Jump to Lightspeed

Rules Update

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Hello there!

Welcome to the Jump to Lightspeed rules update lesson! Today we’re going to go over Comprehensive Rules 4.0, what’s changed, and what that means for the game! These aren’t a part of any specific level or certification, but it’s important to keep up to date. There will also be a lesson available on the updates to the Tournament Regulations and Master Event Document for this set as well. Once both lessons are available, there will be a small quiz that you can take to prove your mastery and understanding of the changes for Jump to Lightspeed

We’re just going to go through these in order they’re presented in the comprehensive rules, and then tie things together as it makes sense to do so. Let’s dive in!

Section One

In section 1.5.4 “Ready and Exhausted”, the rule “When a Leader Unit is deployed, it enters the ground arena ready, even if it was exhausted before. When a Leader Unit is defeated,

it enters the base zone exhausted, even if it was ready before.” has been removed. This was simply superfluous text.

In section 1.7.4, we have some clarification about rearranging resources - players are allowed to make arrangements up until the point where a choice is made. Once the choice is made, resources are no longer allowed to be adjusted. If, for example, AP plays DJ - Blatant Thief using the smuggle ability, NAP is allowed to rearrange their resources after AP announces their trigger. However, once AP selects a resource (let’s say a ready resource), NAP is not allowed to continue to rearrange their resources. This isn’t a change in philosophy, but rather clarifying the language.

1.8.7 makes it clear that the cost of a leader is the printed value, no matter whether or not resources were spent to deploy it. Despite Poe Dameron - I Can Fly Anything being able to be put into play as an upgrade for 1, his cost is still five.

Section 1.9, which covers damage has some new subsections and clarifications, particularly regarding damage prevention and unpreventable damage. The phrase “can’t be damaged” means “prevent all damage that would be deal to this unit”. In turn, “unpreventable damage” bypasses that damage prevention effect (as well as all others). This means that indirect damage, which is given a quick shout-out here, can deal damage to your opponent’s Lurking TIE Phantom or a Boba Fett upgraded with his armor.

Section 1.16 adds a little bit of text, that says that abilities with limited uses per phase or round count as progressing the game state, even if nothing else changed. Previously, it was explicit that activating Energy Conversion Lab and not playing a unit was progression, because it was an epic action. However, there was some lack of clarity on abilities such as MagnaGuard Wing Leader - which is now explicitly moving the gamestate forward, even if you activate it while controlling no valid units with which you can attack.

Furthermore, in the subsection covering game state resolutions there’s a small modification - previously it referred to Unique Units, but that’s been updated to unique cards. This is because there are many unique pilots, and you cannot control both a unit and upgrade of the same card at the same time.

Section 1.18.1 also saw a small update, clarifying that players are responsible for defeating units they are directly instructed to defeat. This clarifies that players defeat their own units due to the uniqueness rule, and they’re also responsible for units defeated by Emperor Palpatine - Galactic Ruler’s leader-side action ability. This does not change how Avenger - Hunting Star Destroyer works. The controller of the Avenger is still the player responsible for defeating that unit.

Section Two

Throughout section two, there are a variety of updates to card templating - these are language updates, without functional changes, as well as the rules describing how pilot text boxes work.

The biggest change here is the existence of pilot textboxes. Pilots have a split textbox - the top half is used when the card is a unit, and the lower half used while it is an upgrade. However, the whole textbox is taken into account when evaluating it. This means that all pilots have a keyword (Piloting) that can give them a buff through Boba Fett - Daimyo, even if they have no other keywords, such as Chewbacca - Faithful First Mate.

Section Three

Section three also has similar updates, accounting for new cards bringing new features to the game. Bases, such as Data Vault or Thermal Oscillator, can change your deck construction requirements, overriding the CR.

There are also leaders that can now deploy through the use of an action ability instead of an epic action ability, and they can be deployed or put into play multiple times through that ability, such as Poe Dameron - I Can Fly Anything and Admiral Trench - Chk Chk Chk Chk.

There’s also additional refinements regarding leaders being deployed and defeated as upgrades. Some leader pilots make it so that the vehicle they’re attached to is treated as a leader itself. This means that it has protection from something like Vanquish, which would require it to be a non-leader. It also means that upgrading your Mercenary Gunship with a leader pilot is a bad idea - for four resources, your opponent can take control of it, and both the gunship and leader are defeated.

We also have a few updates to tokens - they can now be given “when played” abilities, which are treated as “when created” abilities. For example, with Wedge Antilles - Star of the Rebellion, if you create an X-Wing token, Ambush will trigger as though the X-Wing were played, and not simply created.

Section Four

Again, just a few small updates accounting for the new powers that leaders have, as well as some for how cards can affect units based on arena. This applies to something like Blue Leader - Scarif Air Support. This is a space unit that can end up in the ground arena, once it’s in the ground arena, it can be affected by abilities that refer to ground units. For example, Bright Hope - The Last Transport, could pick up Blue Leader if it was moved to the ground arena.

Section Five

Only one update here in section five, and that’s just to let you know that Chancellor Palpatine - Playing Both Sides (and any other leaders like him in the future) will let you know which side starts the game face up.

Section Six

In section six, we’ll start with one small clerical update - a redundant line in section 6.4.0 about epic actions was removed.

There’s also the larger update to 6.2.1A, which discusses declaring intent and how Pilots can be played. This primarily applies to playing a card as either an upgrade or a unit. If a player is playing the card as a result of an ability resolving that specifies a card type, the player is beholden to that type.

For example, a player can only play pilots as units through U-Wing Reinforcement and only as upgrades through A Fine Addition. However, Cobb Vanth - The Marshal, would allow you to play Dagger Squadron Pilot as either an upgrade or a unit, because it is only the search effect that has the type based requirement, and the ability to play the card is associated with the card itself, not it’s type.

Section Seven

We move on to section seven, which has several updates.

One that is notable, is in 7.1.6, where we talk about abilities that modify actions. “If an ability instructs a player to take a modified action, any abilities triggered during or as a result of that action are considered nested abilities.”

This essentially means that triggers that occur because of an event being played won’t resolve until any actions caused by that event, and triggers associated with those actions have fully resolved.

So let’s go through one of the more notable examples. What happens if you play Timely Intervention to play a Warzone Lieutenant while you control a Hondo Ohnaka - That’s Good Business?

Timely is played, and Hondo triggers, but his ability has to wait to resolve until after Timely completes. This means that Warzone Lieutenant comes into play, and it’s Ambsuh (granted by Timely) triggers and resolves before Hondo’s ability.

This doesn’t change how Energy Conversion Lab works for the most part - the Ambush it grants will still resolve in the same window as any When Played abilities from the unit you play, so the player can sequence them in either order. To get hypothetical, if there was something that said “When you activate a base’s ability:...”, that trigger would resolve after any When Played triggers from the played unit, along with the Ambush. Similarly, Weequay Pirate Gang being smuggled isn’t a modified action - so both it’s Ambush and Hondo’s ability are resolving in the same window, and the controller can sequence them in either order.

There’s also some consolidation of information about Epic Actions, that was removed from other parts of the CR in 7.2.4.

Both Ambush and Shielded see small updated to include “When Deployed” and “When Created” as a trigger condition, in addition to the already existing “When Played”.

Saboteur also sees some language updates, taking agency away from the units and giving it back to the players. It used to say “this unit may ignore sentinel when choosing” and now it says “you may ignore sentinel while choosing”. This doesn’t actually change the way the game works at all, but now you no longer have to call a judge to give your Jawa Scavenger a slow play warning.

And then we get to the meat of this section - Piloting! This describes how the new mechanic works!

This isn’t explicitly called out in the rules, but when a pilot is defeated, it looks to see how it existed before it was defeated for the purposes of triggers. A pilot upgrade that is defeated won’t trigger an opponent’s Gideon Hask - Ruthless Loyalist, but if it went to the discard pile because the unit it was attached to was defeated, it would be eligible to be returned to your hand with Gar Saxon - Viceroy of Mandalore’s triggered ability, because that ability checks to see how the card existed in-play.

There’s also a bit more language here cleaning up triggers a bit. This is important because of our new leader, Grand Admiral Thrawn - ... How Unfortunate. He’s on the lookout for “When Defeated” triggers.

Which of the following do you think are eligible to be duplicated by Thrawn?

  1. Distant Patroller’s “When Defeated”
  2. Inferno Four - Unforgetting’s “When Played/When Defeated”
  3. Hylobon Enforcer’s “Bounty”

I’ll give you a second to think about it (or hit pause)!

Okay - Distant Patroller - absolutely triggers again! This one was straightforward enough. Inferno Four’s ability also works - triggered abilities with slashes in them count as both types of triggers, so Inferno Four as a When Played and a When Defeated.

Finally, Hylobon Enforcer’s Bounty will not trigger twice, no matter which player controls it. While it’s an ability whose effect is the same as the the triggered ability “When Defeated/When Captured: Resolve the Following ability” it is not a When Defeated trigger. The words “When Defeated” need to appear on the card.

Similarly, you can duplicate the trigger from General Krell - Heartless Tactician, but not Gideon Hask - Ruthless Loyalist. General Krell’s ability is a When Defeated ability. Gideon Hasks, while it triggers from units being defeated is not.

Chimaera - Reinforcing the Center also allows us to resolve When Defeated triggers for cards that may still be in play - if that happens, do as much as possible and ignore any parts that are not relevant, as following the golden rules.

Section Eight

In 8.4, discussing Can and Can’t, there are two examples of can overriding can’t, which runs contrary to the rest of the rules, as normally can’t takes precedence.

These two new rules state that a unit with Sentinel can always be attacked, even if it has a “can’t be attacked” ability or effect and unpreventable damage is always dealt, even if the unit or base has an ability that says it “can’t be damaged”.

There’s also a functional update to the word “lose”. The term now means “loses and can’t gain”, which affects Force Lightning and SpecForce Soldier. This brings them in line with more recently printed cards, such as Brain Invaders and Imprisoned, which both say “lose and can’t gain”. This makes questions about SpecForce Soldier and the Gammorrean’s a little bit easier to handle!

Jumping down to 8.27, there are some clarifications and updates to how searching works, but nothing functional here! There are also clarifications on the Uniqueness rules (only one copy of the card, not delineated by type), and some clarifications on capturing, but no functional changes there either.

Getting close to the end, we have our other new mechanic for the set - indirect damage! There are a few key elements about indirect damage.

Wrapping up the additional rules for Jump to Lightspeed, we also have the word “move”. This allows players to take a unit from one arena and put it into the other, when instructed to do so. It’s status, and any upgrades or damage remain on the unit and move with it. A card moving as a unit is not considered to enter or leave play.

Section Twelve

Finally, in 12.3, there’s an explanation of how to determine Twin Suns aspects for leaders with different aspects on different faces - this again only applies to Chancellor Palpatine at this time, but may expand as we get more leaders!

And that’s it! Thanks so much for joining us, and I encourage you to take the Jump to Lightspeed mastery quiz after you’ve looked at the policy updates. This quiz is not required, but it’s a good way to make sure you’re up to date with the new rules and mechanics! You can find more details about mastery quizzes on nexus.cascadegames.com/lessons/mastery

Until next time, good luck and have fun!