Announcing strikes and intention.

Happened in a lackey game on Monday. My prey rushes me with a Escaped Mental Patient and when choosing strikes he says "Hand Strike" after me saying hand strike and taking the damage from his strike, he says that the damage is 2 aggravated. At this point I get a little confused, as the way I understand things, Escaped Mental Patients ability to strike 2 aggravated as a hand strike is optional, and you should specify that you are using it, or any ability etc on that matter. We started a little bit of an argument, where my opponent argued that it is clear that his intention is to strike 2 aggravated. But this seems unreasonable in my eyes, as it should not be left to me or anyone other than the acting player to know the intention. We can not really know what he is really trying to do, specially when being so unclear about his actions. As the game didn't really matter to me, I let the thing pass, went to torpor and continued playing, but for the future, I would like to know how such cases should be and would be ruled and played out in a tournament environment? Prince of Joensuu, Finland

Your prey was wrong to announce a hand strike (which is valid) instead of his special strike; he was unclear, which is either a cheat attempt, or a genuine mistake. Either way, misrepresentation should not be rewarded. My call as a judge is that if he said "hand strike", it is a basic hand strike. Now, if he had said "aggravated hand strike", or "special strike", I would have considered that he wanted to use his "hand strike at +1 damage, aggravated" even if he used a different way to express it (unless the EMP has access to another strike that qualifies and that would be ambiguous). Also, keep in mind that the game was played on Lackey, where it's harder to express oneself easily. So, in doubt, ask the opponent what he really means. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

My take of this is that he indeed was thinking on using the aggravated strike and just badly worded what he was going to do ("It is the strike he does, eh?"). So no intended foul play. But in a tournament I'd most definitely would force him to use the declared hand strike. Finnish Politics!

Thank you both for answers. This is pretty much what I was thinking myself too. And indeed, as the game was played on lackey, I didn't take the incident too hard, and as I said let it go as he intended in the end. But I thought it was necessary for both of us to just check out how this would've been ruled out in a tournament, so we can all avoid such scenarios! As it was now, I believe it was an honest mistake, but could have been crucial in a tournament as it affected the result of the game heavily. Prince of Joensuu, Finland

It is also possible that he got confused with the / aggravated cards, which are not strikes and are played in the window that he used.

> Khormag wrote: > But I thought it was necessary for both of us to just check out how this would've been ruled out in a tournament, so we can all avoid such scenarios! > In such instances, at least in Joensuu... YOU HAVE THE POWER! Muhahahaha!!! Finnish Politics!

Just remember to be like Judge Dredd. Finnish Politics!

Quick off-topic question about Escaped Mental Patient: Does the patient is burned at the end of the combat even if his special strike is not successful (e.g. dodged or S:CE)?

He doesn't burn if the opponent plays a strike: combat ends, because his strike doesn't resolve. He burns if the opponent plays a strike: dodge because his strike resolves (with no effect on the opposing minion). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director