Scourge of the Enochians timing

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Timo wrote:

What I meant by "giving the impulse" is that the text of scourge says that "your predator takes control of this card" so I thought that it was an action from the predator.

Not in any meaningful sense. The predator isn't being given an effect to declare. You're just resolving the whole effect of using Scourge, which happens to include control of the card changing.

I imagine the "Your predator takes..." writing was a) less ambiguous than something like "Give this to..." (no mention of control), b) less annoying than something like "Control of this card passes to...", and c) fits in more easily with earlier templating, like Uriah Winter and Disputed Territory (from the V:TES wording of Disputed). And I can pretty much guarantee that during the printing of Jyhad and the updating for the V:TES set, no-one was thinking about the finer nuances of the sequencing rules.

But it is the exact same wording than the coven no ?

Timo wrote:

But it is the exact same wording than the coven no ?

Not exactly, no.

The Coven has a standalone effect:
Scourge of the Enochians has one big thing where the acting player has a decision to make, about when to activate it and whether to burn anything with it:
Activating my Scourge and burning something is linked to passing control.

Sourge gives you a non-mandatory effect, then you pass the impulse, your predator has a mandatory effect to take control.

I don't see how it should not work like The Coven: if everybody forgets about it, you have to rollback to the mandatory effect for your predator to take it, but you don't rollback to the non-mandatory effect you could have applied.

Using the same logic, taking the pool loss from Dragonbound is mandatory: the impulse can not be passed before applying this effect. So the dying player cannot "pass" the Scourge nor the Coven to their predator before being ousted, since their predator would need the impulse to take them (card text), and the impulse cannot be passed before Dragonbound effect is resolved.

lip wrote:

Sourge gives you a non-mandatory effect, then you pass the impulse, your predator has a mandatory effect to take control.

"During X, do Y and someone else does Z" doesn't work that way on other cards.

Example, Form of Corruption:
I'm pretty sure that no-one has ever thought that this works like follows:

1) Burn the card and steal that vampire, but no pool is burned
2) Acting player continues with their master phase, doing other things
3) Acting player finishes their things in their master phase and passes
4) The prey now resolves their mandatory effect to burn 1 pool, after you've potentially done a whole bunch of stuff

This could be relevant if, for example, you stole a vampire who gave you additional hand size, so you draw into a card that you want to play. Imagine:

a) You are on one pool.
b) I steal your Count Jocalo (or any other vampire with +hand size) using Form of Corruption.
c) I get additional hand size, and draw into Hostile Takeover
d) I play Hostile Takeover on your vampire because you are still in the game
e) Having stolen your vampire, I pass, and you burn the pool. You're now ousted.

If the "During X, I do Y and you do Z" effects are tied together, that can't happen - you're ousted before I can play Hostile Takeover, so your vampire is no longer in the game.

Ditto, the timing of removing a vampire from the game and burning pool from (errata-ed) Return to Innocence.



Note also that even though certain effects may be mandatory, optional things can come before them. (This isn't the case with mandatory minion phase actions.) I can't pass if I have a mandatory effect, but I can do a different thing with the same timing. Examples:

- Weather Control makes it mandatory for both minions to take damage during the pre-range period, but I can play other cards before sequencing it in. [LSJ 20050406]

LSJ wrote:

>> Weather Control
>> it's perfectly ok for me to play weather control, _not_ apply the
>> damage just yet, play an aura reading, play some other before range
>> cards, and then apply the damage effect if i want, right? i can order
>> it (subject to sequencing), just not leave the 'before range' step
>> without applying it....(kind of parallel to DotB above)
>
> Yes, if you're the acting Methuselah (with the modification that you
> can't "apply the damage effect if i want" -- the damage must be applied,
> even if someone plays superior Alpha Glint, taps Mariel, etc.

Correct.

- Using Vessel (optional) can go before Fame (mandatory). [LSJ 20100706]

LSJ wrote:

> When different effects happen at the same time, I get to
> choose in which order to apply those effects (ie, Vessel and Fame).

Except for "untap all your cards", which cannot be ordered after other
effects, but instead must be the first thing you do in your untap
phase.

So in general, a Methuselah with the impulse could do an optional effect before a mandatory effect, if they had one. They just can't pass with a mandatory effect.

Well I agree and you make a strong point.
I must also say I think you might be right, cause you usually are ☺︎

For now though, I stand by my position ☺︎

- Agree: I don't think Form of Corruption works like Coven.
- Agree: you can order non-mandatory before mandatory effects. You can use the Scourge before passing the impulse.

- Still disagree: I think Scourge work the same as The Coven: the mandatory effect to take control of it is for you predator to execute, not you. I don't think the rulings you linked make a very strong case in face of this Coven ruling.

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.

Anyhow, I'd very much like a ruling in one way or the other so I can include it in the list ☺︎

Note I don't think any way of interpreting it is better than the other. I would just like to know how to resolve it next time someone forgets to use his Scourge ^_^ Does his predator take it like The Coven with a "ahah you forgot, too late" grin, or does he just lay low with his Tupdog hoping everyone forgets about the Scourge ☺︎

lip wrote:

- Still disagree: I think Scourge work the same as The Coven: the mandatory effect to take control of it is for you predator to execute, not you. I don't think the rulings you linked make a very strong case in face of this Coven ruling.

How can the effect be predators to execute, if they are not in control of the card? I say the effect is that the current controller passes control to the predator.