Level Two - Lesson 5

Common Clarifications (Part 2)

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Hello there!

Welcome back to the level two lessons for the Star Wars™: Unlimited Judge Program!

As always, I’m your host Jonah, and today I’ll be talking about even more common clarifications. This set of lessons is going to expand over time as more cards are added and more questions are raised.

Last time we covered several cards that have one or two unique interactions, and behave in strange ways, and a few things that were a bit more general, but don’t appear on many cards. This time, we’re going to continue to cover just a few specific cards, but each of these cards brings up many more questions.

Without further ado, let’s dive in.

Begun, The Clone Rules Have

As of this lesson, there’s only one card that copies other cards, the aptly named Clone. The CR in section 8.6 tells us that a copy has all the printed attributes of another card, but doesn’t go in to more detail than that.

So let’s start talking more about this caard.

The first and most important thing to know is that it copies only the printed attributes of the card it is copying - none of the modifiers that are applying to it. Helpfully, it says on the card in reminder text (although not on the hyperspace version)! This means that it won’t copy any upgrades like bounties or experience tokens. It also won’t copy any lasting effects, such as a bounty from The Client or the -2/-2 from Make an Opening. Likewise, it won’t copy constant abilities providing modifications, like Snoke’s -2/-2. The resulting Clone will still be impacted by Snoke, but just once, not twice.

It also takes the card type - that’s one of a card’s printed attributes - this can feel a little weird when it copies a Clone Trooper Token. Your Clone, a card, will benefit from Shaak Ti - Unity Wins Wars’ constant ability granting token units +1/+0. However, we don’t treat it as a token in the most important of ways. If Clone, copying a token, leaves play, it is not set aside from the game, and resumes acting like a card. If it was captured, it can be rescued and return to play (and can copy a new unit!), If it were returned to hand, it could be replayed and so forth.

However, when it leaves play, while it will resolve any When Defeated abilities it had copied, and it will the copied attributes as it’s last known information to resolve triggers, it reverts to itself. That means, even if Clone was copying a Force unit, once it’s in the discard, it won’t have that trait, and won’t get the larger discount on Palpatine’s Return.

But what about Clone when it’s played? Can it be discounted if it copies a unit with exploit? What about copying Rey - Keeping the Past - can it dodge aspect penalties if you control a Kylo? How much does it cost when evaluating for Krayt Dragon’s trigger? What about Lux Bonteri - Renegade Separtist?

First, Clone only copies a card once it’s been played, so neither exploit nor a “while playing” ability can apply. The cost has been paid, and the card is already resolving by the time it would have those attributes, and so they can’t retroactively apply to playing the card. For Krayt Dragon and Lux, they both trigger once the card is in play, and so they both look at what the card’s attributes are as a copy.

For Krayt Dragon, that means using the new cost - if you Clone an opponent’s Krayt Dragon, be prepared for their Krayt trigger to deal nine damage. For Lux, they’ll get the benefit of the trigger if you copied something more expensive than Clone - because you’ll have a unit that costs eight or more, but Lux will see that you only paid seven for it.

Now what if someone uses Force Lightning to clear away the text on Clone? Will it revert to being a 0/0? Nope! You don’t have to worry about that. Once the copy effect is complete, it will have the power and HP of whatever unit it copied, not it’s own stats.

Of course, you could play Clone and choose to not have it copy anything, or play it without any other units. Then, unless you had something buffing it’s HP, it would be defeated immediately for having no remaining HP.

Always Two (Attacks) There Are*

Okay! So that was the first card we’re going to talk about today - let’s move on before our next subject gets jealous. Darth Maul, like Clone, has a relatively straightforward looking ability when you read his rules text he can “attack 2 units instead of 1.” Simple, straightforward, endless questions.

Most of Maul’s functionality can be explained by understanding that it counts as a single attack, and must still be valid. However, there can still be questions, because there isn’t an explicit entry in the rules covering how he works.

Of course, all of the questions involve how that supercharged attack works, so let’s start poking at it and see what happens.

*(There aren’t actually always two attacks. Maul can also attack only one unit)

How does Maul’s ability interact with Sentinel? Well, here we check the rules for Sentinel. “Units in this arena can’t attack your non-Sentinel units.” This is pretty straightforward. If you have a Sentinel and your opponent wants to attack with Maul, they have to attack the Sentinel. But what if you have a Sentinel and a non-Sentinel? Well, that would be attacking a non-Sentinel. The wording on Sentinel doesn’t say “must attack a Sentinel”, but rather prohibits attacks against non-Sentinels. This means that if you control two Sentinel units in the ground arena, Darth Maul would be able to attack both of them simultaneously. (and now the word sentinel has lost all meaning and looks and sounds strange).

Now that we’ve determined what we can attack, let’s talk about figuring out Maul’s power and how much damage he deals. First off, his damage isn’t split across the two defenders - he deals five damage to each of them. If you want to make that a more impressive number, consider Corner the Prey - how does this work with his attack? Well, let’s say your opponent has a unit with six damage on it and another unit with two damage on it. When Corner the Prey resolves, it sees both of those values and gives Maul plus six power and plus two power, for a total of plus eight, allowing him to hit each defending unit for thirteen damage.

While that might seem powerful, defensive tools also have increased power. If one of the defending units is upgraded with Electrostaff or has been chosen for I Have the High Ground, the negative power modifier applies to Maul’s power and will reduce the damage he deals to both units.

Now, when it comes to dealing damage, it happens simultaneously, as the reminder text helpfully lets us know. Because it’s simultaneous, and both defenders are dealing their damage to the same unit, it’s treated as one instance of damage, which means that it can be entirely mitigated with a single shield token. Conversely, Darth Maul is dealing damage to two units, which means that he would trigger an ability that says “when this unit deals combat damage” twice. Or, with Ruthlessness, if he defeats both units, there will be two triggers, because he attacked and defeated two units, albeit simultaneously.

Chancellor Palpatine - Playing Both Sides

If the apprentice is anything to go by, Chancellor Palpatine is going to be a doozy - and he lives up to his byzantine nature, and shows us some complexity. However, at this point, Palpatine has several personal entries in the CR, which can help clear up how he functions immensely. Most of the other clarifications are standards set elsewhere, such as “do as much as you can” and “card state doesn’t change unless instructed to”. But let’s talk about the details!

We begin before the game begins - in deck construction for Twin Suns. Only the front face is considered when constructing your deck - which means that he can only be paired with other heroic leaders (as befits his public persona).

In a similar vein, only his face-up aspect applies. Like other leaders don’t have any of the attributes of their face down side, this also applies to Palpatine.

Next come questions about his ability. What happens if you don’t meet the condition in the ability itself? Can it be used to do nothing? Will he ready after he flips?

Some of these questions are born more from wishful thinking than from genuine misinterpretation, but as a judge, you’ll definitely be asked questions where players are confident they know the answer, but really hope that they’re wrong, because if they are, they can win the game or build a crazy deck.

But to answer these questions... if you don’t meet the condition, the rest of the ability will do nothing. That includes the “then flip this leader.” because it is all based on the initial condition.

If the condition hasn’t been met, the ability can still be activated, and do nothing.

When he does flip, however, he will retain his exhausted state. While other leaders ready when they deploy, that’s something specific to the rules for deploying and not tied to leaders flipping.

The Real Phantom Menace

And that brings us to the true Phantom Menace - Lurking TIE Phantom. Since its release in Shadows of the Galaxy, Lurking TIE Phantom has been at the center of many judge calls. It has since been joined by Shadowed Intentions and Chewbacca - Faithful First Mate, both of which share some of the protection abilities. Between these cards, there are four protection abilities:

Understanding that it’s four similar, but different abilities helps explain why these cards are the source of so many questions!

Let’s start with one that applies a bit more generally. If you control a unit that has a bounty that does one of these things, let’s go with Wanted Insurgents dealing damage, and a Lurking TIE Phantom. What happens when the Insurgents are defeated and your opponent gets the bounty?

Well, these all look for an enemy card ability - and it’s been clarified that it is “enemy” modifying “card ability” and not “enemy card” modifying “ability”. This means that even though it’s your card ability, your opponent is controlling the bounty, and therefore your Phantom is safe from the bounty on the Insurgents. This would also apply to an effect that was “Bounty - defeat a unit,” or similar.

Notably, there aren’t many questions about capturing Lurking TIE Phantom (and friends), most likely because all of the cards that can capture units specify that it is a friendly unit capturing an enemy unit, and the language for that interaction is pretty precise.

There is one question that came up regularly regarding how Triple Dark Raid would interact with these protection clauses. Triple Dark says “Return it to its owner's hand at the end of the phase.” What happens if, after you play your Unit with Triple Dark Raid and upgrade it with Shadowed Intentions, your opponent takes control of it? How does the delayed effect occur?

This is actually somewhat similar to the Wanted Insurgent question from above. What’s trying to return your unit to its owner’s hand? Well, it came from Triple Dark Raid, so it’s definitely a card ability. And who controls that ability? Why the enemy of the current controller of the uni, which does make it an enemy card ability That means that what was once your unit won’t be returned to your hand. That’s definitely a bit of a weirder scenario that you’re not likely to see happen, but keep in mind that these effects do update their identify friend/foe codes regularly.

Let’s move on to trying to deal with the Phantom through damage. Let’s go over some popular ways people try to deal with it - Overwhelming Barrage, Caught in the Crossfire, Indirect Damage, and Force Lightning.

Some people feel that because Overwhelming Barrage (or Strike True, etc) causes a unit to deal damage to the Phantom, it’s not a card ability that’s dealing the damage. And while the unit may deal the damage itself, it’s all because of a card ability, and so it doesn’t get around Phantom’s defenses.

Caught in the Crossfire is another common hope - this time because it’s a unit that’s friendly to the Phantom that’s dealing it damage. However, the cause of the damage is still the same - the event, which is an enemy card ability, and so Caught in the Crossfire also doesn’t stop this menace.

And that brings us to indirect damage. Indirect Damage is unpreventable, and “can’t be damaged by...” is, per the comprehensive rules a way of saying “prevent all damage that would be dealt to this unit by...”. The rules also say that unpreventable damage trumps preventing damage (which makes sense, because otherwise the word unpreventable wouldn’t be meaningful), and so indirect damage can damage Lurking TIE Phantom.

We also have another hero - Force Lightning. We resolve abilities in the order that they’re written - so if a player plays Force Lightning and pays the additional one resource, the Lurking TIE Phantom will first lose it’s protection clause, and then immediately after be damaged.

That brings us to the fourth clause - can’t be defeated. For an effect like Vanquish, it’s obvious what happens (or more accurately, what doesn’t happen). However there are, as always, more questions. What happens if the opponent gets to choose like with Avenger or Power of the Dark Side? Can they even choose the Lurking TIE Phantom? What about Superlaser Blast - it’s indiscriminate, right? And what happens with Calculated Lethality, which tries to do something based on the unit that was supposed to be defeated?

As always, we’ll handle these in sequence. First, for effects where the controller of the Phantom gets to choose, they are absolutely able to choose the Phantom - the ability simply says “choose a non-leader unit they control”. Furthermore, the ability is still an enemy card ability and does not defeat the Phantom. That means if your opponent has a Phantom and you don’t attack it with the Avenger, they’ll be able to select it every time you trigger that ability.

Superlaser Blast’s answer is straightforward - it should defeat all units, but as always, some exceptions apply, and Lurking TIE is one of those this time. Players may believe the opposite because they’re used to games where protection clauses usually protect from targeted removal, as opposed to board wipes.

Finally, Calculated Lethality wants to know how many upgrades were on that unit you just defeated. You did defeat it, right?

Well, of course you didn’t, because Lurking TIE Phantom does what it does best. However, this falls into the realm of do as much as you can, and even though you can’t defeat the Phantom, you can count how many upgrades were on it and put that many experience tokens on friendly units.

But wait, are there other ways around this? There’s one big one! Modifying a unit’s HP isn’t the same as defeating it or damaging it. An effect like Make an Opening or the on-attack trigger on Jedi Lightsaber both can reduce the Phantom (or its colleagues) to zero HP, and game rules take care of the rest. Defeating upgrades that are providing positive HP modifiers also works, provided it already has damage marked on it. Of course, even with those work arounds, its a very powerful effect, and one that will likely continue to generate new questions.

In any case, that’s all for now but we’re not done with the clarifications just yet! Our next lesson will cover even more clarifications, although those will be focusing on broader sections of the rules, and less on specific cards and interactions. Keep in mind that while we spoke a lot about a very small number of cards today, memorizing these interactions isn’t the goal - it’s understanding the rules behind them, so when they print a different type of clone or a unit that can attack three units (or four, General Grievous?) you’ll understand the fundamentals that make them work, and you’ll already understand how those new cards function. If you’re watching this on YouTube, and you want more level two lessons in your feed, go ahead and subscribe. Join us Tuesdays and Fridays on twitch.tv/swu_judges for live broadcasts covering the content of these lessons as they are released, and join the Star Wars: Unlimited Judge Program Discord to join the community in discussion of this and much, much more.

As always, good luck, and have fun.

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