Marthe Dizier and retimed Psyche!

Marthe Dizier
Clan: Toreador antitribu (group 3)
Capacity: 10
Disciplines: AUS CEL OBF PRE pro
Sabbat. Black Hand: When a combat involving Marthe ends, she can burn a blood to move a card she played during that combat from your ash heap to your hand. +1 bleed.

Psyche!
Type: Combat
Requires: Celerity
[cel] Press.
[CEL] Only usable at the end of a round when both combatants are still ready and combat is about to end. After this round, begin another combat with the opposing minion.

----

Marthe vs

 minion.  Marthe strikes, opponent Majesties, Marthe Psyches (now inside combat instead of after)



Does combat #1 end actually before combat #2 begins?  It used to, when Psyche! was played after combat to initiate a new fight.  It's a little less clear now that Psyche! is played inside combat and might interrupt its ending.



I'm guessing that the 2nd combat is now considered a replacement effect for the 1st combat - meaning the 1st combat doesn't really reach an "end of combat" state....only an "end of round" state, in which a new combat spawns.  That presupposed end of round, end of combat and end of action are 3 distinctly separate timing events.



On one hand, starting a new combat without ending the first one seems a little wonky.  But it's not like this would be the only in-combat effect that skips steps/parts of combat (e.g., S:CE skipping additionals and presses).

Thanks for the response and for the sake of consistency I had hoped this was the case. It's certainly the easiest interpretation, since it represents the least change.

But for the sake of completeness of discussion, I'm intrigued that you've lumped end-of-round and end-of-combat into the same timing window.

The Complete Rules Reference does not. It very clearly calls them out as separate entities (VI.E and VI.F) - which normally indicates completely separate timing windows.

Perhaps either revisiting this discussion in light of that observation, or editing the Rules Reference is in order.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

But for the sake of completeness of discussion, I'm intrigued that you've lumped end-of-round and end-of-combat into the same timing window.

They're not the same window, principally because you can have the round ending without combat ending (due to a press, for example). But if combat ends, the round ends too, so you get to play both sets of effects. And if combat hasn't ended, you'd still be in the first combat.

I think his point was that the current text on Psyche! doesn't really jibe with the Complete Rules Reference. The text should state "after this round, combat ends, but begin a new combat with the opposing minion." Is there a reason why this wouldn't work?

TwoRazorReign wrote:

I think his point was that the current text on Psyche! doesn't really jibe with the Complete Rules Reference. The text should state "after this round, combat ends, but begin a new combat with the opposing minion." Is there a reason why this wouldn't work?

That would probably be fine. But since we only ever have one combat going on at once - there's no mechanism in the game for having two going on at once - a new combat implicitly ends the first one.