Humble Retreat

[redshirt]

Can't speak for spiller, but I'm still awaiting clarification on this set of questions:

At what point is a creature said to "have attacked"? Is it when it has used an action to attack? Is it when the attack event has fully resolved? Or some other point?

[spiller]

I think we got at least this part of the ruling down. A creature's attack must resolve in order for it to have "attacked". If the card is prevented from attacking, it never actually attacked. Think of it this way, when you declare a creature as an "attacker" your actually declaring its intent to attack. Your opponent can engage it or kill it to prevent that attack from actually occuring. If you cast humble retreat in response to one of your own creatures attacking, it would resolve before your creature actually attacked unless that creature has quickness faster than 8 which is the speed of Humble retreat. If the creature's quickness was 8, I am guessing that you would be able to choose which event would happen first, the attack of the creature or the resolution of Humble Retreat.

[Keith Katsikas]

Yes. Mike is right, but was there something I didn't answer for you Mike?

[spiller]

After your original ruling there was quite abit of discussion on the issues with the card. I guess we will go back to the original ruling. I will expand that out to make sure I am 100% clear.
1. All creatures that attacked this turn are returned to their owner's hand. They are returned no matter what zone they are in (ie; graveyard, resource pile, etc.)
2. All combat damage is reversed. Any effects that were caused by combat damage are reversed as well (ie. Dark Knight discard). Any creatures that were put into an opponents graveyard do to combat damage are returned to play.
3. You gain an extra action if at least one of your creatures completed it's attack.

The biggest problem this may cause is trying to reset the board to what it was prior to the combat. The judge will not have any record of what the status of the board was prior to this spell being cast. Each player may disagree on what the game status was and the judge will have to "guess" at who is telling the truth. It may seem like a rare occurance but game status issues are the biggest nightmare in high level tournaments. At the Dissension Pre-Release tournament I worked, this issue came up during two matches. The judge, having no way to determine game status, left it up to the competitors to decide. Since they both believed the game was in a different state, the judge was forced to rule a game loss to each player and issue them both warnings. I spoke with him after and he said this was the most difficult yet somewhat common issue for a judge to deal with.

[Keith Katsikas]

That's right... sorry. I was hoping all that crap would just go away... jk.

Based on the amount of confusion this generates and the difficulty it will most certainly cause for a judge in an event, I will rule that all creatures that have attacked during that turn, if still in play, are returned to their owner's hand. But all other effects that happened as a result of the attacks prior to the spell resolving are not changed, unless it is damage removal, as stated on the card. I'm not sure if that's clear enough... Ok, so, when the spell resolves all creatures that attacked during the turn who are still in play are returned to their owner's hand, all damage caused by those creature's attacks are removed, so long as the blocker(s), defender(s) are still in play. Any cards that were discarded, removed, sacrificed, or whatever, as a result of the attack(s) are not reverted as a result of the spell resolving. I hope that is clear and acceptable.

[spiller]

I think that is very clear and very acceptable. Simply put, the card only effects cards in play. I think it clears up soooo many issues this way.

[Deleted]

"Creatures that have Attacked during this Turn are returned to their owner’s Hand: all Combat Damage is reversed: controller of returned Creatures gains one extra Action permanently."

I think the way you ruled last does clear up a lot of issues.

Just one more thing you hinted earlier, Keith...you were saying that the spell could be cast without any creature having attacked.

What would happen then?

No creatures return obviously.
There is no combat damage to reverse.
Do we grant the extra action?

It's up to you to interpret that line any way you wish. I can see both sides being viable. You can interpret that to say that since no creature attacked, neither player is a "controller of returned creatures" so no one gets the extra action. OR you can interpret that that phrase is solely meant to say "active player". That type of thing, even in a high level tourney, is the head judge's perogative to interpret. Just be consistent from that point on.

Thanks for being so patient with this. ;D

[Keith Katsikas]

Regardless of what I said earlier, I am ruling that if no creatures where returned to their owner's hand that no extra action is gained. The card doesn't state who would get the extra action if there were no creatures returned, so I rule no one.

[cadrac]

admin said:

Regardless of what I said earlier, I am ruling that if no creatures where returned to their owner's hand that no extra action is gained. The card doesn't state who would get the extra action if there were no creatures returned, so I rule no one.

Therefore, am I correct in interpreting that this means that if all of the creatures which attacked have already died or been removed from play by other means (or are killed off/removed from play by responses to the declaration of the intention to play Humble Retreat that are faster than Humble Retreat), which, under the latest ruling on how this card works, means none of them would be returned to their owner's hand, since they are not In Play, the owner of said attacking creatures does not get a permanent extra action, even though he did attack? This would mean it was useless offensively if all your attackers died in the attack and very useful defensively if you killed off all of you opponents attackers.

[Keith Katsikas]

I have discovered that since we have better focused some of the rules of the game that some of the cards simply don't work as they originaly were suppost to. This stinks because now we need to errata some cards, however, it will make the game better in the immediate future.

This card is one of those cards that just doesn't work as it was intended to work any more. To fix it, we will need to make an errata. I can do that now:

Humble Retreat

All creatures declared as attackers in this event are returned to their owner's hand. The owner of the returned creatures gains one extra action permanently.

[cadrac]

This will still radically alter the results of this card. Under the new errata a Player could therefore attack with all but one of his creatures in one or more Attack Events. When those Attacks have resolved he could then declare and Attack Event with his single remaining creature and that would be the only creature sent back to his hand and he would still gain the extra action. Similarly, the card will no longer be capable of being used defensively to restore health to your Character who was massively damaged by a series of Attack Events and send your opponent's attacking horde back into their hand to slow up their attack. In fact, I would say it completely castrate's the defensive capabilities of the card.

[Keith Katsikas]

And how can you say this? If you attack me with your strongest creature, or if you attack me with a horde of creatures with Enrage, I can respond by casting Humble Retreat, sending all of those creatures to your hand. This stops their damage, but at the expense of giving you an extra action. It does exactly what I originally intended it to do, but without all the confusing text. And it still can be used on yourself, if you wish, but now it requires at least one creature to be returned, instead of 0, as the card currently has been interpreted.

[cadrac]

True, it is still highly useful versus an Enrage deck, or by Lord Satrap and Lady MacDonnan, who will often have opponents sending multiple attackers to get passed their damage reduction.

[Deleted]

I agree. We couldn't have this card doing all the stuff it might have "intended" to do with the text it had. Before, people were under the impression that you could return creatures to hand from different zones, like resource or cemetery. Also, this card wasn't equipped to heal damage or go back in time as the case may be.

I'm not saying a card couldn't be designed to work that way, but the wording needs to be air tight accurate. This first attempt was Humbly Defeated. LOL.

The way the card is now still has uses, especially within a Sutraps deck where opponents often attack in unison against it. It's also a cool way to gain an action on your part...not bad. It's even a little versatile now...I like that.