Monocle of Clarity (& questions about the deck contents)

johannes wrote:

Lönkka wrote:

Monocle of Clarity
Unique equipment.
During your untap phase, if bearer is ready, you can ask any Methuselah a yes-or-no question pertaining to the game. He or she must answer yes or no truthfully. If the question pertains to the future, the answer is not binding

How should questions about deck contents using Monocle of Clarity be handled?

Such as "Do you have one or more copies of card X in your deck?"


Question was based on this discussion.

The only questions which must be answered truthfully are those concerning the contens of the players hand, uncontrolled region and cards that are face down on other cards. Any other things he is free to lie about since he doesnt need to know them. i.e all things that the target player can verify himself "in game".

Card text doesn't limit questions to things in play like that. It says "pertaining to the game".

As far as I see it, if a question is asked about deck content, player is required to truthfully answer a yes or no question. It does not necessarily have to be absolute universal truth just truth according to player.

For example:

Player X asks player Y: Do you have 8 deflections in your library?

Player Y could say: "uhm, I don't really know... It is somewhere between 7 to 9, if I had to guess I would say 8".

But since he is limited to a yes or no answer he will just reply: "Yes." since that is honestly his best answer.

Of course, player Y could very well use this to his advantage by cheating. It's hard to stop that but on the other hand asking questions about the library is kind of stupid since players are not required to know the content of their deck.

chaitan wrote:

Of course, player Y could very well use this to his advantage by cheating. It's hard to stop that but on the other hand asking questions about the library is kind of stupid since players are not required to know the content of their deck.

Essentially all questions about things the player can't currently verify are "To the best of my knowledge, yes" or "To the best of my knowledge, no."

At which point, it really is just a case of 'questioner beware'.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Jesper wrote:

And really, shouldent we just get rid of that card soon?

It's not adding any overhead, so I'm not sure why you'd need to get rid of it.

The same reason that Madness of the Bard is banned (I guess), its language dependent, and in a very complex game where you can put together very complex questions which might easily be misunderstood.

Jesper wrote:

The same reason that Madness of the Bard is banned (I guess), its language dependent, and in a very complex game where you can put together very complex questions which might easily be misunderstood.

V:TES is language dependent. If a player cannot understand a question asked in the local language and provide an answer, they're not going to be able to play V:TES very well at all, because you very often need to do that frequently during play. "How much blood does Angus have?" "Is that Catherine du Bois that's untapped?" "Can you bounce this bleed to [the table threat]?"

As a judge, I can walk over to a table, look at someone's hand and say "Yes, this player has a Strike: Combat Ends effect in his hand" or "No, this player does not have any master cards in her hand." If the player asks a somewhat convoluted question, there would be no problem in asking a third-party (presumably a judge) over to verify what was being asked and (if it's verifiable) what the answer is.



Madness of the Bard provided a bizarre parlour game, which penalised people for not being fluent in a particular language, and which was impossible to enforce with any rigour. Certainly, my interpretation will differ radically from someone else's. Do eye rhymes count? Do Irish rhymes count? (Note that if you prolong the argument about this, you're proving just how unenforcable it was because everyone's opinion differs.)

This is totally unlike being able to give a simple Yes/No answer.

But doesn't the card overrule the rules of the game?

So if you don't know wether you have the card, you would have to look? Since this cards requires you to know what is in the deck? And the the deck would have to be part of the game otherwise stuff like magic of the smith and vast wealth becomes rather weird.

TunFiskeMad wrote:

But doesn't the card overrule the rules of the game?

The card doesn't contradict the rules on being unable to look at the contents of your deck. It just requires you to respond (to the best of your knowledge) truthfully.

TunFiskeMad wrote:

So if you don't know wether you have the card, you would have to look? Since this cards requires you to know what is in the deck? And the the deck would have to be part of the game otherwise stuff like magic of the smith and vast wealth becomes rather weird.

Your deck is part of the game, but you can't go leafing through it without explicit card text.

Library searchers don't require you to know what's in your deck - you can search for a card and fail to find it (either because it's not there, or you overlook it, or you choose not to find it).

[LSJ 20031213]

LSJ wrote:

> Still, i read that part as a must do (to search.....for) so i can't see
> what makes optional the *search...for* the actual card, if it's
> really in the deck i'm searching for.

Searching is not the same as finding.
You must search. If you fail to find (even if the card was in there), you
fail to find.

> Am i allowed to not find if there's the actual card in there
> vith coroner contacts, summon the serpent, the summoning, and so on ?

Yes.

This has the happy advantage of not incurring problems with accusations of cheating (necessitating a search by a judge).

You can also use it if you just want an excuse to shuffle your deck (e.g. you've been recycling cards onto the bottom with Waste Management Operation).