Let’s Talk Shop! – Pt. 3 – Hitting, Putting into Play, and Hitting a Stop

Today’s little topic for “Let’s Talk Shop!” is likely to be a far more digestible topic when compared to the massive undertaking that “Lines of Play” implies. We’re only going to keep you here for a little bit today… We are here to understand the nuance’s of hitting a card, and what that means in its most basic form. We will also be touching upon the topic of putting a card into play, and then the difference between hitting a card as a stop, and a stop existing on board. 

To start with the easiest to explain, what does it mean when a card Hits? A card is considered “Hit” when it resolves successfully. That is the basic explanation. Further breaking down this simplicity let’s take our steps from the hand to after resolution. 

1. We want to play #7 – Forearm Shot. It is currently in hand.
2. We declare we are going to play Forearm Shot – a Lead Strike. 
3. The opponent determines if they want to stop our card. In this case the opponent does not have a #3 to stop us.
4. Forearm Shot goes from “Being Played” to “Hit” and is now “In Play.” If our Gimmick has a Stat boost when one of our keywords come into play the stats are boosted at this point.
5. Card Text will resolve in order from top to bottom, and in this specific case, the player will choose to either Draw 1 or Shuffle 4. 
6. If our gimmick or a card effect does something reactionary (Drawing, Burying, or Turn Roll Boosting) when we hit this card, now is when this effect triggers. After all card text has resolved.  

See? Nice and easy today. Now onto what “Putting into Play” means, essentially it is a card being cheated onto the battlefield, in this case they are not able to be stopped, but only a static/standing ability would have an application aside from “being in play.” A little more complicated let’s go over two scenarios where a card is being “Put into Play” to see the differences between what effects matter the most in this scenario. 

Scenario 1 implies we are playing Big Daddy Boughter and your opponent has kicked out of Hello Gorgeous on Crowd Meter 0. Our lead in play was Fireman Carry, and our Follow Up was Nerve Hold. We have 0 cards in discard at the time of Finish roll.

1. Big Daddy Boughter declares they are going to play Hello Gorgeous – a Finish Strike. 
2. The opponent determines if they want to stop our card. In this case they have no stop in hand to answer our finish. 
3. Hello Gorgeous is Hit. We first complete relevant card text, which is just stat boosts; because we have an “If an opponent breaks out” effect. 
4. Next we roll our Finish Roll. In this case let’s say we got an 8, and our opponent kicked out on 1 with an 8. 
5. Breakout will first clear the board. We then double back on “If an opponent breaks out” effect from Hello Gorgeous. 
6. Fireman’s Carry is our only Lead in the discard pile so we will “Put it into Play” off of effect. 
7. The opponent cannot stop this card, however because it is not hitting only static effects happen. 
8. Firemans Carry does not have any relevant text that lingers, so it is just a Lead Grapple on board, with no text. 

A good way to determine if your text lingers is, if the card gives you an immediate effect (Ex. Draw 1, Turn roll +1, Shuffle 2, Your skill is +1 for the next turn roll) then your text does not linger. The next example will be with a card combination that does linger. This example will be assuming that we are playing Flyboy and we are hitting “Keeping up Foreign Relations” with a “Soaring Skateboard Smash” in the discard pile. 

1. Flyboy declares they are going to play Keeping up with Foreign Relations – a Finish Submission. 
2. The opponent declares they have no stop for our Finish. 
3. Keeping up with Foreign Relations is hit, our only relevant card text at this point is stat boosts. 
4. We roll our Finish Roll, we get a 9, the opponent breaks out on a 10. 
5. Breakout will clear the board, and then we double back on “If an opponent breaks out” effect from Keeping up with Foreign Relations. 
6. Soaring Skateboard Smash is our only relevant target. Despite it being a Follow Up we are able to “Put it into Play” bypassing the Lead, Follow Up, Finish formula. 
7. Because Soaring Skateboard Smash has a lingering text the opponents gimmick is then blanked. 

In this example we have a lingering text, and a Follow Up. When a card is being “Put into Play” it actively ignores the Lead, Follow Up, Finish formula. In fact if Flyboy’s Soaring Suplex finish was in the discard pile we could also put that into play. In that example we would just get the stat boosts since they are static, and we would ignore the draw text on the card since it is not passive. We would also not get a Finish Roll in this case, because it’s good to note, a Finish Roll can only be caused by Hitting a Finish. The best way to determine if a text lingers is if it’s a raw stat boost, or the effect goes past a one time use effect.

Last but not least we will go over “Hitting a Stop” and what that means in relation to gimmicks. Our biggest keynote here is a card is only “Hit as a Stop” if played to “Stop a Card.” Otherwise it is a regular card in relation to Hitting, and a “Stop” on board for counting gimmicks. For this example we will also be adding an “If Stopped” text as a bonus! 

1. We declare that we are going to play Kendo Stick Uprising. 
2. Our opponent Stops it with #3 Elevated Armbar. This classifies as “Hitting a Stop” 
3. We resolve first the text of the stop card. In this case Elevated Armbar will cause both players to Draw 1. 
4. We then resolve the “If Stopped” text of Kendo Stick Uprising and we search our deck for a Kendo Stick card. 
5. For gimmicks such as Gia De Los Muertos at this point Gia would draw a card for “Hitting a Stop.” 
6. The Elevated Armbar stays on board, and is considered a “Stop in Play” for purposes of Gimmick. (Example: Fireball)

And then just a quick assumption that we are Gia (A Stop based Gimmick) playing an offensive stop…

1. We declare that we are going to offensively play Snap Punch a Lead Strike. 
2. The opponent does not stop it. 
3. The card hit’s as a regular card, and both players Draw 1 for the card text. 
4. Gia does not get to trigger gimmick for hitting this card since it was not used as a stop. 
5. For purposes of counting Stops, the card is now considered a “Stop in Play.” 

Super easy topic today folks. There’s always a lot of finer nuance depending on Gimmicks but these basics should get you through resolving the simplest of cards… With that our next topic is going to be discussing the types of tournaments you can run into in SRG!