This chain came up at our Legend event and I wanted to make sure this was correct. My opponent is playing Gorilla Groud Legend. If it's my recruit step and I play Only Human on Ultron and both pass so Only Human resolves, then I try to recruit a character and Ultron is sacrificed for Coup De Taut, would he still come back at the start of the combat phase if the Legend player paid the cost of removing 4 cards from the game?

We ruled it was a triggered effect and since Ultron was in the KO pile, he would still come back. Were we wrong?

Correct because his text is inconcequential once its effect has been placed upon the chain. The effect existing independant of the card.

...and I gotta know I built a version but it seemed kinda so so, how is the deck working out for him.

Another thing: if this is all happening during the build phase, it's a non-issue. OH only switches on during combat.

Also, even if it did switch on right away, it still wouldn't stop the effect. Once Ultron leaves play, he's no longer the same "target character" you smacked with OH. At that point, he's a character card again and loses any "hats" he was wearing when he was a character (and yes, I know hats doesn't exist anymore, but it's still a convenient metaphor. ;) )

captainspud's statement about Only Human only working during combat is accurate. However...

An Only Human'd Ultron will not trigger because it looks back at the game state right before the card left play to determine whether or not it should trigger. The power does not exist at that point.

Similarly, if an Only Human'd Ahmed enters the KO'd pile from play, you do not lose the game.

But:

...or am I misreading what that part means?

So while Ultron would not trigger if KO'd during "the combat phase" he would trigger in the scenario you describe since it occurs during the build phase.

There's a semantic difference between "inactive" and "does not exist". Inactive powers are ones which are printed (but still exist) on, for example, a stunned character.

A character targeted by Only Human "lose" powers. They do not become "inactive".

I love these kind of threads.

That's a really weird distinction. @_@

What about "Cosmic: [power]"? If they have no counter, is [power] gone or inactive?

What about character cards in the deck or KO'd pile? Is their in-play text gone or inactive?

This is the first time I've ever heard of there being a distinction between the two (I figured they were just synonyms), so I'm just trying to get a little grounding.

Here's a quick break-down of "Inactive" from the Glossary:Only Human doesn't fall into any of the situations from the second paragraph that involve inactive text. And because Only Human takes away powers, whereas "inactive" applies just to text or modifiers, Only Human isn't going the "inactive" route.

Cosmic is listed as an example of inactive text, and the CRD descriptions of Cosmic also use the word. A card in your deck, on the other hand, would generally be an example of active text; other rules prevent that card from having powers, but it still has the text, which is why cards like At Your Service or Bloodhound work.

Ah, interesting points.

Cosmic text without a counter is inactive.

Character cards have active text in any zone where they are revealed, though the powers described by their text may not function in all zones.

From the CRD:
(note: "treated as if it did not exist" does not mean "does not exist is treated as inactive)

(apologies that the rule cross-references aren't live-- OpenOffice doesn't play that well with the outline structure used by UDE) I'm sure someone will be along to re-post if it's of interest. (Or interested readers can look it up themselves!)

I don't know if it was possible to "lose" a power and end up with a "powers on this card don't match the union of inactive and active powers printed on the card" situation prior to Only Human/Mr. Sinister.

The General was ahead of it's time. :)

But, right, the distinction between inactive text and taken-away powers only started to matter recently, with Only Human and Mr. Sinister. I think the rules for "inactive" even got a polish recently, to make sure that all of the power-stripping and power-granting fit together properly.

so the final say on the matter is that Ultron doesn't come back right?

Ultron only loses his text from OH during combat phase,
so he only doesn't come back if ko him during combat phase,
if you KO him while he has text (any time but the combat phase)
he creates an effect that exists independant of his card.