Welcome back to another iteration of How Stuff Works. Today we’ll be taking a look at the differences between “Then” and “To” which can be similar at times, but also VERY different. Many a player get hemmed up by the relatively small differences and I’m here today to try to clear that up for you. I’ll also touch on “AND” in regards to doing effects that you wouldn’t necessarily have thought that you could do. The rough breakdown is that when you can’t do the part before “THEN”, then the rest of the effect stops and you won’t continue, where as “TO” wouldn’t let you do the second part of the effect, but would let you continue on to the next sentence. “AND” won’t care if you did the first part or not, it’ll still do the part after “AND”, but if it said ‘Do X and Y “TO” Z (gain a resource).” it means you had to actually do BOTH of X and Y if you wanted to successfully Z (get the resource). Let’s look at a card, because this can just be utter nonsense if you can’t visualize and apply it. If you’re having flashback to Algebra or learning a programming language, then I’m doing it right!

TO

Han Solo 3 is the defacto reason that the rule works this way, where as before it was way more convoluted. When we break down Han’s Special text into a more logic based setup, we end up with the following:

1. Deal X (2 indirect damage) to an opponent.

2. You may Z (reveal a villain card from your hand) “TO” B (force that opponent to lose 1 resource).

3. You may D (reveal a hero card from your hand) “TO” F (gain 1 resource).

A lot of the logic stuff may seem like nonsense at times or unnecessary headache, but it makes it much easier to apply it to other cards that come out and know what is happening. The reasoning for the three separate numerals is because we know that each of the effects is “technically” separate from the others. The 2nd effect actually is based off of which opponent the first was done to, but that only actually comes up as a potential issue / situation in a multiplayer environment. The other thing is that we’re dealing with the English language and the word “to” is literally all over the place and in the card text and you’ll have to read to differentiate when it’s more of a keyword to signify a “cost and effect” sort of scenario. If you want another similar example, it’s Aerial Advantage.

Even if you can’t Spot a Red Character, you’ll be able to go through the other sentences and try to spot a vehicle and spot a mod. I didn’t talk about SPOT here, but SSSSHHHHH!!!

THEN

We’ll take a look now at Lor San Tekka who has one of the weirder requirements that come in before a “THEN”.

Do X (Choose 3 cards from your discard pile), “THEN” Y (an opponent adds one of those cards to your hand) happens. Do Z (Set the other 2 cards aside).

In the above situation, if you don’t actually choose THREE cards, then you don’t get to continue ANY of the rest of the effect. You might think that this doesn’t matter, but if for example it was “TO” instead of “THEN and you only had 1-2 cards in your discard pile and a Steadfast in your hand, then you’d be able to use Lor to set aside the cards in your discard pile and get the busted effect of Steadfast off. Let’s take a look at Vader’s Lightsaber because it was one of the most misplayed cards on stream during one of the older formats.

Vader’s Saber requires you to pay the 1 resource and reroll the character die into the pool in order to get the extra 1 damage off (assuming it’s on Vader). So many people would resolve the die, not be able to afford to roll Vader’s die back into the pool, but still thought they did the 1 extra ping damage (which it doesn’t). Breaking it down into logic will result in:

After X (you resolve this die) happens, you may Z (spend 1 resource) “TO” B (roll one of attached character’s character die into your pool). “THEN” if D (this upgrade is on Vader), do G (deal 1 damage to a character).

AND

There will usually come a time during your Destiny gaming that’ll you run into an effect that says “AND” and honestly you might question how it works. We “do as much as we can” and due to that, we end up getting half of the effect and are content with that much.

Soresu Mastery is one such card that can end up having it’s die sitting in the pool at the end of the round because an opponent decided to claim or just not try to reroll for damage, because they’d do so only to have you mitigate it with the special. Looking solely at the special side it is:

Do X (remove a die showing damage) and Y (give a character 1 shield).

If there is a damage side showing (even if only your dice have them), then it has to be removed, but even if there isn’t one, then you still give a character 1 shield. At some point, you’ll run into someone that thinks that you have to do both or get none, but unfortunately for them, that isn’t how this works. Back during Awakenings, all of the gun decks ran Jetpack and it was the same thing back then as well.

Oddly enough, we also just have situations where there just isn’t any of that mumbo jumbo and they separated the effects on the card. Force Jump can just keep rerolling off of the specials at the end of the round looking to find a shield side, but remember that if a damage side is showing, you must turn it to a blank (if it has a blank). Random note, you can pick a die that is showing damage but doesn’t have a blank side and you end up failing to turn it, but can continue on with the effect of rerolling the Force Jump.

And Then

By now, I figure that you’re tired of me so I’ll make this as brief as possible. Face-Off isn’t really played, but it does exhibit an “AND” before a “THEN” and you have to reroll do both of rerolling one of your character dice and an opponent’s character dice, IF you want to try to deal the 2 damage to the character of the lowest rolled value, so keep in mind that you’ll run into cards that mix and match to get an effect.

I hope that I’ve been helpful in your rules issues process and I think we should all “Press F” to pay our respects to TheGandork / Nick Nelson who was not picked to be the head judge for our final FFG Worlds event for Star Wars Destiny. He’s been an immense help in making sure that the super competitive part of the community is playing correctly and in my efforts to share that knowledge with you all.

Separate Side Note: I’m considering doing some Legends of Runeterra articles if you are interested, please chime in with a comment here, or tag me on the social media posts if you’d be interested in those.

~HonestlySarcastc