Arcane Wonders Forum
Mage Wars => Rules Discussion => Topic started by: Mithror on September 28, 2015, 10:45:21 AM
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So, I'm fairly new to MW, been playing with the GF and we love it. I've been looking at the new videos for the Ro8 of the Thunderdome II tournament (awesome work, you guys) and I now have a question about this card. This actually also kinda come up a game we played here yesterday.
The description on [mwcard=DNJ10]Stranglevine[/mwcard] is as follows:
The target is Restrained and gains the Unmovable trait. Each Upkeep phase, before paying Stranglevine's upkeep cost, place 1 Crush token on Stranglevine. X = the number of Crush tokens on Stranglevine. When you pay Stranglevine's Upkeep cost, this creature receives X direct damage. Stranglevine gains Life +2X.
Stranglevine cannot target creatures with the Flying or Uncontainable traits. Ranged attacks cannot target Stranglevine.
The way we played it, was that the life of strangelevine just equals: 6 + 2X and that seems to be the consensus when looking info on this card and looking at how the tournament deals with it. However, I'm beginning to believe that this is wrong. Is there any official ruling on this? I have not found anything in the rules or rules supplement.
The issue with this card stems from the phrase: Stranglevine gains Life +2X. No where is it specified when it gains this. Imo, there are two ways to interpret the description, with the first one being:
The target is Restrained and gains the Unmovable trait. Each Upkeep phase, before paying Stranglevine's upkeep cost, place 1 Crush token on Stranglevine. X = the number of Crush tokens on Stranglevine. When you pay Stranglevine's Upkeep cost:
- this creature receives X direct damage.
Stranglevine gains Life +2X.
Stranglevine cannot target creatures with the Flying or Uncontainable traits. Ranged attacks cannot target Stranglevine.
Which is what the appears to be the accepted way of playing this card. The idea is that the text fires once and it now has Life +2X trait on it, after which the phrase does not do anything anymore. Thus, because of the trait, every upkeep it increases its life by 2 (if you keep paying upkeep and is thus not discarded). But... it does not say it gains the Life +2X trait. It just says that it gains Life +2X. With that in mind, you could actually rule it as firing once, when cast and thus gaining no extra life. After which the phrase does nothing anymore. There are more complications as well, see later.
The second interpration could be:
The target is Restrained and gains the Unmovable trait. Each Upkeep phase, before paying Stranglevine's upkeep cost, place 1 Crush token on Stranglevine. X = the number of Crush tokens on Stranglevine. When you pay Stranglevine's Upkeep cost:
- this creature receives X direct damage.
- Stranglevine gains Life +2X.
Stranglevine cannot target creatures with the Flying or Uncontainable traits. Ranged attacks cannot target Stranglevine.
Here, the phrase is triggered every upkeep phase, just like the damage. It does not need to specify it is gaining a trait, it just gains +2X life. Hence, first time it gains 2 Life, second time it gains 4, then 6, ... I can't find any complications here, like I do with the first interpretation. So, to me, this seems like the correct interpretation. Other than that it seems like its giving it a lot of life, which might break the card's balance?
It seems to me that this card should probably be clarified a bit more, perhas in the rules complement to indicate what the correct ruling is here.
For those who know the situation that occurred in the tournament, it probably would not have made any difference. Deathlock should either have stopped the gaining of an additional 2 or an additional 2X. Though with Deathlock in play, the first interpretation becomes even more troublesome, because we can't tell what happens when you change a trait. Does the first one go away to be replaced by the new one? Does it change instantly? These distinctions would need to be made for Deathlock to be properly evaluated. Another complication which does not arise in the second interpretation.
Any thoughts?
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yup, the spell is worded poorly. I've brought it up before repeatedly...somewhere on this forum. There is another thread on this since the tournament, so i wouldn't have started a new thread.
It also doesn't gain life if it has Finite Life, right? When the finite life goes away, does it then have life equal to 2x? What's the word Gain doing in there, exactly?
The rules as intended:
vine gains exactly 2 life every upkeep. deathlock can prevent it from gaining 2 life that specific upkeep.
I'm surprised its not in the rules supplement. I checked jsut now.
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Looking at this [mwcard=DNJ10]card[/mwcard], I wonder how it works thematically. Do the Crush Tokens represent the Vine growing larger, engulfing and squeezing the target with more vines? This is why the damage increases each round and why the vine grows 2 life every round? If it is getting "bigger" then it is much better represented with Innate Life much like Growth Markers do.
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Looking at this [mwcard=DNJ10]card[/mwcard], I wonder how it works thematically. Do the Crush Tokens represent the Vine growing larger, engulfing and squeezing the target with more vines? This is why the damage increases each round and why the vine grows 2 life every round? If it is getting "bigger" then it is much better represented with Innate Life much like Growth Markers do.
yup
This spell was before my playtester time, so this was my opinion when it came out:
Thematically, they should have been growth markers with innate life. I'm guessing the +3innate life was too good for them so they dropped it to +2life.
I'm also not keen on the upkeep+x for needless complexity. too late to do anythign about it other than rules supplements sadly
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It does need to be added to the Rules and Codex Supplement, I agree, and possibly errata'd just for clarity. However, here is the ruling (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=13624.msg29865#msg29865) you are looking for where Laddinfance clarifies that your first solution is the correct one. Because of the trait, it gains 2 Life each upkeep and only 2 Life. It does not compound.
Now that we have the main question out of the way, you make several valid points that I'd like to discuss. First, it doesn't need to say the word "trait." Life +X is a trait regardless, just like Melee +X is always a trait. Now, since in this case we have a trait with a variable component to it, it is certainly a valid question as to whether you calculate that variable just at the time of casting or do you continue to update the variable each time it changes. With the confirmation from Laddinfance, we know that you are supposed to continuously update it each time the number of Crush tokens changes, but we don't really have rules for handling traits that behave this way currently.
I'm pretty much certain that the intention is not for Death Lock to eliminate the Life that has already been acquired, since Finite Life doesn't tend to negate previous increases to one's Life. However, it could be argued that changing the variable also applies a new time stamp to the trait, and thus Death Lock would cancel out the entire thing. We don't have any official word on this, but I would be very surprised if the previous gains went away.
So, assuming you can keep the previous gains to Life, what happens when the variable increases? Since the time stamp of the trait obviously isn't changed under this assumption, it is feasible that the Life gain bypasses the Finite Life trait. However, I'm pretty certain in this instance that they did not intend for it to bypass Finite Life like this. Which means that the changes to the variable would have their own time stamps separate from the trait itself.
Again, simply assuming this is the case because we have no official word, if we go with this then the typical way that Death Lock works in these situations, such as if you were to apply Bull Endurance after the Finite Life was applied, is that it suppresses the Life +X trait rather than countering it. This is because the trait is a constant effect rather than a one time effect (which would have resulted in the value always being 0 for Stranglevine if it was only one time). Thus, if Finite Life is removed, the creature would immediately gain all of the Life that was being denied to it all at once.
So, to recap, we have the following three possibilities:
1. Each time the variable changes, it applies a new time stamp to the trait resulting in Finite Life removing the entire thing and Stranglevine being reduced to only it's base Life.
2. Changes to the variable are able to ignore the Finite Life trait because they neither have nor change any time stamps.
3. Changes to the variable have their own time stamp separate from the Life +X trait, allowing Finite Life to prevent further increases to the trait but not negating the increases already acquired. This is what I believe to be correct, but only by making assumptions as to the designers intentions. All three are equally valid according to the official rules we currently have, as far as I know. As echephron stated, I too was not a playtester yet for this card.
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As I see it worded the SV should gain 2 life after its first upkeep, then 4, then 6 then 8, etc. Is this not the case? If it didn't then why doesn't the wording even use an X for a variable value. If it only gains 2 life a round then why would there even be a multiplier to the variable, it would just say gains 2 life and the variable becomes un needed. I realise that this isn't the bones of the OP, and it's more about the finite life issue, but I would really like to know what the actual life gain numbers would be.
As I stated before it should ( by the wording currently) gain 2 life (2 × X where X = 1 crush token) after the first upkeep, then 4 life (2× X where X = 2), then 6 life ( 2× X were X=3) ad infinitum.
Another issue is does the life gain stack or does the next life gain replace the other for example: ( upkeep the first, SV deals 1 damage, gains life and is now at 8 life. 2Nd upkeep SV does 2 damage, gains life and is now at 12 (6+2+4) third upkeep SV deals 3 damage gains life is now at 18 life (6+2+4+6) etc.)
Alternatively if the life gain is replaced by the previous, then it looks more like this: ( 1st UK 1 damage gains 2 lifemax= 8, 2nd UK deals 2 damage gains 4, replaces the 2 gain, lifemax=10 (6+4) 3rd UK deals 3, gains 6, replaces the 4 lifemax = 12)
Which if any of these is correct? I read it like example 1. Not example 2, due to the existance of the X as a multiplier variable.
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Without going into specifics,
During playtesting it was asked if using growth tokens instead of the 2 per round was acceptable. It was decided that +3 life per round was a bit much. I can tell you with 100% certainty that it gains +2 life each round.
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Maybe the life total on the right of the card should just say "6+2X" instead of the current "6" ... you wouldn't need to add some of the text to the card at the bottom that way.
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It was before my time, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the problem is a lack of space. It's a lot of text.
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i didn't read all this topic, but the card sais:
"Stranglevine gains life +2x", between to "."
so it's life is 6+2x at any time. isn't it clear?
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A lot of interesting points, thanks for redirecting me to laddinface's post. That certainly makes it clear how to play it. In this case, though, it would have made more sense to have the card say: Gain Life +2. Or have it say Life +2X, next to Upkeep +X. As it is now, it would definitely need to be in the rules supplement to avoid confusion!
I can easily make the 2 life gain each time a token is added and increased damage make sense, as you could imagine the vine adding another coil for strangulation, each coil having 2 Life and starting with 3 coils. The first three just keep you in place, while each extra coil does 1 extra damage. Hence, each upkeep the damage increases, but the life gain does not. In this sense too it would have made sense if the card had said: Gain Life +2. As that could have been linked to the steps to undertake in the upkeep phase: add Crush token, X damage, Life +2. Even better, the card could just have said: When you pay Stranglevine's Upkeep cost, it gains 2 Life and the creature attached receives X direct damage.. A bit less text and more clear for ruling! :)
With regards to Finite Life, I think it makes sense that the Life is stuck at whatever is was before the trait applied and gets bumped to the correct (6 + 2X) value once the trait goes away, so I agree with the assumption made that this is probably the correct way to interpret:
3. Changes to the variable have their own time stamp separate from the Life +X trait, allowing Finite Life to prevent further increases to the trait but not negating the increases already acquired. This is what I believe to be correct, but only by making assumptions as to the designers intentions. All three are equally valid according to the official rules we currently have, as far as I know. As echephron stated, I too was not a playtester yet for this card.
It would be nice to get confirmation of this in the rules supplement though :)
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i didn't read all this topic, but the card sais:
"Stranglevine gains life +2x", between to "."
so it's life is 6+2x at any time. isn't it clear?
Not sure if serious.
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i didn't read all this topic, but the card sais:
"Stranglevine gains life +2x", between to "."
so it's life is 6+2x at any time. isn't it clear?
You are correct. "Stranglevine gains life +2x" is a separate sentence, and Stranglevine always has that trait, thus it always has 6+2x Life. It's not so much gaining Life each round as it is just a constantly changing variable in an existing trait. However, it isn't entirely clear how to handle a trait with a constantly changing variable like this. I listed the three possible solutions I can come up with for dealing with this, and indicated the one which I believe to be correct.
@RomeoXero: That is most certainly not the case. I provided a link to the relevant ruling in my previous post, but it has definitely been confirmed that the Stranglevine only gains 2 Life each time it adds a crush token. The gains do not compound like you are thinking they might. As to why they chose to go this route, I can only speculate, but here are a few possibilities.
1. Gaining Life like [mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ01]Sunfire Amulet[/mwcard] is not the same thing as gaining the Life +X trait. The former is an immediate change and is cancelled entirely by Finite Life, while the latter is a permanent change and merely suppressed.
2. Linking the Life trait to the Crush tokens is thematic. The vine gets bigger, stronger, and healthier with the more crush tokens it has. This also allows for the theoretical possibility of the vine getting weaker with the loss of crush tokens as well. Though it is not currently possible to get rid of these tokens, if it were the vine would immediately lose Life as well, while some other proposed methods would not cause a loss in Life.
3. Whatever their intention for the function, the card is bloated with text and they just couldn't fit much onto it to clarify their intentions. I believe they went with the variable to try and save space, since X was already going to be defined on the card as equal to the number of Crush tokens to determine how much Upkeep was paid and how much damage was done. They simply tried to capitalize on this for efficiency, but sacrificed a little clarity. That doesn't excuse the lack of clarification in the Rules and Codex Supplement, but they are a small company and I'm sure they'll get to it eventually; especially now that it is being brought to their attention.
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Why not just errata growth tokens to be like damage or mana, where they can have different values that stack? Then you could have a 2-life growth token. Then they could just say upkeep +x, x=damage, damage*2=growth value. It's easier to say, and it could be like the strangevine is stealing nutrients and energy from the creature its attached to.
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i didn't read all this topic, but the card sais:
"Stranglevine gains life +2x", between to "."
so it's life is 6+2x at any time. isn't it clear?
Not sure if serious.
totally serious!
6 is de basis life, x is the number of token, at any time you can calculate
life at that time = 6 + 2x
(or did i really missed something?)
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i didn't read all this topic, but the card sais:
"Stranglevine gains life +2x", between to "."
so it's life is 6+2x at any time. isn't it clear?
Not at all... since the card says "Strangle vine gains Life +2X" (where the X is the number of tokens), so on the first round when there is one token, it gains Life +2. On the next turn, when there are two tokens, it gains Life +4 (read as written, since X = 2 at this point).
I don't interpret it this way, but this is what it literally says....
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You are mistaken DaveW. Exid is correct. The card does not say that you gain Life +2X each round or each upkeep. It simply says you gain Life +2X. Meaning, you only gain it once.
The important thing to remember though is that this is not a one time increase in Life. It is a permanent trait which includes a changing variable, and thus itself is changing as the game progresses.
That is what it literally says.
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it makes much more sense when you phrase it that way. It only ever gains "life+" one time. its just that that ammout will change by a determined amount as the game progresses. I get it, Thanks! /maybe now i can start using this card. Never have.
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I think we all agree that it's just bad wording. If it would have said "Stranglevine has Life +2X", there would not have been any difficulties (except in the manner of interpreting variable traits dynamics). By using the word gain here and not starting after a line break, it can just as easily be interpreted as a continuation of the previous sentence and thus as an extra action in response to adding the Crush token.
Like, I said, in my now moderator approved post (thanks for that! :))), thematically it makes sense for Stranglevine to have 2 life extra each upkeep. But there are ways this could have been written down, that would have led to less confusion:
- Give it the Life +2X trait (i.e. same as Upkeep +X)
- Have the text say: When you pay Stranglevine's Upkeep cost, it gains 2 Life and the creature attached receives X direct damage
- (Make the health an X and explain that X = 6 + 2 * number of Crush tokens.)
As it is right now, you *can* interpret it both ways, whether it was intended or not. Hence, why an addition to the rules supplement would be a good idea!
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Each upkeep phase, put 2 crush tokens. For each token, strangelvine gains +1 Life.
And they vere happily strangelvined until their last upkeep phase...
the end.
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Unless of course, the designer has in mind some card in the future which can add crush tokens (or any token for that matter).
Then, saying, "gains 2 life and deals x damage" makes it a worse card.
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You are mistaken DaveW. Exid is correct. The card does not say that you gain Life +2X each round or each upkeep. It simply says you gain Life +2X. Meaning, you only gain it once.
The important thing to remember though is that this is not a one time increase in Life.
I agree with how you read it. I am simply pointing out that it could be misinterpreted. It says you gain Life +2X. One could read it as if on the first turn you gain Life +2(1) = +2... on the second turn then you should gain (in addition to the Life from the first turn), another Life +2(2) = +4, so +6 total.
The statement that I was disputing was that it was clear how to interpret it... it really isn't.
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the gain life information is in a separate sentence, so it's written right.
of course they could have use a new line, more words, etc., to write it more clearly.
i think take a little time to read well is our part of the work!
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@DaveW:
I shall agree it is a common misunderstanding, but I think that is due entirely to people mistakenly thinking that sentence is somehow connected to the prior sentence. However, it is a completely separate sentence and lacks any conjunctions to connect it to the prior sentence, as well as lacking any mention of repetition itself. There is nothing to suggest you gain it more than once. I think that is clear once you take a careful look, but I agree that it is very easy to overlook. Regardless, the misunderstanding does occur. Below I have commented on some of Mithror's suggestions to help alleviate this confusion.
@Mithror:
1. I think the reason it wasn't given the Life +2X trait up with all of the other traits was purely due to space. I agree that it would have been a better solution though.
2. This would significantly change the way the spell functions. First, it's Life would no longer be tied to the number of crush tokens. Meaning it could gain Life without gaining tokens, and vice versa, as well as being able to lose tokens without losing Life. Currently there isn't really any way to manipulate token gains/losses, so this is a bit of a moot point, but it is theoretically possible. It also changes the interactions with Finite Life by cancelling the Life gain entirely instead of simply suppressing it. Although that is easy to fix by changing your suggestion to Life +2 instead of just gaining 2 Life.
3. X is already defined on the card as the number of Crush tokens, but you are correct that we could have used this information directly in the Life trait of the card. It's Life could have simply been listed as 6+2X. This is actually my favorite solution thus far for people who wish to clarify the text. I think it would be much less likely to cause confusion, and I think it could be fit on the card without too much trouble.
4. Another option that I think would keep it from being misinterpreted would be to simply move the sentence. Move it to become the first or second sentence on the card, before it starts talking about each upkeep phase, and people will easily be able to tell you only gain it once.
I don't think we'll actually see any of these suggested errata though, nor do I think they are necessary. I do however think that we need clarification in the Rules and Codex Supplement, both to correct any misunderstandings and to explain how exactly to deal with a variable within a trait.
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I don't think we'll actually see any of these suggested errata though, nor do I think they are necessary. I do however think that we need clarification in the Rules and Codex Supplement, both to correct any misunderstandings and to explain how exactly to deal with a variable within a trait.
Still doesn't explain how the Vine is getting "bigger" (Life Gain) and therefore more damage each round, in the event of a Deathlock situation. Innate Life would resolve that issue of course.
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I don't think we'll actually see any of these suggested errata though, nor do I think they are necessary. I do however think that we need clarification in the Rules and Codex Supplement, both to correct any misunderstandings and to explain how exactly to deal with a variable within a trait.
Still doesn't explain how the Vine is getting "bigger" (Life Gain) and therefore more damage each round, in the event of a Deathlock situation. Innate Life would resolve that issue of course.
+1 Zuberi. Sike is arguing a theme problem but, at the end of the day, theme problems don't get errata. People also argue that innate life would be more straightforward, but again, this type of problem historically doesn't get errata. What is best for a spell and what is best for mage wars are different priorities. I could say more, but I'd rather not start myself or others ranting.
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Yes, errata is probably not necessary. A simple clarification in the rules supplement should be enough. I agree with all your points Zuberi. (2) would indeed change the actual mechanics of the life gain, but as you correctly pointed out, within the current ruleset, this would not make a difference. Another phrase that could have been used was: Each Crush token on Stranglevine gives it Life +2 and does 1 direct damage during upkeep.
Regardless, we should not dwell on what it should or could have said, as we can clarify via the rules supplement.
As to the reasoning why it gains 2 life for each crush token and does extra damage, I had an explanation for this in a previous post, but because it was in moderation, perhaps it was missed:
I can easily make the 2 life gain each time a token is added and increased damage make sense, as you could imagine the vine adding another coil for strangulation, each coil having 2 Life and starting with 3 coils. The first three just keep you in place, while each extra coil does 1 extra damage. Hence, each upkeep the damage increases, but the life gain does not.
It would have made more sense to be innate life in this explanation, hey, perhaps it uses magic to increase its length instead of growing and so Finite Life does affect it :)
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I don't think we'll actually see any of these suggested errata though, nor do I think they are necessary. I do however think that we need clarification in the Rules and Codex Supplement, both to correct any misunderstandings and to explain how exactly to deal with a variable within a trait.
Still doesn't explain how the Vine is getting "bigger" (Life Gain) and therefore more damage each round, in the event of a Deathlock situation. Innate Life would resolve that issue of course.
+1 Zuberi. Sike is arguing a theme problem but, at the end of the day, theme problems don't get errata. People also argue that innate life would be more straightforward, but again, this type of problem historically doesn't get errata. What is best for a spell and what is best for mage wars are different priorities. I could say more, but I'd rather not start myself or others ranting.
Yes I am arguing theme here a bit, the nice thing about MW has been much about theme and game play being very close. I am dropping it now, as I seem to be the only one that cares about such useless minutia such as fit and finish. Does it do more damage? Pfft who cares how....
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I would add in that there is something somewhere (in the rule book?) about playing the rules the way you think that they would play i.e. thematically. So if something is counter theme, it is sort of counter Mage Wars.
umm I'm going to be painful now, is Life = 6+2X the same as 6+2 x X? so four crush tokens is Life = 6+8?
MMMM imagine a grow spell, that adds a cycle to all plant spells, so you could cast stranglevine and then grow and get it to 1 crush before the first upkeep phase even! take that penguin!
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@sIKE:
I think it important to remind people that one of the three possible solutions was:
2. Changes to the variable are able to ignore the Finite Life trait because they neither have nor change any time stamps.
This would allow the trait to bypass Finite Life even as it is currently written without any errata. I also have no reason for thinking that this is not a correct ruling other than my personal assumption that I don't think they intended the trait to bypass Finite Life. So, while I would be very surprised by it being the intended function, if that is the way you interpret it and would like to play it, it is just as valid per the rules as any of the three possibilities I listed. At least until we get official word on how to handle a changing variable within an existing trait on an object.
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I would like to reiterate that I am very opposed to the aforementioned interpretation and do not think it is correct, but barring an official ruling it is a valid interpretation. Personally I think that changes to the variable have their own individual time stamps, meaning they are affected by finite life. But if other people want to play it as bypassing the finite life trait, I can't say they are definitively wrong, just that I believe them to be.
Sike did mention errata as an option as well though. So any way you look at it, he's not really wrong and his interpretation does make thematic sense.
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with finite life you "can't gain life", but allready gained life stays.
it seems logical that you keep your 2x life gained before the finite life but that the new counters don't affect the vine's life and only make damage to the target (here there's no more logic with the vine... but it's a secondary problem).
and...
when you destroy the deathlock... all the counters are still on the card so it gains all the pv it missed?
that's strange but seems right.
what about a bull endurance, can you put this enchantment on a finite life creature and it will affect it when the creature looses finite life?
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Indeed, that is how Bull Endurance works, and how I would currently interpret the Stranglevine. It all depends on how we decide to handle the changing variable though with regards to time stamps. Here is my original post discussing the possibilities. (http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=16036.msg57331#msg57331)
Option 1 basically erases the past, allowing Finite Life to cancel all of the Life gained, past and future.
Option 2 is like a historical revisionist, rewriting the past and increasing a trait that already exists without the game registering any changes happening.
Option 3 seems the most likely to me. By having a separate time stamp for each change in the variable, we're able to keep past gains while preventing future ones, which is how Finite Life tends to function.
Also, to apologize for the confusion, although sIKE was advocating a similar effect in the end as Option 2, he was advocating a completely different mechanical route to get there by suggesting we errata the card to use the Innate Life trait instead. Which, I can definitely see merit in his suggestion, but barring errata the only interpretations I can come up with for the current card are the three mentioned and only the last one actually makes sense to me. If the others make sense to you though, I can't say with any authority that your wrong, only that the other two options seem silly to me personally.
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for me your 1. is false: finite life doesn't erase past gains.
if i understand your 2., it would gain life being finite life: false.
when all other options are impossible, the last one bla-bla-bla, so your 3. is my answer.
could we have an offcial statement?
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What i believe:
Deathlock will not stop stranglevine from gaining life.
Stranglevine only gains its life once - when its summoned. Just like a creature which is also allowed to be summoned with its life despite a death lock in play, because the effect of deathlock takes place after its summoned.
Stranglevines life is at all times 6+2*X.
While X will change every upkeep stranglevine does not gain life every upkeep, its total life is instead changed due to the '2*X' it gained when it was summoned.
This is representing something that is growing and becoming stronger similar to the growth tokens, rather than healing wounds, or regerating or even stealing life. And apparantly deathlock does not limit the former.
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What i believe:
Deathlock will not stop stranglevine from gaining life.
Stranglevine only gains its life once - when its summoned. Just like a creature which is also allowed to be summoned with its life despite a death lock in play, because the effect of deathlock takes place after its summoned.
Stranglevines life is at all times 6+2*X.
While X will change every upkeep stranglevine does not gain life every upkeep, its total life is instead changed due to the '2*X' it gained when it was summoned.
This is representing something that is growing and becoming stronger similar to the growth tokens, rather than healing wounds, or regerating or even stealing life. And apparantly deathlock does not limit the former.
This is a wonderful description and thematic explanation for option 2 that I mentioned, proving that my preferred explanation is not the only one that makes sense to people. This really needs an official ruling. That's the only way to reach consensus.
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What i believe:
Deathlock will not stop stranglevine from gaining life.
Stranglevine only gains its life once - when its summoned. Just like a creature which is also allowed to be summoned with its life despite a death lock in play, because the effect of deathlock takes place after its summoned.
Stranglevines life is at all times 6+2*X.
While X will change every upkeep stranglevine does not gain life every upkeep, its total life is instead changed due to the '2*X' it gained when it was summoned.
This is representing something that is growing and becoming stronger similar to the growth tokens, rather than healing wounds, or regerating or even stealing life. And apparantly deathlock does not limit the former.
aha!
but, shouldn't be the vines life 6+2x? the life is 6 and it GAINS 2x, so i still think... we need an official statement!
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aha!
but, shouldn't be the vines life 6+2x? the life is 6 and it GAINS 2x, so i still think... we need an official statement!
It gains 2*X When its summoned which is before its affected by deathlock.
Just because X changes it does mean it *Gain* anything anymore. Its life is merely adjusted (increased) but the time that it actually 'gained' this variable life effect is still when it was summoned.
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Under the third option, I can imagine some measure of difficulty in remembering what the life actually is for a Stranglevine if it gained Finite Life. You have a certain number of markers on it, but you may wonder how many of those markers actually count in increasing its life total.
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Under the third option, I can imagine some measure of difficulty in remembering what the life actually is for a Stranglevine if it gained Finite Life. You have a certain number of markers on it, but you may wonder how many of those markers actually count in increasing its life total.
I like this rationale for changing the trait to "Innate Life + 2X".
Keep it simple during game play.
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The intention during design was that Finite life would stop future life gain, but not past life gain. Unfortuneatly, I do not remember the reason why off the top of my head. But I remember the conversations about finite life and the vine. For rules purposes the best way to treat it is that when it gains a crush counter it is actively gaining 2 life, which the deathlock stops. I'll be looking into this guy more, and talking to bryan when he gets back.
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this issue never got completely resolved as far as i can tell. the card text was never altered, just ruled to work differently than it says it does on the card. did Bryan ever respond?
edit: nvm i understand the card text now and it's correct.