Boggs Rule Clarifications: If another player decides to defend an attack from Ultron II (the one with the interrupt), is Ultron’s…

I’ve been thinking about how his ability creates a lasting effect, and how lasting effects apply still apply to cards that come into play after the effect is made active. An example of this is Avengers Assemble. If you play an Avenger character after playing Avengers Assemble!, that character still gets the +1/+1 bonus until the end of the phase.

By that metric, Ultron II’s ability should work the same. It follows the order that I presented above BUT if a drone is added to or subtracted from Player 1 during the attack, Ultron II’s +ATK modifier changes accordingly. For clarity, Ultron II’s second effect reads “Until the end of this attack, Ultron gets +1 ATK for each Drone minion engaged with you.” The word ‘you’ in this case is referring the Player 1, the original target of his attack. If Player 1 has three drones engaged with them, Ultron will get +3 ATK, even if Player 2 defends who maybe have no drones engaged. However, if during that attack Player 1 gains or loses a drone (I don’t think there’s any way for them to gain one, but a drone could be killed during the attack), Ultron’s +3 ATK would increase or decrease accordingly.

His ability resolves against a specific player at a specific point. It makes no sense to me to re-resolve the second part of his ability is another player defends. Within the framework of the rules, I think it makes the most sense that his ability locks onto Player 1. If the drones engaged with Player 1 changes during that attack, then so does Ultron’s ATK. – Boggs (Facebook)