Salsette/CtM Discussion Thread

Rules Questions
1

I didn’t want to drag this on in the main discussion because it’s beginning to blot out everything else, but I feel like the salsette/CtM ruling is not consistent with the Sneakdoor/ST ruling.

I’m working under the assumption that ST is still available after a sneakdoor run. I’m pretty sure that was the latest ruling on this, but if that isn’t the case, then my premise is invalid, so feel free to say so.

Considering Sneakdoor/ST first off, we have, loosely, the following:

-ST creates a conditional ability on first successful archives run (upon declaring server).
-Sneakdoor creates a constant ability on successful run that replaces the archives run with HQ run (upon initiating Sneakdoor run).
-Successful archives run; Sneakdoor’s constant ability pops, replacing the successful archives run with a successful HQ run.
-ST is NOT informed that the first successful run on archives happened, and remains available.

Compare this to Salsette/CtM:

-CtM creates a conditional ability on first trash (upon start of turn).
-Salsette creates a constant ability on trash that replaces the trash with RFTG (upon paying trash cost).
-Trash card; Salsette’s constant ability pops, replacing the trash with RFTG.
-CtM IS informed that the trash occurred, but fizzles due to the trash being replaced, and is no longer available.

Am I missing something? I’ve confused myself so much that I thought I understood it at one point and then ununderstood it again. It seems inconsistent.

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2

I’m with you. Salsette Slums causes the first trashed thing to be removed from the game instead of trashed. Therefore it is not the first thing trashed. Therefore the next thing you trash would trigger CtM. Makes sense from that angle, you’re timeline is the most clear and concise way to put it I’d think. Not sure why this has been ruled inconsistently.

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3

Because it is. A lot of Netrunner rulings are. It is because FFG doesn’t template, leading to inconsistent wordings on cards, and their games are run by Word of God (IE, Design Lead makes rulings/rules changes on the fly). As a recovering MTG, this frustrates me mightily as well.

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4

It isn’t.

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5

Ah, I must’ve received some bad info recently. My bad; at least everything is consistent now (on this front at least).

/thread

Edit:. Modified the thread title to be a general CtM Discussion Thread, so that conversation has an avenue to continue.

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6

The reason this is getting odd rulings is that people are under the impression that under this logic, the next thing you trash would also trigger Slums again, since you haven’t trashed anything. The argument is that the game tracks ‘the first’, not the cards.

My current understanding is Slums and CtM are both watching the same trigger condition: ‘Card is trashed’ (Well, technically, Slums watches for ‘Paid Trash Cost’ and then sets up a second effect that watches for ‘Card is trashed’.) Both thus trigger at the same time. However, Slums is Constant, so we resolve it first. When we go to resolve CtM, the trigger condition is no longer true. We’ve still had a ‘first trash this turn’ trigger occur, so neither will trigger again. (So in theory, you can Employee Strike CtM, trash a thing, then Freedom Through Equality, trash another thing, and CtM won’t trace you.)

I identify the problem as not clearly listing exactly what Replacement effects do, especially compared with The Other Game.

Coulda sworn I saw a very recent ruling stating the opposite… But when I look, the only thing I can find is that Crisium Grid on SecTest server will pay out SecTest on the second run if you trash Crisium during the first run. Which, ah, kinda has the same issues. The same argument (‘There hasn’t been a first successful run on this server, Crisium said so’) works for both. (‘There hasn’t been a first successful run on Archives, Sneakdoor said so.’) Maybe it’s because Sneakdoor has ‘if successful’ in its ability and Crisium doesn’t? It cares that it was successful, so therefore if it does a thing and changes to HQ we must’ve by definition had a successful run on Archives… Hm. That seems to make sense to me.

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7

I would more so wager that Crisium specifically says that the run is not considered successful “for the purposes of card abilities”. It’s not a true replacement effect (no “instead”). It just invalidates the condition on any cards that care about the condition.

Damned if I know how that looks if you wanted to write it execution-by-execution though. Probably something like:

-Successful run, attempt to validate triggers that care about successful run (step 1 that Jako defined in the main thread).
-Crisium blocks successful run triggers; nothing gets added in step 1 (hence ST still hasn’t been evaluated; available to trigger).

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8

I think it’s good that there’s a separate thread for this; it was taking over the other one a bit! I’m still slightly confused as to how the game “counts” things, so I just want to lay some things out (each of which builds on the previous one, so if I’m wrong I can pinpoint where I’m going wrong) and check whether I’m following along correctly:

1) There is a game ‘log’ that tracks events that have occurred, and exists independently of individual cards. This is necessary so that cards with a condition - e.g. SEA Source’s “Play only if the runner made a successful run last turn.” - can be played. These cards will send the log yes/no queries like “Did the runner make a successful run last turn?”

[1b) These queries can be compound, such as Notoriety asking “Did the runner make a successful run on HQ this turn AND Did the runner make a successful run on R&D this turn AND Did the runner make a successful run on Archives this turn?”]

2) If an event X is avoided or replaced, it will not be written to the game log: it is only written if it successfully resolves. The replacement will be written to the log, however. So after a Sneakdoor run, the answer to the query “Has there been a successful run on Archives this turn?” will be NO. The answer to “Has there been a successful run on HQ this turn?” will be YES.

3) “The first” instance of something is tracked by the game log, not by individual cards. So if I draw, install Symmetrical Visage, then draw again, I will not gain a credit, because the game saw “the first draw” even if Symmetrical Visage did not.

4) “The first” instance of something is logged when that thing’s trigger condition is met, not when it resolves. This is necessary to stop “The first” prevention effects from preventing every instance of something by seeing each one as the first. This means that the answer to the question “Has the first X happened this turn?” is independent of the answer to the question "Has X happened this turn?"
For example, after I run with Sneakdoor Beta, the answer to the query “Has there been a successful run on Archives this turn?” is NO, but the answer to the query “Has there been a first successful run on Archives this turn?” is YES. This is a bit weird, but that’s fine: it’s impossible to make a consistent, working ruleset where unintuitive stuff doesn’t occasionally happen.

Providing all of the above is correct, can I extrapolate from 4 that all counting by the game is done from events whose trigger condition was met, not events that resolved? Does it determine if something is “the second” X through a positive answer to the query “Has there been a first X this turn, AND has there NOT been a second X this turn?” - essentially an inductive form of counting?

To turn this into an example, let’s create an imaginary ID, Controlling the Message Badly, which reads “The second time the Runner trashes an installed Corp card each turn, you may trace 4…” The runner runs first click against CtMB, and removes an installed asset from the game with Salsette Slums. For their second click they then run again and trash an installed asset. The ID will trigger, correct? It does not ask the game “Have you already logged the event ‘A corp card was trashed’ once this turn?” - the answer to which is NO - it asks “Is this the second time a corp card was trashed this turn?”*, which is a completely unrelated question to which the answer is YES. Is that right?

*More fully, “Has there been a first time a corp card was trashed this turn, AND has there NOT been a second time a corp card was trashed this turn?”

Does that all make sense? Or have I got it all wrong somewhere?

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9

That all seems to makes sense in terms of trigger queries in the way they have been ruled to happen. It doesn’t really address the “silent second trigger” issue being a source of confusion though.

Where Controlling the Message says “The first time the Runner trashes an installed Corp card each turn”, you actually have to ask the game log two questions regarding the trigger point:

NOT(“Has there been a first trashing already this turn?”) AND “Was a card trashed just now?”

and fire the trace if the compound answer is true.

The wording itself looks and feels like a single trigger. Whatever the intricacies of the terms themselves I think it’s the double trigger condition from such wording that is the real unintuitive bit. The entire clause:

“The first time the Runner trashes an installed Corp card each turn”

invokes the “Has there been a first trashing already this turn?” query, but the part of that that says:

“the Runner trashes an installed Corp card”

is off on it’s own doing double duty and invoking the “Was a card trashed just now?” query in addition. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, the single word “trashes” ends up used having different meanings in both of these queries (once looking for a trigger, once for resolution), despite being the same physical word on the bit of cardboard!

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10

@Kesterer: I’m unsure your assessment in step (4) is correct.

I’m unsure. Recall that there are three states:

  1. An ability’s trigger conditions is met.
  2. The ability triggers.
  3. The ability resolves.

An ability always resolves immediately (pending timing priority) if it triggers. In the case of Slums versus CTM, the trigger condition is met (“a card is trashed for the first time”) but the ability never actually triggers (because by the time it would, the trigger condition ‘first time a card is trashed’ has been replaced by ‘remove from the game’).

So when you say:

…it is better to extrapolate (if we can) that this is done from trigger conditions being met, not triggering or resolving at all.

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11

[quote=“Dragar, post:10, topic:7955”][…] the ability never actually triggers (because by the time it would, the trigger condition ‘first time a card is trashed’ has been replaced by ‘remove from the game’).
[/quote]

I’m not sure this can be entirely correct, since the “First time a card has been trashed” remains written into the game log (for instance when a card later gets trashed and CtM doesn’t trigger). The “first” event remains in the log regardless of whether it actually happens (see Net Shield also).

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12

Yes, you’re right. I think this is what I meant, I just wasn’t careful enough with my wording. I’m going to edit the original post for clarity, and apologise if it makes you look a bit crazy.

For clarity for those reading later, I originally wrote “4) The first instance of something is logged when that thing triggers…” when I meant “…that thing’s trigger condition is met…”, which Dragar correctly picked me up on.

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13

Well, the trigger condition is no longer being met - so CTM never triggers. Just like when encountering a Femme’d Tollbooth, Tollbooth’s trigger condition is no longer being met after bypass, and so never triggers.

In the game log, the game does record that an ice was encountered for the first time in the second example (see Kit rulings), and the game does record a card was trashed for the first time in the first example (hence CTM rulings).

Heaven forbid.

14

Yes, @dragar that makes sense, although it seems that “first” triggers can never stop being met, since they are never replaced in the game log.

The trigger, it seems to me, that does stop being met by the time it comes to resolution is that second unwritten trigger of “a card is trashed” even though the “the first card of the turn is trashed” trigger remains true.

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15

Do we need to go that far? Can we operate from the following two statements:

(1) If a triggered ability’s condition is met it it will always have been met.
(2) If the gamestate changes from that condition being met, abilities that would have triggered no longer trigger.

So in the case of CTM/Slums, a card is trashed - triggered conditions are met, slums triggers and resolves, and the gamestate has now ‘moved on’ from the condition being met, and so CTM does not trigger. The same is true of how Femme vs Tollbooth works, for example.

I think (2) is pretty well established, and (1) seems intuitive (but maybe wrong!).

And also noting that triggered ability conditions being met are atomic, not composite - “the first time a card is trashed” being met cannot be used to infer that ‘a card was trashed’, for example - which is a completely separate trigger condition.

16

Not to mention this is already in the FAQ regarding Non-Resolvable Abilities:

However, if the game state advances past the trigger condition due to simultaneous effects or a chain reaction, then the triggered ability cannot be resolved.

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17

I did say ‘pretty well established’. Even more than I thought! :wink:

But note that this says ‘triggered ability’. CTM was not even triggered in this case. But I think this lends strength to my argument, not detracts from it.

18

I believe that’s referring to Triggered Abilities as a whole (Paid triggered abilities and conditional triggered abilities) as opposed to an ability which has been triggered.

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19

@popeye09 explains better what I was trying to say on the monster thread.

I still don’t get that “additional unwritten” trigger on CTM.

I don’t understand that you check (1) “trash card action” prerequisite to see if you go to (2) trigger then after Slum simultaneousity, you check additional “where cards are going” to invalidate CTM’s (1).

I think CTM’s (1) is set true too fast in this way of explaining the ruling.

The same result could be obtained if Slum ends the trash action like Film Critic ends the access phase. CTM would do its (1) in the middle of Slum, then fail because it’s no longer the trash phase.

20

Because that’s how the rules have worked since we had to figure out Femme vs Tollbooth back in the core set.

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