Post by quantumodo in Clarification Needed on "45009" Resource Card Interaction

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Hi,

That is a very, very good point about when to select the targets. It is clear that to play ally upgrades with the Iron Man Leadership ally in play you need to select the target not after Step 2 in order to determine the cost. However, the rulings for Spiritual Meditation that I mentioned above, clearly state that for some cards this target selection does not happen at least until Step 7. There is a clear conflict here.

I have submitted the following rules question to Fantasy Flight Games, I will let you know about their answer as soon as I receive it:

"Hi,

I have a rules question about the moment in which targets need to be selected for a card. Let me give you two different situations:

1) I have two allies in play and one of them is Iron Man (the Leadership one). I want to play the Inspired upgrade. According to the Initiating Abilities rules section (version 1.6), in Step 1 I need to check if there is a valid target for the upgrade, but unless I'm mistaken I still do not need to select a target for it. However, in Step 2 I need to determine the cost for playing the card and at this moment I do need to select the target because the cost of playing the upgrade is different for Iron Man than for the other ally. So it seems that at Step 2, targets (at least, for some cards) need to be already selected.

2) Spiritual Meditation is the only card in my hand. According to at least two of your previous rulings, I can play Spiritual Meditation, draw 2 cards and then choose one of them to discard. But, of course, this choosing cannot happen at Step 2 because at that moment the only card in my hand is Spiritual Meditation itself. So the selection of target in this case does not happen until Step 7, when the ability of the card is resolved.

So, at what moment are targets for cards selected? At Step 1? At Step 2? At Step 7? Does this vary on card-to-card basis?

Thanks so much in advance. I just love Marvel Champions. It is my favorite game by far!!!"

irefrixs276 days ago

Hi @quantumodo,

Thank you for your message.

Regarding “15019” (Spiritual Meditation), I believe it can be interpreted as having two distinct effect parts:

Draw 2 cards.
Choose and discard 1 card from your hand.

These effects will be resolved sequentially after playing the card, and each effect part has its own targets:

For part 1, there are no targets.
For part 2, the target is one card in your hand.

We refer to the target of part 2 as a “delay select,” meaning the target is chosen during the resolution of the effect rather than beforehand. Our script is designed this way to align with this intent.

As for “37001b” (Thief Extraordinaire), since the FAQ states that you don’t need to select a target before looking at the top 2 cards, we can update the script for “37001b” to a “delay select” to comply with the FAQ.

And finally, regarding “45009” (Energy Conversion) in this topic, the question is now: is “each resource card in your discard pile” considered a “normal select” or a “delay select”?

I welcome any thoughts you may have on this topic, as my understanding might be incorrect.

quantumodo276 days ago

Hi,

Thanks for the explanation. It's good to know that you can implement these delayed selections. That makes the system very flexible. Great decision!

About card "45009" (Energy Conversion), I'm inclined to think that it also has this delayed selection. In fact, my understanding is that you always delay selection of targets as much as possible. I hace checked this with a friend who is an expert in Marvel Champions rules and that, in fact, has collaborated with Fantasy Flight Games as a tester for the SHIELD expansion, and he told that this is the case: you should delay the selection of targets as much as possible. In the particular case of "45009", he told me that shuffle the cards after you pay, so you should include back in your deck those cards that you have used to pay for "45009" (if any).

In any case, I will let you know when FFG answers my question regarding the selection of targets.

Just one more thing: have you implemented a delayed selection for Tactical Brilliance (https://marvelcdb.com/card/33010)? According to the ruling I mentioned earlier I think it should have a delayed selection:

I have questions regarding the card Spiritual Meditation, which has the effect: “Draw 2 cards. Choose and discard 1 card from your hand.” Do the Choose rules prevent me from playing Spiritual Meditation when it is the only card in my hand? The Choose rules say that if there is no valid target, then the ability cannot be initiated. Would the single Spiritual Meditation in my hand be a valid Choose target just to initiate the ability? Am I able to change the Choose target after initiating the ability? More specifically, am I allowed to Choose one of the 2 drawn cards by Spiritual Meditations first sentence after Choosing a card that was already in my hand to initiate the ability in the first place?

When you determine if the card’s ability can be initiated, you can make that determination based on the first part of the Action, drawing 2 cards. So yes, you could still play it in that situation.
If it helps, the designers have informed me that the “choose” clause under Initiating Abilities is mainly intended for cards where their only ability is a choose ability. We may adjust the rules reference to make this clearer.

Thank you very much once again. Your work is awesome!!!

irefrixs275 days ago

Hi @quantumodo,

Thank you for checking on this rule!

Regarding your point about delaying the selection of targets, I agree that it serves as a useful guiding principle for coding the script. Since the rules and FAQ do not specify when to select targets, we can use this as a temporary coding guide. However, confirmation from FFG would certainly provide more clarity.

As for “33010” (Tactical Brilliance), it already incorporates a delayed selection. For cards with multiple effect parts, all selectors except for the first one are treated as delayed selections. For example, the effect part “Deal 8 damage to an enemy” in “12003” and the effect part “Remove 2 threat from the main scheme” in “42015”.

Thank you again for your insights!

quantumodo275 days ago

That's awesome. Thank you very much!

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