Ellison Humboldt and Matteus, flesh sculptor

Bloodartist wrote:

Simply put: Can Ellison Humboldt s ability be used multiple times during same referendum, for multiple different princes?

My gut instinct is no, due to the wording ("..may burn A blood to.."), however the card text doesn't explicitly deny it. The ability also seems really strong if multi-use is possible..

Bloodartist wrote:

After a bit of searching, I can now see where this ruling comes from;

Terminology:
"During time period X, (you may) do Y" limits Y to once per phase X. [LSJ 19970625]

Bloodartist wrote:

I'm fine with the ruling itself. However I think the wording on this card (and similar) is more than a bit vague. If we reprint these cards, I would like to see the wording be made more clear.
In my opinion if multi-use is not supposed to be possible, it should be stated so explicitly.

LSJ wrote:

LSJ wrote:

> Sure, space is at a premium on most cards, but "once each"
> in place of "during X phase" would be a very minimal increase
> (if any) in text used and would produce unambiguous clarity
> for a lot of readers that aren't finding that clarity in the
> "during X do Y" phrasing.
OK. I'll adopt the "once each" phrasing whenever possible.

Unambiguous clarity is a nice goal. Given the Skin of Rock
examples, however, I'm not sure it is attainable.

Hmm. I was just going through the card list making the substitutions,
and it is generally pretty awkward and stilted (unless the change
actually alters the meaning) after the change. Seems like I had gone
down that route before and reached the same end then as well.

> It seems to work reasonably well for me, if I replace "During your
> X phase" with "Once each of your X phases". At least, this reads
> OK for me on Hunting Grounds.
"Once each of" has the unfortunate property that it can easily be
misread as "When it becomes true that each of", so that reading
needs to be eliminated as early in the sentence as possible.

As in "Once during each of" or "Once in" or "During".
"Once in" begins to look like "At the start of", so that's not
a clean "fix".

> For vampire abilities written "if Foo is ready during your X
> phase," I like "if Foo is ready, once each of your X phases,".
"Once during each of your X phases, if Foo is ready, ..." is
clearer.

> Still, you're right that it takes some effort to go through and
> determine which cards that use "during" would need altering and
> what the best way to include "once" would be. I'd be happy
> enough if future cards were simply written to use a "once"
> phrasing instead of relying on the "during X do Y means once"
> rule.
It seems to be clearly better for instances when it really is "each"
and not just "each of your". "Once each minion phase, ...". But
those cases are few.

LSJ wrote:

Kerravon wrote:
> Why not simply change the text so that anyone can instantly know how it
> works
> ie
>
> "Once during any Methuselah's minion phase, you may burn the Edge to untap
> Torvus."
>
> "Once during your untap phase, you may move 1 blood from the blood bank to a
> ready vampire you control."
>
> It needs to be changed. As there are alot of players who have the exact same
> problem I do in interpreting these cards.
> Or in other words I shouldn't need to go online to ask this question.
With those wordings, some players will ask if the ability can be used
a second time (say, during your untap phase of a future turn), since
"once" seems to indicate that you cannot.

You'd have to use "Once during each of your untap phases, ..." if you
wanted to replace "During your untap phase, ..."