Question:Drop of Honey & Green Ward
Joshua Jackson
on it:
1) Does a drop of honey "target" the creature with lowest power?
2) If yes, then it should not effect a green warded creature, so does a creature
with low power "nullify" a drop of honey to creatures with higher power or
is the green warded creature invisible to a drop of honey and the
enchantment skips to the next creature destroying it?
3) If the only creature left in play is a green warded creature, does a drop of
honey go away?
My guesses at the above question are:
1) Yes
2) The green warded creature should be invisible
3) Drop of honey remains in play since the creature is effecting the
enchantment. Green ward does not prevent this.
Thx - Josh
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"Mineralogists observe good cleavage" Joshua Jackson
Dept. Earth & Environmental Sciences jac...@rpi.edu
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Sigma Phi Epsilon!
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Tom Wylie
>These questions refers to a drop of honey in play and a creature with green
>ward on it:
There are two parts to Drop of Honey:
1. During upkeep, destroy a creature with the lowest power in play.
2. Destroys itself when there are no creatures left.
Green-warded creatures are completely invisible to the first part; it doesn't
even count them when deciding what the lower power in play is. If the only
creature out are a Green Warded Pegasus and a normal Serra Angel, DoH will
ignore the Pegasus and destroy the Angel.
Green-warded creatures do count for the second part, just as black-warded
creatures count for Pestilence. The Drop of Honey will remain in play
as long as the warded Pegasus is out; it just won't destroy anything if
that's the only creature in play during upkeep. (DoH knows the creature
is out there, it just can't find it...)
Tom Wylie rec.games.deckmaster Network Representative for
aa...@hal.com Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
u_ge...@mv3800.engr.scarolina.edu
>These questions refers to a drop of honey in play and a creature with green ward
>on it:
>
>1) Does a drop of honey "target" the creature with lowest power?
>
>2) If yes, then it should not effect a green warded creature, so does a creature
> with low power "nullify" a drop of honey to creatures with higher power or
> is the green warded creature invisible to a drop of honey and the
> enchantment skips to the next creature destroying it?
>
>3) If the only creature left in play is a green warded creature, does a drop of
> honey go away?
>
>
>My guesses at the above question are:
>
> 1) Yes
> 2) The green warded creature should be invisible
> 3) Drop of honey remains in play since the creature is effecting the
> enchantment. Green ward does not prevent this.
>
>Thx - Josh
>
1) Yes. If there is a tie (i.e. two 1/1 creatures, the controller decides
which one is affected)
2) If the creature with the Green Ward is the one with the lowest power, then
it will be the target of the Drop of Honey. However, it will not be destroyed
as long as the Green Ward remains.
3) You are correct. As with Pestilence, if there is any point in the game
when there are no creatures in play, Drop of Honey is discarded.
Patrick Gearman
Tom Wylie
>2) If the creature with the Green Ward is the one with the lowest power, then
>it will be the target of the Drop of Honey. However, it will not be destroyed
>as long as the Green Ward remains.
Creatures with protection from green are completely ignored by the "pick
and destroy" aspect of Drop of Honey. They do counter when deciding whether
there are "any creatures in play". DoH knows they're out there, it just
can't find them. Note that this parallels Pestilence vs. White Knight.
Fuzzy (mka Erich Jacoby)
work, specifically Balance and Drop of Honey vs. appropriately protected
creatures.
The current rulings, as I have read them, is that the protected creatures are
"invisible" to the aforementioned effects. Specifically, Drop of Honey
cannot see a Green-warded creature to target it for destruction, so it skips
up to the next creature to destroy. However, it is still somehow aware that
that creature is in existance, so it won't go away if this is the only
creature out. Fine. But the ruling on Balance is that it cannot "see"
the "invisible" white-warded creatures, so they are neither counted towards
totals nor destroyed by the effect. I can see how the Ward protects them
from being targetted for destruction, but if Drop of Honey still knows that
the warded creatures are "out there somewhere", then wouldn't Balance also
know that there are X number of creatures out there, and count them when
establishing a Balance?
For example, Player A has a Green-warded Black Knight and a Green-warded Scathe
Zombie in play, and a Drop of Honey. The Drop cannot hurt them [I'm okay with this] but it knows they are out there somewhere, so it
hangs around hoping to catch sight of them at some later time (ie. after
Tranquility destroys the Wards).[This part bothers me a bit]
Then Player B, who has only 1 creature in play, casts Balance.
By current rulings, Player A only counts the Zombies because the
Knight has protection from White, so no creatures are destroyed.
Why is it that the Drop of Honey knows the Green-warded Knight and Skeletons
are there, but the Balance does not? I would think that Balance would count
both of the creatures, but Player A would either a) only be able to destroy
the Drudge Skeletons, because the Black Knight is un-targettable or b) pick
the Black Knight, which is immune, thus saving the Scathe Zombies.
Or have you defined counting creatures as a targetted effect? This means that
it is possible for a spell to be aware of a creature warded against the spell's
colour as a non-targetted effect, but not to count this creature which it knows
is there.
In any case, I can understand the White-protected creatures being safe from
destruction by Balance, but I think things should not look good for the Zombies.
Tom, please respond with a really good way to straighten this out.
Erich "Lord Fuzzy" Jacoby
ps. please don't respond if you aren't Tom Wylie or otherwise WotC.
I can come up with lots of perfectly good and workable interpretations
and justifications for all of them on my own, I just want to hear a
consistent "official" ruling.
Tom Wylie
>...if Drop of Honey still knows that
>the warded creatures are "out there somewhere", then wouldn't Balance also
>know that there are X number of creatures out there, and count them when
>establishing a Balance?
Actually the original ruling was that Drop of Honey would go away when only
green-warded creatures were left, until I pointed out that this would mean
that Pestilence should go away when only black-warded creatures were left,
which was considered highly undesirable. Balance is weird for all sorts of
reasons; I wouldn't worry too much about it acting differently from Drop
of Honey. The basic reasoning behind the Balance ruling is that since you
pick which creatures are destroyed, it's sorta like a targetted
effect, so protection from white should keep you from picking that creature.
But then you can get into a situation where you have 3 creatures in play,
all white-warded, and your opponent only has 2. Balance is telling you to
get rid of one of them, but their protection is telling you you can't.
There's really no way out of that paradox, so the solution was to for white-
warded creatures to be ignored entirely.
>Why is it that the Drop of Honey knows the Green-warded Knight and Skeletons
>are there, but the Balance does not?...
"Just because".
>both of the creatures, but Player A would either a) only be able to destroy
>the Drudge Skeletons, because the Black Knight is un-targettable or b) pick
>the Black Knight, which is immune, thus saving the Scathe Zombies.
a) would probably work in is scenario, but not in the one I mentioned above.
b) is self-contradictory.
>Tom, please respond with a really good way to straighten this out.
I'm afraid there's nothing "really good" about Balance :-\
The basic reason why Drop of Honey and Pestilence do not go away if there
are creatures out that they can't effect is that checking for existence
of creatures is not targetted, so there's no reason why protection should
"keep out" their counting aspect.