Sleep and Guarding

[Squirrelmaster]

Hey I'm sure this has been asked before but couldn't find anything on it.

If I put an opponents creature to sleep and then I have one of my creatures guarding in that zone can my opponent attack his creature to wake it up or does he end up attacking mine as it has a guard?
The rules say: If there is an enemy guard in a zone, then you cannot melee attack any other object in that zone other than the enemy guards.

So what happened was in the game; my nightshade lotus, put his guardian angel to sleep, before Togorahs main phase, then Togorah had his turn, attacked his mage and then because of his vigilance gained a guard token. Then my opponent decided to try to wake up his angel using a royal archers melee attack, so we played it that Togorah took the hit as he was guarding as per the rules. Is this correct or can the opponent avoid the guard as its their own creature?

[Zuberi]

Currently, the rule as written in Arena and Domination is that a Guard protects everything in the zone, including neutral and enemy objects, from attacks by your enemies. I've actually advocated for this being changed, and Arcane Wonders did make the rule in Academy that guards only protect friendly objects, so I am hopeful that it will be updated at some time in the future. Such an update has not happened yet though, and might never happen, so you played correctly as is.

[iNano78]

Currently, the rule as written in Arena and Domination is that a Guard protects everything in the zone, including neutral and enemy objects, from attacks by your enemies. I've actually advocated for this being changed, and Arcane Wonders did make the rule in Academy that guards only protect friendly objects, so I am hopeful that it will be updated at some time in the future. Such an update has not happened yet though, and might never happen, so you played correctly as is.

If Guarding rules do get updated for Arena, I'd like to see the Academy Guarding rule regarding Pests applied to Arena, too (e.g. don't have to spend your Guard token / couterstrike when a Pest attacks a Guard).  Very thematic, and means you can't as easily "chump attack" with pests in order to get your big creature attacks through.

[Borg]

Currently, the rule as written in Arena and Domination is that a Guard protects everything in the zone, including neutral and enemy objects, from attacks by your enemies. I've actually advocated for this being changed, and Arcane Wonders did make the rule in Academy that guards only protect friendly objects, so I am hopeful that it will be updated at some time in the future. Such an update has not happened yet though, and might never happen, so you played correctly as is.

I understand your reasoning and logic, however it also makes sense imo that you could use your Guarding creature to prevent an enemy creature from waking up a "sleeping" buddy with a melee attack.
Under the change you're proposing this would be impossible.

[theasaris]

We had this come up in our recent Domination tournament regarding neutral orbs.

Battlegrounds rulebook page 7:
"Note that you can guard your V’Tar orbs as you would a normal conjuration, and thus
keep enemies from taking control of them." (emphasis mine)

We took this to mean that a neutral orb (hit by an opponent after already having been switched on) could not be guarded.

Following that logic, I would argue, that in general guards can only protect friendly objects. If that were not the case, how would multiplayer games work? Surely player A's guarding creature in a zone with player B's creature should not protect it from player C's attack?!

[Zuberi]

I understand your reasoning and logic, however it also makes sense imo that you could use your Guarding creature to prevent an enemy creature from waking up a "sleeping" buddy with a melee attack.
Under the change you're proposing this would be impossible.

I can understand your reasoning as well, and in fact it probably is mostly a benefit in normal Arena play to be able to prevent your enemy from attacking his own objects. However, in other formats it is more likely a detriment. See below.

We had this come up in our recent Domination tournament regarding neutral orbs.

Battlegrounds rulebook page 7:
"Note that you can guard your V’Tar orbs as you would a normal conjuration, and thus
keep enemies from taking control of them." (emphasis mine)

We took this to mean that a neutral orb (hit by an opponent after already having been switched on) could not be guarded.

Following that logic, I would argue, that in general guards can only protect friendly objects. If that were not the case, how would multiplayer games work? Surely player A's guarding creature in a zone with player B's creature should not protect it from player C's attack?!

Currently the rule is that enemy guards do indeed protect all objects in the zone regardless of who controls them (page 29 of the Core Rulebook). This means that a neutral Sslak on guard will prevent you from attacking your opponent and vice versa, as neutral Sslak's count as enemy creatures (page 8 of the Domination Rulebook). Your guards will prevent your opponent from attacking a neutral orb or a Sslak that has lost its guard. And, in a FFA game, putting a creature on guard will also prevent each of your opponents from attacking each other. Guarding in a FFA game basically only serves to guarantee you get hit rather than another player, though it does let you choose which of your creatures gets hit.

[Squirrelmaster]

Thanks for that, I do like the fact, from a theme perspective, that you can guard a sleeping opponents creature. As you'd want it to stay asleep for as long as you can.

It's never came up before in any of our games and probably only happened because Togorah got his free, so to speak guard. I might have to use it other times I put something to sleep. Haha.

[Halewijn]

I also like the rules the way they are about guarding.

I do agree about the pest rule Inano mentioned, great rule from academy.

[exid]

i think a creature can always attack itself (even if there's an enemy guard)... what doesn't help for a sleeping one...

i think changing the guarding rules for the pests would completely change the balance of MW!

[bigfatchef]

i think changing the guarding rules for the pests would completely change the balance of MW!

It definitely would. The question is if it would change it in a good way.
But guarding never was a big issue even if another handling could maybe be better. There are many more urgent things for AW to do these days than this (new expansions, update of supplement and maybe app and so on). And the wizard-errata took a long time because he is “old“ and his change has a huge impact. They did it after a lot of pressure.
There will never be this effort for a change in the pest-guarding-mechanics and the effects would maybe be even deeper.
Long story short: I guess that change would never happen.

[theasaris]

Currently the rule is that enemy guards do indeed protect all objects in the zone regardless of who controls them (page 29 of the Core Rulebook). This means that a neutral Sslak on guard will prevent you from attacking your opponent and vice versa, as neutral Sslak's count as enemy creatures (page 8 of the Domination Rulebook). Your guards will prevent your opponent from attacking a neutral orb or a Sslak that has lost its guard. And, in a FFA game, putting a creature on guard will also prevent each of your opponents from attacking each other. Guarding in a FFA game basically only serves to guarantee you get hit rather than another player, though it does let you choose which of your creatures gets hit.

Thanks for clarifying Zuberi. I understand the reasoning behind it, but from a logical perspective it does seem weird. Changes a few strategies for FFA matches.

I'm curious to find out how many asps we'll see in the future to protect the mage. Keep in mind that in arena there are other ways to bypass guards (push, teleport, etc.). So apart from the fact that academy players "upgrading" to arena need to be aware of the different pest definitions, I don't think a change is needed.

[zot]

I think the most recent asp is a pest already. so probably will not see it guarding at all.

[theasaris]

Ah, error on my part, sorry. What I meant to say: Darkfenne Asps in Arena are awesome at the moment, because they can knock off the opponent's guards, not guard the own mage.