If I had to guess this is due to the fact that ephemeral does not trigger until combat resolves. Due to Katarina's quick attack she almost always recalls herself before combat resolves (she recalls before the blocker even hits her).
Good guess! Here's what's happening:
Both ephemeral and katarina trigger off of the same event (a strike), but effects that are natural to the card get first priority, so katarina strikes, her levelup condition hits and she recalls to hand. The ephemeral condition still is triggered, but it fails to find a unit in play so nothing happens.
Interesting, so if say there was a card added later that allowed you to buff a unit so that it drew a card whenever it struck, if you applied that effect to katarina she would never be able to trigger it?
I’m actually saying the opposite- ephemeral does nothing explicitly because it needs the unit to be in play in order to kill it. That draw effect wouldn’t have that condition, so you would draw a card after kat returned to your hand
ahh I see, so in general it's an "it depends on the effect" sort of thing. Does this hidden "strike effect queue" have anything to do with this interaction? I'm wondering if tryn's level up effect is inserted between the wolf's strike and his strike effect. Or maybe each unit has a independent strike effect queue and they alternate?
that interaction is a bug. When trynd dies to damage from wolf but then should also count the strike, I'm not sure what the desired behavior is (will definitely check w/ design when we fix this)
riot_kuaggie
Good guess! Here's what's happening:
Both ephemeral and katarina trigger off of the same event (a strike), but effects that are natural to the card get first priority, so katarina strikes, her levelup condition hits and she recalls to hand. The ephemeral condition still is triggered, but it fails to find a unit in play so nothing happens.
riot_kuaggie
I’m actually saying the opposite- ephemeral does nothing explicitly because it needs the unit to be in play in order to kill it. That draw effect wouldn’t have that condition, so you would draw a card after kat returned to your hand
riot_kuaggie
that interaction is a bug. When trynd dies to damage from wolf but then should also count the strike, I'm not sure what the desired behavior is (will definitely check w/ design when we fix this)