Reconfirm - Heroic Might (the 2R) and Increased Strength

You are madly mistaken yourself. The ruling is clear, sure. Nobody said it wasn't. It is however, as inconsistent and nonsensical as it gets.

Which can clearly be seen if one would read the entire thread, where vincent (Ankha here) repeatedly provides examples of similar cards that, under this silly ruling, would have to function the same and yet Scott keeps saying no to all of them.

It shouldn't be hard to understand, really, but I'll try again:

If you can do X without having potence, then X is NOT something that requires potence.


Unless you want to argue that wearing shoes is a requirement for walking, in which case you are as lost as LSJ was when he made that ruling.

Is it *really* that hard to understand?

Requiring "potence" does not define the timing by itself. As Heroic might has required potence when using it, the strike it provides "is requiring potence" at the point of playing Heroic might. I do not tell that is the most logical way to interpret this, but the first thing to be established in discusions like these should be the sense behind the status quo.

Klaital wrote:

And if you don't have potence anymore... how are you playing increased strength in the first place?

simple example : I have gwen brand (no native potence), anarch, with the eye of hazimel.
I rush a vampire. Before range, i play increased strength, then improvised tactics.
my opponent plays drawing out the beast (or terror frenzy, who cares) thus preventing the further use of equipment -and depriving me of potence.
As the acting vampire, i don't have access to potence anymore. But the cards i played are requiring potence -And i already played them. I can strike for 4R damage.

The same logic can be applied to heroic might. This card provides a 2R strike that, indisputably, comes from a card that *is* a potence card.

One logic is of the same value as the other one. The same way one can claim you cannot tap what is already tapped. But the rulings decided that one way works, not the others, that from the many possible explanations, one was chosen.

You can find a lot of reasoning in refuting a ruling, sure, but instead let's be the bigger man and accept that choice, because at some point a choice had to be made.
I was a nit picker for a long time before realizing that, sometime, there is a choice, you live with it even if by *your* logic, it's not the one you would have prefered.

does it all make sense now ?

The logic is that LSJ wanted it to work that way, but he was unwilling to issue an errata to the card text to make the language of the card match his intention.

If you are both the head designer and rules authority, it is easy to retroactively make cards do what you want them to do if you missed something in design. Just say in a post someplace that the text of the card means X. Voilà! Since you're the authority, that's what it means.

We happened to cover legislative history today in a legal research class I'm taking. Legislation could be compared to card design and judicial review to rules authority. The question arises as to whether courts should consider legislative intent when interpreting statute or whether they should only read what the text of the statute says. Justice Scalia was quoted from a SCOTUS opinion: "The only thing that was authoritatively adopted for sure was the text of the enactment; the rest is necessarily speculation." Since LSJ was both the legislator (designer) and judge (rules authority), he was in no means limited to the "text of the enactment". The text could mean whatever he wanted it to mean after it was printed.

The problem with the management of this game is that players can never trust what the card says because of cases like this - we have to know how to do Google searches for obscure rulings. Cards usually mean exactly what they say, but sometimes they don't.

Izaak wrote:

You are madly mistaken yourself. The ruling is clear, sure. Nobody said it wasn't. It is however, as inconsistent and nonsensical as it gets.

Which can clearly be seen if one would read the entire thread, where vincent (Ankha here) repeatedly provides examples of similar cards that, under this silly ruling, would have to function the same and yet Scott keeps saying no to all of them.

It shouldn't be hard to understand, really, but I'll try again:

If you can do X without having potence, then X is NOT something that requires potence.


Unless you want to argue that wearing shoes is a requirement for walking, in which case you are as lost as LSJ was when he made that ruling.

Is it *really* that hard to understand?

It's not at all hard to understand, which is why it's weird that you don't understand. Inapt analogies (what you call "similar cards", which are not very similar at all) are irrelevant. As is being pointed out by other folks, justifications for a contrary ruling do not constitute evidence of your claim that the ruling is illogical or inconsistent. It is logical and it is consistent.

Just to be clear, though, I think LSJ's ruling is unfortunate and I would welcome its reversal, as long as the reversal was precise and logical.