Scourge of the Enochians timing

Well, it has been ruled in this thread that it's the case for The Coven, that's why. So I'm afraid your argument is not convincing me ☺︎

I guess the difference comes from Scourge having both clauses in the same sentence, rather than in different sentences. You can interrupt the resolution of a card like Rötschreck using Psyche!, because it has different sentences. A "do X and Y" cannot be interrupted. Therefore, when you choose to use scourge or decline to use scourge, you have to complete the last part of that sentence before doing anything else - therefore the impulse does not leave the Player whose turn it is and still the Players predator takes control of the Scourge. There is nothing like that for the Coven.

And still, if the player passes he declines using the Scourge, therefore his predator has to take controll, even though the first part wasn't declined explicitly.

The only thing I question now, after writing this and thinking about it, is whether you can decline using the scourge without passing the impulse - therefore in the case of being ousted by Dragonbound, can you still pass the scourge if there is no vampire (you want) to burn, before being ousted?

lip wrote:

- Still disagree: I think Scourge work the same as The Coven:

How? Coven doesn't have two things happening together during your discard phase. Coven doesn't give the acting Methuselah a choice to make.

lip wrote:

and (meaning then, afterwards: contrary to the Form of Corruption, nothing in the text makes the second effect conditional on the first being executed: if you do not burn a low-cap vampire, your predator still takes control of the Scourge.)

I'm struggling to see how you're not seeing two things happening together with one governing timing clause.

Along similar lines, I see:
...from Descent into Darkness as being one big thing (with two sub-things) that goes off "during your influence phase", where you put blood on, and then optionally return it to play, because the two things are:

a) part of the same timing,
b) linked by "and".

Based on this thread, I think you read it as saying (not real text):

... where one mandatory thing and one optional thing are two entirely distinct things you can do separately, despite being introduced by the same timing text, linked together with "and".

lip wrote:

As I understand it, you read the "and" in the card text as linking the two effects into a single effect to apply (you may well be right). On my part I wouldn't assume so much about this conjunction and read it just as presenting a succession of two separated effects:
1. Non-mandatory burn a low-cap vampire.
---
and (meaning then, afterwards: contrary to the Form of Corruption, nothing in the text makes the second effect conditional on the first being executed: if you do not burn a low-cap vampire, your predator still takes control of the Scourge.)
---
2. Pass the impulse, your predator has a mandatory effect to take control of the Scourge.

Just to give an example of impulse being passed with mandatory effect still to be triggered by the active player :

Let's say a vampire with ANI and a talbot chainsaw is the active player, in combat and has played a Drawing out the Beast at superior.

During the press step, the active player decide to trigger the effect of the drawing sup doing 1 point of damage to the opposing vampire.

This one will have the impulse to handle this point of damage (burning a blood to heal it, potentially playing a skin of night to treat it as normal damage because this damage was aggravated) before continuing with the press step and having the active player use the mandatory press from the chainsaw.

I think the impulse should be treated the same way with scourge and dragonbound :

the active player decide to trigger the scourge burning (or not) a vampire. This give the impulse to his predator who have to take control of the scourge and then the impulse come back to the active player who can do everything he want including burning pool from dragonbound (and potentially dying without controlling the scourge).

Strike: 3 damage. If the bearer is ready during your unlock phase, this weapon inflicts 3 unpreventable damage on a ready minion you control. The bearer cannot hunt. The bearer can enter combat with a minion as a +1 stealth action. The bearer gets 1 press, only usable to continue combat during the first round, and can prevent 1 damage each combat.

Frenzy. Only usable before range is determined during the first round of combat. A vampire can play only one Drawing Out the Beast each combat. This combat, the opposing vampire gets +1 strength, and cannot maneuver to long range, press to end combat or use equipment. As above, and the opposing vampire takes 1 unpreventable environmental damage during the press step each round.

@jamesatzephy: I must say you convinced me you must be right ☺︎

@Timo: Interesting point - I'd say applying damage opens a damage prevention window immediately, which would need to be resolved before handling the next effect (even a mandatory one), but I could argue the damage prevention window is kind of a special case and you can't apply the same logic to linked effects like in the Scourge case.

Thanks for the exchange and the well argumented points.
I would still like an official ruling for this one to include in KRCG. Do you think I should start a separated (shorter, clear, to the point) ?