Question about Accelerate Nature's Order: if a non target card is played, Akash deals herself 1 damage and destroys an environment card.
Would this proc before the effects of the played card, and essentially stop the card from happening, if it's the card she chose to destroy?
Or would the whole of the card happen first, then her 1 damage and destroys a card.
I believe it would be player choice which triggers first but I'm not 100% sure that's correct.
I’d say in any come into play affects would trigger first before the self damage and environment card destruction. If Hallway Collapse for example was the first card played it would deal all targets damage before the one damage and environment destruction occurs. Static affects would potentially have an impact as if an Obsidian Fields got played the self damage would be two regardless of whether Obsidian Fields was chosen for destruction or not.
The way I understand it, it has to actually be played, which means it enters play and thus gets any on-entry effects before the damage happens.
I would agree if the card said “after a non-target card is played this way”, not “when a non-target…”. It makes me think it’s an interrupt effect.
But again, that’s why I’m asking.
In the video game, for cards that have their own "enter play" effect and also trigger the "enter play" effect of another card, the other card is triggered first and then the new card is resolved. That mistake has bitten me more than a few times.
Perhaps you could be more specific, I’m not sure which side of the ruling you fall on with this.
I just tested with Akash'Bhuta, Exploit Vulnerability, and Crystalloid Behemoth, all three of which have text that triggers when the Behemoth enters play. First you choose whether to trigger Akash'Bhuta or Exploit Vulnerability. Then the other of those triggers. Finally the Behemoth's "when this enters play" triggers.
So in the case of Accelerate Nature's Order, yes, you could use it to destroy Hallway Collapse before it deals damage. You would not even have the option of letting it deal its damage first and then destroying it.
Sweet, good to know. Thanks!
Accelerate Nature’s Order doesn’t trigger on when this card enters play. It’s says “when you play a non-target Card this way”. So the interaction with the cards mentioned by Mindwanderer wouldn’t apply to Accelerate Nature’s Order
Just for completeness, this sounds like a situation where all three cards fire on the the same trigger (“when the Crystalliod Behemoth enters play”), in which case the Behemoth itself has to go last because it is the last of the three cards to enter play. I’m not quite sure why Akash’Bhuta wouldn’t automatically go first because she was the first card in play, but that order probably doesn’t matter too much.
So I ended up asking Christopher about it. Here is his response:
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"OK, so the card text is something like: "Play the top 3 cards of the environment deck. When you play a non-target card this way, Akash’Thriya deals herself 1 psychic damage and destroys an environment card. When you play a target this way, that target deals 1 target 3 toxic damage."
So, whenever you cause a non-target card to enter play from this, she deals herself the 1 damage and destroys 1 environment card. This means that, most likely, the environment card you played doesn't do anything... BUT! Any "when this card enters play" effects on cards played this way would still trigger, as they're definitely entering play. Does that make sense?"
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So the card has to have been played for Akash's effect to trigger, and it triggers before anything on the card would happen, except that if that card has a "when this card enters play" effect, that has to happen before her effect, because that is when it /enters/ play, as hers is when it /is/ played.
But her effect supercedes any other effects on the card for timing purposes.
Any "when this card is destroyed" effect still trigger, as it's not preventing it from being played (which would then cause the when played effects to not happen).
Yup! 'Swhat I said. :B
I notice a lack of Naturalist in the best allies section. Environmental allies turns one of the biggest drawbacks Akashthryiya has into a boon. At least in target rich environments.
I feel there's a few more villains with notable MUs against the Hamadryad.
The Chairman: Less The Chairman himself and more The Operative, an early Instantanous Maturation with Vitalized Thorns is a great way to get chip damage on her while also clearing the board, bonus points if you can get a juicy +1 from Thrashing Brambles. Also a late game "Rook City is Mine!" has a decent chance of Akash flipping him the bird and playing her cards instead. In addition there's three targets (Hired Gun, Informant, and Thief) that she can nuke when Strangling Roots or Vitalized Thorns is blown up. Hired Gun in particular is great to blow up since with The Contract out he's already blowing up your seeds, so you can stop his damage before he can do damage to the rest of the party.
Miss Information: The forced stall game Miss Information pulls is normally bothersome since she takes all your ongoings and equipment and throws them in the trash, but with Akash's setup is something even she can't disrupt. Sure there's a few ongoings in her deck, but those can be effective with as little as one turn out and can even spare the lives of someone else's setup.
Grand Warlod Voss: My, look at all these 3 HP targets you have for me to strangle with my roots! A verdant explosion with the right setup can make the prospect of a Forced Deployment a lot less terrifying. Plus you have seeds to tank the "targets lowest HP" guys.
Apostate: Once again the roots are here to shine. Not only are they able to nuke the book even if Apostate has the runes out, but they cut the required HP you need to shave off the corrupted effigy or runes themselves by half.
While she's way more fun than I thought at first glance, there still feel like games she's doing not a lot but tanking some damage.
Question that I'm not having a lot of luck searching for (at least not the official clarification) - in a circumstance where hero cards can't be played, if a Primordial Seed is on the top of the environment deck, does that stop the environment deck from playing. Also, in the other direction - if environment cards can't be played, can a Primordial Seed still be played if it's on top?
EDIT: I'm leaning towards yes, it stops the environment deck from playing because it's still a hero card for the first. I'm also leaning towards yes for the second, unless an effect says it skips the environment play phase instead of environment cards can't be played.
If a Seed is on top of the environment deck and hero cards can’t be played then on the environment turn no card is played. If a Seed is on top of the environment deck and the environment is prevented from playing cards that Seed will still get played.
The Sentinels (all vanilla save Adamant Idealist) are a fantastic pairing with ‘Thriya. You note the Sentinels among the allies that can mitigate or heal her self-damage, but they’ve got so much for her there, and she, in turn, can feed them a massive four power activations with Akash’Flora.
Before you have Human Shield up, Adamant Idealist can hit ‘Flora twice to stop all its self damage (once on her turn, once on ‘Flora’s at start of turn) for the same damage cost as a single ‘Flora power activation. My guess is Void variant Akash (I’m on the app so no go yet) would particularly love the added draw from Aura of Vision so her draw can keep up with her play output.
Dr Medico will always have targets that can accept healing with ‘Flora in play, and ‘Thriya’s high hit point pool and need to take self-damage for some of her cards to work makes her a great recipient as well.
I rarely find Writhe’s Extract power worth using, but with the “free” ‘Flora activation it’s great to hit the Environment deck with it. You either thin out the Environment Deck by removing non-Seed targets or bring a Seed off the bottom onto the top. Do note that if ‘Thriya uses a shuffle effect after the placing on top utility is broken, although the thinning is still useful as long as you don’t shuffle the whole deck in, but it may be useful for ‘Flora to activate Writhe after Thriya if she’s planning on using Cultivate as a power or before if she is interested in shooting for a possible Earth’s Attunement power target.
Finally, for a non-Sentinels note: Benchmark will have to let ‘Flora take some damage to counter her natural healing, but Intervening Path Calculator can let him tank for ‘Flora if she’s tied for/at lowest hero health. Edit: Oops, nope! ‘Flora isn’t a hero.