Fanatic's "End of Days" vs Kismet's "Lady Luck"

Other Games SotM Game Engine
1

This question essentially boils down to whether End of Days gets to attempt to destroy a particular villain card multiple times.

If it does not, this implies that Kismet's entire array of cards in play could survive End of Days if non-Lucky cards were drawn from the villain deck and destroyed as substitutes; e.g. End of Days attempts to destroy Lady Luck itself - a non-Lucky card is drawn and destroyed instead of Lady Luck and then End of Days moves on to attempt to destroy the next card in Kismet's played card array (or card in whatever order End of Days is following).  And Lady Luck may continue interfering with the destruction process.

 

If it does, than presumably cards are drawn and destroyed keeping Lady Luck in play until a Lucky card is drawn and put in play (and resolved).  At that point Lady Luck itself is removed.  End of Days can then continue unabated in destroying all the non-relics.  In essense End of Days gets to keep trying to destroy the non-relics until it succeeds. 

2

Good question.

One one hand we have:

Consequently, when End of Days is destroyed, it immediately begins destroying all cards in play in the order of the players' choosing.  This effect continues until there are no more cards in play.

Which is from the official ruling on Forced Deployment and End of Days.

The wording makes it sound like End of Days would keep going until those cards were gone.

The caveat is that the ruling was not about Kismet, and was made in 2011.

If we ignore that ruling then the question is does the wording destroy all cards in play other than itself, relics, and character cards mean that every other card has to be destroyed before it moves on, or just that every card gets one destruction trigger.

 

As of now I'd say we have to go with the official ruling, and the wording (whether intentional or not) definitely answers the question.  Keep going until every card but End of Days, Relics, and Character cards are destroyed before moving to the next step of destroying End of Days.

3

I would be very compfortable saying that EoD would not stop until there are no more cards in play. It is only when there are no more cards in play (other than itself and relics) that EoD even destroys itself keep in mind.

4

How does this match up with cards that damage "all targets", which only get one chance to hit each target?

5

Apples and oranges. 

Its more like if Kismet is at 0 HP with Lady Luck in play. Even if LL prevents one destruction, she's still at 0HP and destruction would kick in again. 

6

One thing to point out to the OP for cases like this - if Lady Luck repeatedly keeps trying to save a card which keeps getting destroyed (assuming that is indeed what happens here), you will eventually have revealed every card in Kismet's deck.  If no Lucky cards remain in the deck, once you've run out of cards in the deck, the card will be both "not a lucky card" and "not not a lucky card", so neither half of Lady Luck's effect will apply, and the card will finally go to the trash.

Thusly, if End of Days does indeed guarantee the destruction of Lady Luck and other villain cards, it also stands a fair chance of burning through Kismet's entire deck.  If the players desire this outcome (such as wanting to use Suggestion to put two harmless cards on "top" of the empty deck...since one goes on the bottom, which is also the top when the deck is empty), they should destroy Lady Luck last of all, virtually guaranteeing that every Lucky card is burned out of the deck.  If they don't want to provoke Kismet to reshuffle next turn (assuming no Suggestion etc.), they should have Lady Luck "targeted" for destruction first, and continue "targeting" it again until it's destroyed, before moving on to other cards.  (Again, assuming this is legal; it might also be logical to say that the "wave" passes through every card in card-play order, before looping back to try again with anything that survived the first pass).

Great question!  Lots of fun to think about, and to picture Fanatic flying above Kismet, emanating circling beams of searing light down around Kismet and repeatedly trying to "scrub her clean" of all her villainous tricks.

Note that there's a potentially troublesome implication with The Talisman, unless it's a Relic (which is probably is, so ignore this).  Since it can't be destroyed, would End of Days keep trying to destroy it forever, causing it to keep flipping and changing sides an infinite number of times?  More generally, how exactly does EoD interact with indestructible cards (eg Spite's Drugs and Safe House)?  Presumably it must have a way of ignoring them without tying the game up in an infinite loop, but what exactly is that mechanism?  Inquiring minds (and, I would imagine, probably also inquiring Footes) (voice way in the back: "Inquiringfeet!") would like to know.

7

The Talisman I do believe is classified as a villain character card since it has a front and back side, so it wouldn't be destroyed by End of Days.

8

The Talisman is tagged as a "Enchanted Heirloom" and is not classified as a Relic.

Villian side:

Enchanted Heirloom (tag)

When flipped to this side, restore this card to 7 HP and put it in the villain play area.

This card is indestuctible.

When reduced to 0 or fewer HP, flip this card.

Increase damage dealt by Kismet by X, where X = the number of jinx cards in play.

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I translate this in terms of End of Days as the card remaining unharmed.  End of Days *destroys* cards and the Talisman is immune to this effect, thus short circuiting the destruction cycle - EoD proceeds to another target.  So it would remain where it was (villain or hero side) with however many HP it currently has.

Now, interesting enough, I think playing End of Days while Lady Luck was in play *could* affect the Talisman as a secondary effect.

1. End of Days attempts to destroy Lady Luck (or actually, any of Kismet's cards that are in play)

Lady Luck (On-going, Lucky)

Whenever a villain could would be destroyed, reveal the top card of the villain deck.  If it is not a Lucky card, discard it and prevent the card destruction.  If it is a Lucky card, put it into play.

 

2. The top villain card is drawn - it is "Fortune's Smile" - a One-shot Lucky card.  It is activated and put in play per the Lady Luck card.

Fortune's Smile (One-shot, Lucky)

Kismet regains (H) HP and deals each hero target 1 Psychic damage.

Play the top card of the Villain Deck.

3. Fortune's Smile triggers the next card in the Villain Deck - which can be "Unlucky Break" and it will attack the Talisman if it is currently in front of a Hero, potentially "Killing" it and causing it to flip.

The sub-processes complete with Lucky Break, Fortune's Smile, and Lady Luck going to the trash.  End of Days can now proceed with scheduled destruction.  Though any attempt to destroy Lady Luck with a on-going destruction card can trigger this same sequence.

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I can see this going either way. 

a. End of Days is "persistent" in destroying non-relics that can be destroyed and will continue going after Lady Luck until it "gets through".  Which does leave the players with the option of saving it for last and trying to burn through Kismet's deck - with all the Lucky one-shots getting triggered!  Or go for it first in order to attempt to minimize the damage, and potentially failing to have it work out well.

b. End of Days only gets one chance to take out a card and if it fails it moves on to the next.  Leading to the situation of End of Days generating the big glare of bright light as it takes effect and wipes the slate.  And the glare fades to slow Kismet and her array still there and intact (with a pile of non-Lucky cards added to the trash) going "Nyah Nyah" at Fanatic.

9

In this case, I actually see the Talisman flipping over, but remaining in play.

10

But the Talisman is a character card, so it's not a valid target for End of Days.

11

This is correct.

12

This is correct. Officialy the Talisman is a Character Card because it is double sided and indestructable. EoD ignores it.

13

DEX save to see if whoever had hold of it still has hold of it. >:)

14

Character cards are not indestructible as I understand it; the only one that can actually go to a trash pile is The Chairman, but they can all be "destroyed" by any effect that doesn't explicitly forbid doing so.  Thusly, if the arch-villain is down to 2 HP, they can be Sucker Punched to death (or Tire Ironed from a few HP more than that, depending on how much Fixer can Strike for).  Please correct me if I'm mistaken on that.

15

Character cards can't be destroyed - they basically have the thing of "When this card would be destroyed, flip it instead". So if something says to destroy it (eg Sucker Punch), you remove the hp but it doesn't actually get destroyed, and flips instead. About the only exception I can think of to this is the Unforgiving Wasteland card, which specifies that anything killed by an environment card is removed from the game instead - this does include character cards and has been confirmed to be so. On the plus side it means destruction effects don't occur (eg for the Matriarch's Fowl being killed), because they're being removed from the game instead of being destroyed :).

16

Noooooooo. That's wrong Ameena, bad Ameena, no cookie for you.

If you can destroy a character card e.g. through Sucker Punch, then you do destroy it. You only flip Baron Blade or the Ennead because they specfically state that is what happens when they would be destroyed. If you were to use it on say, Apostate (either side) then he is destroyed without his Relic condition kicking in.

 

EDIT: And to add, Sucker Punch on the Talisman would have no effect

17

Its super fun to do it, too.  I eked out a win for my team as Mr. fixer by doing that.

18

Ahh cool…I think I may have read that somewhere on here before, actually, and forgotten about it. It's never come up in any of our games. Okay, so an insta-kill ability (like Sucker Punch) does insta-kill a character card, provided they have no "when this card would be destroyed, do this" text, or are indestructible. Got it :).

19

If they have an incap side, chances are they have that "when this card would be destroyed" caveat, either explicitly or, like with Hero Character Cards, that bit of text is implicit

20

Ooh, a wrinkle!  So that's at least two characters, plus a significant number of incapped heroes, who can take out Apostate if he has exactly the right number of HP (1 or 2), bypassing his defenses.  I like that, it feels like using a true name or a magic number to overcome the supernatural forces which sustain him.  Granted it's a little weird that Tachyon in particular has this, but it's definitely right that Fanatic doesn't; a grudge match between nemeses should require that much extra effort, in order to make it maximally epic.