Magic of the smith/Alastor vs unique equipment

Just a small question about phrasing and self contesting.

If you play a Magic of the smith/Alastor (on your own vampire) and only have more copies of an unique equipment you already have in play, do you have to equip it? Since there is no "may" in the wording of the cards.

And if so, the new copy is burned right after you pay for it, right?

Alastor
Type: Political Action
Requires: justicar,inner circle
Requires a justicar or Inner Circle member.
Choose a ready Camarilla vampire. If this referendum is successful, search your library for an equipment card and place this card and the equipment on the chosen vampire. Pay half the cost (round down) of the equipment. This vampire may enter combat with any vampire controlled by another Methuselah as a +1 stealth action. This vampire cannot commit diablerie. A vampire may have only one Alastor.

Magic of the Smith
Type: Action
Requires: Thaumaturgy
Cost: 1 blood
+1 stealth action.
[tha] Search your library for an equipment card and equip this acting vampire with it (requirements and cost apply as normal). Shuffle afterward.
[THA] As above, but this is a +3 stealth action.

First of all :

you allways have the possibility to fail a search in library/ash heap/anywhere.

It means if you don't want to find an equipment with MotS or Alastor, you allways can even if you have 80 .44.

Additionnaly, I am pretty sure you can't equip a unique equipment you allready have with a MotS and I am not so sure but I think you can't neither with Alastor.

Just a side note, you mix Alastor and Magic of the Smith in your question but it is 2 different cards MotS is an equip action therefore requirement apply as normal and you could untap with a Guruhi are the land and you would untap at the end of the turn if NRA PAC is in play. But Alastor "place" the chosen equipment so it is NOT an equip action and therefor you don't have to meet the requirements but you can't use special effect due to the "equip" keyword (like in NRA PAC and Guruhi are the Land)

Cool, wasn't aware of that you were allowed to fail the search if you had the opportunity to succeed in it. And if so you are right that one wouldn't be allowed to start a contest with yourself that way.

And no worries, I am aware of the difference in "place" and "equip", just used those two since they use the same wording about searching your library.

And thank you for the answer.

The rulebook is quite clear about self-contests:

4.1. Contested Cards

[...]

You can't control more than one of the same unique card at a time, and you cannot contest cards with yourself (if some effect would force you to contest a card with yourself, then you simply burn the incoming copy of the unique card). [...]

donk wrote:

Just a small question about phrasing and self contesting.

If you play a Magic of the smith/Alastor (on your own vampire) and only have more copies of an unique equipment you already have in play, do you have to equip it? Since there is no "may" in the wording of the cards.

And if so, the new copy is burned right after you pay for it, right?

Alastor
Type: Political Action
Requires: justicar,inner circle
Requires a justicar or Inner Circle member.
Choose a ready Camarilla vampire. If this referendum is successful, search your library for an equipment card and place this card and the equipment on the chosen vampire. Pay half the cost (round down) of the equipment. This vampire may enter combat with any vampire controlled by another Methuselah as a +1 stealth action. This vampire cannot commit diablerie. A vampire may have only one Alastor.

Magic of the Smith
Type: Action
Requires: Thaumaturgy
Cost: 1 blood
+1 stealth action.
[tha] Search your library for an equipment card and equip this acting vampire with it (requirements and cost apply as normal). Shuffle afterward.
[THA] As above, but this is a +3 stealth action.

Just double check, because maybe the only way you can fail to search might be if there is no equipment. It also doesn't tell you to 'name' that equipment first, so there is no way for you to name, for example "Femur of Toomler" when you know there are no copies.

Also by not 'equipping' (and instead placing) you can circumvent the usual requirements as well. But you can't circumvent any text saying "The X with this card" if X is a Clan or similar... you'd have the equipment but it won't function.