Until UDE puts up their FAQ, I wrote this mini-FAQ based on Alex Charskey's post and emails from Danny Mandel and Jeff Donais.

Update 4/23/04: UDE has posted their Card FAQ:
http://www.upperdeckentertainment.co...q_specific.asp

Erick's Mini FAQ for Rules of Combat
These are confirmed from UDE as far as I know.

Team Attacks

Q. Can you team attack a player?
A. Yes, if the player has no defending characters or all his/her characters are stunned, you can attack the player directly.

Q. Do player 'attack' abilites work during a team attack like Rogue: Powerhouse (Whenever Rogue stuns a defender, KO that character)?
A. Yes, all abilites that would be used during a single attack are also active during a team attack unless otherwise stated.

Q. Does Cyclops: Slim (While participating in a team attack, your X-Men characters get +2 ATK and +2 DEF) give his bonus to every X-Men character involved in a team attack?
A. Yes.

Q. Does Cyclops: Slim have to be part of the team attack to add that bonus?
A. No, his game text says 'While participating...', not 'While Cyclops: Slim participates...'. Think of it as him being able to direct the attack like a general giving all his team attackers a bonus.

Q. On declaring a team attack, before the attackers exhaust to attack, if one attacker is made illegal (by removing flight or range from an attacker, stunning or exhausting the attacker, or removing the attacker from play), is the team attack illegal?
A. No, all attackers in a team attack must be made illegal.

Q. Related to the above, does removing an attacker after that team attackers have exhausted to attack re-ready the attackers?
A. No, the attack continues without the removed attackers' ATK value.

Initiative during Combat Phase

Q. Is the player with initiative the only one who can attack during Combat Phase?
A. No, every player may attack, the player with initiative is the player who gets to attack first.

Q. Can you attack more than once per turn?
A. During your attack step, you can attack as many times as you are able. Once you are done, you pass priority to the next player and they attack as many times as the are able to. Once all players are done with their attack step, the phase ends.

Abilities, Effects and the Chain

Q. Can you pre-empt or interrupt activated abilities by exhausting the activating character?
A. No, unlike attacks, activation costs by exhausting a character cannot be interrupted. Once the cost for the effect has been paid, the effect is placed on the chain and can only be negated by effects that say 'negate target effect'.

Q. When are the effect conditions checked, upon generation or resolution?
A. Effect conditions are checked for legality on both. The result of the effect is check upon resolution. So if a target of an effect is no longer there when the effect resolves off the chain, the effect does nothing.

Q. Can activated abilities, PTs and Locs be played anytime?
A. Anytime unless it says otherwise. There are some exceptions like the following:
Recovery Phase: You can chain effects at the start of the Recovery Phase, but once the chain has resolved, the Recovery Phase goes through all it's steps without any more windows for effects.

Combat Phase Timing, Exhaustion and Abilities

Attack Step Breakdown
This is my understanding of it and is not exactly UDE official. It has some edits suggested by Mitchell_W (UDE NetRep for VS) and some parts I've copied from Alex Charsky's post which can be found here:
http://vsrealms.com/forum/showthread...&threadid=1309

There are distinct substeps of attacking. I have broken it down into 3:

1. Attack Declaration
2. Attack
3. Attack Outcome/Resolution

Chainable effects can only be played during the first 2 substeps. Each substep has a part (a,b..) that is outlined below:

1. Attack Declaration
a. Propose attacker and defender (NOTE: In this substep, there are no attackers or defenders yet, they are *proposed*)
b. Starts a chain with ""when this resolves, if the proposed attack is still legal (i.e. proposed attacker and defender are still in play, the attacker is still ready, etc.), exhaust the proposed attacker and have him gain the attacker characteristic. Have the proposed defender gain the defender characteristic.".
c. Attacking player has priority and chainable effects (even those that can exhaust the attacker) can be played.
d. Once chain resolves, if attack is still legal and both Attacker and Defender are present, exhaust Attacker to start attack.

2. Attack
a. Attacker and Defender characteristics are applied to characters
b. Any "Whenever [character] attacks.." or "Whenever [character] is attacked.." abilities trigger.
c. Attacking player has priority and players can play chainable effects that include those that can modify ATK/DEF, activated abilities, PTs/Locs and (this is important) REINFORCEMENT (I was unaware that reinforcement was done before Attack Resolution but it is).

3. Attack Outcome/Resolution:
(This substep has no window for chainable effects, any activated powers or cards effects cannot be played until after all these parts have been done)
a. If either all the Attacker(s) or the Defender have left play in substep 2, the attack does nothing and any remaining Attacker(s) re-ready.
b. If Attacker ATK >= Defender DEF, stun defender. If Defender ATK >= Attacker DEF then stun attacker. If it's team attack, Defender's controller chooses which attacker to compare Defender ATK to. If characters can be stunned (these are the exceptions as stated by the Golden Rule such as Toad, Cyclops and Nightcrawler), controller takes Stun Endurance Loss equal to the cost of the character being stunned.
c. If this is not team attack, and Attacker's ATK > Defender's DEF and Defender is not reinforced, Defender's controller takes Breakthrough Endurance Loss equal to the difference between Attacker's ATK and Defender's DEF. Defender does not have to be stunned for Breakthrough Endurance Loss to occur. Even if the Defender left play *during* this substep (ala Toad's ability), the Defender's controller still takes BEL.

Q: Does re-readying an attacker after he exhausted to attack (during step 3. Attack) cancel the attack?
A. No, a readied Attacker during Attack is still considered an Attacker (so you CAN use Cosmic Radiation or Xavier's School and your attack will still happen).

That's it from my point of view. Now... as a disclaimer, I may have some details wrong or they may be changed but this is how I understand it to the best of my knowledge. I believe UDE is trying to make it easy to understand in the Comp Rules. That and the FAQ are due shortly.

If you find any errors (novastar, docx), please let me know and I will fix them.

I italicized the words that need to be switched.

It's good that we know where reinforcement happens now. My next question, is reinforcement proposed and put on the chain, like an attack, so the attacker can respond by tapping the reinforcing character, or is exhausting to reinforce a cost that happens immediately, with no chance to respond.

Edit: Okay I just read erick's post in another thread on this very subject. Once you declare a character is reinforcing, there is no way to respond, right?

Locke:

Thanks... I corrected my obvious (but not to me at the time of posting) error.

I thought that breakthrough happened before stun?

This was the case for Toad still giving you breakthrough and not stun?

Please let me know if this is the correct way to resolve the damage steps.

Right, you would have to exhaust the charcter before the attack took place in order to prevent him from reinforcing.

I'm pretty sure you can't because it is the cost of reinforcement. In all the posts and emails, I have not seen any "Declare Reinforcement Substep" mentioned that would allow a response to chain effects that would prevent it.

But again... I could be wrong here (as I have been in the past). This is just how I view it using the information directly from UDE.

Since during Attack Resolution I mentioned that I don't think you can chain events, it doesn't matter if SEL (Stun Endurance Loss) or BEL (Breakthrough Endurance Loss) goes first. I just did it in the order of the rulebook (which I'm not sure has 'ordering').

It does matter what the order is for Toad.

It matters even more for Swift Escape as anyone can use it.

Also, are you positive that you are not able to use chains during this step.

It is the difference of Blindsided being a really good card or just a meh card. Example being that I could play it after you decided to reinforce your character.

So, I guess as you have written it a player cannot use Swift Escape during the damage res step then? That makes this card a lot less usable.

Man I can't wait for the comp rules and FAQ.

Thanks for the effort man. Not trying to step on toes. Just trying to nail down all possibilities as they come up.

You can play Blindsided after I declare reenforcement. I exhaust or play Burn Rubber to reenforce my defender, you Blindside me and I go OW!

What you can't do is say Robot Sentry my reenforcer in response. "Activate ->" is a cost that can NOT be interrupted.

But the Toad issue perplexes me. It doesn't make any sense that returning a character to your hand with either Swift Escape or Toad's ability would in any way interrupt breakthrough damage or stun damage. The only way you can return Toad to your hand is if Stun is to occur. So the Stun occurs (you take damage), but rather than "becoming" Stunned, you choose to return Toad to hand.

No problem, I guess I have to write a FAQ for my FAQ... hehe.

2d is actually during step 3. Re-readying doesn't use the chain and it would if it were in step 2.

"(I don't think any activated powers or cards effects can be played during these substeps)"

It should also be noted that all the parts of step 3 occur *simultaneously* and as such replacements like Toads will not prevent Breakthrough Endurance Loss.

Also during 1c it should be noted that if *one* of the attackers of a team attack or single character attack can no longer legally attack the defender then the attack is cancelled.

Mitchell:

I didn't know re-readying from a cancelled attack is a chainable event. In my mind, Attack Resolution only occurs if there is an Attacker and Defender to compare ATK/DEF values with.

Are you sure about team attacks cancelling if one of the attackers is removed? I have conflicting answers on that and have not heard back from UDE on this.

Note that each player only gets one "group" of attacks per Combat Phase. After the person passes initiative to the other/next player, the person who just passed initiative doesn't get another chance to attack again that turn.

And another common question I think should be added and clarified on:

"Can plot twists/activated abilities/locations be played at any time or just the Combat Phase?"

I'm curious about the Team Attack comment as well. So if one person is taken out of a team attack due to circumstances after Attack Declaration, then the whole Team Attack is voided?

If an action/plot readies an attacker during combat (before damage) is the attack canceled?