I was wondering what the reasoning was for the CRF statement "<Foo> only" cards can only be played by characters with the <foo> skill."
As mentioned before, many cards, especially later cards, include conditions and effects that require a character to have a certain skill, and they also include the "(Skill) only" keyword. However, some cards, especially earlier cards, say "(Skill") only" without having conditions or effects that require that skill. Examples of METW cards having this issue are Lordly Presence,
New Friendship, Old Friendship, and more.
This "foo" statement appears in CRF 9 (Dec. 5, 97) in the "Rulings by Term" section and it is not marked as new/changed. This statement does not appear in CRF 7 (Sept 28, 97) . It appears that this statement was new in CRF 8 (Nov 6, 97), which is missing to the world. Upon thorough search, this statement was was added as a "New MECCG Rulings" on October 2, 1997:
Code: Select all
Hey y'all
The question of Against the Shadow at Nationals came up on the mailing
list. To clarify, MEATS will *not* be allowed at Nationals this year.
All rulings in version 7 of the offical Collected Rulings File will
be used, along with the rulings below. CRF 7 will be available on
the Web later today, the hurl will be www.cstone.net/~ichabod/metwcrf.html.
New MECCG Rulings, 10/2/97
Agents
Agents may not move to any version of a hero Haven.
Influence
General influence is changed immediately, with a minimum of 0 free
general influence.
Modes
When one mode effect is applied to a Ringwraith, all other cards that
are applying a mode effect to that Ringwraith are discarded.
New Friendship
The influence bonus from New Friendship only applies to the diplomat,
but the corruption check bonus applies to any character in the diplomatąs
company.
Old Friendship
The influence bonus from Old Friendship only applies to the diplomat,
but the corruption check bonus applies to any character in the diplomatąs
company.
Sideboard
You may have any Wizards in your sideboard. You may only have three
copies of one Wizard, and one copy of each other Wizard, in your play deck
and sideboard combined.
Skill Cards
ł<Foo> only˛ cards may only be played by a character with the <foo>
skill.
------- "The Crossing-guard of Mordor" -------
Craig "Ichabod" O'Brien http://www.cstone.net/~ichabod
ich...@cstone.net Me:CCG Official Netrep
"It's for discipline that the Lord scourges his worshippers" Jdt 8:17
-- Check out my Shadowfist, INWO, and MECCG traders on my web page --
Note that Digest 3 (the first posted to the newsgroup) was released on Nov 3, 1997. Digests 4 and 5 are missing to the world. Digest 6 was released Nov 10, 1997. So there is the potential that the reasoning for the statement was in Digest 4 or 5 and is lost as well. But besides that possibility, it looks like this "New Ruling" may be the source/reasoning on this CRF statement. From the New Rulings, it appears that the "foo" statement in the CRF was made to address these old cards that were unclear (i.e., New/Old Friendship) and inconsistent with the rule on Keywords (e.g., "skill only" keywords do not carry any inherent requirements). The "foo" CRF statement was not directed cards at cards like Ruse, which have two alternative conditions that both require a character with a single particular skill. Furthermore, the CRF statement regarding Ruse implies that Scout skill is enough.
If Ruse is played by a scout who is the only character in the company, the attack has no effect. If there is a creature card it is discarded. The attack is considered faced but not canceled.
And all of the Card of the Day statements indicate that Ruse can be played by either Scouts or Diplomats. One mentions how Perchen is handy because he can use both effects.
My conclusion is that the key word rules, the various rulings, and the general play of the card by people do not require a character to be both a Diplomat.
Beyond this post here, there is nothing in all of MECCG history that would indicate that Ruse requires a character to be both a Diplomat
AND a Scout.
Still, a clarification would be helpful.