When Smoke Screen reduces an attacking Jinx's Might to 2, and then Jinx is returned to base and readied, what is her Might? How does Smoke Screen interact with Assault/Shield?
Ruling: Jinx will be at 0 Might in base after Smoke Screen is applied. Smoke Screen snapshots the reduction amount when it resolves (seeing 6 Might from base 4 + Assault 2, reducing to 2), then applies that -4 Might reduction for the entire turn. When Jinx loses attacker status and the Assault bonus, she becomes 0 Might (4 base - 4 from Smoke Screen).
Sequence:
- Smoke Screen resolves while Jinx is attacking with 6 Might (4 base + 2 Assault)
- In the arithmetic layer, increases are applied before reductions, so Smoke Screen sees 6 Might and snapshots a -4 Might reduction
- The -4 Might reduction applies for the entire turn
- When Jinx returns to base and loses attacker status, she loses the +2 Assault bonus
- Jinx's final Might is: 4 (base) + 0 (no longer attacking) - 4 (Smoke Screen) = 0 Might
Nuances:
- Units only die when they have non-zero damage marked on them that is greater than or equal to their Might
- Smoke Screen's snapshotted reduction doesn't care about further additions or reductions after it's applied
- In the arithmetic layer, additions are performed before subtractions
- When a unit's Might would be negative, it's treated as 0 for interaction purposes, but the arithmetic layer still tracks the actual negative value for further calculations
- Snapshot only applies to effects that alter Might with restrictions (like Smoke Screen's "reduce to at least 1") - it locks in the actual amount of change that occurred