Cards And Zones
What If You Cannot Do Everything a Card Says?
Follow effects as far as possible, while respecting full costs and instructions that depend on earlier actions.
RiftPal explanation · Answer first
The short answer
When an effect resolves, follow its instructions in order and do as much as possible. Skip what cannot happen, then continue with the parts that can.
This does not let you pay part of a required cost or ignore a condition such as "if you do."
RiftPal explanation
How it works
Card reference
Scrapyard Champion
An instruction to discard 2 makes you discard as many as you can. A cost to discard 2 must be paid in full before you get what that cost pays for. The wording matters.
Unit
Scrapyard Champion
[Legion] — When you play me, discard 2, then draw 2. (Get the effect if you've played another card this turn.)
If an earlier instruction is skipped because its target became illegal, skip instructions linked to it too. Independent instructions can still happen.
Preventing or replacing an action is different. A linked instruction can still happen unless it specifically requires that action to have happened, as "if you do" does. The same applies when an action changes nothing because the unit is already ready or buffed.
If a calculation needs information that is no longer available, skip the calculation rather than treating the missing value as zero. An effect that itself sends a card to another zone can still use that card's characteristics from before the change.
Follow specific procedures that handle shortages. For example, drawing more cards than remain in your Main DeckThe deck of units, gear and spells, separate from your Rune Deck. Your deckbuilding list has at least 40 cards including your Chosen Champion; that chosen copy starts in the Champion Zone instead of the shuffled pile.View in Glossary causes Burn Out and continuation of the draw, rather than simply skipping the missing cards.
The rules call a mistargeted instruction, or one needing unavailable information, "ignored". Its later linked instructions are ignored too. An instruction that is impossible for another reason, replaced or skipped is "negated"; later linked instructions may still work unless they require that action to happen. A condition such as "if" normally governs its own sentence, unless the wording explicitly extends its scope.
In practice
Example
An effect says "Discard 2, then draw 2." You have only 1 card in hand.
Discard your 1 card → draw 2.
You complete as much of the discard instruction as possible. The draw is still carried out; "then" gives the order without making the draw a reward for discarding exactly 2.