Duplicate and Will O Wisp

Previous topic - Next topic

scottydeux

Duplicate offered the ability to gain a Will O Wisp. Just to be sure I checked the Duplicate card and no where does it say non-supply or such, just any card up to 6. I know Will O Wisp is a non-supply card, but as long as there is one available (unlike say Knights in which they can't possibly be duplicated) and nothing stating otherwise, I should have received that card.

And if the argument is that it is an unspoken rule, then why was I offered to duplicate it? I wasn't offered to duplicate a Province because it didn't make specifications. With something like Stampede in which you can buy but won't get, at least the text states so. And that is not an offer by the game, that is user error. Either duplicate should not offer to duplicate something it cannot that is not stated on card or Will O Wisp (and any other card matching the criteria) should be made available. Obviously you can't change the card text but you have a way of being fair.

Ingix

It's not an unspoken rule, it's in the base game rulebook:

Quote"Gain a card" - Take a card from the Supply and put it into your discard pile.

Then follow some exceptions that an effect can explicitely tell you to gain a card from another place or not to your discard pile. But they don't apply to Duplicate.

Calling Duplicate on a Province is not legal (usually), as a Province doesn't cost up to $6 normally. Calling Duplicate on a Will-O'-Wisp, or even a Curse, is legal, and it has an effect: The Duplicate returns to play. Both are normally strategically bad decisions, of course.

The game, like many other games, doesn't prevent you from making strategically bad decisions. You can fold with a Royal Flush in hand, for example.

That being said, I agree with you that presenting the option to Duplicate cards like Will-O'-Wisp or Curse is very often not helpful. Calling the Duplicate back into your deck "for nothing" is rarely a reasonable move, so it isn't really done by those who know it doesn't give them another Will-O'-Wisp. For those that don't know or aren't sure, it's a temptation to do something that ultimately proves not helpful, as in your case. So I'd think this could warrant an autoplay.