Scepter of Pain / Amp

[quartz ibex]

Hello,

Whenever Scepter of Pain deal more than 1 damage, and creates runechants

Does it create X runechants in one instance?
Or 1 runechant X times?

The wording “Create a runechant for each damage dealt” left me thinking that it is X instance of 1 runechant creation, X the amount of damage dealt.

And since others cards usually says “create that many …” as a single creation instance.

Thank you in advance

[unborn marsh]

Amp is a replacement effect that replaces deal arcane damage with deal that much plus 1 arcane damage. so it would effectively change scepter to deal 2 arcane damage and generate 2 runechant tokens.

[rich mountain]

you got the question wrong. Its about Florian interaction

if they are sperate creation instances or one

[unborn marsh]

its a single instance of creation. "Create a runechant for each damage dealt" 2 damage, 2 runechants. the arcane damage is being dealt in one shot, not two.

[rich mountain]

You could be correct, i just feel like you dont quite understand the part that is confusing the original poster. He knows that its 2 arcane damage in 1 shot. He is asking about the wording "Create a runechant for each damage dealt"

Look at sigil of permafrost for example. Has a similar effect, but different wording

[unborn marsh]

yes. again a single creation event of creating multiple tokens

if hes asking specifically how it relates to Florian, then another example to use could be that of Dread Tryptych. Which has 3 different instances of creating runechants, which means Florian would create extra runechants for each creation effect.

but he never mentioned Florian in the question, so I answered it based on the information provided.

[rich mountain]

i feel like you are still missing the point 😅 Im not saying that you should have answered as if he was talking about Florian. Its just that your comment didnt adress the uncertainties and points the question had. He was never uncertain about the way arcane damage works, but about the amound of creation events. I just gave Florian as an example of a situation where it matters

but like, i do still believe your ruling!

[quartz ibex]

Yes indeed I had Florian in mind when I thought about the interaction, but I tried to skim as much information in the question to keep it short

Sigil of permafrost, or even DtD Suraya, to remain in the same set as the scepter, are some of the others cards that let me question if the Scepter worked in a slightly different way

Eventually allowing Florian to double the amount of runechants created

[quartz ibex]

Cheers

I was not 100% sure, thank you

[lavish cape]

The clue is in the "create" Effect keyword.

Scepter tells you to "create" x runechants where x = damage dealt.

For it to be seperate damage events it have to specify multiple "create" events.
F.eks: "For each damage dealt this way, create 1 Runechant token"
This instructs you to create 1 runechant x times where x = damage dealt

[unborn marsh]

Scepter says "create
a runechant token for each damage dealt this way"
The key to look for is how many damage events there are, not how much damage is being dealt.
If a card were to add another damage event to scepter it would be a different story.

To better understand it you could replace the words in the sentence with the values being applied.
So let's say Amp 1 is in effect and scepter is activated. No damage gets prevented.
"Deal 1 arcane damage to any opposing target.

Create a Runechant token for each damage dealt this way."
Now let's apply amp replacement effect.
"Deal 1+1=2 arcane damage to any opposing target.

Create 2 Runechant tokens."

So we see here they're is a single event creating 2 runechant tokens.

Now if they was a different effect that wasn't a replacement effect adding more arcane damage to the scepter then it would be multiple instances and would result in multiple creation effects.

As a non legal example.

Sting of sorcery gives all your attacks action cards "when this attacks deal 1 arcane damage"

Let's pretend Scepter was an attack action card.

It would then be
"Deal 1 arcane damage

Deal 1 arcane damage

Create a runechant for each damage dealt this way"

Now in this case because it's not a single instance of 2 arcane damage but instead 1 arcane damage 2 times each 1 damage would create a runechant token. And in the case of Florian and mordred tide, each creation event would generate an additional token.

[rich mountain]

I guess its just me then. I guess its my computer science brain. When i hear 'for each', is see it as some sort of loop that gets executed multiple times

[lavish cape]

We are saying the same thing but using different examples to showcase them from different cases.

You are correct in that you can look at it in number of damage events would also work.

My examples show cases how it would need to be done if the amount of damage decided on the number of creation events.

Wheras your example shows how the ability currently works and how you could keep the same text and make more damage events.

[unborn marsh]

Oh yes you're right. I skimmed over your response and my focus went to your end example which I was worried would lead to confusion since, had it not been an example of how it would need to be, would have contradicted the scepters wording. That's my bad but hopefully no one else makes the same mistake I did

[rich mountain]

wait, whats the difference in your fake example? Isnt that the exact same sentence, but differently worded?

or is the the '1' vs the 'a'?

[unborn marsh]

If I wasn't at work on my cell phone I would write out how it works in code! That would be fun for me and hopefully make it more clear to you 🙂
Maybe I can pseudo code it...
..
.
No I can't lol it's too early for my brain to function on that level lmao

[rich mountain]

My brain translates the text to:

$damageDealt = dealDamage($damageToDeal);

foreach (range(0, $damageDealt - 1) as $i) {
    createRunechant();
}

But i guess it should be read as a variable instead. I just would have expected X or something there, idk

[unborn marsh]

Yeah basically it's not a loop but a single if statement.
If damage is dealt create a variable for the amount of damage dealt then create runechants equal to the variable and that's all.

[late lava]

Can confirm, that the creation is a single compound event. The phrase:

Create a Runechant token for each damage dealt this way.

is functionally equivalent to:

Create X Runechant tokens, where X is the damage dealt this way.

The reasoning behind the linquistic difference is purely for length and readabilty. There is no need to explicitly use/define a placeholder value X when the preceding effect already unambiguously establishes a numerical result.

[pallid iris]

What about for something like Tome Of Fyendal?
It is worded similarly "... gain 1 [health] for each card in your hand." however, the card hasn't established a numerical value yet.

[unborn marsh]

Same thing. A single compound event where you are gaining X health where X is the number of cards in your hand.
Also Draw 2 cards is a single compound event of drawing 2 cards, and not 2 individual events of drawing 1 card.