. Suddenly Orun doesn't apply to it? It's a continuous > effect that sees a vampire with >X capacity and sets his capacity to X. If it did that, then capacity would not be restored when Wormwood leaves play. It has been ruled otherwise (capacity is reset when Wormwood leaves play). With that ruling, the current ruling on Wormwood with respect to Orun follows.

CthuluKitty

> The original question was about your own Wormwood and other cards > played. The question raised isn't about what happens when someone else > plays Wormwood. Umm, sorry, but that's totally wrong. Read the question again. Obviously, your own Wormwood won't notice Oruns on your vampires. Noone would bother asking that question. > (How Orun interacts directly with Wormwood is kinda irrelevant: My > 6-cap has an Orun. A Wormwood played by somebody else with 6 or more > counters, no matter how many Oruns I have, still won't reduce my > capacity to less than 6. A less-than-6-counter Wormwood still sees me > as bigger than it's limit no matter how many Oruns I have, and reduces > me accordingly. My own Wormwood doesn't ever see my Oruns and doesn't > directly affect that.) Given LSJ's ruling this is correct. This doesn't naturally flow out of card text however. By text, Wormwood should see Oruns since it checks the vampire's capacity. > In other words, Wormwood does not prevent Orun from increasing your > effective capacity, it just alters the baseline capacity prior to > Orun's effect, for all cards played by other Methuselahs. No particular > errata needed. That was never the question. The question was, in a nutshell: Does Wormwood see Oruns when it (effectively) resets capacity? LSJ's ruling has been a no, and I'm fine with that. However, this is not a natural reading of the card text, and errata does in fact need to be issued to clarify it.

CthuluKitty

[ quoted text not captured ] I'm not following you at all here. How does Wormwood leaving play enter this question at all? Can you explain this more clearly?

CthuluKitty

> > The original question was about your own Wormwood and other cards > > played. The question raised isn't about what happens when someone else > > plays Wormwood. > > Umm, sorry, but that's totally wrong. Read the question again. > Obviously, your own Wormwood won't notice Oruns on your vampires. > Noone would bother asking that question. Correcting/clarifying myself: Rehlow's original question did not specify whose Wormwood was under discussion. The question I asked, which seems to be the controversial one, did in fact specify that Wormwood is controlled by another player.

John Flournoy

CthuluKitty wrote: > > The original question was about your own Wormwood and other cards > > played. The question raised isn't about what happens when someone else > > plays Wormwood. > > Umm, sorry, but that's totally wrong. Read the question again. > Obviously, your own Wormwood won't notice Oruns on your vampires. > Noone would bother asking that question. You're right; I didn't notice the jumping in questions from Rehlow's to yours. Here's another odd scenario that could occur if Wormwood DID see Oruns: You play Wormwood, with 10 counters. My 5-cap vampire has 5 Oruns on him. If Wormwood sees the Oruns, my vampire is RAISED to a 10-cap per Wormwood's text, because Wormwood is changing it from (seen-as) 15-cap to ("X=") 10 cap. Which would be, uh, very odd. So it's another good reason for Wormwood to affect the base capacity, not the modified capacity with Oruns. -John Flournoy

Rehlow

CthuluKitty wrote: > > The original question was about your own Wormwood and other cards > > played. The question raised isn't about what happens when someone else > > plays Wormwood. > > Umm, sorry, but that's totally wrong. Read the question again. > Obviously, your own Wormwood won't notice Oruns on your vampires. > Noone would bother asking that question. > It wasn't very clear in the original question, because it doesn't matter who controls the Wormwood. I don't care between an opponent's Wormwood and Orun which "wins" because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what Wormwood *considers* your capacity to be. What matters is what a 3rd card (and this has to be played by another Methuselah otherwise the Orun part is moot) *considers* the capacity of a vampire when both Wormwood and Orun are in play. > > (How Orun interacts directly with Wormwood is kinda irrelevant: My > > 6-cap has an Orun. A Wormwood played by somebody else with 6 or more > > counters, no matter how many Oruns I have, still won't reduce my > > capacity to less than 6. A less-than-6-counter Wormwood still sees me > > as bigger than it's limit no matter how many Oruns I have, and reduces > > me accordingly. My own Wormwood doesn't ever see my Oruns and doesn't > > directly affect that.) > Exactly. If (and a big IF) Wormwood said something like burn a vampire with capacity greater than X, then it would matter, but the big fight between the Wormwood card and the Orun card doesn't matter, because you don't really do anything within Wormwood and Orun, you do something with a 3rd card. > Given LSJ's ruling this is correct. This doesn't naturally flow out of > card text however. By text, Wormwood should see Oruns since it checks > the vampire's capacity. > > > In other words, Wormwood does not prevent Orun from increasing your > > effective capacity, it just alters the baseline capacity prior to > > Orun's effect, for all cards played by other Methuselahs. No particular > > errata needed. > Actually it was. The question boiled down to, when some other Methuselah plays Ancient Influence do I do 1) vampire capacity + Orun bonus(es) and then if >X set capacity to X (Wormwood) OR 2) If vampire capacity >X set capacity to X (Wormwood) and then + Orun bonus(es) to X. And #2 is correct, and LSJ has previously said why. > That was never the question. The question was, in a nutshell: Does > Wormwood see Oruns when it (effectively) resets capacity? LSJ's ruling > has been a no, and I'm fine with that. However, this is not a natural > reading of the card text, and errata does in fact need to be issued to > clarify it. I think this reasoning is trying to get #1 as the correct answer, but #2 is correct. Its kinda like how a Merged Kemintiri can call Ventrue Justicar, name herself Justicar, play Closed Session, and then not be able to cast her 3 votes in the referendum. You have to take each card individually. I hope I got that example right or else I just added a whole additional layer of confusion. (Ventrue Justicar sees Merged Kemi as Ventrue while playing it, so for the effect of VJ you can name her. Closed Session sees MK as a Camarilla when she plays it, but the referendum "knows" that MK is Independent and cannot vote). OK, I just thought of a better example ... Merged Kemintiri can play Parity Shift while The Fall of the Camarilla is in play. That's closer to the same lines of Wormwood, Orun, other Methuselah's Ancient Influence. Later, ~Rehlow

Rehlow

Rehlow wrote: > CthuluKitty wrote: > > Actually it was. The question boiled down to, when some other > Methuselah plays Ancient Influence do I do > > 1) vampire capacity + Orun bonus(es) and then if >X set capacity to X > (Wormwood) > > OR > > 2) If vampire capacity >X set capacity to X (Wormwood) and then + Orun > bonus(es) to X. > > And #2 is correct, and LSJ has previously said why. > > > That was never the question. "Actually it was" is supposed to be an answer to "That was never the question." I got my posting wrong. Sorry for the confusion. [ quoted text not captured ]

Chris Berger

[ quoted text not captured ] Yeah, I didn't follow this at all either. Obviously Wormwood leaving play would cease to effect capacity. Don't have any idea how anything above follows from *that*. But then, there are certain rulings questions, which, from my point of view, LSJ doesn't seem to make any sense from start to finish (c.f. Blood Brother Ambush/Left for Dead), and I think I'm making a resolution starting from this point to simply move on and not get dragged down into a long debate, especially when those rulings are for practically meaningless situations which will probably never effect a game that I'm a part of.

ira...@gmail.com

> Yeah, I didn't follow this at all either. Obviously Wormwood leaving > play would cease to effect capacity. Don't have any idea how anything > above follows from *that*. But then, there are certain rulings > questions, which, from my point of view, LSJ doesn't seem to make any > sense from start to finish (c.f. Blood Brother Ambush/Left for Dead), > and I think I'm making a resolution starting from this point to simply > move on and not get dragged down into a long debate, especially when > those rulings are for practically meaningless situations which will > probably never effect a game that I'm a part of. I feel qualified to respond to this post, since I've also struggled with the issue of how much to press LSJ for an answer that I can understand. It's fairly easy to present a specific case and get an answer; it's often harder to understand the reasons behind the ruling, which is important to be a good judge. If you understand the reasons behind the rules, you can make good decisions when something comes up at a game. Then again, simply memorizing all of the answers from LSJ (without understanding the logic behind them) also works pretty well from my experience. I personally find it worthwhile to ask one (or maybe two, if I'm feeling really pushy) follow-up questions to understand the reason behind the ruling. After that, just try to accept it - maybe later you'll understand. I know it's hard to let it go sometimes (I still wonder sometimes why Mehemet's action is undirected, but a bounced [obe] Spirit Marionette is directed. :)) Ira

LSJ

[ quoted text not captured ] Sure: If Wormwood simply rewrote each >X capacity vampire's capacity with X capacity (and effect which would be "until the end of game", since Wormwood doesn't specify), then the capacity-overriding effect which had been laid on the vampire would continue even after Wormwood leaves play. But it doesn't. Wormwood instead, then, must be intervening in how the vampire's capacity is read as some sort of continuing while-in-play effect. Just as Fall of the Camarilla doesn't clobber the minion's sect and make the minion Independent, but rather is a continuing effect that changes how each vampire's sect is read. If some other card is played (say, Ancient Influence) that considers the vampire to have two additional capacity, that card first must observe the vampire's actual capacity (filtered through Wormwood as needed) and then adds two. Similar to how Mata Hari may play Sabbat-requiring cards even when Fall of the Sabbat is in play. [ quoted text not captured ]

Darth Una

LSJ wrote: > Just as Fall of the Camarilla doesn't clobber the minion's sect > and make the minion Independent, but rather is a continuing effect > that changes how each vampire's sect is read. So does this mean that Stanislava can become an Anarch via cardless action with a Fall of the Camarilla in play? Or does she still have her "title card" which is only relevant once the Fall disappears? Please advise LSJ ... :)

LSJ

Darth Una wrote: > So does this mean that Stanislava can become an Anarch via cardless > action with a Fall of the Camarilla in play? Or does she still have > her "title card" which is only relevant once the Fall disappears? Stanislava doesn't have a title card (unless she gains some other title, like Prince of Brussels or whatever). But either way, when she is without title (including the times when any title she has is inert), so can become an anarch via the cardless action. [ quoted text not captured ]