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It appears that there has been a change in behavior with Cruel and Relentless (presumably Scrappy, too?). Historically, I believe Cruel has always resolved last, making it significantly better when matched up against Relentless. The behavior now appears to be random, but without any indication of that in the game log.

This was balanced somewhat by the fact that Cruel can be cancelled out by Rational.

Haven't checked forums in a while, so not sure if there was a thread on this (or did I misunderstand the rules before)? I think this is perhaps a good thing; I'd just like to discuss this sort of change ahead of time.

For reference:

In even matchups (combat advantage of 0), the probability of an attacker winning is 59%. If the attacker has Cruel or Relentless that goes up to 74% (they are equivalent). But, historically (due to order of resolution), there was a significant difference between the two if they are both in play during an Encounter:

1<Cruel>:1<Relentless> => 66% chance of attacker winning
1<Relentless>:1<Cruel> => 49%

Presumably if they are selected randomly now then they should cancel out exactly, though I haven't verified that.

And regardless of all of the above, it would be nice to officially document the expected resolution order for Scrappy, Relentless, and Cruel.

100% agree

imbroglio wrote: ↑16 October 2020, 03:33 For reference:

In even matchups (combat advantage of 0), the probability of an attacker winning is 59%. If the attacker has Cruel or Relentless that goes up to 74% (they are equivalent). But, historically (due to order of resolution), there was a significant difference between the two if they are both in play during an Encounter:

1<Cruel>:1<Relentless> => 66% chance of attacker winning
1<Relentless>:1<Cruel> => 49%

I don't quite understand what you are saying. If one player has both Cruel and Relentless then the probability must be higher than the probability of having only one. If, as I think you're saying, one player has Cruel and the other has Relentless then there is no ambiguity of the order of play: whoever is losing based on the initial role forces a re-roll and, if the outcome is now different, the other player forces a re-roll. I've calculated a the odds of this to be 58.33% regardless of which player has each card using a brute force method in a spreadsheet to model all 6^4 dice rolls, and verified it against this table available on BGG.

imbroglio wrote: ↑16 October 2020, 03:33 And regardless of all of the above, it would be nice to officially document the expected resolution order for Scrappy, Relentless, and Cruel.

Again, I think that the order of resolution is clear based on who is winning at each stage. Perhaps you have interpreted the "after your opponent rolls" wording on Relentless as having to happen as the last roll in a combat?