dbmeboy said:

All of this makes absolutely a great deal of sense. Do you think this is what was meant to be? The guardian of Peace, in particular, seems to be built in order to gain a shield and use that to protect.

best

Geki

geki said:

I'm actually pretty suspicious that this is not how it was supposed to be, which is why I started the thread… hoping that I missed something.  Doesn't look like it though.  I'm hoping that the FAQ will change the Protect wording slightly so that Protect and Shielding work together in a more intuitive way (especially with Guardian of Peace and the Defense Fleet making it look like they should work together).  Still, my speculation on what the designers meant to work can't trump how the rules actually work :-(

dbmeboy said:

Of course, until the FAQ, RAW trump interpretation.

Thank you and best

Geki

geki said:

Firstly, I would keep playing the shield with protect the way you are now.  There's really not a definitive answer at this point based on the only evidence we have before us, the rules and the card text.  I'm not convinced that the text in the rulebook changes the source of the damage.  The terminology is vague at best, with the initial explanation "may take damage instead of any friendly card in play with the specified trait" seeming pretty straightforward, but then getting murky with the explanation of exactly how the damage would be dispersed.  I personally think the rules team will decide that damage from protect is just redirected damage, and the source is still considered the original source.  But that's just my estimation of "designers' intent," so it's hardly a valid point for sustaining an argument.  By the same token, I disagree that the RAW supports the opposite determination.

Regarding resolution of damage/icons and damage capacity of shielded units, dbmeboy and others have covered those adequately.

So let me see if I'm getting this straight.  If we say dbmeboy's interpretation is correct, and 3 damage from (whatever) were to be dealt, that we would "assign" only 2 to Guardian (because of reasons discussed above) and 1 to the protected character. Then damage would be dealt all at once - the shield would absorb 1 of the 2 assigned to the Guardian, resulting ultimately in 1 damage token to Guardian and 1 to the protected character. Does that sound right?

ziggy2000 said:

This is my understanding as well, though it could be argued that using Protect changes the source of the damage, so the shield would not absorb any damage reassigned with Protect. However, I believe that regardless of Protect, the source of the damage is still from the card that inflicted damage instead.

Concur, at least preliminarily, that the damage is applied at once. The rules do not specify that the damage is dealt one point at a time, but rather uses the words "with a total value equal to the amount of damage received". It does not seem to me that the total value is one, then one more, and so on until the "actual total" is reached.

dbmeboy said:

This is the best way I have read it described. I think that it matches both intent and documentation.

MasterJediAdam said:

I remain skeptical that intent is matched, mainly because the majority of units with protect also has shielding (and almost viceversa, as well). 

Nonetheless, I concur that Rules as written this appear to be the most correct interpretation, thus that's how it should be played.

Best

Geki

geki said:

They're meant to synergize; it's just that you're supposed to put the shield token on the unit that you want to Protect rather than on the unit with Protect.

This sounds bad, but now that I have played a few games, I have a new way to think about the Protect  trait and shielding/shield tokens:

1) Characters with the Protect trait take damage instead of the intended target. Therefore, Guardian of Peace, which specifies it can protect characters, can take damage instead of its intended target by whatever source - say an action card or the result of a strike.

2) The controlling player of the card with the protect trait cannot reassign damage to that card greater than its remaining damage capacity.

3) Shield tokens do not increase the damage capacity of the unit it is shielding. This means that with Guardian of Peace, it would not increase its damage capacity from 2 to 3.

4) Removing shield tokens from a shielded unit happen at the interrupt level, as the triggering condition is the assignment of damage.

Therefore:

1) In the case of Guardian of Peace, the owner cannot reassign more than two damage to her if she is undamaged. If the source of damage is greater than two, the remaining affects the opponent's intended target.

2) If Guardian of Peace has a shield token, the owner may chose to reduce the total amount (which if undamaged is two) of damage to one. If Guardian does not have a shield token, she will be immediately destroyed, as she has taken terminal damage.

Applicable card text and rulebook text:

Guardian of Peace says:  Shielding.  Protect Character.  (If a Character card you control would be damaged, you may place the damage on this unit instead.)

Rulebook pg 23 [emphasis added by me]

Using Shields says:  A player may discard a card’s shield token to prevent one damage or one focus token that would be placed on the shielded card by an attack or an enemy effect (i.e. it cannot prevent damage and focus tokens placed by its controller’s costs or effects).

Rulebook pg 25 [emphasis added by me]

Protect [trait] says:  A card with the “Protect” keyword may take damage instead of any friendly card in play with the specified trait.  In other words, if a friendly card in play with the trait specified by a “Protect” effect would take damage, the controller may instead place any amount of that damage on the card with the “Protect” keyword. (Damage beyond a protecting unit’s remaining damage capacity may not be re-assigned to the protecting unit.)

Shielding says:  When a card with the “Shielding” keyword is declared as either attacker or defender, its controller may immediately place one shield token on any friendly unshielded participating unit, or to the engaged objective card, if unshielded.

MasterJediAdam said:

I think most of us agree on all of these points.  The main counterargument hinges upon the Protect trait making the controller of the unit with Protect the new source of damage ("controller may instead place any amount of that damage…player who controls these two cards may instead choose to place the damage").  That would render shield unusable since it only works on attacks or enemy effects.

I think it will be a pretty straightforward ruling, and the usage of the word instead in the rules led me to not even question the source of damage post-Protect until I read the discussion here.  Nonetheless, it would have been nice if the rulebook explicitly classified Protect damage as redirected damage.

Surge1000 said:

It actually uses the word reassigned; is there a qualitative difference between reassigned and redirected?

MasterJediAdam said:

Not really.  Again, I didn't think there was any controversy at all, but the argument went something like:

p23 - using shields - "cannot prevent damage and focus tokens placed by its controller's costs or effects"

p25 - protect - "controller may instead place any amount of that damage on the card with the 'Protect' keyword"

Protect = controller's effect

Damage placed on "protect" keyword character is a result of the exercising of a controller's effect, protect.

After reading that argument I thought, #1) the source of the damage token on the character with protect is still an effect of the opposing player's unit/ability based on my interpretation of the rules, but I can see how someone might intepret that because protect is a controller's effect, and the damage tokens seem to be placed on the controller's unit via a mechanic exercised by its controller, it's not quite as clear as it could be if #2) - the rulebook explicitly stated that damage placed in conjunction with the usage of the keyword protect is still considered damage placed by an opponent's effect.  I suppose I initially did a poor job of explaining my position if you thought I was focusing on semantics (reassigned, reallocated, redirected, etc).