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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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#563246
BCSWowbagger wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 6:17 pm
Armus wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 6:12 pm Here's my counterpoint: The text box is what provides the unique/not duplicatable trait.

The Reveal Step was created because people didn't like that they could pass a dilemma then have it swapped out for a Q Flash with Beware of Q. As such, you have to decide to swap before you start reading game text (at least that's how I've always understood it). Since Unique/Not Duplicatable is game text, it seems to me that the extra step of dilemma Reveal does in fact provide a window to swap that didn't previously exist when all there was was the Encounter step.

Sauce for the Goose, Mr. Saavik...
An admirably self-consistent theory of the case!

The thing that bothers me about it is that it isn't how unique/universal works in any other context. In an ordinary card play (say, the Inner Light played from hand), uniqueness is checked before any other gametext is read. Making that check happen at the same time as other gametext is read, but only for dilemmas, seems (to me) like a weird exception.

You're the T.D. and I haven't bluetexted, though, so what you say goes for your event! (Until/unless there's a bluetext, and I would expect a swift decision on that.)
I see a difference between trying to put a second copy of a unique card into play vs. Revealing a second copy of a unique card already in play.

Maybe this is a use case of the larger seeded/ played/ in play discussion, but the dilemma is in play as soon as I stick it under a mission. The mis-seed rules specifically check at reveal, but I'm not sure it follows under the current rules that gametext-related legality checks like unique/not duplicatable are checked at any point before you'd start reading gametext since the card is already in play. Now, if we leave out the DC bit, I agree that at the start of the dilemma encounter, before anything else happens, the unique/ not duplicatable check occurs and if there's another copy in play, then the encountered copy self-nullifies, but for the reasons stated, that self-nullification is part of the Encounter step, not the Reveal Step, in my view.

Something to consider when deliberating and crafting your blue text ruling.
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By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
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#563280
lets pretend we dont know the cards. reveal only gives us the seeds name, which can be checked for legality. only on encounter we get to read the gametext and learn about DEs uniqueness.

thats at least my interpretation, but maybe we read the card in reveal?
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Community Contributor
#563283
Ensign Q wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:19 am lets pretend we dont know the cards. reveal only gives us the seeds name, which can be checked for legality. only on encounter we get to read the gametext and learn about DEs uniqueness.

thats at least my interpretation, but maybe we read the card in reveal?
Yeah that's basically my argument, which is why I ruled the way I did for my event.
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By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
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Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#563285
The Squire's Rules also makes a clear distinction between revealed and encountered, which to me supports that there is time enough to swap out the second DE as described above.

Obviously, you can't run Rules with the dual DE as Rules would make the second a mis-seed before you could swap though.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
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#563307
This is tangential to the Dead End discussion, but I am confused about one thing:
BCSWowbagger wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 6:03 pm 1. Introducing a card to the game state, by whatever means, always involves a legality check. For card plays and other actions, this happens during initiation, before targets are chosen or conditions met. This has always been floating around the rules as an assumption, but was formally clarified in the March 2009 CRD.

(For example, if you try to play M-5 Computer, but already have another copy of it in play, the play fails ab initio, your normal card play is not spent, and it can never even be Kevin Uxbridge'd, because the play was illegal from the start.)

2. There are many legality checks. One legality check is the uniqueness check. Another legality check is the mis-seed check.
I don't see the specific term "legality check" used in the rulebook/glossary... I always assumed this was part of checking conditions (in the Glossary it puts "meeting conditions of rules and game text" as a single item which happens before targets are chosen -- and gives checking that you have something allowing you to play an [1E-AU] card or applying game text about when a card can play as examples of such conditions).

But your wording suggests that the legality check happens *before* conditions are met. So are your examples (uniqueness/mis-seed check) different somehow than the glossary's examples of meeting conditions of rules and game text (attack restrictions/[1E-AU] door/"plays at start of battle" text, etc.).

I checked the March 2009 CRD but I'm not seeing this terminology there either, am I looking in the wrong place? I guess I'm a bit confused in general.
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#563319
It's a side effect of how the rules talk about these things - particularly, when you get to the old 94/95 Premiere bits that have just grandfathered their way through the various rules revisions.

The rules say that if you have Captain Bob in play, you can't play another. But that means you're getting stopped waay back at initiation - before the card hits the table, before you can play responses. But the weird bit is that you also never pay the cost. So you try to play the second Captain Bob as your normal card play, the game says "nope", and then... kinda just rewinds back to before you tried to play it at all? You didn't spend your card play, Bob's in your hand.. very no-harm-no-foul.

And you can put that in the rules, by making it part of the legality check. (Stuff like "you can't play Events as an interrupt" and "You can't play Doorways on your opponent's turn" - the game just prohibits doing it at all). It's not that you tried to play Bob - it's that you literally are breaking the rules by trying. (And we just don't punish it other than "ok, back up to before you made the mistake").

But this logic doesn't hold for dilemmas, because you can't just say "ok, you didn't encounter it, never happened"... because that would mean your attempt is stalled behind a dilemma you aren't allowed to encounter. So the rules get cute and say that you just discard the dilemma. Which is fine, except that the mechanical answer I used above doesn't work now, because instead of it being "you can't do that" with the gamestate just refusing to change, the gamestate *does* change - the dilemma goes away. So the game is dealing with the dupe - the question is when?

(And mis-seeds muddy the water more, because for some reason Decipher made it a Whole Thing rather than "just toss anything that isn't a legal dilemma or artifact". But that's a different issue/rant.)
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By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Community Contributor
#563327
Rachmaninoff wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 1:11 pmSo are your examples (uniqueness/mis-seed check) different somehow than the glossary's examples of meeting conditions of rules and game text (attack restrictions/[1E-AU] door/"plays at start of battle" text, etc.).
No. These are all legality checks. I'm using the phrase "legality checks" to avoid using the Glossary's term "checking conditions," because it would be very easy, in this specific situation, to confuse "checking conditions" with checking whether your cards meet the requirements on a dilemma -- which is also referred to as "checking conditions" even though (in my opinion) legality checks and dilemma requirement checks are different steps (and necessarily so).

I think Allen explained it nicely, as well.
I checked the March 2009 CRD but I'm not seeing this terminology there either, am I looking in the wrong place? I guess I'm a bit confused in general.
The March 2009 CRD entry for Unique and Universal, from what I understand of it, formally confirmed that uniqueness checking / legality checks are the "conditions checked" during that step of initiation, which means that uniqueness checking happens well before resolution. I suspect that someone tried playing a card that he couldn't play (because of uniqueness), then doing something to it in the responses step to turn it into something else before it could resolve -- or use this new copy in play as an excuse to discard the old one. This would have forced Rules to step in and say, "No, unique means unique, you can't even put a unique card on the stack temporarily if there's another copy in play already."

To be clear, though, I don't have more information than you about this. I have the text of that CRD. No article was ever apparently posted to accompany that CRD. My research in the Rules Committee forum archive uncovered a draft article for that month, but it didn't mention this issue, choosing instead to focus on the seed-phase [DL] change and a change to how the 2EBC conversion rules handled personas.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#563337
OK, I think I understand -- the legality checks do happen during the "meeting conditions" phase of initiation, you're just using a different term in this discussion since "meeting conditions" is an overloaded term with other meanings during dilemma encounters. What threw me was this statement:
For card plays and other actions, [legality checks happen] during initiation, before targets are chosen or conditions met
but I get it now. :thumbsup:
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By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Community Contributor
#563357
I took this question on back to the Rules Committee. They agreed with me that, given proximity to Worlds, this question should be ruled on worldwide with a bluetext.

However, they overruled me about what the bluetext should actually say! They agreed with Armus, Allen, and others in this thread. Fair enough! That's exactly why we have a Rules Committee and don't let any one person decide all rules questions unilaterally. Here's the ruling:
If a Dead End (or some other unique/non-duplicatable dilemma) that you seeded is in play, and your opponent reveals another copy of Dead End (or that other dilemma) that you seeded (legally, at another mission), you may nullify the second copy with Disrupted Continuum. If you do, you may download and seed a replacement. (The second copy would not be discarded for violating uniqueness until the encounter step begins.)
This ruling is official. It is binding in all sanctioned events, and it supersedes any and all contrary rulings by tournament directors, effective immediately. (Games already played are unaffected.)

This ruling is temporary. It is not fully fleshed-out, does not use final wording, and may be completely reversed in a regular First Monday rules update. If not resolved by the next First Monday (October 4th 2021), it will be published in the Glossary's Temporary Rulings section as part of its monthly update.


We are not going to do a front-page article about this one like with the TNG Borg rulings, because we have a regularly-scheduled rules update coming up on Monday anyway, and we can publicize this then. And we will! Until at least November, Ensign Q (and everyone else) please enjoy this clever piece of tech!
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By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
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Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#563359
Keep in mind that this tech does not allow you to swap a second copy of Dead End with Disrupted Continuum while you have The Squire's Rules in play. DC says you may download a replacement, but TSR says you may not download dilemmas.

Also of note, DC lets you download a [1E-S] or a [1E-P] not a [Dual].
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Regent
Community Contributor
#563412
Ensign Q wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 2:22 pm thanks to rules for the quick resolution
Can't wait to see what you got cooked up for the release event! :cheersL:
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By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
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#563544
Armus wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 9:25 pm
Ensign Q wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 2:22 pm thanks to rules for the quick resolution
Can't wait to see what you got cooked up for the release event! :cheersL:
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