ECM and Accuracy

[Seriaph 18]

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering about the interaction between electronic countermeasures and multiple accuracy dice. If the attacking ship has two accuracy dice,- can he spend them both on the same defense token? Does two accuracy dice on the same defense token cancel out ECM?

[DiabloAzul 2,632]

He can certainly spend them both on the same token, but ECM don't care.

 

The card reads:

 

ECM "While defending you may exhaust this card to spend 1 defense token that your opponent targeted with an [Acc] result."

 

And the Accuracy entry in the Rules Ref reads:

 

• Accuracy: The attacker can spend this icon to choose
one of the defender’s defense tokens. The chosen
defense token cannot be spent during this attack.

 

No matter how many Acc icons you spend, the result is the same: that token cannot be spent. It's a binary effect which doesn't "stack".

 

ECM overrides that effect (rather than an individual Acc icon), so that the chosen token can be spent after all.

 

An alternative wording for ECM that would depend on the number of Acc icons spent could look like this:

 

Poor Man's ECM: "While defending, before your opponent targets 1 of your defense tokens with an [Acc] result, you may exhaust this card to cancel that [Acc] icon instead."

 

But, of course, that's simply not what ECM says.

Edited December 18, 2015 by DiabloAzul

[Lyraeus 4,759]

They of course could not do the poor man's ECM because you actually spend the die and the icon to get the Accuracy effect.

[DiabloAzul 2,632]

That's why it's worded "before" and not "when" or "after": the spending of the acc and nomination of a token are simultaneous and trigger the Poor Man's ECM ability, which then resolves before the trigger, negating it altogether. So the triggering event never actually happens, just like with Tantive IV.

 

In other words, the die gets cancelled before it ever gets spent... as a response to your opponent's decision to spend it.

[Drasnighta 26,573]

I expect a "Poor Man's ECM" to be a feature of a Title Card on an upcoming Custom Ship.

[DiabloAzul 2,632]

...the thought may or may not have occurred to me

[Lyraeus 4,759]

Hmmmm true. . . Canceling and Icon though. . . Hmmmm canceling the die might be better. Then again, the icon is treated as the same thing as the die so it is currently the same thing.

Ok. You are right. Though personally I like the Poor Man's ECM. Good way to manipulate the attack pool

[DiabloAzul 2,632]

Hmmmm true. . . Canceling and Icon though. . . Hmmmm canceling the die might be better. Then again, the icon is treated as the same thing as the die so it is currently the same thing.

 

 

You do raise a fair point - and I did wonder about what exactly should be cancelled. At the moment there appears to be no real distinction, though, so it's pretty safe to word it this way for this example. It would've been unnecessarily verbose to require "the die with that [Acc] icon" to be cancelled instead.

 

Of course, there's no telling if there'll ever be an ability that generates additional effects based on dice showing Acc icons, or perhaps turning Crits into Accs (so on a black die, you could have Acc+Hit). Hell, hypothetically speaking we could even get a weird new type of die. So the distinction between cancelling an Acc and cancelling a die could become relevant at some point.

 

So if a custom card based on this effect ever shows up on Shipyards, it'll probably have slightly different wording than I proposed above.

 

Thanks for the fresh perspective, Lyr - good catch!

[Tvayumat 3,497]

Somebody say poor man's ECM?

[Lyraeus 4,759]

 

Hmmmm true. . . Canceling and Icon though. . . Hmmmm canceling the die might be better. Then again, the icon is treated as the same thing as the die so it is currently the same thing.

 

 

You do raise a fair point - and I did wonder about what exactly should be cancelled. At the moment there appears to be no real distinction, though, so it's pretty safe to word it this way for this example. It would've been unnecessarily verbose to require "the die with that [Acc] icon" to be cancelled instead.

 

Of course, there's no telling if there'll ever be an ability that generates additional effects based on dice showing Acc icons, or perhaps turning Crits into Accs (so on a black die, you could have Acc+Hit). Hell, hypothetically speaking we could even get a weird new type of die. So the distinction between cancelling an Acc and cancelling a die could become relevant at some point.

 

So if a custom card based on this effect ever shows up on Shipyards, it'll probably have slightly different wording than I proposed above.

 

Thanks for the fresh perspective, Lyr - good catch!

 

Always happy to help. You do have the best game mods that even I wish to try.