Horrific Countenance untaps a tapped blocking minion

AaronC wrote:

brandonsantacruz wrote:

AaronC wrote:

I know that many (most?) players would rather live with inconsistencies than to make changes.

That's a pretty broad statement. I think that there may be some remedies that are seen as being worse than the ailment (i.e. mass erratas/bannings). The rules are important, as is card text. If a card says that it untaps a guy then you have to play as written until(if) it is changed. Now there have been some crappy rulings (see Villein taking minimum two blood, unless you have less than two). Hopefully those can be corrected. There have also been inconsistent effects (i.e. Seraph's Second untaps a dude whether action is successful or not compared to basic freak drive, forced march, snake drive). I don't see how this kind of design helps the game because it makes you memorize a ton of cards. Where there is ambiguity in the effect, hopefully the rulesmonger would go with the intended effect. Bottom line is it depends and there is no easy answer.

It's a broad statement, but I don't think it's an untrue statement. I would also say that from my experience reading the rulings, the rulesmonger, who was also the head designer, has favored the intended the effect of a card as opposed to the most literal wording of the card. Your second sentence makes me put you in the camp of those who think that card text should not be updated, but you don't seem entirely sure about your position.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that there have been "some crappy rulings". That is certainly a broad statement in itself. The ruling about Villein didn't change card text. It defined how the word "move" is used in VTES cards. Changing the ruling about what "move" means does not change card text, and so that example doesn't seem relevant for this discussion.

This thread is talking about an inconsistent effect, so it seems like you might agree that Horrific Countenance should work like Change of Target. You say that when there is an inconsistency of effect, you hope that the rulesmongers (of which there is only one), would go with intended effects. Does that mean that you agree with Direwolf that Horrific Countenance should be changed?

Pascal hasn't had a chance to influence any printed cards, only errata. Villein was a good change, a minimal change by errata for a card that just came out and dearly needed it. Overall though, I prefer to change things when there are printings. Where does that leave us? I'm not sure.

HC has been out of print since Anarchs and Change of Target has been around since Jyhad. What is the impetus? The card pretty much sucks now, just like it did then. I would really like to see it changed to "not tap" the blocking minion, but that is kinda ugly if it isn't being reprinted. Would I accept a change? I guess so. I was actually thinking about making a dom pro powerbleed deck featuring HC. Do I think it is a good policy to change cards like this? Not really. Where does it end? How many cards will you have to go look up errata for (not that there isn't a degree of that already)?

AaronC wrote:

You refuted an argument against a proposed change.

No. I refuted the validity of such arguments as grounds for rulings.
It doesn't mean I have different conclusions (in our case, we share the conclusion that Horrific Countenance does untap the blocking minion). I merely use different tools - here: cardtext, and its consistency over time.

The sun doens't turn blue because you refute my argument stating that someone painted it yellow.

As far as I agree with Aaron, I must say that there is a possibility this untap clause was in fact designer's intent.

Change of target doesn't change the tapped/untapped state of the blocker because after all, there is no more action going on.
Horrific coutenance, on the other hand, says "no, you can't block this".
Maybe untapping the would be blocker could be a way to say "you still have a chance to delay this vote or bounce this big bleed coming at you with the minion who just got untapped".

Of course, we can never know exactly what designer's intent was. But the comparison with change of target text is also purely theorical.

i would like to add in that i would like to see HC (and other seldom played cards) get changed around a hair. it should cost one less and still untap the blocker. i would also love to see mythic form cost 1 less, if played @ superior by a vamp of capacity above 7. but HC isn't as good as strange day or daring the dawn, and should only be tweaked enough to make it better than HC but still not as good as strange day or daring the dawn.

when i say "should" i know that many people wont agree with me. and i also know its not ever going to be up to me to modify cards that were printed (and oop) long before i started playing, or had done anything but buy a deck because i thought the game looked cool.

back to the abbt kindred doing things, i've listed out (but not yet tested) an Anu deck that allows underbridge strays to bleed with computer hacking, get +1 bleed from Anu, and play conditioning at inferior through mouthpiece. just because a computer hacking, mind controlling stray dog seems hilarious to me. the game has things that are funny if we think about it, but it adds to the fun sometimes regardless of lack of logic.

HC is what it is, and its not even as bad as other cards that could be changed to be playable, and even if it were, im not sure we're at a point where that is the move to keep the game fresh, since many not-playable cards have been around for quite some time.

And I thought LSJ was good at dodging questions...