Mage Wars > Rules Discussion

Low health creature with burns receives freeze tokens - will it die?

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jacksmack:
What happens
If a living creature has 10 health with 6 damage and 2 burn conditions on it when it receives 2 freeze conditions from beam of frost.

From the codex elementalist:
A creature with Freeze conditions rolls 1 less die on non-spell attacks. At the end of a creature’s activation, remove 1 Freeze condition from them, if possible. Each Freeze condition on a living creature is also considered 2 damage that cannot be healed. If there are ever Freeze conditions on an object with Burn conditions, remove 1 of each. Repeat this process until there are only Freeze or Burn markers remaining. This is a frost condition and has a removal cost of 2. In Arena, Freeze also grants the Lumbering trait to the affected creature.


So in step 6 of the attack sequence (damage and effects) the freezes are added.
This should kill the creature right here and now before we start removing 1 of each (burn/freeze).


Is this correct? Also i'm wondering if this is intended or not.

DaveW:
The new conditions only cause the burns to go away... they never otherwise impact the target creature... so the creature is not killed. In fact, it is better off in that there no longer are any burns on it.

Think of the application of a freeze condition first looking to see if it can be applied to the creature, but before it can cause any other effects, it is cancelled against an existing burn.

zot:
I concur with the removal taking place before considering death. since the freezes don't really stick so to speak.

Puddnhead:
Both zot and DaveW have valid points, but I'm not sure there is actual space in the rules for this interpretation.  The check for whether to remove a Burn or Freeze happens only if there is a game state where both are on the same object.  There is no step between adding a condition and applying its effects.  They happen simultaneously. This isn't necessarily a problem except for the clause in the rules that very clearly states that a creature is destroyed as soon as Life = Damage.

It makes more reasonable sense (and I think this is the way DaveW, zot and, frankly, everyone wants to interpret the rules) to have the rules say: "Only apply Freeze to a target that has no Burns and only apply Burns to a target that has no Freezes. If it should occur that both Freeze and Burn would be on the same target, remove a condition from the target until you cannot remove or apply any more conditions--then proceed as normal to add conditions if there are any left to add."

HOWEVER!  This is NOT how it is worded. It is worded that the conditions ARE applied before you check to remove any. Therefore, from where I sit (which has been wrong many times) I would say the creature would die before you remove conditions.

Zuberi:
I agree with Puddnhead regarding rules as written. It seems clear with the current wording that the Freeze conditions do get applied. Removal doesn't happen until after both conditions are on the object, and as soon as the Freeze conditions are added to the creature, it dies.

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