Hi all,

Welcome to the first post-Avengers edition of Cerebro. I hope everybody had fun at their Sneak Previews! The Avengers FAQ can be found here,  and this week’s column gives me the chance to add a few appendices to it, cobbled together from Sneak Preview questions as well as the ever-bulging Cerebro mailbag.

We’ll start with a featured question from the mailbag, as usual, but first we have some errata to deal with! And, ironically, it’s another character named Mr. Hyde that’s been causing confusion. The original wording of Mr. Hyde, Engine of Destruction was:

Mr. Hyde gets +2 ATK /+2 DEF while an opponent controls a character with a greater cost than that of any character you control.

Unfortunately, quite a number of people thought (or possibly hoped) that you could start turn 4 with, say, a 3-drop in play, then recruit Mr. Hyde. Then, Mr. Hyde would get his bonus if your opponent also recruited a 4-drop, because your opponent would then control a character with a greater cost than that of your 3-drop.

The problem with that interpretation is that the typical fourth-turn scenario of you starting with a character in play and both players recruiting 4-drops is not exactly an outlandish one. If this is the case, then Mr. Hyde would almost always be a 5-drop–sized character with a recruit cost of 4, and a common one at that! To address this misunderstanding, the following errata has been issued.

Mr. Hyde gets +2 ATK/+2 DEF while an opponent controls a character with a greater cost than that of each character you control.

So the earliest Mr. Hyde gets his bonus is turn 5, and that’s only if your opponent plays a 5-drop and you don’t.

I control an Avengers character and a Thunderbolts character, and play Two Worlds from my resource row to team them up. Can I play a second Two Worlds from my resource row in response, and draw two cards?

Mon, Manila, Philippines

Yes, indeed. You check whether you control another face-up resource named Two Worlds as each effect resolves. When the second effect resolves first, it counts the first Two Worlds and you draw a card. When the first effect resolves second, it counts the second Two Worlds and you draw another card!

Do characters in your resource row count as characters you control? I assume that face-down characters don’t, as they have no characteristics apart from "resource" (and “ready ” or “exhausted”), but what about revealed ones? For example, if I have Thunderbolts and Avengers teamed up with, say, Two Worlds, and play Call Down the Lightning, can I replace a Thunderbolts character card in my resource row and get the +3 DEF?

Kat S., Lancs, UK

No. Character cards in your resource row are “character cards” rather than characters. No team-ups printed to date affect character cards in your resource row.

To answer a related question, note that Call Down the Lightning is only interested in the affiliation of the character card you replaced at the time you replaced it (when it was in your resource row). Even though it’s an Avengers character card in your KO’d pile when Call Down the Lightning resolves (thanks to Two Worlds), it did not have the Avengers affilition when you replaced it, so the target doesn’t get +3 DEF.

If you play Black Panther from your resource row, can you “reserve-replace” it with another reservist and count that card as part of Black Panther's come-into-play effect?

Kat S., Lancs, UK

You sure can. You may put down the “reserve-replacement” resource as you play Black Panther's recruit effect. After successive passes, his recruit effect resolves, triggering his come-into-play effect. When that triggered effect resolves, you may reveal any number of resources, including the “reserve-replacement.”

I have a question about Call Down the Lightning. It doesn't say to first reveal the reservist resource you replace, yet I was under the impression that for a resource to have reservist, it had to be face up. Can you help me?

Ricardo B.

Fortunately, the rules come to the rescue here by incorporating “revealing” into the definition of ”replacing” a resource. Here’s the definition.

“To replace a resource, its controller reveals it, then KO’s it. Then, if he or she did, that player puts the top card of his or her deck face down into his or her resource row where the KO’d resource was.”

To answer one last question about the super-popular Call Down the Lightning—if you control Supreme Sanction, then yes, you can replace any character card in your resource row to pay its cost.

I have a non-reservist character card in my resource row. I flip Supreme Sanction, then recruit that character card. My opponent responds by targeting Supreme Sanction with War of Attrition. I still get to recruit my character, right?

Kingzter101

Yup, that’s right. The character card only needed to be a reservist when you played its recruit effect. KO’ing Supreme Sanction won’t affect the recruit effect once that effect is on the chain.

What if the opponent plays War of Attrition in response to me flipping Supreme Sanction? Then I can’t recruit the character, right?

Bace777

Right again. Even though the non-ongoing text of Supreme Sanction doesn’t create a modifier on resolution, it still puts a “blank” effect on the chain. Even though you retain priority after flipping Supreme Sanction, you can only recruit a character on an empty chain.

War of Attrition resolves first, KO’ing Supreme Sanction. Then the “blank” effect resolves after further successive passes. By the time the chain has emptied, the non-reservist character card in your resource row is once again a non-reservist character card.

I had one reservist and one non-reservist character card in my resource row. I flipped Supreme Sanction, then recruited Wonder Man, planning to stun my opponent's 1-drop. My opponent responded by targeting Supreme Sanction with War of Attrition. The judge ruled that I would not be able to stun anything because Supreme Sanction's continuous modifier was gone before Wonder Man’s triggered effect resolved. Was he right?

Zach H.

First of all, your opponent could play War of Attrition in response to Wonder Man's recruit effect, but it seems like a better play for him if he responds to Wonder Man’s triggered effect. This is because you must lock in your choice of target when you put that triggered effect on the chain.

Either way, though, the judge was correct: War of Attrition resolves before Wonder Man's triggered effect. When his triggered effect resolves, you may reveal up to five resources—but, in the absence of Supreme Sanction, you’re only able to reveal a single reservist card.

Would Falcon's power “stack” multiple times if he is adjacent to multiple leaders? I don't think so. Judging by his text, he would have to read something like, “for each leader adjacent to Falcon, he gets +2 ATK/+2 DEF,” if that were the case.

Zach H.

You're absolutely correct. Falcon only gets +2 ATK/+2 DEF, even while adjacent to more than one leader.

Something came up at the Sneak Preview that I wanted to confirm. My opponent controls Polaris on his initiative. I control Iron Man, Tony Stark and three adjacent Avengers characters. Polaris triggers at the start of my opponent's attack step, removing flight and range from each of my characters. If I pay 1 endurance to move Iron Man with Justice for All, do the characters now adjacent to Iron Man regain flight and range? My assumption was yes, because it seems similar to transferring equipment.

Jeremy T.

While it seems plausible that a continuous modifier from a continuous power might “reset” whenever it starts affecting new characters, that’s not the way the rules work in this case.

After Iron Man moves, each character now adjacent to him is affected by two modifiers—the one being generated by Iron Man’s continuous power, and the one created by Polaris’s triggered effect. Neither is dependent on the other, so they are applied in timestamp order.

The timestamp of Polaris’s modifier is when her triggered effect resolved. However, the key to this question is that the timestamp of Iron Man’s modifier is not when he last moved, but rather, when he last came into play or last turned face up, whichever is more recent.

As a result, Iron Man’s modifier applies first, and then Polaris’s modifier applies. Characters adjacent to Iron Man lose flight and range this turn.

I have a question about Chaos Magic. Say, for example, Terra activates to target Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger. Can I play Chaos Magic and change the target to Iron Man, Tony Stark? If so, does the effect become negated because he is not a character with a cost of 3 or less?

Tim K., Brooklyn, NY, USA

Nope. This is what the FAQ has to say on the subject:

“On resolution, choose an effect with a single target that is targeting an Avengers character you control. If there is such an effect, and you control one or more other characters that are legal targets for that effect, you must choose one such character to be the new target of that effect. If there are no such characters, Chaos Magic will resolve but do nothing.”

You can play Chaos Magic, but if Iron Man is the only other character you control, Chaos Magic does nothing on resolution. This is because Iron Man is not a legal target for Terra’s effect. Quicksilver remains the target of that effect, and will be stunned when it resolves.

If my opponent plays Justice, Like Lightning on his Thunderbolts attacker, and chooses to exhaust a character adjacent to my defender, can I exhaust the chosen character in response to reinforce my defender?

Mark T., Singapore

Yes and no. The key to this question is that Justice, Like Lightning only targets the attacker, not the character to be exhausted. So yes, you can respond by exhausting any number of characters you control. However, your opponent doesn’t choose a character to exhaust until Justice, Like Lightning resolves. Once he makes that choice, there is no opportunity for you to respond before it becomes exhausted.

Do resource points last the entire build phase or just the recruit step? I'd like to transfer Force Field Belt to my highest drop before using its payment power.

Hoan N., MI, USA

Resource points are only available during your recruit step, so each turn you may only spend your spare resource points before you choose whether or not to transfer Force Field Belt at the start of your formation step. And with that fine question answered, it’s time to close the curtain on our first MAV-tastic column!

Good luck to all competing at next week’s Pro Circuit. Please come up and say hi if you see me loitering about. If you can’t make it to Indy, your questions are still welcome, as always, at vsrules@gmail.com.