Slave - Mental Maze interaction

LSJ wrote:

> If say Jing Wei is blocked and
> obedience is played, then could I institute the slave rule and enter combat
> with the reacting minion?
Yes.

Was later corrected to NO, my bad premature posting...

So you can utilise slave rule BEFORE mental maze/obedience is played thanks to sequencing rules. And since the slave is NOT the acting minion and thus not the blocked minion, the window for mental maze/obedience is closed.

Brum wrote:

BTW, bogus rulling. I hope it changes.

I hope the all slave rules change...

- lose the acting rule
- lose the take over combat rule
- new rule: Any minion that belongs to a clan to whom the slave is enslaved can burn 1 blood to end combat with the slave before combat begins.
- new rule: A slave minion must pay 1 blood to act against a methuselah owning any minions belonging to the clan to whom the slave is enslaved.

Or something like that, so you can play gargoyles without tremere and clan impersonation becomes an odd card you put into your deck =P

as I stated in my first post, the acting minion can use the slave rule to untap and make the gargoyle enter combat. That said, obedience is slightly different from mental maze:

Mental Maze
[Reaction] Reaction
[Obfuscate] Obfuscate
[1 Blood]
Only usable when this vampire successfully blocks an ally or a younger vampire (play before combat, if any).
[obf] End the action (with no combat). If this blocking minion is a Follower of Set, this card costs 1 less blood.
[OBF] As above, and do not tap this blocking vampire.

Obedience
[Reaction] Reaction
[Dominate] Dominate
Only usable when this reacting vampire is about to enter combat with an acting younger vampire.
[dom] Untap the acting vampire, do not tap this reacting vampire, and end the current action (and combat). The acting vampire cannot attempt the same action this turn.
[DOM] As above, but do not untap the acting vampire.

In Obedience case, it's clear the Tremere is no longer the acting vampire (thus the ruling).

In Mental Maze case, is the blocking minion still blocking? If yes, he can play Mental Maze, resulting in an untapped tremere, a tapped gargoyle and no combat (opposing minion tapped or not depending on his level of obfuscate). If not, Gargoyle enters combat with the opposing minion, tapped because of the succesful block on tremere.

thelonius wrote:

In Obedience case, it's clear the Tremere is no longer the acting vampire (thus the ruling).

In Mental Maze case, is the blocking minion still blocking?

When a Methuselah uses an "about to enter combat" effect, the other Methuselah(s) can use "about to enter combat" effects too - unless the play has been invalidated by an earlier play - such as slave rule followed by Obedience (illegal), which requires the vampire to be entering combat with a younger acting vampire, as you say; or Change of Target followed by Obedience (illegal), because CoT ended the action so Obedience is no longer playable at all.

I go into some detail about an LSJ ruling in this post from 2014 , citing this earlier ruling from LSJ: [LSJ 20090513] . From the terminology used by Floppy (in the original question), the slave rule is activated in a1 and Mental Maze can be activated in a2 (as can a bunch of other things) - which basically means "the acting Methuselah can play her effects by sequencing, then the other Methuselah(s) get their go, with all the normal sequencing rule implications".

While obviously my explanations aren't official, no-one seemed to object at that point.

thelonius wrote:

In Mental Maze case, is the blocking minion still blocking? If yes, he can play Mental Maze, resulting in an untapped tremere, a tapped gargoyle and no combat (opposing minion tapped or not depending on his level of obfuscate). If not, Gargoyle enters combat with the opposing minion, tapped because of the succesful block on tremere.

Ok, so no obedience because you change the acting minion, but ok with mental maze because the blocking minion is still blocking. So,
untapped acting,
tapped slave,
no combat,
normal tap/no tap the blocking minion depending on obf/OBF

rulebook wrote:

Also, if a member of the specified clan controlled by the same Methuselah is blocked, the controller can lock the slave to cancel the combat and to unlock the acting vampire and have the slave enter combat with the blocking minion instead.

Note, slave rule can be applied on a successful block, this is important for sequencing. However the slave rule is part of the action sequence (implied, could be written down in the rulebook for clarity).

obedience wrote:

Only usable when this reacting vampire is about to enter combat with an acting younger vampire.

Due to sequencing, the slave rule can be applied before obedience is played. After the slave rule is applied, the blocking minion is no longer about to enter combat with any acting vampire, thus obedience cannot be played.

mental wrote:

Only usable when this vampire successfully blocks an ally or a younger vampire (play before combat, if any).

Due to sequencing, the slave rule can be applied before mental maze is played.
There's nothing stopping mental maze from being played. Sequencing does not take away the fact that the vampire has blocked a minion.

mental wrote:

End the action (with no combat). If this blocking minion is a Follower of Set, this card costs 1 less blood

Slave rule is part of the action, so there's no combat.