Resources targetting opponent characters

[Jabberwocky]

Mr. Klar and Mr. Took -

I must say you are both most excellent gentlemen, and I certainly do appreciate you both engaging so heartily in the Rules forum! Thank you!

Why not just make errata instead? Not necessarily official - for any interested group of players.
Not obeying, in some cases, a some restrictions because the restrictions does not allow a particular card to function as intended, has its price.
Next time, when someone will try to use a card in not typical but compliant with rules way, "this was not intended to use it in such way" argument may appear again.
The same when someone will try to prevent a playing/resolution of the card in not typical way.
Because restrictions and exceptions works for all sides.

You make very good points.

First, I do indeed intend to make my own errata for my playgroup - this is an excellent idea which I've already discussed with a friend of mine. The intention will be to maximize enjoyment of the game and ensure each card is playable as close to the intentions of its creators as possible.

Second, you are of course correct... there is a price to be paid. My solution to this is that the known game rules will be enforced, except in situations of specific cards (defined by errata beforehand) which clearly were intended to work in a fashion that is contrary to the published rules. Malady is a perfect example of this. Cards which are ambiguous and could go either way will default to be enforced by the game rules. Unfortunately, the design and rules of this game were somewhat botched by ICE, and for us as players to maximize our enjoyment of this otherwise very cool game, we must find ways to work around and fix the rules where appropriate.

Third, perhaps it was already mentioned and I missed it in all of this discussion, but what is currently the opinion of the CoE and rulings of tournament directors at Worlds and LURE in regards to Malady? I'm just curious. Is it considered an exception to the rule of "do not target opponents characters and resources" OR has it been relegated to a niche card which is rarely ever used? If the latter, I'm quite surprised that its price has not dropped down to only a couple euros per copy.

The italicized text is the only part of the card that is useless until White Hand.

Malady is an admittedly brutal way of attempting to get rid of characters that are doing you more harm than good (So You've Come Back springs to mind, here). Certainly a niche use, but I can think of cards that are even more niche use than that.

I like the flavor of the brutal removal of a character who's causing a problem on the Minion side, haha! Even so, it still seems quite clear to me that Malady was intended to target opponent's characters and thus this is how it should be played. You are right, it would have a very niche use indeed otherwise. So much so, in fact, that it would be very hard to ever justify putting the card in your sideboard (much less your play deck), unless you happened to know exactly what hazards your opponent was playing with. I'm sure you are right about other cards having a very niche use as well, however each of those cards would need to be addressed on its own merit. If they were designed to be such a niche card, then so be it.

[Bandobras Took]

I like the flavor of the brutal removal of a character who's causing a problem on the Minion side, haha! Even so, it still seems quite clear to me that Malady was intended to target opponent's characters and thus this is how it should be played.

Unfortunately, what seems to be clear intent for one person is not remotely so for another. Rules on facing auto-attacks and how to play characters seem to me to clearly show an intent, yet ICE's own comments on A Chance Meeting directly contradict that intent.

You are right, it would have a very niche use indeed otherwise. So much so, in fact, that it would be very hard to ever justify putting the card in your sideboard (much less your play deck), unless you happened to know exactly what hazards your opponent was playing with. I'm sure you are right about other cards having a very niche use as well, however each of those cards would need to be addressed on its own merit. If they were designed to be such a niche card, then so be it.

So You've Come Back is one example among many. The actual most basic example is a wounded character that was only included to absorb strikes anyway; free up the GI (one could argue that Well-Preserved was created because nobody was willing to use Malady for its intended purpose, just as Black Horse/Creature were a patch on mode cards). Plague's another one, though permanent events are more easily solved with Voices of Malice. Killing off a single elf or dwarf can be preferable to facing Unhappy Blows.

There are plenty of cards in the game that are hard to justify including in your deck, but this does not mean that we are free to make up words on the card that aren't there. A Malady Without Healing does not through any phrase permit play on an opponent's characters. Therefore, the basic rule holds.

[Konrad Klar]

Why not just make errata instead? Not necessarily official - for any interested group of players.

I was not clear. I mean errata for a cards.
If Malady Without Healing, or Spies Feared do not work as expected it is not problem of rules, but problem of these cards.
Some cards explicitly state on what they are played, or what they affect, and such explicit statement is enough to overcome default restrictions.

Hero events cannot target or affect minion sites, and vice versa. News of the Shire is
an exception.

is example of problem of particular card addressed by change of rules instead by errata to News of the Shire.
As though it were better to have text of a card plus exception in rules for the card, instead to have corrected text of card only.

[Vastor Peredhil]

So far, I have not come to the player who refused to accept how Malady should be played, but of course you could file a complaint with your Council of Elrond representetives for not doing an errata for it yet, as we did for card play for automatic attacks.

of course we would have to see the need for it

so if you take it into your hand to set up the logissts for the vote on Spies Feared and Malady playabiltiy I am all for it,

Ben just did a rewrite is the long way to do it:)

yours Nicolai Council Member

[Bandobras Took]

Who do you think got the ball rolling for that Auto-Attack rule?

[dirhaval]

So far, I have not come to the player who refused to accept how Malady should be played

You met one know I won't stop an opponent from using it like a weapon, but I will not play it. However, I do try to counter the visit.

I recall many new, ugly hazards affecting DI and general influence in MELE that you might just want to kill your own character
to free DI or GI. I do think ICE had in mind for two future sets of MEWH with fallen wizards purposefully killing a hero
character for easy MPs or at least bother an opponent such as killing a hobbit, or Arwen. Sometimes having a
wounded character is a pain. Yes, Well-preserved is there, but I do play to have a character to be harmed by
many PERM events to trick my opponent wasting the hazards on him knowing I will discard him or let him not tap
against a strike with his 3 prowess and 7 body. So I kill a starting character to next turn play another at a darkhaven.
Do not be surprise to see me start with characters of only 6 or 7 body hoping to get them kill taking two strikes from Wargs or Giant Spiders.
Just my opinion.

[thorondor]

i myself never played a "malady" deck, though i have faced it a few times. at tournaments (like Worlds or Lure) it is commonly accepted to play this card on opponents characters.
and i wouldnt consider this deck or the card broken (it hasnt won much in the history of MECCG). there are a lot of ways to stop it.

[Jabberwocky]

Unfortunately, what seems to be clear intent for one person is not remotely so for another. Rules on facing auto-attacks and how to play characters seem to me to clearly show an intent, yet ICE's own comments on A Chance Meeting directly contradict that intent.

Would you mind giving me specifics on the above so I know what you're talking about? Thanks.

So You've Come Back is one example among many. The actual most basic example is a wounded character that was only included to absorb strikes anyway; free up the GI (one could argue that Well-Preserved was created because nobody was willing to use Malady for its intended purpose, just as Black Horse/Creature were a patch on mode cards). Plague's another one, though permanent events are more easily solved with Voices of Malice. Killing off a single elf or dwarf can be preferable to facing Unhappy Blows.

Fair Points. If Malady did not specifically mention Hero characters, I would agree with your interpretation.

There are plenty of cards in the game that are hard to justify including in your deck, but this does not mean that we are free to make up words on the card that aren't there. A Malady Without Healing does not through any phrase permit play on an opponent's characters. Therefore, the basic rule holds.

What set was the basic rule released in? = "You are not allowed to play resources on your opponent's characters?" If it was released prior to MELE, then I would tend to agree with you. If released after, then I still feel Malady was clearly created to be able to be used on an opponent's character.

I was not clear. I mean errata for a cards.
If Malady Without Healing, or Spies Feared do not work as expected it is not problem of rules, but problem of these cards.
Some cards explicitly state on what they are played, or what they affect, and such explicit statement is enough to overcome default restrictions.

Sorry, my response was not clear. This is what I meant when I said my playgroup would make our own errata = errata for specific cards which need addressed which have not been.

Hero events cannot target or affect minion sites, and vice versa. News of the Shire is
an exception.

is example of problem of particular card addressed by change of rules instead by errata to News of the Shire.
As though it were better to have text of a card plus exception in rules for the card, instead to have corrected text of card only.

I agree, it seems much cleaner to me to just make errata on individual cards rather than rules. Card errata is also very easy to reference while playing a game.

So far, I have not come to the player who refused to accept how Malady should be played, but of course you could file a complaint with your Council of Elrond representetives for not doing an errata for it yet, as we did for card play for automatic attacks.
of course we would have to see the need for it
so if you take it into your hand to set up the logissts for the vote on Spies Feared and Malady playabiltiy I am all for it,
Ben just did a rewrite is the long way to do it:)
yours Nicolai Council Member

Will you please clarify exactly what you mean? When you say a "player who refused to accept how Malady should be played" do you mean that Malady should be able to target an opponent's character?
I would like to see the cards Malady and Spies Feared have errata to clarify that they can be played on an opponent's characters/sites. How do we go about setting up a vote for this? Thanks Nicolai.

i myself never played a "malady" deck, though i have faced it a few times. at tournaments (like Worlds or Lure) it is commonly accepted to play this card on opponents characters.
and i wouldnt consider this deck or the card broken (it hasnt won much in the history of MECCG). there are a lot of ways to stop it.

Thanks for sharing this information and giving your perspective! Much appreciated.

[Bandobras Took]

Unfortunately, what seems to be clear intent for one person is not remotely so for another. Rules on facing auto-attacks and how to play characters seem to me to clearly show an intent, yet ICE's own comments on A Chance Meeting directly contradict that intent.

Would you mind giving me specifics on the above so I know what you're talking about? Thanks.

Sure; I just didn't want to derail the thread if unnecessary.

BRINGING CHARACTERS INTO PLAY
During your organization phase, you may perform one and only one of the following activities:

You may play a character card. You must have enough general influence or direct influence available to control the character. You must place him at his home site or at any Haven site.
You may play a Wizard card if you do not have one in play. You must place a Wizard at his home site or at Rivendell. You need not control a Wizard with influence-he represents you, the player.
When you play a character, you may place him into a company already at his arrival site or he may become a new company (consisting of one character). In the second case, you must place the arrival site card next to the character played.

A company may not play any resource during the site phase until they have faced all automatic-attacks, unless that resource directly affects an automatic-attack. Removing an automatic-attack does not directly affect it, although cancelling does.

A character (even a Hobbit) may be brought into play with direct influence at any Free-hold [F], Border-hold , or Ruins & Lairs [R].

Common sense tells us that ICE definitely wanted a company to have faced the auto-attacks before playing resources. All A Chance Meeting does is change the allowable site for a hero to come into play. There's no indication anywhere that the card overrides the organization phase requirement for the play of characters. Unfortunately, the METW Companion (or Player's Guide, I don't remember which) indicates that A Chance Meeting can be used any time, thus allowing the essential bypass of automatic-attacks by bringing in an untapped character after facing them. This is an example of why common sense (and actually, even the rules, when we get down to it) can be shaky ground for the interpretation of intent. Or, rather, why interpretation of intent is shaky ground on its own.

So You've Come Back is one example among many. The actual most basic example is a wounded character that was only included to absorb strikes anyway; free up the GI (one could argue that Well-Preserved was created because nobody was willing to use Malady for its intended purpose, just as Black Horse/Creature were a patch on mode cards). Plague's another one, though permanent events are more easily solved with Voices of Malice. Killing off a single elf or dwarf can be preferable to facing Unhappy Blows.

Fair Points. If Malady did not specifically mention Hero characters, I would agree with your interpretation.

There are several instances in Lidless Eye of cards that would not be fully applicable until following sets; standard modifications for factions are even highlighted in the rules as being dependent on cards that were not necessarily yet released. We don't have an indication of whether ICE had White Hand in mind when they worded Malady, but what we do have is a consistent practice (started in Dark Minions) of cards being released specifically with future sets (and rules) in mind.

There are plenty of cards in the game that are hard to justify including in your deck, but this does not mean that we are free to make up words on the card that aren't there. A Malady Without Healing does not through any phrase permit play on an opponent's characters. Therefore, the basic rule holds.

What set was the basic rule released in? = "You are not allowed to play resources on your opponent's characters?" If it was released prior to MELE, then I would tend to agree with you. If released after, then I still feel Malady was clearly created to be able to be used on an opponent's character.

I'm not sure when it was first introduced, since I don't have an archive of the CRF from the beginning, but it was definitely in there by 1997 (the year of Lidless Eye's release), and my hunch is that it was introduced in METW in order to prevent one player from playing Cracks of Doom on an opponent's character bearing the One Ring at Mount Doom.

i myself never played a "malady" deck, though i have faced it a few times. at tournaments (like Worlds or Lure) it is commonly accepted to play this card on opponents characters.
and i wouldnt consider this deck or the card broken (it hasnt won much in the history of MECCG). there are a lot of ways to stop it.

Thanks for sharing this information and giving your perspective! Much appreciated.

However, in the link to the non-Akhorahil malady deck I provided, Zarathustra mentions that it was undefeated in (at least) 10 games, that your opponents will hate you, and that they may quit (he having personal experience with the last). None of that sounds particularly well-balanced or healthy for the game environment, which lends support to the idea that the common interpretation is, in addition to being completely unjustified by the card text, not even in the best interest of the game.

What actually drove this deck away (as well as Akhorakill and Akhorahil Dragon-Raising) was the discovery that auto-attack rules did not allow for strike assignment resources to be played, something that has since been happily amended.