Can't take it with you

Can't take it with you reads as follows;
Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool. Each Methuselah then burns 1 pool for each equipment, location or retainer card he or she controls.

Would this card have the same effect if it was worded as follows?

Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool. Choose equipment, location or retainer. Each Methuselah burns X pool for each card they control of the chosen type.

The reason I ask, is because the group I have joined think the card causes each Methuselah to burn X pool for each equipment, location AND retainer. Which is broken, but there is no taking to them. I tell them, if that were the case, the word "and" would be substituted for the word "or".

Please confirm that they are idiots and need to go back to school.

Have a great day!

id understand it as:

if i have 3 guns, a power-base, and 6 retainers. id
gain 1,
burn 10

what are you suggesting?

Wannenburg wrote: Can't take it with you reads as follows;
Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool. Each Methuselah then burns 1 pool for each equipment, location or retainer card he or she controls.

Would this card have the same effect if it was worded as follows?

Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool. Choose equipment, location or retainer. Each Methuselah burns X pool for each card they control of the chosen type.

The reason I ask, is because the group I have joined think the card causes each Methuselah to burn X pool for each equipment, location AND retainer. Which is broken, but there is no taking to them. I tell them, if that were the case, the word "and" would be substituted for the word "or".

Please confirm that they are idiots and need to go back to school.

Have a great day!

Your friends are right.

The word "or" is to be understood as "cards which are location, equipment or retainer"

Interesting. Another case of ambiguous wording.

I think your lads are correct. Each player counts their total equipment, locations, and retainers in play, then each burns pool equal to their total.

That's hardly a broken effect though. I rarely see anyone with more than 2-3 equipment in play, maybe 1-2 location per player, and 1-2 retainers, most often Raven Spy. And you risk helping your prey, hurting your allies, and weakening yourself.

If it were worded as you suggested, it would probably be played more often, since you could tailor it to your prey's board.

Thanks for the reply.

narpassword and LivesByProxy

• An effect like this prevents decks to be built using many of those card types because it would be too dangerous. This effects the game negatively. The fact that you (LivesByProxy) rarely see anyone with more that those many cards in play is irrelevant to the games design. I do and I have.
• (LivesByProxy) Tailor away, pick one type and do that much damage, seems perfectly legit to me. It’s MUCH more likely that someone would have +- 4 location, 3 weapons and 3 retainers than have 10 retainers on the board. If in the metagame, players start using many of one card type then sure throw it in and punish them. Punishing everyone for many commonly played card types seems OP considering how slow good cards like smiling jack work. There is no single card effects in the game that does so much damage.
• It's a common!? Drop mic

The word "OR" should be treated like it is in the entirety of the English language.
If they wanted it to include ALL of those card types, the sentence would simply look like this;
Each Methuselah then burns 1 pool for each equipment, location *AND* retainer card he or she controls.

Timo
Why should it be understood as that?

An effect like this prevents decks to be built using many of those card types because it would be too dangerous.

To be fair, you won't need to worry about that. As metas develop, situational cards like Can't take it with you will rotate out of use naturally. It is not exactly as bad as you think it is, as shown by roughly a decade of tournament play.

Your fear theoretically has grounds, but in reality the card is practically never used as other votes are mathematically and situationally speaking better. Anarchist Uprising and Ancilla Empowerment both have similar but much more reliable results.

So rest easy, and keep playing those employ and equip cards. Can't take it with you will not be the card that ruins your game.

• It's a common!? Drop mic

Oh yeah! VtES prides itself with offering the best cards out as commons, and only the trickiest ones (and most unique stuff) are (were) rare. Thank Caine and Lilith both for Black Chantry migrating away from random distribution!

Govern the Unaligned is common, and has stood the test of time from 94, being labelled as mathematically the best card in the whole game since it's introduction.

So don't worry about card balance right now, and keep playing. You'll find a hilarious amount of hilariously overpowered and seemingly broken cards.

As for the original question, I can't understand why they didn't use 'and' instead of 'or' in the text. 'Or' is often ambiguous. 'And' is never that.