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Let's suppose that, at the beginning of my turn, Alarm-o-Bot (previously played) is exchanged with a creature in my hand, having an "at the beginning of your turn..." ability. Does the latter ability take place? Or my turn is no longer considered to be "at the beginning"?

As an example, let's suppose that Alarm-o-Bot is exchanged with a Doomsayer. Are all the minions instantly destroied?

Allarm-o-Bot

Doomsayer

Thank you.

Andrea
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1 Answers1

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Short answer is no. I like to reference Magic the Gathering (MTG) in regards to this, because Hearthstone basically uses the stack like MTG, but it's rarely relevant, only with situations like this.

So the explanation for this is that, at the start of your turn, the game checks and queues up all 'start of turn' effects on the battle field, putting them on the stack based on the order the cards entered the battlefield. Then, the game goes through one by one and resolves each of the effects, not checking for any new effects. Then the turn progresses to the next step; drawing a card.

If you think about the situation you describe, if the game was coded like that and if you had an Alarm-o-bot in play, and the only minion in your hand was another Alarm-o-bot, the two Alarm-o-bots would try and infinitely swap with each other, completely breaking the game. So, unfortunately for you, your doomsayer will still take a turn to activate.

See the third answer by the Hearthstone Community Manager HERE for confirmation.

Waterseas
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  • @ChaseC I'm a Mtg rules advisor, so a lot of that knowledge transfers over well to understanding Hearthstone XD There's a lot of seemingly silly complex interactions. – Waterseas May 19 '14 at 16:42
  • Are you really? That's really interesting. I don't meet a lot of rule advisers. I learn new interactions all the time, as they are silly, like you say. I.E. - Killing Sylvannas with Cairn, Sylvannas doesn't take control over the 2nd Cairn that spawns when he dies. I think that's really silly. – FoxMcCloud May 19 '14 at 16:55
  • Meh, it's actually not THAT rare honestly, lol, have a few friends who are rules Advisors too. In regards to the sylvannas cairn, I believe that's one of those situations where timestamp matters, where it depends on which one entered play first. At the very least, it should be, though, of course, it's hearthstone, so it might be buggy. See here: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/163137/how-is-effect-precedence-determined/166050#166050 – Waterseas May 19 '14 at 17:45
  • Yeah when it was placed seems to matter, which I think is one of those silly things about Hearthstone. Sylv dies, Cairn dies, Sylv deathrattle to steal nothing, Cairn deathrattle to spawn second Cairn. I guess if you type it out it makes more sense. – FoxMcCloud May 19 '14 at 18:29
  • @ChaseC Tis not that silly, Magic the gathering has similar interactions. Time stamps are just some of the more intricate things in MTG that rarely are relevant. – Waterseas May 19 '14 at 18:32
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    Thank you so much for your response, Waterseas, and +1 indeed. That's what I supposed, but you confirmed it greatly. – Andrea May 19 '14 at 18:58
  • Hearthstone has some really strange interaction regarding "the stack". Sometimes it really doesn't work like MtG : when playing a Mind Control Tech, if I take control of a Knife Juggler, the juggler will send a knife due to the Control Tech's coming into play. I was like WTF??? – Autar May 20 '14 at 09:39
  • @Autar I think I can explain that. I believe that battlecry is an effect that would read in magic the gathering 'When this creature enters the battlefield, ....' However, the way Knife Juggler is worded, it says 'AFTER a minion is summoned, ...." So, technically the minion is still in the 'summoning' state when the battlecry takes effect. Knife Juggler must check for new minions after the minion is no longer in the 'summoning' state. – Waterseas May 20 '14 at 14:17
  • @Waterseas Thanks, that makes some degree of sense :) FWIW I tried with the Pyromancer taken away by Shadow Madness and it works too: you get an explosion ^^ Which means that in Hearthstone things trigger at the end of the process (end of spell, end of minion summoning) ... May be interresting in some situations ... – Autar May 21 '14 at 07:35
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    @Autar That makes sense, although honestly was a very counter-intuitive way of them designing the process. – Waterseas May 21 '14 at 14:10
  • @Waterseas If you're still playing Hearthstone, check out the fan-run Advanced rulebook. https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Advanced_rulebook There's no stack in Hearthstone, for example. – Patashu Jun 23 '16 at 07:01
  • @Patashu I am in fact aware this is no mechanical stack in Hearthstone, but that doesn't change that Hearthstone does queue up triggered abilities on a programatical stack. – Waterseas Jun 23 '16 at 14:01