Omnitron's Terraforming will destroy all environment cards and play as many villain cards as environment cards that were destroyed.
Will the face-down pile of environment cards next to Mars Wagner Base's Self-Destruct Sequence be destroyed (go to the proper trash) and count towards villain cards drawn due to terraforming? Or are only the face-up (in play?) environment cards be counted?
I suppose another question would be whether or not the countdown pile in the environment area would be considered cards "in-play" because there are cards that do something based on how many environment cards in play, such as Ra's Scorched Earth, if I remember correctly.
That is a tricky one; when a card is "destroyed" that means it was formerly in-play, so indeed the question is whether or not the cards next to SDS are considered "in play" or not.
SDS says this:
"When this card comes into play, put the top 2 cards of the environment deck face down next to it. That pile is the countdown pile...
...At the start of the environment turn, if the countdown pile contains H plus 2 cards, the sequence has been aborted and the countdown pile and this card are destroyed. Otherwise, discard the top card of the countdown pile."
Okay, so here are my findings.
1) The pile created seems to be considered a new "deck". It is no longer the trash or the environment deck. It is now the countdown pile.
2) If the sequence is aborted, the countdown pile is destroyed; which leads me to believe that it is considered "in play"
3) However, when a card is moved from the countdown pile to the environment trash (last sentence), it is considered a discard not a destroy.
Conclusion: Honestly, you could probably do it either way. Personally, I'd say it does not count, since the pile created is considered a countdown pile, no longer the "environment deck" or "trash". That would also make the inconsistency between findings 2 and 3 less of a problem. That's just my take, but I'm sure there is someone who can shed further light on it.
I would draw from Freedom 6 Tempest, where his cards can be under La Capitan and he can destroy them, even though they aren't "in play" or considered to have text, they remain his cards because the back of the card is the image from his deck.
So those cards would not be in play, but they would remain Environment cards, so I would assume they would be destroyed and cards would be played for them.
Just like other things, you choose the order cards are destroyed. If you destroy Self Destruct Sequence, then it destroys the countdown pile, not Omnitron, so he wouldn't get to play cards for the ones in the pile.
Haka still gets to draw cards from Dominion when the countdown pile is destroyed, since SDS says it destroys those cards and they are still considered Environment cards.
I think a similar issue came up years ago about Haka and Savage Mana. It was determined that using the power destroyed the already destroyed cards a second time (thus allowing Ammo Drop to benifit, along with other cards), but if Savage Mana were destroyed, the cards underneath were not destroyed, but sent (discarded?) to their appropriate trashes. If that is the case, I would assume that Self Destruct Sequence would follow as well.
Thanks for the replies everyone, I wasn't sure what the proper ruling is in a situation like this and didn't want to wait for a reply to continue playing, so I flipped a coin to decide whether or not to play villain cards for the 2 cards in the countdown pile.
Maybe once I get the expansions and play them, I may bump into similar tricky situations and read about them here then have a better understanding of the rules.
Yeah, you could destroy the self destruct sequence first, and the pile would be destroyed by that card effect, or you could choose to destroy any number of the cards in the countdown pile before destroying the destruct sequence card, at which point you would play villain cards for them.
I just want to be clear in case you find a situation where you want Omnitron to play more cards with Terraforming.
Yeah, If the conditions on SDS are met to destroy the cards, then they are destroyed, but if it's destroyed by other means it does make sense they'd just be discarded.