I don't have the card in front of me so I don't have the actual name, but one of Iron Legacy's cards does some damage and then has this line of text: "Each player must discard two cards or destroy one of their cards in play."
If you don't have any cards in play, you are forced to discard two, right? You can't just choose to destroy a non-existant card. And I guess if you don't have two cards to discard you'd be forced to destroy something? If you can't do either that means you have nothing in play and either one or zero cards in hand, so you're pretty screwed anyway.
Assuming this to be true, that card is incredibly backbreaking as the first thing IL plays to start the game. Or, in the case of my game last night, the second card. Chained from a "Former Allies". >_<
We still won that game, amazingly, thanks to AZ having Fueled Freeze as the one card he kept in hand and then the Inmates of The Block actually unloading on IL after he had incapacitated half of the heroes. But it was probably the least "fun" Sentinels game I've ever played due to the stunning lack of options inflicted upon us from the word "go".
To be specific, the card in question is Rule From The Front, and the relevant text is Each player must either discard 2 cards or destroy 1 of their cards'. I kind of think your interpretation is correct, must either …' and specific numbers suggest to me that if you can't fulfill one, you need to choose the other. That would indeed also mean that you can't choose discard if you have only 1 card, and if you have no other cards in play you you're going more than screwed, because you always have one card left: your character card. That seems pretty horrible, so maybe you're allowed to choose one you can't fulfill after all
Well you do always have your character card in play... That said I'm not sure if you are really supposed to be incapacitated if he plays "Rule from the front" when you have no cards in hand and no other cards in play.
I agree that forced discard can be an annoying mechanic which limits options and thus fun. But Iron Legacy is meant to be a very brutal assault. Keep in mind that if the heros are allowed to set up at all, 32 damage should be very trivial to deal. Also, never forget about the option to draw two cards on your turn. This is a particularly important tactic against Iron Legacy, since the key to victory is a short burst of things going right.
Being forced to discard is really nasty…once we were fighting Dawn and had as her starting line-up both Sweat and Tears (and someone else, can't remember who but those two were enough :P). So every turn we both had to discard two cards, starting with the first turn. As a result, we were never really able to get going and she kicked our arses :P. In theory, if you had no cards in play and only one card in your hand, wouldn't you still have to discard it? You can't destroy anything because there's nothing there…but you have one card so should you still have to discard it even though you don't have a second card to discard as well?
Oh, games against this guy are gonna be so fun :P. Then again, that's the idea, right?
I came back from a game that started with Blood, Sweat, and Tears in play, with Dawn's first card being Blinding Blast. It was Bad, but Haka and Ra's damaging base powers were integral to the comeback.
In his comment in another thread (https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/discard-clarification), Christopher said that if a hero is required to discard two cards but only has one to discard, than the single card is discarded and that's the end of it.
For the original question posted in this thread, it seems clear to me that you must fulfill as much of the requirement as possible. If you can't destroy a card, but you can discard two, you must discard them. If you can't discard two cards, but you can destroy a card, you must destroy it. If you can't do either, than you must do as much as you can, which in the case of having a single card in hand would be to discard the single card.
So, I am disinclined to bring this up for a ruling, but I will do so if you insist.
Dypaca brought up the side point that maybe if a hero must destroy a card but has no other cards in play, the hero must destroy his/her/its hero character card.
That's funny! I am also, however, disinclined to bring this up for a ruling. I probably would if someone insisted, though.
This is kind of like the ambiguity between initiating an attack (dealing damage) and causing HPs to be lost (dealing damage). Destroying could either mean the attempt to destroy or the result of something being destroyed. I could see it ruled that someone 'destroyed' a character card, fulfilling the requirment of a card in play needing to be destroyed, even if the result was that the charcter card gets flipped instead of being destroyed.
Pedantics aside, though, I still don't think this needs a ruling.
I wish that you had ever answered this question, as it seems really important to know. I'm going to have to go with the assumption that we are completely screwed each hero must discard 2 cards to a first-turn Rule From the Front. But I really wish you had confirmed whether such suffering was in fact necessary.
How so? If Fixed Point was out and something forced you to destroy a card, you could just go "Okay, I'll destroy this one…oh, but look, it's indestructible, so nothing happens" (just as you can still try to deal damage to someone who's immune, such as an unflipped Chairman, but it'll have no effect). If you have no cards in play but have any in-hand, you can't destroy anything therefore you must discard two (or as many as you can if you don't have enough to meet the required number). If you have nothing in play or in-hand…well, then you're probably in trouble, but hey, at least it means you can't discard or destroy any of your stuff because it's all already gone ;).
I don't see how that's different from "I choose to destroy rather than discard, but I have nothing I can destroy".
Frankly, turn 1 Rule from the Front is enough of a back-breaker even without forcing all players to discard on turn 1. It's not like it's Citizen Dawn's Blinding Blast, where it's just 2 damage to each of them and she only zaps one of them each turn.
The difference is that you do have a card in play and you can choose to destroy it. fixed point is an outside effect that prevents the card from being destroyed, but that does not prevent you from trying to destroy it. That's the difference.
You cannot attempt to destroy nothing. You can attempt to destroy something.
You cannot attempt to damage targets that are not in play. You can attempt to damage a target in play.
If the target is immune to damage they can still be the target of an attempt to deal damage, otherwise Legacy with lead from the front and next evolution would be stupid, instead of awesome. (because if he couldn't choose to be the target next evolution would be wasted)
Equally a target that is immune to destruction can be the target of an attempt to destroy.
You cannot, however, at any time attempt to destroy cards that are not in play. So with a choice of destroy a specific number of cards, or discard a specific number of cards, if you have no cards you have 0 to destroy, you can't choose to destroy one if you have 0.
Equally a player with no cards in hand can't discard 2 to destroy an environment card, since they don't have 2 cards to discard.
If a card destroys all your cards, or discards your whole hand, then you can select that option as a hand of 0 cards is still a hand, and if 0 cards is the number of cards you have in play, then you can destroy all 0 of your cards, because you destroyed all your cards.
I guess what I wish is that the card said "Each player destroys 1 of their cards in play unless they discard 2 cards". This would prevent the back-breaking first turn while otherwise getting largely the same functionality.
