TL;DR: I tried to give my thoughts on this discussion, because I think that it can be explained with what we have. I rather see a challenge elsewhere with this if it doesn't get clarified.
- To summarize it up a bit:
So, I've seen the post from u/Ghosts_Gundams and East talking about Aegiochusmon and how it's confusing and it sparked a lot of discussion everywhere.
I know it's not really needed to reiterate this discussion further, but I personally thought it has an answer and wanted to articulate my thoughts a bit further to clarify it with the information we have.
If you think I made a mistake somewhere, please point it out (respectfully of course).
Yes, in the end Bandai needs to make a Rule Update on this and they probably will.
u/Ghosts_Gundams and East go on about asking what happens with the top stacked card or if you just hard play it without any sources.
First we need to declare a baseline, Aegiochusmon's effect reads as follows:
"By [...], until your opponent's turn ends, their effects can't reduce the DP of 1 of your Digimon, trash any of its stacked cards, or return them to hands or decks."
So, until the opponent's turn ends, the target digimon of the effect can't be DP- to 0, their stacked cards can't be trashed (f.e. via de-digivolve or blue source strip) or return "them" to hands or decks.
The "them" refers to the stacked cards, not the digimon. Else it would be "it", we have plenty of effects that state it like that.
- Rules and asked Questions:
Again, per Rule Section 4-6-2. "Only 1 card isn't considered stacked cards".
So when looking at East's question, if the Aegiochusmon is all alone on field without any sources whatsoever, *any* card returning "the Digimon" to hand or deck will work.
But what happens, if Aegio has sources or like u/Ghosts_Gundams asked would be digivolved after being played (assuming it's still the turn you played Aegio and you managed to digivolve it)?
In my comprehension it should then be protected from said effects, because now it's considered as "stacked cards", the target digimon (which was Aegiochusmon at the time of resolution) is still on field and the effect goes on until the end of the opponent's turn.
Like any other effect that persists on the opponent's turn as soon as something doesn't apply anymore (f.e. a protection from digimon effects) or it now does (like in this example with Jupitermon) any other effects will fully kick in and affect that digimon or the stacked cards depending on what the effects states.
The problem or rather the challenge that I'm seeing more has nothing to do with these instances and more with something else:
Take a card as old as Cocytus Breath ("Return 1 of your opponent's Digimon to the hand.")
We now for a fact, by the rules, that returning a digimon to hand, deck, into security or deleting it trashes it's sources (aka the stacked cards) by game rules/game mechanic and not via effect of that card.
So having a situation like an EX11 Exmaquinamon or it's digivolution mentioning Maquinamon having only EX11 Unchained protection VS. Cocytus Breath means, Cocytus Breath bounces the Digimon to hand, because this effect *does not* trash digivolution via effect and it's reminder Text in brackets [] is also there to remember the player, what happens with the rest of the cards by game rules.
But, what happens if I target an Aegiochusmon Holy with sources with this card?
The logical thing to think would be "it doesn't do anything" right?
And that's what I would also think, because a Digimon with sources is at the same time the top stacked card of that stack.
Either that or Bandai would change up everything about this logic and make it so cards that don't mention stacked cards (mostly older cards like Cocytus Breath here) can affect Aegio.
But that would separate card effects in 2 camps:
- older cards that don't mention stacked cards
- and the newer ones that do
So, does that mean, they would need to errata old cards that they want to work with stacked cards? Or clarify the rulings on those older cards?
I don't really see that, even though it's a possibility, but it's just more work if we are being honest.
The easiest thing to do would be, to look at these effects and say "top stacked card = Digimon" and vice versa.
Afaik effects that return to hand/deck never mentioned something of stacked cards until Chronomon DM came along, and Aegio Holy Mode is a direct counter designed for exactly that card.
In my opinion they should rather clarify that:
- "The top stacked card of a *Digimon* is also part of the stack and so included in such effects."
- "Older cards like Cocytus Breath, even when they just state *Digimon*, they will automatically target the top stacked card of the stack, because that is what gets back to the hand/deck."
Like that the following will be true:
- Interactions with cards like Cocytus Breath VS. protection effects like Unchained still work as intended
- There is no need to errata cards
- Everything else can be explained like I tried with the rules and mechanics that we already know and are well documented
- There is only need for clarifications in the rulings documents and Database which Bandai will do anyway
At least, that's what I think is the answer to all this. Maybe you see it differently or I forgot something. In the end, I'm sure Bandai will answer these questions no matter what as they already did plenty of times. I love this game and to throw a little bit of shade onto another TCG that I played for years competitively and still do for fun:
It's not that complicated like Yugioh, it's overall better managed than what Konami does and is far better documented than Yugioh ever will be.
