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Consulting the Orb #4
Posted On 05/12/2008 14:23:04 by t_man
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That’s right…I’m still receiving questions, so I’m still going on with this crazy project!
Consulting the Orb is back from its short hiatus, along with a fresh batch of interesting questions. In this episode, we talk about some sleeper cards that I haven’t seen in quite some time, we clear up some FAQ confusions, and we deal with the often overlooked issue of recruit effects.
Before we start, though, I’ve got to give a shout out to the man with the plan: neil04. Turns out I’ve been blogrolled (hah…my out-of-date word processor insists that I mean “logroller”) over at neil’s awesome site, so I’m gonna try and return the favour by enlightening the few lost souls that stumble upon my work to check out neil’s blog over at darkseidrevenge.blogspot.com. For the latest MWS news, comic discussions, and preview thoughts, neil’s site can’t be beat. Thanks neil!
Now, on to the matters at hand…
 “I have a question about Force Field Projection. So, if I play it and my opponent plays Pathetic Attempt, does that work? I’m confused because Force Field Projection doesn't say whether or not it targets my opponent specifically, since it says ‘remove target defender you control and all attackers.’”
Nope, Force Field Projection targets solely your defender, and doesn’t target your opponents’ cards at all, which is what Pathetic Attempt needs the effect to do in order to be able to negate it. If Force Field Projection did target the attackers, it would probably need another targeting phrase…but since it removes all attackers anyway, there’s really no reason to have to target them.
That’s one less victim for Pathetic Attempt to hit!
“If a player has New and Improved face-up in his or her resource row, can they use its power just to KO a specific character they control? Or how about Disband the League -- can they use its power to return a character and try to power-up that same character, or will that fail because the target isn’t legal?”  They can! That’s one of the handy secondary utilities that cards like New and Improved and Disband the League have: if one of your small defenders is hit by Blind Sided and has 20 ATK swinging at him, then you can get rid of your defender and avoid an unpleasant situation.
New and Improved isn’t phase-stamped or time-restricted in any way, so you’re free to KO any of your non-Army characters whenever you want. Disband the League is a little bit trickier -- you obviously can only use it once per turn, but you also need to have a legal target (an attacker or defender you control) in order to use its power in the first place. And yes, you can indeed bounce the same character you target with Disband the League’s payment power, because targets are actually chosen just before any costs are paid, so it’s also occasionally useful to withdraw a would-be crushed lowbie from the battlefield!
“If a player uses Ghost Rider, Danny Kletch's payment power and his or her opponent uses Scarlet Witch, Mistress of Chaos Magic’s payment power in response, what happens with Ghost Rider’s effect?”  Poor Scarlet Witch…I like her and all, but her power is next to useless!
Once Ghost Rider has activated, it’s too late for Scarlet Witch to try and stop him from using his payment power, as Scarlet Witch simply prevents payment powers from being used, and doesn’t negate anything. Once Ghost Rider’s effect is placed on the chain, Scarlet Witch can use her power, but it won’t stop Ghost Rider’s effect from resolving and KOing all of the opposing 5-and-less-drops.
In order for Scarlet Witch to actually do anything, you’d have to use her effect before your opponent even has a chance to use any payment powers…which doesn’t come up too often, especially with her unfortunate combat-phase-only restriction. The second you use her power, your opponent is likely to fire off all of his or her necessary payment powers in response (like Ghost Rider here), so that about covers the extent of her power.
Actually, now that I think about it…she’s not bad at handling attack step restricted payment powers, like Gambit, Ragin’ Cajun or Blizzard, Donny Gill. At the start of the combat phase (before your opponent’s attack step), you can use her power to stop any of those from being used. Not great…but it’s something, at least!
“Last time you explained that you can’t power-up unless you have a legal target for the effect: an attacker or defender you control. But, the DCL FAQ says that
Fearless can be used outside of an attack, just in case you need to get rid of it for some reason. So how come I can use Fearless whenever I want, but I’m not allowed to power-up naturally whenever I want to?”  Oooh…interesting! I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have thought of that without reading the FAQ entry!
Here’s the thing: while it’s true that a character cannot become powered-up unless it’s in combat, the only part the really matters is that you need to have a legal target for an effect in order to play it. You can’t power-up “naturally” outside of combat because the target for that particular effect is an attacker or defender that you control. On the other hand, the required target for Fearless’ effect is just a Hal Jordan you control -- it doesn’t specify that he has to be in combat, so you can play it whenever ya want.
We don't even have to look at any other part of the effect -- all we have to worry about is that Fearless has a legal target as it gets played. As Fearless then resolves, it processes as much of its effect as possible. A character can't be powered-up unless it is in combat, so Hal doesn't get powered-up. Fearless still gets legally played and gets resolved, though, so if for some reason you really need to burn it, you can.
“Okay, I’m having trouble understanding the difference between the powers on Beside Myself and Bizarro, Dark Mirror. According to the DWF and DCL FAQs, Beside Myself will trigger only once for drawing two cards at the start of each turn, but Bizarro will trigger twice. What gives? And what about something like Prison Break…would Beside Myself trigger multiple times or just once from that?”  The big difference between Bizarro and Beside Myself is their trigger condition -- Bizarro is looking for whenever you draw a card, while Beside Myself is looking for whenever you draw one or more cards.
Take the start of the draw phase's effect, for example: the effect "draw 2 cards" is added to the chain. This is a single effect, which means that no player receives priority in between drawing the first and second card. Triggered powers can go off at any time, even during weird spots like while no player has priority…just like in this situation, coincidentally!
Bizarro's effect will be added to the chain twice, because its trigger condition will be met twice. But, since Beside Myself sees you drawing "one or more cards" only once, its effect is only added to the chain once. If you were to play something like Prison Break, again, you're drawing "one or more cards" just once within a single effect, so Beside Myself’s effect is added to the chain just one time.
“Here’s a situation that came up and had me questioning my PSP’s honesty while playing Konami’s Marvel Trading Card Game. My CPU-controlled opponent had two copies of Micro-Sentinels face-up in his resource row, and I had my 6-drop Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom infested with five micro counters. At the beginning of the turn, the Micro-Sentinels activated. I had assumed that Doom would be safe, because I figured both cards would check Doom, see there were only five counters on him, put another counter on him, and he'd get KO'd the next turn with seven Micro counters. The computer, however, proceeded to put one counter on him (resolving the first Micro-Sentinels) and then performed the check on the second one and -- seeing six counters -- KO'd him. I argued that there was only one "beginning of turn," and both Micro-Sentinel check conditions should've resolved then. The PSP, for its part, refrained from arguing, and the game continued (grudgingly on my half). Who’s right?”
The PSP is still around!?
Alas, your stoic PSP is correct. There is only one "start of the draw phase," so each Micro-Sentinels puts their effect on the chain at (for all intents and purposes) the same time. The "check" of whether or not any character gets KO'd is done as the effect resolves, so it's possible for one Micro-Sentinels to put a counter on a character, and then the second to see enough counters on it and KO it.
Two separate effects are placed on the chain at the start of the draw phase, which would look kinda like this:
(Effect 1) KO each character with micro counters greater than or equal to that character's cost. Then put a micro counter on each character with a micro counter.
(Effect 2) KO each character with micro counters greater than or equal to that character's cost. Then put a micro counter on each character with a micro counter.
Effect 2 will resolve first, KOing each character with counters greater than or equal to its cost (nobody at this point), and then will put counters on everybody that already has 'em (meaning a 6th counter on Doom).
Next up, Effect 1 resolves. It sees 6 counters on Dr. Doom, so he gets eaten up. Then counters get placed on everybody else that already has some, if there's anybody else left.
I can’t remember the last time I heard anything about Micro Sentinels…
 “With the cost 7 Hulk in Marvel Defenders, ‘When Hulk enters play, exhaust all other characters you control,’ could you target him with backup powers (or anything) at any point before he exhausts everyone? Or is the only way to get that out of him with The Order?”
Of course! Actually, that’s kinda the point behind his power!
When Hulk enters play, the effect “exhaust all other characters you control” is put on the chain, which gives you lots of time to respond by making Hulk extremely threatening with a lot backup powers, or exhausting your characters for other stuff.
Staring down a 27/23 monster that swings thrice is…umm…scary, to say the least!
“I have a Gorilla Grodd on the field and a Mr. Freeze, Cold Blooded with more than 10 cards in my KO’d pile. My opponent also has more than 10 cards in his KO’d pile. He goes and recruits Mr. Freeze, Cold Blooded, and I use Coup d'Etat on him. Now the question is this: can my opponent activate his Mr. Freeze before he enters the field? I said ‘no,’ but my opponent posed that Rocket Red #4, Dmitri Pushkin could activate before he enters with his boost so that he would ready…so that made me doubtful.”
 You’re correct: a character card’s powers aren’t “turned on” until it hits the field (unless specified otherwise), so the opposing would-be-recruited Mr. Freeze won’t be able to use his payment power if his recruit effect gets negated by Coup d’Etat.
Your opponent is a little confused: the trick with Rocket Red #4 is that he isn’t using his activated power before he enters play; he’s actually using one of his activated powers in response to the triggered effect from the boost. After paying for the boost and resolving the recruit effect, the effect “ready him” is added to the chain as Rocket Red enters play, which is then probably responded to with one of his activated powers.
It doesn’t quite make sense to say that you can use a character’s powers before they’re in play!
“Is there any window for effects to be played when you recruit a character like The Joker, Headline Stealer or Batman, Cape and Cowl or something? Or as soon as I pay the resource points and say I'm recruiting one, they can't respond by playing a plot twist that The Joker would stop, or use a payment power a bunch of times that Batman would prevent (like The Sentry, Golden Guardian of Good)?”
 Yup, there's a window. The act of “recruiting” a character can be thought the same way as “playing” a plot twist -- each put an effect on the chain, which each player can respond to before the effect resolves. In the case of recruit effects, the recruiting player puts the would-be recruited character card on the chain, passes if s/he has nothing to play, and gives the opposing player a chance to take action (using payment powers, playing plot twists -- this is where Coup d’Etat comes in, by the way), so it’s usually a good idea to see if you can avoid any powers on that character before it comes into play. If your opponent is recruiting his first Gotham Knight character, then use your tutor in response if you need to!
Keep in mind that equipment also use the exact same recruitment method. If your opponent is recruiting something like Time Gem, Infinity Gem, then look at your plot twists to see if you can use any crucial ones in response to the recruit effect!
 “I’m having some trouble convincing a certain opponent that
Tower of Babel won’t take my affiliations away while it’s my opponent’s attack step. Care to back me up?”
Oi…I’ve fallen for that too many times. I’ve thought to myself as it wipes out my chances of reinforcement:
“That card can’t be that good, can it?”
Read the card, t_man!
Yeah, Tower of Babel only strips the affiliations of the characters of whoever’s attack step it is. If it’s your opponent’s attack step, then your characters retain their team affiliation. I’ve got that one burned into my brain, now.
With that, we end the fourth installment of this series. As always, thanks to everybody who took the time to write in their excellent questions -- you’re the ones that keep this series afloat! If you’d like to help in this magical endeavour, feel free to throw me any questions you’d like to see answered in the next article. You can get in touch with me via consultingtheorb@hotmail.com!
Thanks for reading,
t_man
Related to:
Vs System
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