Just had this happen in a game. I played Firestorm with Mass Frenzy on me against Pokkin w/ 5 HP, and he Lifesaving Blocked it. If I understand Lifesaving Block correctly it should block only based on printed damage, which means it should not have blocked here.
The way Lifesaving Block is worded, it should only look at the card's printed damage, not buffs. So it's a bug or needs to be reworded.
Pokkin is pretty reliable in drawing it in that battle. If you want to test in a casual game, you can get 6 LBs on a priest.
That's fine; I'm not saying it should be one way or the other, but the block says the effect is triggered on the base damage of the incoming card. If it's not going to actually do that, it would be nice if we got it worded so it clearly indicates what it actually IS going to do.
I don't remember when Lifesaving Block's wording changed, but that is definitely a problem. To be clear, the way LB works, as far as I know: • Attack gets played • External buffs—not part of the attack resolving—trigger: Mass Frenzy, Frenzy Aura, Crusher, etc. • Check for blocks—at this stage, Lifesaving Block checks if the attack would kill the target. If it would (including buffs), LB triggers and cancels the attack. • If the attack isn't blocked, then increases in damage that are part of the attack's resolution happen—e.g. Devastating Blow, or Punishing Bolt. • The final damage for those attacks may kill. So there IS an inconsistency, where damage increases from the attack itself are calculated after Lifesaving Block checks, while buffs are calculated before Lifesaving Block checks. I wonder if an easy solution would be the following two steps: • Make attacks like Punishing Bolt calculate damage before checking for blocks. • Reword Lifesaving Block to not include the word "base." @Jon?
Personally I think this would be the best solution. The way it works currently makes sense in terms of game logic, but from a players perspective it's kind of confusing.
That seems pretty clean to me too. It alters a few card interactions a little, and is a tiny buff to LB, but honestly I doubt anyone is worried about LB becoming too powerful as a result; it's too narrow for that to be a major concern.
