The Old Switcheroo (Blue)

The Old Switcheroo has an ability that can only be activated from your hand. To activate this, show The Old Switcheroo to all players, then pay the cost of discarding it.

Discarding this card to its ability counts as activating an instant ability, not as playing an instant.

When activating The Old Switcheroo, you must target a hero. When The Old Switcheroo resolves, it generates 2 effects: 1) a standard replacement effect that is active and is applied to the next time you would clash with the targeted hero and 2) a conditional effect that is conditioned on you winning the clash. When it is applied, instead of you revealing the top card of your deck and the targeted hero’s revealing theirs, you will instead reveal the top card of each other’s deck. If you win the clash, the targeted hero will discard a card. If the targeted opponent wins the clash, you will not discard a card from the subsequent conditional effect.

If The Old Switcheroo is applied to a clash, you will resolve The Old Switcheroo’s clash and the conditional effect before you proceed with resolving the remainder of the effects from the original clash. For example, if The Old Switcheroo’s replacement effect was applied to the clash event generated from Test of Agility’s triggered effect, you and the targeted hero will clash by revealing the top card of each other’s deck. If you win, the targeted hero must discard a card from their hand. Then as the winner, you will create an Agility token from resolving the remainder of the Test of Agility’s effect.

If a card results in multiple clashes being performed, The Old Switcheroo’s replacement effect would only apply to the first clash event to be performed between you and the targeted hero (e.g. Trounce). For example, Nic defends Tyler’s attack with Trounce, triggering its ability. Tyler activates and resolves The Old Switcheroo’s ability targeting Nic. Trounce’s triggered effect resolves and the first clash event is generated, which is replaced by The Old Switcheroo’s replacement effect causing Tyler and Nic to reveal the top of each other’s deck for the clash. Tyler wins this clash, so Nic discards a card. Then Trounce’s triggered effect continues to resolve, causing both heroes to put the revealed cards on the bottom of their owner’s deck, then the second clash even occurs. For this second clash event, both heroes will reveal the top of their own decks as normal.

If The Old Switcheroo’s replacement effect is applied to a clash event, then an outcome-replacement effect results in a new clash to be performed (e.g. Victor Goldmane), the new clash will be performed as normal with both players revealing the top card of their own deck. The Old Switcheroo’s effect is no longer available as it was already applied to the initial clash event.

If The Old Switcheroo is applied to a clash and you were to reveal an opponent’s card on the top of their deck that has an ability that is conditioned on you winning/failing to win the clash by revealing it (e.g. Thunk, The Golden Son, Wallop), you will not trigger nor generate those effects. This is because you are neither the controller nor the owner of the card that you revealed, and thus would not be able to generate that effect.