Playing cards without a valid target.

Other Games SotM Game Engine
1

So, my buddy was playing Tachyon yesterday and (surprise, surprise) he was trying to get burst cards into his discard pile. He came up with a question I wasn’t sure about. Can you play Sucker Punch if there are no valid targets? I wasn’t sure if he could play it and have it (obviously) not do anything, or if it somehow required a valid target. My guess is that he CAN, but I wasn’t sure.

2

I THINK this is okay. I’m basing this off of the fact that you can play other cards that don’t “work” in order to get side benefits. [Fanatic’s Sanctifying Strike comes up a lot, if you can not get damage through. Or this one is closer to what you described; Consecrated Ground to deal damage, even if there are no environment/ongoing cards in play].

I’m not really sure on the right call here, but I think it’s probably okay. But as a side note, I don’t really see the want/need to do this. Often times environements make characters discard cards, you could dump Sucker Punch in the trash that way. Or, my favorite, get rid of it with Research Grant [draw 2 cards, discard a card]. The only reason for what you’re suggesting is if you REALLY needed another burst card in the trash RIGHT NOW and you have no other options.

3

I don’t remember seeing it mentioned in the errata (please point it out if I missed it): Can you just… discard because you want to?

4

I don’t think you can, no.

5

The errata says this about targets:

Missing Targets

  1. No specific target: if, say, a card destroys all equipment cards in play and
    there are none actually in play, then nothing actually happens.

  2. Specific target: However, if an attack targets the hero with the most ongoing
    cards and none are in play, it is considered a tie (tied at zero) and the
    players must choose who will receive the effect.

From that I would infer that a card could be legally played which required a target but for which no target actually existed. However, there are no rules that say a card can be played directly from the hand to the discard pile without first going through being “in play”, so no discarding just because you wanted to. These are my interpretations, at least.

6

Agreed