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This weekend we had a discussion while playing Boss Monster regarding spell cards.

The scenario that we were having is that one of us destroyed his room during the build phase, forcing the other to discard a random spell card. As a reaction, that guy played the spell card (one that could be played in the build phase) to trigger Liger's Den in order to get a new spell card.

Since the latter used to play Magic The Gathering, he claimed that it was a valid move, as it is a reaction that comes on the stack. The other disagreed and said that it was invalid and he should just discard his spell card and not take a new one.

Was playing the spell to trigger Liger's Den a valid one, or did he just need to discard the card?

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  • Was the action to destroy the room from a spell card or some other source?
    – Ken Herbert
    Sep 26, 2016 at 8:00
  • @winterblood: It was the destroy effect of the room itself. It might have been torture chamber, but I am unsure of it.
    – JefGli
    Sep 26, 2016 at 8:42

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He probably shouldn't have been able to play the spell.

The game doesn't have comprehensive rules on the order of announcing spells. However, there's no "stack". The stack is a feature of Magic and nobody should assume that Magic's reactionary play and LIFO resolution system applies to other games without them saying so. The majority of games (especially light games like this) work on the assumption that stuff happens as soon as you play it, unless something else explicitly says it can be played in response.

The closest the rules get to this is the following (page 5):

When you’re the “active player” (when you’re building a Room, or Heroes are moving through your dungeon) your Spell effects are resolved first. Other players’ Spells and effects are resolved in XP order.

Essentially, everyone piles in with their desire to cast a spell and then you see how they resolve. This makes it clear that the designers understand more than one person can be casting at once, and how to resolve it (i.e. not a stack).

In the situation above, the destruction of the room already occurred, causing the discard. Unless the spell is specifically worded to be played in reaction to that situation, I'd recommend just resolving things as they happen.

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    There is an exception to this which is spells with cancel effects (notably Counterspell). Those always have priority, regardless of who plays them, and multiple cancel effects do resolve in reverse order (like MtG's stack), so that it's possible to cancel a Counterspell. Not sure right now whether this is in the official rule book, but it's in the Advanced Rules Guide which was published by the game's creators.
    – Martin Ender
    Jan 10, 2017 at 13:00
  • @MartinEnder Good link addition. Yep, as Counterspells are specifically made to be played in response to stuff, they can be, including each other.
    – Samthere
    Jan 10, 2017 at 13:56

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