First Tilt - Common Mistakes

So, you've been playing with some friends or online and you keep running into little issues that trip you up or you find that there tends to be some disagreement between you and your playgroup as to how certain things happen and when they occur. Well, what I'm going to start today is a quick look at some of the most commonly misunderstood rules. You can consider this a part two of Paladin's excellent FAQ from this past Fall.

We're going to go through the game phase-by-phase and give some basic examples of what is typically done and how what's typical can be just plain wrong. This week, we're going to focus on Setup through Marshaling, leaving Challenges through Taxation for my next article.

Setup

During Setup, the most common error a new player usually makes happens well before the game starts - deck building. Most new players get enthralled with certain cards and their effects and never once look at their resource curve. This leads to keeping very expensive cards in the deck with no easy way to get them into play. If you find that you're consistently grabbing a two-card setup, then you need to go back and look at your deck.

Beyond that, the most common errors are the following:

• You cannot play duplicates to a unique card during Setup. You'll have to wait for first marshaling to play a duplicate.
• Cards placed during setup are not considered to have entered play. This means that any effect that would trigger by that card being put into play or played from hand cannot be triggered.
• You cannot place more than one card with the Limited keyword during Setup.
• An attachment with the Setup keyword still has to have a legal target in order to be placed during Setup. (E.g. Even with Black Amethysts (MotM) in your hand, you'd have to have an Asshai character placed in setup in order to be able to place the attachment). It may sound ridiculous, but I've had more than one new player just play the attachment without a legal target.

Another important point that we should mention is the new Agenda - House of Dreams (ARotD). The location you select for the Agenda is not a valid target during Setup because it is not technically part of your Setup. Only cards that you're actually placing from hand during Setup are valid targets for Setup actions.

Plot Phase

The most difficult thing to grasp during the plot phase is the order of operation.

• The person who has the highest initiative must choose who the First Player is before any of the plots resolve. This is the most common mistake. Everyone just starts resolving plots before First Player is chosen and then people start drawing cards and... oh yeah, who's First Player?
• The person chosen as First Player then determines the ORDER of "When revealed" plot resolution. That's right - the person with the highest initiative does not choose order of plot resolution unless they've chosen themselves as First Player. In a Melee, this can be a critical point - the First Player doesn't have to resolve the "When revealed" in any specified order - they can choose to resolve them in any order they desire.
• All "When revealed" plots resolve before anyone can trigger any passive effects or responses. The only exception to this rule are effects that would save from or legally cancel a plot effect (or text that would make a card an invalid target for a plot effect).

Draw Phase

Draw Cap is three. When I started out, this was very confusing. People have a tendency to erase this rule and think of it as "you can draw five cards per turn." Maybe you're not encountering this problem, but I still get asked from time to time... so here's my breakdown:

• Master of Laws in Melee is a game or title effect and not a card effect - hence it has no bearing on your draw cap. So, assume when I use all-inclusive words in the next bullets, I am not including Master of Laws.
• Anything that allows you to draw more than your standard allotment of 2 cards during the draw phase counts against your draw cap. If your agenda allows you to draw 3 cards, you are now limited to being able to draw only two add'l cards that turn.
• Anything that lowers the number of cards you draw during the draw phase does not add to your draw cap. If you're playing Kings of Summer and somebody makes it Winter so that you only draw a single card during the draw phase; your draw cap is still three cards (meaning the most cards you can draw that turn is four).
• Any card effect that says "draw" counts against your draw cap. This includes plots.

Marshaling Phase

This phase seems pretty straightforward, except that it isn't. There is so much happening here. The most common thing I see new players forget is you do not count gold until it is your turn to marshal. Why is this? There are cards that can affect gold - some will give a bonus while others will give a penalty. You must wait and see if the player before you plays such a card to determine what your actual income is that turn.

During actual marshaling, there is another area that tends to be overlooked. Player Action order. Believe it or not, while only the Active Player can take actions that cost gold, all Player Actions still go in sequence and every player gets their opportunity to make an action in turn. What confuses this further is every single action taken is a separate, distinct action.

Let's say you're the Active Player and you want to kneel three reducers to get a character in for free. Technically, after every kneel action, every other player has an opportunity to take an action before you kneel the next reducer or play your character. Most of the time, this is meaningless, but there are moments when someone will want to take an action. Not clear? How about this:

• You kneel a reducer
  
  • all other players have an opportunity for an action
• You kneel a second reducer
  
  • all other players have an opportunity for an action
• You kneel your third reducer
  
  • all other players have an opportunity for an action
• You put your 3 cost character in for free
  
  • all other players have an opportunity for an action

Make sense? In actual play, most of the time nobody will have any actions, but if someone stops you and says they have an action, don't be surprised (though you might want to be afraid). For instance, a classic example is Ice Fisherman (TWoW). You count gold and the player controlling the Fisherman now is able to steal one from you as their action. If they have more than one Fisherman, they kneel one, wait for your next action, and provided you still have gold, they can kneel another at that point to steal another from you. [EDIT 1/9/13 - there is a bit of a technicality here. The scenario mentioned does assume a few things. To clarify a bit, you have to remember that the First Player always gets to take the first action in any Player Action Window. That means if you are FP and you can spend all of your gold without kneeling any reducers to play a card from hand, the Ice Fisherman's controller cannot steal any gold from you because you're only taking a single action. But, if you are not FP and Ice Fisherman's controller is FP, then as soon as you count gold, they can steal your gold before you're able to take any actions.]

The important thing is not to rush headlong through marshaling without being sure you're giving your opponent time to react to your actions. Why? You need to learn that these actions are possible so that when you go to a tournament and your experienced opponent stops you and says, "Wait, I have a response," you won't be caught totally off guard and it won't mess with your rhythm.

The other thing that pausing does is cause your opponent to have to consider when they want to take their action. For instance, if you know you want to discard a Sea to reduce a character by two, but you don't want your opponent to cancel that action, instead you would kneel a repeatable reducer first and pause... then they have to decide whether they want to cancel that one or wait and see if you'll discard your Sea.

Conclusion

Okay that wraps up this week's article. Next time, I'll tackle Challenges and the most common errors new players make during what is usually the phase where the greatest amount of activity is taking place.

Did I miss something? Are there other mistakes you've seen? Please, let me know in the comments!