*August [2003 - ed.] rulings from the Shadowfist forum*

*CB Radio, Kinoshita House, and the End of the Attack*

Under the Z-Man rules, the end of combat with the target of the
attack has been handled differently than combat with an
interceptor. In combat with an interceptor, there is a scene right
after combat damage has been inflicted where effects that may be
triggered by the combat damage are generated. However, this scene is
still considered to be during combat, and so most voluntary effects
are not permitted until the scene, and the combat, are complete.

However, voluntary effects were allowed in this scene if the combat
was with the target of the attack. (Unless the combat had achieved a
win.) This was to allow tricks that were legal under Daedalus rules,
such as playing Bite of the Jellyfish and Bull Market when somebody
burned a Site for victory.

This also allowed a number of other tricks that may or may not have
been possible under Daedalus rules, such as Vivisecting a Character
that was hit with Avenging Thunder or a Plasma Trooper that was
doomed to die when its Fighting bonus wore off. These were not
considered to be a problem.

More recently, players have found more serious abuses of this timing
loophole. It was possible to attack twice with a Character by pulling
it out of the attack with either Kinoshita House or CB Radio after it
had inflicted its combat damage.

For this reason, and to make the timing of the end of combat more
consistent, it is no longer permitted to generate voluntary effects
after attackers enter combat with their targets. This restricted
period lasts until the attack ends and attackers have gone home.

This does not prevent the use of effects that are permitted by
something that happened in the combat, such as City Park, Baptism of
Fire, and Bite of the Jellyfish. It also does not prevent the use of
effects that specifically respond to an effect that was played, such
as using Confucian Stability to cancel a Bite of the Jellyfish.

A Character with Ambush that is the subject of a CB Radio may still
take advantage of the window of permission to use Tactics (and thus
unturn to attack again) between Ambush damage and normal damage, even
if the Character being attacked has been smoked by the Ambush
damage. (Since Ambush does not work against Sites, you cannot attack
two Sites in a turn by use of this trick.)

* Moving States - especially the weird Shaolin Surprise/Shadowy Mentor case

Normally, abilities that contradict each other (such as multiple cards
taking control of the same Character) are handled by the most recent
to resolve overriding older ones. However, when cards like Shaolin
Surprise and Wong Fei Yi move States from one card to another, the
bookkeeping required to handle any new conflicts becomes impractical.

For this reason, when a State is moved, the time of its resolution is
considered to be the time at which the effect that moved it resolved.
The State does not actually resolve again, (for instance, moving a
Replacement Parts would not heal the new subject) it just overrides
other conflicting abilities.

For example, if you move a Shadowy Mentor from the Golden Gunman to a
Quan Lo who is already the subject of an opponent's Mentor, you will
take control of Quan Lo, no matter which Mentor is older.

Shaolin Surprise complicates matters, because the State is often
returned to its original subject and controller. In this case, the
State also returns to its old position in the relative ordering of
abilities.

For example, you use Shadowy Mentor to steal John Tower. Later, an
opponent plays Shifting Loyalties to take control of all <Pledged>
Characters, including both John Tower and your Shinobu Yashida.

Later, you play Shaolin Surprise to take control of the Mentor, and
move it from John to Shinobu. John Tower remains where he was; the
Mentor wasn't the most recent card to take control of him, so removing
it doesn't affect who controls him. You do take control of Shinobu,
even though the Shifting Loyalties is newer than your Mentor. If John
Tower were to leave play before the end of the turn, you would retain
control of Shinobu.

However, if John Tower survives the turn, the Mentor returns to him,
its previous controller gets it back, and it also returns to its
previous place in the dispute over who controls John Tower. Since the
Shifting Loyalties is newer than the Mentor, it continues to override
the Mentor on John Tower.

(Things would behave similarly even if you used the Shaolin Surprise
to move the Mentor from John Tower to John Tower; you'd get control of
him for the turn, and give him back when the Shaolin Surprise
expires.)