Lawless Time

Rules Update

Also available are archives of live broadcasts, where the Program Director goes over the lesson, answers any questions that folks may have and sometimes goes on tangets about other elements of judging. You can find the playlist of broadcasts on youtube.
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Hello there!

Welcome to the Lawless Time rules update lesson! Today we’re going to go over Comprehensive Rules 7.0, what’s changed, and what that means for the game! This lesson isn’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 policy documents 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 Lawless Time.

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

There are some clarifications and minor templating changes that don’t change how the game is played or the rules function in any meaningful way, and we won’t be covering those in this lesson. We also don’t cover card-specific interactions in this lesson.

Section 1 - Game Concepts

There are only a few small revisions here. It’s clarified that players are the owners of non-upgrade tokens that they create; the term “Aspect Penalties” is used, and the phrase “put a card into play as a resource” is refined to “resource a card”.

Section 3 - Card Types

The update here is relatively minor - we now have CR defined Spy tokens, as well as the introduction of Credit tokens. Credits are created in the Resource zone, but are not resources, so a card saying “defeat a resource” will not count a Credit token. Credits have the “Supply” trait, and the ability “While paying resources, you may defeat this token. If you do, pay 1 less.”

In this way, they generally act as temporary resources. They’re not upgrades either, so unless a card says “defeat a Credit token,” they can only be removed by spending them for discounts.

Section 6 - Action Timing and Clarifications

We have further revision from the updates for Secrets of Power - in addition to abilities being active at the start of playing a card, they are checked throughout the playing process. More precisely, “If a modified 'Play a Card' action grants an ability to the played card that is conditional on a below step, it grants that ability immediately once the condition is satisfied.”

The biggest changes come to combat. We’re going from three steps: Declare the attack, Deal combat damage, and Complete the attack to five steps: Declare intent, Check restrictions, Begin attack, Calculate combat damage, and End attack.

Declare the attack has been expanded from one to three steps, allowing for things to be a bit more precise in what is happening when. Deal Combat Damage has evolved into Calculate Combat Damage, with damage actually occurring during End attack.

There’s a lot of complexity in the details of the rules update, and I encourage you to read that closely for that precision, but there are two fundamental changes. The first is mostly aesthetic- “When this unit is attacked” is going to be rephrased as “On Defense” to make it clear that it has the same trigger timing as “On Attack.”

The second is that essentially all other triggers will occur during “End Attack” in the same window. Combat damage is actually dealt during the “end attack” step, and so abilities that trigger when a unit is defeated, when it is dealt or receives damage, when a unit completes an attack, etc... will all have the same trigger timing. Triggers that are dependent on the attacking unit will have the same trigger condition: “When Attack Ends:” with the conditionals within the trigger resolution itself.

For example, there are the following abilities:

These abilities will have the same trigger timing as Tarfful - Kashyyk Chieftan, which has “When a friendly Wookie unit is dealt combat damage and isn’t defeated” and Distant Patroller, which has a standard “When Defeated”.

If you’re asked a question about the timing of an attack trigger for a card printed before Lawless Time, you should verify the wording on the updated text of the card, as this will impact many cards. For the vast majority of cards it won’t have any mechanical impact, but the exact wording will matter.

It also means that “When this unit completes an attack” triggers will resolve in the same window as “When defeated” triggers, which is not how it used to work. Previously, for example, if you had Zeb Orrelios - Headstrong Warrior, who deals damage when he completes an attack, and defeat a unit that heals another unit when it is defeated, the heal would always resolve before Zeb could deal damage with his trigger. Now that they occur in the same window, the Active Player will have the ability to order the resolution of those more advantageously.

There’s also an answer to the question of how Shoot First interacts with The Stranger - No Survivors. If there are multiple effects on a unit that dictate when it deals its combat damage, the controller decides which one applies.

Section 7 - Abilities and Effects

There’s also a small update in section 7.5, regarding Grit and its interactions with desynchronized combat damage, removing the condition that previously existed regarding attackers that dealt damage first and defenders with grit - now it’s a bit more generic, again to suit The Stranger.

There’s also some clarity around Overwhelm. If the unit would not be defeated by the combat damage, the excess damage is not assigned to the defending player’s base - this means that if the unit is under the effects of the Tragedy of Plagueis, or otherwise is more resilient, damage will not be dealt. However, if the unit leaves play before damage is dealt - either through being defeated directly or returned to hand (like with General Grievous - Scuttling to Safety), all damage is assigned to the base.

And that’s it for the explicit changes! The set only has one new mechanic, which is Credit tokens, and they are relatively straightforward. However, that doesn’t mean the game is unchanged - there are now triple-aspect cards, and more cards that interact with specific aspects. There are no rules changes associated with this, but it’s something to be aware of as you dive into the set.

Thanks so much for joining us, and I encourage you to take the Lawless Time 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!