I did send Alex Charsky a PM, I'm sure he'll take a look at the thread and respond as soon as he can.

As for the Magneto/7 during the recovery wrap-up, and the simultaneous recovery of characters by both players - it may appear to set a precedent but then again - it might not. How such? Because both players are performing the exact same action (recover a character).

Think of it as 2 parallel lines as both players recover their characters; the recovery begins for both characters at the same time; both cards get flipped, both cards face-up, text/powers on both cards become active - at this point, when Magneto/7's text becomes active, the opponents character is already face-up and recovered (and thus has no longer has the stunned characterstic) - just as Magneto/7 is.

From the above, it would *appear* that although characters recover and lose their stunned characterstic at the exact same time, their text box (and powers within) only kicks in a moment after.

However, in the Wolverine/5 and Superman/6 scenerio, all the powers are already 'active' in the field, and we're not waiting for some text box to kick in. Although similar, it doesn't seem to be quite be the same thing as the Magneto/7 example.

My conclusion? The current rules don't appear to address this situation adequately, thus the different interpretations/rulings from different judges. Someone from UDE will figure this out, and we will (eventually) get an answer on what happens in this situation. The rules would probably be tweaked, or an explaination would be given to us on what exactly happens in such a situation so that all judges can apply it in the manner the game designers intended for it to be. (either that or they will just errata one card or the other...)

From now until then, as it has always been, the decision of the Head Judge in any tournament is final.

HeroComplex & WalterKovacs do appear to be onto something however - about how events happening at the same time do not affect each other...

However, in the Wolverine/5 and Superman/6 scenerio, all the powers are already 'active' in the field

That's not true. The relevant effect - reinforcement - is not active until Wolverine is moved behind Superman which doesn't occur until the simultaneous events occur.

The two situations are identical in nature:

2 events occur simultaneously. In the process of performing one, a modifier comes into existence that would prevent the other from occuring.

The point is that the two events occur simultaneously. This is stated in the rules. Saying that one prevents the other from occuring blatantly contradicts the rules. To say that all those events occur simultaneously also means that all those events occur. You can't notice a modifier midway through the event (if such a time even exists, which I doubt) and back up and have the other event not occur.

I thought the word simultaneously pretty much answered this question.

Obviously not or we wouldn't have four pages of this.

While the events do occur similtanously, all the decisions and calculations are made ahead of time and then all applied at the same time. Because of that, the calculation for BEL is already made before it is applied and a character gaining reinforcement during application of those events does not retroactively change those decisions/calculations.

That doesn't change to situation... the BEL would be 0...

When a character is made to reduce breakthrough to 0, the calculation is still performed and ready to go, and is simply not applied or applied as 0, when it comes time to apply it.

These are Continuous Powers that will all become active all together, and would make the BEL 0.

I do however think that clarification should be made to make this combo illegal.

Lets have a more clear order and understanding of this.

In that vein, Chad is saying breakthrough is applied, not reduced to 0 or not applied.

I agree with him but the rules do not support such an interpretation.

I don't fully agree with Chad's statement that "all decisions and calculations are made ahead of time and then all applied at the same time" as I don't see the Comprehensive Rules supporting such an interpretation (it's the 'ahead of time' bit that bothers me), although we do still end up with the same conclusion....

After spending considerable time thinking about it, especially mulling over HeroComplex & WalterKovacs posts, I do believe they are right - That events happening at the same time do not affect other events that are simultaneously taking place.

Think of each event as a thread. At attack conclusion, the threads all run at the same time. Each thread does not interact nor affect other threads - they just work with what they have.

So, at attack conclusion, we find ourselves with 4 threads, and they each run independantly.

1. Wolverine is moved, gains protected, reinforcement, invulnerability.
2. Wolverine's controller is dealt breakthrough (602.5b)
3. Neutron gets stunned (602.5c)
4. Attacker and Defender characterstics are lost. (602.7)

So, at attack conclusion: Wolverine is moved, breakthrough is dealt, Neutron is stunned and attacker/defender characterstics are lost.

Yes, this is a change from my original position but it does work for me. =)