Carrion Crows & First Strike Strikes (Not Anaesthetic Touch)

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

There is a difference James.

V:TES works the way it works. We know - because you tell us at length, repeatedly - that V:TES wouldn't work this way if you were in control of it. This is not a reason to change it.

We know that, every day, you get up and your heart aches with the pain that LSJ made a ruling and it wasn't a ruling you understand. We know that, every day, you wake up cursing that LSJ made a ruling that is completely inexplicable to you because - so far as we can tell - instead of trying to understand V:TES, you keep trying to fit the ruling into an entirely different system that you have invented, like complaining that Latin verb conjugations make no sense because you think it should work like Chinese instead. You don't like Latin, we know - it causes you anguish every time you see inflected verbs where you don't expect them. You express surprise and fear and disapproval when your system (not the one on which V:TES is based) clashes with official rulings (the ones on which V:TES is based).

This is still not a reason to change anything.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

The rules themselves state that you resolve pairs of strikes, and mentions very little about how environmental damage resolves during combat.

The rules tell us that strike resolution is simultaneous, except for certain rule-based exceptions - and, obviously, the Golden Rule of Cards.

Rulebook, wrote:

Strike resolution occurs simultaneously, except for a few special cases (see Strike Effects, sec 6.4.5).

Thus, going to torpor from Muddle's first strike for four damage pre-empts my attempt to shoot him with a .44 Magnum and my Ghoul Retainer's attempt to him him with an Ivory Bow and my Murder of Crows attempting to peck him. That's because First Strike is defined as an exception.

Carrion Crows is not defined as an exception, and so it goes off simultaneously in strike resolution, like the rulebook tells us strike resolution works. It could say "at First Strike speed" (or some similar text). It could define its own timing. It doesn't, so it goes off simultaneously, like other things during strike resolution.


If you can invent a system whereby two things occur simultaneously, but one of them (damage from Crows) goes off when an earlier First Strike resolution has already caused combat to end, and the other simultaneous effect (damage from my normal-speed strike) doesn't go off when First Strike occurs, you really need to re-evaluate your understanding of the words "systematic" and "needlessly complex".

Oh, oh, let me throw in my 5 cents of BS further. If you play Drawing Out The Beast at sup and go to torpor, you go to press step instead, because you have an unresolved damage source! Just as logical.

In general, as soon as the controller of those cards (crows, retainers, etc.) played is gone (to torpor or beyond), their effects are gone.

Actually no, I argue these things because they are debates about the premises of the game primarily. Any system becomes more robust when its premises are more robust. What is inexplicable is why the premises behind which rulings are based are as haphazard as they are. Refining the premises behind rulings and having the rules written so they negate the need for the ruling to even exist strengthens the game. The fact that this is a 1996 ruling that isn't directly covered in either the CRR or the Rules (and despite your "Strike resolution occurs simultaneously" quote it is, as written, useless for determining a non-strike damage source) shows either a weakness in the system, a weakness in its premises, or an overt clinging to the concept that the rules must not change.

As I have said MANY times before, the rulings should be nearly redundant because the Rules + Card Text should make it obvious how a card functions in all but the very fewest of cases. It should not be necessary to make a sweeping ruling such as the 1996 one quoted... if it is so sweeping, it should be part of the rules.


Carrion Crows is not a strike. Why should it be prevented from going off when the minion is not there? STRIKES are resolved simultaneously. Not any damage dealing effect during Strike Resolution... that is what is written in the rules. "Strike resolution occurs simultaneously, except for a few special cases." That's the rule. STRIKE resolution occurs simultaneously.

Or more formally...
1. Strikes of the same type resolve simultaneously. (That is I assume a more than acceptable paraphrase of the general rule and then the specific rules on each strike type and the CRR texts).
2. There are combat effects that deal damage that are not a strike.
3. Effects in combat can be queued to resolve later in combat.
4. Going to torpor immediately ends combat.

Point 1 is fine, but also not relevant to this. Carrion Crows is not a strike and therefore the rules do not specify how a non-strike source of damage is meant to be resolved other than the usual sequencing rules and there are plenty of examples that when an effect has a window in which it must function (i.e. Smiling Jack, The Rack, Mercy for Seth) then it must occur and the window cannot be bypassed or ended until the effect is resolved.

Point 2 is obvious and there are many examples. Carrion Crows would function differently to the damage from Outside the Hourglass or Drawing Out the Beast purely because the timing window of both of those is stated to be elsewhere than the Damage Resolution step. On the same score, if a Zip Gun sends the opposing minion to torpor with First Strike, would its "Bearer takes 1 damage during strike resolution when striking with this gun, but only once each combat." text kick in and cause damage?

Point 3 is also obvious. Drawing Out the Beast, Carrion Crows, Zip Gun, Immortal Grapple, Target Head, Target Vitals, Trap, etc. Claiming that things are not 'queued' or otherwise triggered at an early point in a combat to occur at a later point are wrong.

Point 4 is only partially true, since there are a number of cards you can play after a minion goes to torpor, ending combat without actually having the combat end. Taste of Vitae being an obvious example. "Immediately end combat" is not immediate or ending.


First Strike is defined as a strike. A .44 Magnum uses a strike. Carrion Crows is not a strike. Murder of Crows is not a strike. Ghoul Retainer is not a strike.

So either 6.4.3 is flawed and should be changed (and we remove the need for the ruling by strengthening the rules) OR the Ruling is illogically constructed and causes internal contradiction with the rules system so it should be dropped or amended so that it removes the contradiction.

Roberto wrote:

I believe the Rules for that are simple :

Everything that is not a CE, D, or FS, resolves at normal strike resolution.

Unless you're in torpor before the strike resolution is reached, at which point the combat jumps directly to end-of-round, then end-of-combat.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

It should not be necessary to make a sweeping ruling such as the 1996 one quoted... if it is so sweeping, it should be part of the rules.

It was necessary at the time. It is now part of the rules.

But - in your pants-wetting urgency to re-invent V:TES in your own image - you are utterly confusing two totally different things.

1) Is the way V:TES works well defined on this point? Yes, it is. It's incredibly well defined what happens with "during strike resolution" effects vs First Strike, and has been for two decades.

2) Is it communicated in the most efficient and appropriate and easily understood fashion? Perhaps yes, perhaps no.


If point 2) is something that you wish to clarify, that is not a reason to overturn 1). Yet - repeatedly, at length - you use "I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE RULES" to argue "OVERTURN THE RULES FOR ME".

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Carrion Crows is not a strike. Why should it be prevented from going off when the minion is not there? STRIKES are resolved simultaneously.

Indeed, Carrion Crows is not a strike. But it happens - by its own card text - "during strike resolution". Strikes resolve simultaneously, and it resolves during that.

That you can conceive of a different framework is not a reason to overturn the rules. Chinese works, as a system. Latin works, as a system. Both have their own kinks and nuances, but both generally work and are generally understood by people who put in the appropriate amount of effort. Both prove troublesome for people who protest "But this doesn't work like it should", because they're completely missing the point.

That you could have invented V:TES to work more like Magic or more like Netrunner or more like Five Rings or more like Agricola or more like Puerto Rico is all fine and dandy. But the simple fact that you personally want a different model - despite the fact that the one V:TES uses isn't causing any trouble on this point - is not a reason to change.

If the rule isn't well understood, clarify the rules. We don't overturn the rules just because you woke up one morning and had an epiphany about how a functional, non-troubling V:TES system could be re-written to another system.