durations staying out / Mastermind differentiation

[AdamH]

I've been reading up and doing some research about durations and Thrones since the rules change for Empires. I think there may be a bug/interface issue with Shuffleit, but I'm not positive that I'm completely understanding what's going on here.

My source for this is the DS Wiki, specifically http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Duration#Prior_Rules -- Unfortunately I was not able to find a more authoritative source but if there is one I'd like to know about it. I'll quote the relevant thing here:

In the past the rules around tracking cards that play Durations extra times were different.

Originally, cards that played cards that played Durations extra times were left in play as well (e.g. Throne Room plays Throne Room that plays a Duration). This was changed via a ruling to only be the card that directly played the Duration extra times was left out.

Also, originally the cards playing Durations extra times stayed in play only until they stopped doing something. This was changed with the release of Empires to have them always stay in play until the Duration left play instead. This affects situations where either the Duration leaves play earlier (e.g. Procession) or the extra play(s) of the card didn't trigger the Duration effect (e.g. when playing Tactician with a Throne Room under normal circumstances).

I've been doing my testing with Mastermind. Let's say I play a MM on turn 10, then at the start of T11 I decide to triple a Mastermind, and then do some other stuff. At the start of T12 I'm presented with three tripled actions at the start of my turn, and two MMs out in duration-land -- so far so good. I triple some stuff, then later triple another MM. T13 I have three tripled actions and now three MMs in duration-land. This would keep going with all of those MMs in duration land. This seems to me like it conflicts with the first ruling I quoted. It seems like there should only be two MMs in duration-land at the start of each turn and the rest should be discarded.

But let's say this is the way it's supposed to be. It's certainly the current implementation. There's no way for me to distinguish between the MMs I'm using at the start of my turn that will cause multiple MMs to be discarded from duration-land and the ones that won't. I should be able to at least determine the order those MMs would be played in and know which one is happening -- either that or if you don't want to change the interface, you can at least assume this was done in the way that is most favorable (discarding the most MMs possible instead of the least) by default instead of what it is now, which seems like it just keeps as many out in duration-land as possible.

I sort of thought all of the rules were implemented correctly on Shuffleit -- I was actually using the client to double-check my understanding of the rules so that I could talk about them intelligently in IRL situations, but I'm pretty sure this one is way wrong.

[Ingix]

You are right about the problem of not being able to control or even see which Mastermind effect you are using at a given time, so being unable to manage when Masterminds finally get discarded from play. The new interface being worked on is using different buttons to denote Mastermind effects coming from different Masterminds (though at the moment fails to show from which actual Mastermind they come, which I hope will be added before release).

For the rules question about the Masterminds staying in play in the scenario you describe, the Menagerie rulebook gives the AFAIK most recent version of the rule about "Throne Room plays Duration" at the bottom of page 2:

Additionally, if a Duration card is played extra times by a card such as Mastermind, that card also stays in play until the Duration card is discarded, to track the fact that the Duration card was played extra times.

So for "Throne Room 1 plays Throne Room 2 plays a Duration card 2 times, then Throne Room 2 plays another card 2 times" scenario, only Throne Room 2 is playing a Duration card "extra times", so Throne Room 1 is discarded this turn.

But Mastermind is both a Duration card and a card that can play other cards multiple times (Throne Room is just the latter).

So in your Mastermind scenario (using turn numbers to refer to the Masterminds played), MM10 plays MM11 3 times, so MM10 stays in play as long as M11. In turn 12, MM11 plays 3 cards 3 times each, including MM12, so again, by the above rule, MM11 stays in play as long as MM12. At tend of turn 12, MM12 is not discarded, as it has stuff to do next turn. MM11 is not discarded, as it played MM12 3 times, which we just determined is not discarded this turn. And finally, MM10 is also not discarded this turn, as is played MM11 3 times, and MM11 is not discarded.

That chain of Masterminds will stay in play until one Mastermind finally plays no Durations cards, or Duration cards that at least don't play other duration cards multiple times.

I hope that explanation helped, if anything was unclear, please ask.

[AdamH]

OK it seems then that the first part of the wiki quote is just confusing, and doesn't even have a source to cite. Probably should just be removed from the wiki (or maybe I should stop trusting the wiki even for rules questions). If you ignore that, everything else makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

[jeebus]

The first part of the wiki is correct. Under the old rule, both Throne Rooms would stay in play, but now under the new rule, they don't. However, as Ingix was saying, Mastermind is itself a Duration, as well as being a TR variant.

You play MM+MM+Duration.

Since the TR+TR+Duration rule was changed, that rule would not make the first Mastermind stay in play. However, there is another rule, which is the second one in the wiki quote: TR+Duration makes the TR (or TR variant) stay in play as long as the Duration does. The first MM (as a TR variant) stays as long as the second MM (as a Duration) does, and the second MM (as a TR variant) stays as long as the Duration does.

[jeebus]

Or from my rules document:
If you Mastermind another Mastermind, the first one stays in play as long as the Duration it played—the second Mastermind—stays in play. If you next turn use the second Mastermind on another Duration, both Masterminds stay in play as long as that Duration does.