Horrific Countenance

Ankha wrote:

Suoli wrote:

Intuitiveness is not a good basis for a ruling

When there's no ruling, you have to follow common sense and understand what the card does.

You two will never agree if you follow this path of reasoning.

Suoli -> intuitiveness is not the correct way
Alkha -> common sens is required

Although you are both right in a way, tell me ankha what refrains people to say "my common sense tells me that this card works this way, and your common sense is wrong."
Remember the tournament in Lyon when we were not sure of the interaction between psyche and Yawp court, when and how did we apply the 2 damage ? Common sense dicted each 3 of us different answers. It's not enough. When you make a game, you have to make rules (or rulings) or better : CLEAR CARD TEXTS. So people don't play on common sense only. Because it's not so "common". That's why I tend to agree with Suoli and Megabaja for most of their reasoning on this topic.

@James:
As I already have said - I did not take this rule into consideration.
1.It's not listed on this site in All Rulings section, my bad - I did not check google group. And this is not a rule for a single card. It's the rule for all cards, that is not listed here on VEKN.
2.You are consistently trying to avoid answering my questions. On the other hand you are constantly trying to prove me wrong. That is not how discussion should look like. I asked about Pocket Out of Time and other things, but you stay silent about those.
3.You want me to look thru 3000 cards to find out interactions? I would say - Play with standing rules. When a dispute rises - ask, and I'll answer to the best of my knowledge. If that was good for LSJ, it's good enough for me. Keep in mind that even LSJ made reversals for some rulings.
- And that is what I am doing now. I ask about any situation I run into that does not seem logical to me, and almost every time I have to spend hours and hours in argument with you.

@Lonkka:
I remembered too. There's at least one more - Rampage.

@Anka:
See mate, I agree on that intuitiveness part with you. That is how things should be. On the other hand, there's Rothschreck vs. S:CE or Psyche! that has nothing to do with intuitiveness. Or ruling on Wakes+Rewind Time and many others... So, now that we understand that intuitiveness is not applied all the time, can we proceed?

If you read topic carefully, you noticed that there are cards playable after combat without explicit text. Now, combat resulting from block is a part of block, not the separate phase:

Ruling: Combat occurs as part of the block - not after the block. (So Cats' Guidance and Freak Drive are played after the combat, not before). [RTR 19980623]

There is a logical interaction of Horrific Countenance and this ruling. It is playable after combat. Minion is in a blocked state after combat, and there is a window to play cards that are usable after block, as Souli noticed already. "Common sense" says it is playable when blocked. Vampire using it is blocked, and stays blocked after combat. EDIT: The card even has a text to untap blocking minion.

A fact that nobody ever looked into Horrific for various reasons is not an excuse not to look at it now.

More to it: A guruhi vamp A rushes a vamp B with fame. Controler of B has two pool left. B somehow ends in torpor after blocking A, while A is ready. B's controller is ousted. A is allowed to play Edge of the World, although this card does not have "play after combat, if any" clause.

Edge of the World
Type: Action Modifier
Requires: Guruhi
Usable by a ready Guruhi you control, acting or not. Only usable if you have gained a victory point during this action. You gain 4 pool. If this Guruhi is acting, he or she untaps and gains enough blood from the bank to reach full capacity. Only one Edge of the World can be played each action.

Please don't make me search for more examples where statement that "cards are playable after blocking combat only if they have specific text", does not stand.

Take Horrific Countenance into consideration of errata of some sort. Or rule when it is playable.

PS:
One more thing: I know that my posts are long, but if you care to comment, try to read them whole before you start to think or write about my points.

Ankha wrote:

Suoli wrote:

Rulings on cards like Deflection suggest that "when" means "within timing window x": you don't have to play Deflection immediately after blocks are declined.

Unless I'm mistaken, you're wrong: you have to play Deflection immediately after blocks are declined, *as soon as you have the impulse*. That's why you have to wait until the acting minion increases the bleed amount or declines to do so.

If you don't play Deflection at that time, it's too late. (And I don't really understand when you would play it otherwise).

You may do something else of course when you have the impulse, eg. reduce the bleed amount with Telepathic Counter. The impulse then goes back to the acting minion. When you get the impulse back, you could still play Deflection because you're still in the "after blocks are declined" immediate window.

If you can play Telepathic Counter and the opponent can play Conditioning before Deflection but after blocks are declined then that, to me, plainly suggests that you don't have to play Deflection immediately.

Ankha wrote:

When there's no ruling, you have to follow common sense and understand what the card does.

Suoli wrote:

when it goes against logic.

How does it go against logic?

Suoli wrote:

(As an interesting sidenote, LSJ never seems to have explicitly stated or confirmed that Pocket Out of Time is playable after combat. It's almost as if he is avoiding it.)

True, but since there's no ruling forbidden it, and LSJ's answers seem to indicate you can:

LSJ wrote:

> But can it be played (not activated, but played) in the post-combat-
> yet-before-the-action-is-over window, and then restart the combat that
> has just completed (even though Pocket wasn't affecting play when that
> combat happened)?
After any combat this action, this vampire can burn 1 blood to start a
new combat with the opposing minion (if both combatants are still
ready).

Well, yes there is a ruling on playing action modifiers after combat/action resolution: you can't do it unless card text explicitly allows you to. POoT doesn't have that text and yet, for some reason, the standing ruling is that it can be played after action resolution.