Beckoning Light

[Dr Sin]

Discard all the cards in your hand to the Graveyard, then select a number of LIGHT monsters from your Graveyard equal to the number of cards you discarded, and add them to your hand.

From Netrep:

Discarding is not a cost.

"Beckoning Light" doesn't target.

When you resolve "Beckoning Light", first discard, then pick cards to add to your hand. So you can add cards to your hand that you discarded while resolving "Beckoning Light".

If you don't have enough LIGHT monsters as there are cards in your hand, you cannot activate "Beckoning Light", even if 1 or more of the cards in your hand are LIGHT monsters.

You cannot activate "Beckoning Light" if you have no cards in your hand.

If your opponent chains "Disappear" to "Beckoning Light", and there are no longer enough LIGHT monsters to retrieve as there were cards in your hand, the effect of "Beckoning Light" disappears and you don't discard your hand or add cards to your hand.

I'm a bit confused about the rules text (especially the _ part).
If I have 5 cards in my hand and 2 are light monsters, and I have 3 light monsters on the grave, is it legal to activate BL and return these 5 light monsters to my hand (3 originally from the grave and 2 from hand)?
Because the text is a bit ambiguous. The way I see, the above activation is legal, since I have 5 light monsters (although 2 of them were in my hand).

Thanks in advance,

Lucas

 

[DarkLogicianOfCaos]

Nope. Sorry! You must have Light Monsters in your graveyard equal to (or greater than) the number of cards in your hand in order to activate the card. When you attempt to activate the card, it looks for ability to pay the cost (if applicable) and the ability to resolve. If it cannot, it cannot be legally activated.

Think of it in terms of Fossil Excavation, Cunning of the Six Samurai, Zombie Master, et al. You can Special Summon the 1 card you sent, but you cannot activate it unless there is at least 1 legal card to Special Summon, prior to sending that 1 card as a cost.

• You cannot activate "Fossil Excavation" if you do not have any Dinosaur-Type monsters in your Graveyard, even if you would discard one to activate it.
• You cannot activate "Cunning of the Six Samurai" if there are no "Six Samurai" monsters in the Graveyard.
• You cannot activate "Zombie Master's" effect if there are no Level 4 or lower Zombie-Type monsters in the Graveyard, even if you would discard one to activate the effect.

Hope that helps.

 

[Dr Sin]

So, why the rule doesn't say:

If you don't have enough LIGHT monsters IN YOUR GRAVEYARD as there are cards in your hand, you cannot activate "Beckoning Light", even if 1 or more of the cards in your hand are LIGHT monsters.

It would be more specific and would not be ambiguous. Also, I'm asking because I saw here:
http://www.cogonline.net/forums//threads/39063&highlight=beckoning+light"

masterwoo giving the oposing rule.

Thanks.

 

[Maruno]

It's a case of bad wording (not unheard of in this game). What you said is a better way to word it.

DarkLogician's examples are not as useful as they seem, because "Beckoning Light" has no cost and his examples do (the discard). However, the basic principle holds (see below).

When you play a Spell/Trap Card face-up onto the field, it has to be able to resolve as is, without relying on any change to the game. You cannot activate "Book of Moon" on a face-down card, even if you intend to chain "Desert Sunlight" to it. You can't even assume that you discard any required cards (such as in DarkLogician's examples), even if the cost would happen immediately (consider the possibility of a new card being invented that nulled all costs, and you'll see why you can't depend on the cost to make sure the effect can work).

Only then do you pay the cost (if there is one). There's a subtle difference here between what DarkLogician was saying and what's going on. Paying the cost and checking to see if the effect is possible do not happen simultaneously, as he implied.

"Beckoning Light" has even less of a case than DarkLogician's examples in this respect. It has no cost, and so there's even less of a possibility of being able to make the effect possible - it would have to rely on another card dumping LIGHT monsters into the Graveyard.

This sounds like a good point for the Simple Texts Project. "You can only activate this card if there are at least as many LIGHT monsters in your Graveyard as there are cards in your hand." Chatty, but then it makes a few rulings redundant, and that's what the STP is for.

 

[Dr Sin]

Yeah, understood.

Thanks Maruno. It makes perfect sense, but the rule wording and the masterwoo0 response in the link I provided before confused me.

Thanks,

Lucas

 

[DarkLogicianOfCaos]

Wow, Maruno....ouch a little.

True, my example was not a 1:1, and I debated useing them for that reason; but the idea still holds that in order to activate a card you must be able to:

1. Meet any activation conditions,
2. Pay any activation cost, and
3. Be able to resolve the effect as is.
all these before you can activate the card.

There is no "timing" involved, or order involed. So, if I muddled the waters a bit, I appologize. I was simply attempting to take Dr. Sin from a known to an unknown. We remember the ruling change for the above cards, do we not? Especially as it pertains to the "flip" that came with Fossil Excavation, then the "flop" that came with Zombie Master. When Fossil came out, the ruling changed so that you did not need to have a Dinosaur in the Graveyard if you going to send one there from your hand, since it is a cost. When Zombie Master came out, the rules reverted back to "no, even if you would discard for a cost, you must still have one in the Graveyard to activate the card."

In addition, I selected these cards because of the fact that when you send a card to the Graveyard as a cost for something, it is in there before the resolution of the card. However, with Beckoning Light, the sending and the selecting happen at resolution. Therefore, my reasoning, if you cannot do it when it happens before resolution, then you certainly would not be able to do it during resolution.

Again, appologies if it confused anyone.

As for Woo, he's my friend, works just down the road, and one day I will make good on my promise of lunch, but (and I haven't looked at the post myself) if that is what was said, it is in error. Maybe he was following the old ruling from that "flip" interval, I don't know. However, we all err. What Maruno (the meany...j/k) and I have given you is correct. Including the agreement that the wording is less than ideal.

Enjoy.