Kylo running out of cards

[Lightrock 856]

In anticipation for the launch of Upsilon I've been wondering what happens if Kylo runs out of damage cards with Pilot trait to assign. It's not as unlikely as it first seems. There are only 8 such cards in the deck. Let's say Kylo assigns 1 every round and some of them will just get assigned normally. By the end of the game, there might be no more left.  It's not very likely versus low-hp high agi lists, but against Ghosts or Decimators it's very possible. What happens if that's the case? Does the action get performed at all or does it fail? Specifically is the Kylo player allowed to perform another action instead or is it wasted?

[thespaceinvader 17,568]

I don't think this is clear.  Similarly, assuming (as we do) that he;'s supposed to name a specific card, what happens if that specific card has by chance already been assigned?

Hopefully this will be clarified in the rules but I'm adding it to my list of questions for once W10 officially drops.

[Parravon 5,217]

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

I don't think this is clear.  Similarly, assuming (as we do) that he;'s supposed to name a specific card, what happens if that specific card has by chance already been assigned?

Hopefully this will be clarified in the rules but I'm adding it to my list of questions for once W10 officially drops.

He doesn't name a card, he selects a card and places it on the ISYTDS card. If a Pilot trait card is unavaliable, then it can't be resolved.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Parravon

[thespaceinvader 17,568]

I more mean, is the sequence supposed to be 'pick a pilot card and assign it' or 'draw until you find the first pilot card, then assign it'?

If it's the former, if the card you want isn't available, do you get to pick another?

[Parravon 5,217]

You search the deck and pick a Pilot trait card and assign it to the condition card. When the target ship (with the condition card assigned) suffers a critical damage, that selected Damage card is dealt.

It's not just assign a Pilot trait Damage card to the target ship.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Parravon

[thespaceinvader 17,568]

No duh.

I do know that.  By assign, I meant to the condition.  Kindly don't assume I've not read the card

[Parravon 5,217]

2 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

No duh.

I do know that.  By assign, I meant to the condition.  Kindly don't assume I've not read the card

Well, I was only going by your somewhat "random" reply above mine. It sure looked like you hadn't read the card by that statement.

If the card you want isn't available, then tough luck, you have to pick one that is available. If there's no other Pilot trait cards available, then you can't resolve the action. So, in that case it would become like any other action that you wouldn't be able to resolve.

[thespaceinvader 17,568]

WOuld it though?

Kylo Crew is 'action: assign the ISYTDS condition' - the condition was assigned, even if it was immediately discarded because there wasn't a card on it.

[digitalbusker 2,248]

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

WOuld it though?

Kylo Crew is 'action: assign the ISYTDS condition' - the condition was assigned, even if it was immediately discarded because there wasn't a card on it.

I can see a RAW argument for this, and it's definitely worth asking Frank, but I can't imagine this'll be the one and only case in X-Wing where they say "Yeah, sorry, you spent your action and it didn't do anything because of a factor you couldn't reasonably have been expected to know in advance, but your action is just gone."

[WWHSD 9,273]

4 hours ago, digitalbusker said:

I can see a RAW argument for this, and it's definitely worth asking Frank, but I can't imagine this'll be the one and only case in X-Wing where they say "Yeah, sorry, you spent your action and it didn't do anything because of a factor you couldn't reasonably have been expected to know in advance, but your action is just gone."

What about Jyn (especially punishing if you use Experimental Interface to trigger her)? You can end up getting zero tokens from her if ships aren't quite in range or arc.

[digitalbusker 2,248]

19 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

What about Jyn (especially punishing if you use Experimental Interface to trigger her)? You can end up getting zero tokens from her if ships aren't quite in range or arc.

That's a good point. I guess somebody should ask about that, too. Jyn feels different from Kylo to me, but I don't really have a good defense for why one should definitely be roll-back-able and the other not.

[costi 1,297]

If you manage to go through all 8 and there are still enemies left on the table... how many points are you playing?

[StevenO 2,996]

Reading Kylo it seems that he is free to assign the "I'll show you the darkside" condition even if there aren't ANY cards in the damage deck.  Being assigned the condition doesn't require any cards.  When assigned, if not already in play, you get to search the DD for a Pilot card to put on the condition.  This should allow you to know how many Pilot cards are still unassigned from the DD so you have guess how many more times the condition could be newly assigned.  I guess I don't see where it says you MUST find a Pilot card but neither is it listed as an optional effect.

While I want to say the Action spent to assign the condition is wasted if the Condition can't find a suitable card I suspect that if the condition can not find a card things may back up giving the action back.  In any case no card on the Condition means it is removed; presumably for reuse.  The FAQ probably should touch on that when the Upsilon is finally release but Kylo ALWAYS has an effect.

Now at worst I can see this costing a ship one action because if Kylo is used and Condition doesn't find a Pilot card at which time you should know NOT to try using it again because it will fail afterwards.  Despite failing you would still get to Search the damage deck which would tell you what criticals are still available and by default which ones may be "hidden" as face-down cards on ships in play; it may not be much and may hard to take advantage of but it still IS doing something so I suspect you're Action should count as being spent.  If you deplete the DD then a new one would be reshuffled and you should have seen what was going back into it.

Summary:  

• Kylo action used then the action has been spent assuming a target ship is within Range.  
• The Condition card allows you to search DD for specific type of card to place on it.  If there is no card on Condition it is removed but you still looked at the DD!

[StevenO 2,996]

1 hour ago, WWHSD said:

What about Jyn (especially punishing if you use Experimental Interface to trigger her)? You can end up getting zero tokens from her if ships aren't quite in range or arc.

This is true that she could end up with nothing but this is just like Lando in that the ACTION could be used and turn up all blanks and thus turn out to be wasted.  You'd never roll back the Lando Action if it failed to produce a token so why would you think you could roll back a Jyn Action because there are no hostiles in range and arc.

Kylo still assigned the Condition.  That the condition then fails is beyond his control.

 

[Sergovan 1,440]

12 hours ago, StevenO said:

This is true that she could end up with nothing but this is just like Lando in that the ACTION could be used and turn up all blanks and thus turn out to be wasted.  You'd never roll back the Lando Action if it failed to produce a token so why would you think you could roll back a Jyn Action because there are no hostiles in range and arc.

Kylo still assigned the Condition.  That the condition then fails is beyond his control.

 

Lando is a dice dependent ability which means it has a built in limiter of possibly failing entirely when it completes. Jyn is range dependant and those action abilities always allow you to attempt it but get to roll it back if the desired target is out of range. The failure with Jyn is guessing with your Mark 1 eyeball as to the range and then the ability can't trigger. Allowing the action to trigger for Jyn would actually be an illegal action completion as you have not completed the necessary elements to make it happen. Jyn is an unusual case in that if she measures for range to her friendly ship and it turns out to be out she can rewind and pick another ship. If that ship is in range then the measurement to opposing ships could, in theory, result in no ships being in range or arc. In that case you would assign up to 0 tokens and complete the action. You just picked a very poor instance to use Jyn on that ship.

Rolling back an action is better than forcing an illegal action to complete.

The current methodology is to roll an action back if it can't be completed. It gets fuzzy if the action can be done but the ability has a part that can fail or return 0 results. Hopefully the next FAQ will address this with an entry for IISYTDS.

[StevenO 2,996]

What "illegal action" are we talking about here?

Jyn chooses a Friendly ship as the target for her action and it is not at R1-R2?  Then the action would roll-back.

Jyn chooses a Friendly ship that is range for her action but when checking for how many Focus Tokens to assign that ships finds there are no enemy ships in arc and R1-R3?  Sorry but you just got burned!  Assigning zero tokens for zero enemy ships is perfectly reasonable.

Kylo Action is used and enemy ship is not within R3?  Roll-back although is "an enemy ship" mean one needs to be found if one is in range?

Kylo's target is within range so assign conditions.  Condition then possibly Searched damage deck for Pilot Card therefore doing something.  No card found...  I guess there is a potential problem here but the Condition has been assigned so the Action should be spent.

[Lightrock 856]

23 hours ago, costi said:

If you manage to go through all 8 and there are still enemies left on the table... how many points are you playing?

That depends on what kind of ships you're playing against and how (un)lucky the enemy was when drawing cards from his deck for normal damage. Case in point: you're facing commonwealth defenders and go after Palp first. Palp goes down and gets assigned a minimum of 5 damage cards (quite possibly more if the last attack was an overkill). If 5 of them had pilot trait, there are only 3 of them left that you could assign for the rest of the game. Is it very likely? No. Is it possible? Absolutely.  And now imagine it's double decimators you're playing against.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Lightrock

[StevenO 2,996]

You know, this could become the first reason that "milling" a damage deck may actually make sense.

Normally you have absolutely no control over what the next damage card to be drawn will be so it really doesn't matter all that much what it COULD be but IISYTDS if you somehow have all of the Pilot cards out of the DD then should actually be able to shut it down.  At least until the DD is empty and gets refilled.

[Lightrock 856]

Yeah! One thing for sure I'm never going to forget to put ALL the cards from the attack that destroys my ships on the ship's card if I face Kylo!

[thespaceinvader 17,568]

And that's another area that needs clarification: can Kylo look through the discard pile as well as the deck?  Typically with many games if you can't find what you need in the deck you also go through the discard...

[Lightrock 856]

Don't think so. The condition card specifically says that you search the damage deck. Discard pile is not part of it I believe.

[thespaceinvader 17,568]

It is if you run out of cards.  And I'd argue that not finding the card I want is running out of cards...

[StevenO 2,996]

9 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It is if you run out of cards.  And I'd argue that not finding the card I want is running out of cards...

You might try to argue but you're NOT out of cards.  Just don't have the ones in there that you want to find.

If the Pilot cards all happened to be in play (face up or down) would you think you're "out of cards" and get to create a new DD?

I'll also disagree with the idea that if you can't find something in the deck you can then go through the "discard" pile to find what you're looking for.  In MtG if something told you to "Search X library" (or "Deck" as it is often called) for something you couldn't start going through the Graveyard (discard pile) just because you couldn't find it.

[thespaceinvader 17,568]

I'd think it was a possibility.

Except, of course, the discard pile is face up so technically we shoudl know what's in it.

There are games that go both ways, I'd acknowledge.  I'm super biased on this topic by an ongoing obsession with Dominion.

[Parravon 5,217]

But you shouldn't bring a bias from another system into this, because it's not relevant. The Damage Deck and the Discard Pile are two very separate things, so you cannot go searching the Discard Pile for a card. The rule for replacing the Damage Deck only comes into play once the Damage Deck is used. It doesn't apply only when specific cards are used. It must be the deck in its entirety.

2 hours ago, Lightrock said:

Yeah! One thing for sure I'm never going to forget to put ALL the cards from the attack that destroys my ships on the ship's card if I face Kylo!

They should be going to the Discard Pile when a ship is destroyed, not stay on the ship card