Shadow Court Satyr, RTR

No, I'm reading the card text.

The card reads as follows, in sequential order:

1) May play cards that requires a vampire.

2) Two examples in brackets to clarify the meaning of 'requires a vampire'.

3) One restriction pertaining to one of the examples given.

Nothing more and nothing less.

I have a card in my hand, and follow RAW (ie, the very opposite of making a magic understanding).

1) Does it require a vampire to play? Yes. Check.
2) Is it restricted by the restriction referring to one of the examples given to clarify the meaning of 'requires a vampire'? Yes/No. Check.
3) Apply card.

1) I have a dual discipline card in my hand. Does it require a vampire to play? Yes, cards requiring one, two or more disciplines to play implicitly requires a vampire to play. Check.

2) Is a dual discipline card included in the restriction referring to one of the examples given by card text? No. Check.

3) Apply it at superior/superior.


Now, how on earth can I make this insane interpretation? Because a dual discipline cards doesn't require 'a' (one) discipline to play.

How can I be certain that 'a' means one? Because the second referral to the word 'Discipline' is prepended by the word 'the'.

A dual discipline card explicitly requires two (more than one) disciplines to play, and is thus not covered by the restriction, but still fills the requirement of being a card that 'requires a vampire'.

Of course I'm totally aware that the Satyr was never means to play dual discipline cards at a stronger level than single discipline cards.

However, how the card was meant to function has never prevented us from allowing actual text to override designer intent before. Guard Duty is a very good example of a card where card text takes presedence over designer intent.

While RTR is the sound ruling of how we want the card to function, card text should still correspond to the ruling, and in this case it no longer does.

Here is the card text.

Changeling with 3 life. 1 strength, 1 bleed.
When the Satyr enters play, you may put a combat card from your hand on him. Once each combat, the Satyr may use the ability of that card as if played from your hand. If the card requires a vampire (e.g., costs blood or requires a Discipline), he may use it as a vampire with the basic level of the Discipline (if any).

Here is the card text, with out the clarifications (i.e. within parenthesis).

Changeling with 3 life. 1 strength, 1 bleed.
When the Satyr enters play, you may put a combat card from your hand on him. Once each combat, the Satyr may use the ability of that card as if played from your hand. If the card requires a vampire , he may use it as a vampire with the basic level of the Discipline.

Here are the clarifications(i.e. within parenthesis)

(e.g., costs blood or requires a Discipline)

(if any)

What portion of any this text leads you to think that the satyr can "emulate" more than one discipline?


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yappo wrote:

No, I'm reading the card text.

So are other people - see, for example, the very first reply you got.

You disagree with other people's interpretations. How very convenient, then, that we have a consistent history of rulings regarding how LSJ intended Shadow Court Satyr to interact with multi-discipline cards.

There was a reason that I included the old card text. LSJ 2002 refers to that text. It has since been changed.

LSJ 2006 doesn't concern disciplines at all.

So, LSJ 2002 corresponds perfectly with the card text it pertains to. The RTR does not.

I don't expect LSJ to be pre-scient. He had no reason to base a ruling during the year 2002 on a card text which didn't yet exist.

Now, if you would please cease with your condescending tone the rules conversation could continue to be civil.

In no way have I disagreed with peoples intepretation of a card text which is no longer valid. The opposite. I made it prefectly clear that that intepretation was based on an old card text, and that such an intepretation made perfect sense given the card text at that time.

When the design team decided to change the card text, then such a change risks invalidating rulings based on the previous card text. It is this problem I'm pointing out.

In VTES we rule restrictions on 1) text written on the card, or 2) in the absence of such text, text written in the general rules.

If there still is an absence of written restrictions, then you are allowed to do it. I believe you yourself have described and explained this in very consice terms in another thread on this forum. Stacking effects if I recall correctly.

Now, back on topic, and also a reply to Shard.

For grammatical reasons you can't just remove the clarification from the sentence. The construction 'the Discipine' requires a referee, in this case 'a Discipline'. Also, when only one referee exists, then the construction 'the Discipline' MUST refer to that referee.

This is what creates a problem, because the clarification actually reads (including, but not limited to, the following two attributes associated with requiring a vampire). This is not how I want it to read, but how it is indeed written.

Given that we don't allow restrictions which are not explicitly written anywhere, this creates a problem. The aggregated constructions 'a Discipline' and 'the Discipline' forces us to read 'a Discipline' as 'one Discipline' because the referer is written in singular form.

A dual discipline card explicitly requires two (more than one) discipline, and the card text doesn't place any restrictions here. However, a dual discipline card still belongs to the category of cards which requires a vampire to play. Hence, in difference from a single discipline card, its use is not restricted by card text.

Satyr presents us with the opposite to Ian Forestal. He's allowed to use X requiring a (one) Y. For this reason he may not use X requiring both Y and Z. Satyr has a restriction on using X requiring a (one) Y. For this reason he does NOT have a restriction on using X requiring both Y and Z.

This is a bad thing, because RAW supercedes RAI. I most definitely don't want Satyr to be allowed to play dual discipline cards at superior/superior, but what I want really doesn't have any impact on how the card text is actually written. And currently it would seem that Satyr may play duals at the most powerful effect. This should be rectified.

The aggregated constructions 'a Discipline' and 'the Discipline' forces us to read 'a Discipline' as 'one Discipline' because the referer is written in singular form.

A dual discipline card explicitly requires two (more than one) discipline, and the card text doesn't place any restrictions here. However, a dual discipline card still belongs to the category of cards which requires a vampire to play.

I believe having the discipline is requirement for a minion to play a card that requires a discipline.
I also believe having both disciplines is a requirement for playing a dual discipline card.

Since Shadow Court Satyr forces you to play it as if from your hand and only allows for one discipline it is not legal to play a dual discipline card.

I agree with Yappo that the text of Shadow Court Satyr is ambiguous. It incorrectly defines what a card that requires a vampire is and explains the Satyr's power using the incorrect definition.

I see that LSJ ruled that SCS can only use cards that require a single discipline, but truly the card should have been given an erratum once dual discipline cards came out.

Wasn't it even reprinted in Third Edition, which would have been the opportunity to make the update?

In any case, you cannot say that the card text as written rules out dual discipline cards, because whoever wrote the text didn't even know that they were going to exist! The text doesn't rule them out; to rule them out, it should have said:

"If the card requires a vampire (e.g., costs blood or requires any Discipline), he may use it as a vampire with the basic level of one of any Disciplines required.