Are you seriously suggesting that if I all of a sudden come to the revelation that my ideas of how
Snatch Steal Vs a flipped down monster work, that will validate yours? How do you know that there is not a third idea, unknown to either one of us that when revealed will have us both saying that we were wrong. Even if my idea is wrong, it doesn't make yours right.
The reasons that I believe that a stolen monster that is flipped face down such return to its original controller are: (1) the game mechancis that state a monster need an effect to change what side of the field it is on, is based on
Change of Heart (which doesn't apply to
Snatch Steal). (2), the rulings for
Snatch Steal that involve it being severed from the monster it took, or its effect being negated (
Snatch Steal Vs Imperal Order,
Snatch Steal Vs
Strike Ninja,
Snatch Steal, Vs
Different Dimension Gate, etc.) appear to indicate when the effect of
Snatch Steal no longer applies to a monster, control of that monster is reset, and (3) flipping a monster face down does not stop control of that monster from reseting when dicated by game mechanics.
First of all, all of the game mechanics that we have for monsters needing effect to move from one side of the field to the other, are all based on the ruling for
Change of Heart that says that it returns the monster to its original controller at the end phase of the turn in which it was activated (This is known, because of the game mechanic was created first, the ruling would be redundent).
Snatch Steal is not
Change of Heart. As previously stated on this thread,
Snatch Steal is a card that sets presedent.
Snatch Steal is the only equip card/control changer that we have in the game (while I know that there are other cards that mimic
Snatch Steal's affect, they are all based on
Snatch Steal as far as how their effect fuction, this for purposes of this thread be considered to be identical to
Snatch Steal). This is a siginificant difference that seperates
Snatch Steal from
Change of Heart. Becasue of this, the game mechanics for monsters needing effects to switch sides, which are all based on
Change of Heart, cannot be applied to the functioning of
Snatch Steal.
This leaves only the rulings for
Snatch Steal to aid us in revealing what would happen if a stolen monster is flipped face down.
If
Snatch Steal is negated by another card such as
Imperial Order, the stolen monster is returned to its original contoller. This same event also occurs is
Snatch Steal is destoried by MST or removed from the field by
Giant Trunade.
Since there is no effect returning the monster, control of the monster must be reset upon
Snatch Steal leaving the field. How else does the monster return to its original controller?
Now, lets say that we flip the stolen monster face down with a card effect such as
Book of Moon. The current ruling is that the monster is flipped face down and remains on the side of the field which it was on while equipped with
Snatch Steal. I disagree, and think that control such revert to the person from whom it was stolen. The main argument against my view is that the newly flipped down monster would need an effect to return to its original controller.
Lets explore this for a moment: Can a facedown monster have its control reset, or does this only apply to face up monsters? If we look at what happens when I flip an opponets monster (which I got control of through another card effect) face down, and then remove it from play with
Different Dimension Gate. When
Different Dimension Gate is destoried it appears that the monster would still return to play on my side of the field (still in face down Def postion), and then it would return to my opponet's side of the field. This is identical to the control reset that would occur if the monster was face up when it was removed from play. Thus being face down is not a barrier to a monster having its control reset through a game mechanic that would reset it.
Because of this, I would have to conclude that if a stolen monster is flipped face down, it would have its control reset(since
Snatch Steal would no longer be equipped to the monster) in the same way that would is
Snatch Steal's effect was removed from that same monster while it was face up.