ETC interaction - bug or intentional

I was just playing against an ETC warrior, fully aware that I was going to lose, but hey!

I'm not salty about the loss but I have to admit that the way I lost got me a little upset:

E.T.C., God of Metal reads After a friendly Rush minion attacks, deal 2 damage to the enemy hero.

However I was given the final blow by ETC itself - with a trade that killed ETC.

I'd reason that ETC wasn't alive after the attack, so I do not understand why he procced at all.

Is this a bug or is this interaction working as intended? (I can't recall any other card that procs after it dies)

'After' does normally require them to survive, yes, so expect the same as you. (That fact is super important in a few cases, such as Sonya Shadowdancer who'd bounce herself otherwise.)

Hopefully someone with more experience with ETC than me can confirm how he normally works in this regard, and then identify whether it is inconsistency or a bug.

Quote From sinti

There is a difference between attacking and dying. Sonya does not bounce itself, because she is already dead when the ability should trigger, so there is no minion with said ability to trigger anymore. Whereas ETC trades, attack ends, his ability triggers, he dies.

Similar to how something that is supposed to die can survive, if it was buffed "while dying". The order of actions that need to resolve matter.

That sounds like good reasoning, and a little bit of testing with Darius Crowley and Festeroot Hulk confirmed the distinction between attack and death phases (Crowley doesn't buff himself if he dies in the attack, but the Hulk does).

The bit I dislike is that similar logic would lead me to expect Wild Pyromancer to trigger if the spell kills him because the spell has been played before he dies, but he doesn't. It is not obvious that casting a spell should include the death phase.

I also thought that was odd first time I noticed that interaction.  But it’s been that way since the set launched so I assume it’s as intended, or if not intended they think it’s okay leaving it as is

Quote From AngryShuckie

Quote From sinti

There is a difference between attacking and dying. Sonya does not bounce itself, because she is already dead when the ability should trigger, so there is no minion with said ability to trigger anymore. Whereas ETC trades, attack ends, his ability triggers, he dies.

Similar to how something that is supposed to die can survive, if it was buffed "while dying". The order of actions that need to resolve matter.

That sounds like good reasoning, and a little bit of testing with Darius Crowley and Festeroot Hulk confirmed the distinction between attack and death phases (Crowley doesn't buff himself if he dies in the attack, but the Hulk does).

The bit I dislike is that similar logic would lead me to expect Wild Pyromancer to trigger if the spell kills him because the spell has been played before he dies, but he doesn't. It is not obvious that casting a spell should include the death phase.

Wild Pyromancer used to have consistency issues too before Blizzard did its revamp of the "whenever" and "after" spell triggers. There isn't really a generic "death phase" for spells because a spell doesn't necessarily interact with minions at all, which is probably why it doesn't map perfectly onto the templating for attacks. The spell is resolved when all effects from the spell are resolved (including the death of minions if relevant), and that's when the "after" template kicks in. By contrast, attacking always deals some damage, so there's always a need to check for minion or hero death. 

There appear to be four versions of these kinds of attack templates (that I've been able to find):

• "whenever attacks" (e.g. Magehunter)
• "whenever attacks and kills" (e.g. The Boogeymonster or Giant Sand Worm)
• "after" (e.g. Marsh Hydra and E.T.C., God of Metal)
• "after attacks and kills" (e.g. Hulking Overfiend and Trampling Rhino)

So, spells look more like "cast spell -> whenever spell triggers -> resolve spell effects -> after spell triggers" while attacks look more like "declare attack -> whenever attack triggers -> deal damage -> after attack triggers -> check for deaths -> whenever attack and kill triggers -> resolve deaths -> after attack and kill triggers."

Ultimately, this seems pretty consistent between the spells and attacks, and E.T.C by this description has the right behavior. That said, there's probably room to change some of the templating on old cards to increase clarity.

For instance, Hulking Overfiend, Giant Sand Worm, and Batterhead all feature the same basic behavior - when they kill a minion, they get to attack again - but the Giant Sand Worm has a whenever trigger. I doubt those would produce different results in practice (as none of them buff themselves, and any other buff would be a separate "whenever" vs "after" effect), so having them use different templates is confusing.

By contrast, the difference is very relevant for The Boogeymonster and Darius Crowley, where the "whenever" vs "after" difference can determine* whether or not your minion survives combat because of timing of the self-buff.

*Technically I haven't tested The Boogeymonster for this, so I encourage someone to test this and call me out if I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, then I'd argue that's a bug with The Boogeymonster based on the templating it has. (This should be the same timing as Finja, the Flying Star, but while that's a card I did play back in the day, I don't remember the effect trigger timing in detail.)

Ah ha! I knew my Boogeymonster was good for something. Turns out he dies the same as Crowley does. I guess we can't be too surprised Blizz didn't bother to align his mechanics with everyone else's when they standardised this a while back...

Quote From AngryShuckie

Ah ha! I knew my Boogeymonster was good for something. Turns out he dies the same as Crowley does. I guess we can't be too surprised Blizz didn't bother to align his mechanics with everyone else's when they standardised this a while back...

Hah, well, that's disappointing but not surprising. Sounds like they have some room to fix up their templating, because according to the Finja page on Gamepedia (https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Finja,_the_Flying_Star), he triggers even if he takes lethal damage.