Still confused about multiple Outside the Hourglasses

I see what the difference is between Weather Control and Outside the Hourglass.

So if the impulse is not a time period, then playing a damaging effect, or choosing to resolve Weather Control, effectively passes the impulse to the opposing player to play any legal effect before handling the damage. I'll call this the "prevention window". This is actually consistent with what you wrote above, but it is so unexpected and unintuitive (to me) that it took me quite a bit of research to understand what was actually going on. After the damage is handled, the impulse passes back to Player A, I would assume.

Thank you for clarifying that the "merged damage resolution" was a new ruling. However, to clarify, this only applies to damage that is dealt in Player B's "prevention window" in response to Player A's damaging effect, not to damage that is dealt after Player A passes the impulse officially to Player B.

Again, I stand by my opinion that being able to play unlimited effects during a "prevention window", particularly outside the Damage Prevention step, adds unnecessary complications to the game. I suspect that few players understand the nuances of these rulings. My opinion is that it is better to have a streamlined and intuitive gameplay than it is for players to be able to fish for answers in borderline cases. As this "prevention window" is not part of the rulebook, this is a ruling created by rules-team fiat and can be changed by rules-team fiat.

However, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions and I thank you for your efforts and improvements on behalf of the game.

Sorry to continue adding to this (already) long thread.

I wanted to point out that I fail to see the actual difference between Outside the Hourglass and Weather Control. I understand the theoretical difference you're making here:

Ankha wrote:

If we compare Weather Control and Outside the Hourglass:

Weather Control's damage can be applied after other effects are played.: A plays WC, then Torn Signpost, then decide to apply WC's damage. Outside the Hourglass immediately opens a prevention window
A can't pass before applying the damage of Weather Control (which opens a prevention window)
Weather Control's damage is "environmental". Outside the Hourglass' damage is dealt by the minion.

Both cards are very similar otherwise.

But from a practical perspective, since you can play any effect during the prevention window and the damage windows are merged if two effects provide damage, doesn't that means that in the end, you can in both cases play any number of effects as the active player, then you pass impulse to the defending player?

From the scenario you outline (A plays Weather Control > Torn Signpost > Passes impulse to B), doesn't the same scenario apply to Outside the Hourglass (A plays Outside the Hourglass > Torn Signpost > Passes impulse to B)? I mean, outside from the "prevention window" opening at a different time (before or after Torn Signpost, but I think this is immaterial since you can play any pre-range effect in the prevention window or outside of it). In both cases, B gets the impulse in a prevention window, only after A got a chance to play Torn Signpost, no?

Is there any scenario where the impulse flows differently or the orders in which you get an opportunity to play cards is actually different between Outside the Hourglass and Weather Control?

The more I think about it, the more I think there might be a way to simplify the theory of the rulings here - the way we view them: if there is no actual difference, we can have an abstraction / explanation to explain both cards the same way without having to distinguish immaterial theoretical differences here. But maybe I'm missing something.

For now, I registered the combination of rulings as "Both minions can play prevention and non-prevention pre-range effects before mending the damage. If another pre-range damaging effect is played then, all damages are prevented and mended together."