Force of Will Return of the Dragon Emperor Pre-Release Rule Questions

Hello and welcome to my article about the pre-release event for Return of the Dragon Emperor!

In this article, I will be going over some of the questions that came up, rulings wise, most of which were pertaining to the [Resonance] effect. At our pre-release event, we had a turnout of fourteen different players, some of which were very new to the game, so naturally multiple questions came up.

Some of the questions I was asked pertained to different interactions in the game, and others were about different rulings for what happened when card X is played. For example: In the event you are using [Gill Lapis, Conqueror of Attoractia // Gill Lapis, Rebel of Darkest Fires], as well as [Schrödinger, Cat in Flux], you can still use Lapis’ effect to cause a resonator to be removed from the game when it dies. If you do this, however, Schrödinger will not generate a token because the resonator must be removed by Schrödinger itself. Schrödinger will also not work on tokens since once a token touches the graveyard, it ceases to exist and therefore cannot be removed by Schrödinger.

The majority of the other questions I was asked about pertained to [Resonance] and what triggers it/what it can do. For example, with [Gnome, the Spirit of Earth], his effects are as follows: “[Resonance] Light Magic Stone or Water Magic Stone ⇒ Target rested resonator. Destroy it or return it to its owner’s hand.” In this case, if you call a Stone and it is a Light and Water Magic Stone, you will not trigger the Gnome’s effect twice. This is because there is only one [Resonance] effect to trigger. In the case of the [Dragon of Fire and Wind], his ability is: “[Resonance] Fire Magic Stone (Whenever a fire magic stone enters your field.) ⇒ This card gains [+500/0] and Swiftness until end of turn; Resonance Wind Magic Stone ⇒ (Whenever a wind magic stone enters your field.) ⇒ This card gains [0/+500] and Flying until end of turn”. If you call a Stone, and it is treated as a Fire and a Wind Magic Stone, you will trigger both effects, as they are each checking independently of the other effect.

Finally, I was asked questions about the Resonators that are treated as _______ Magic Stone, and how they interact with certain cards. For example: [Milest, the First Flame] and [Fiery Soldier of Milest]. The Soldier will trigger the [Resonance] ability of Milest (which can also be triggered more than once if multiple Stones/cards that are treated as Fire Magic Stones came in this turn), as well as buff up Milest’s attack. However, even though the “Fiery Solder of Milest” is not immune to cards that destroy non-Magic Stone cards because he is treated as a Fire Magic Stone, but not as a Magic Stone itself. This means he cannot tap for will, nor can he be the target of something like [Grusbalesta’s Secret Technique]. He will, however, be affected by [Sylvia Gill Palarilias] to have all Fire Magic Stones rest to produce a Wind Will. That is because she specifies that it must be a “Fire Magic Stone”, which he is treated as.

This set adds in multiple new mechanics, all of which seem very interesting and fun to work around, but as always with new mechanics, there are many questions. If you have any, feel free to post them in the comments section below! Personally, I am looking forward to how Return of the Dragon Emperor affects competitive play as well as casual play.

Until next time, may you draw well!