Ally ability active even though ally card scrapped?

[TehJumpingJawa]

e.g.

- Blob Wheel is in play.
- I play Blob Carrier from hand.
- I then scrap Blob Wheel for 3 trade.
- I use this 3 trade to purchase a card from the trade row, revealing a new card.
- I use Blob Carrier to buy this new card for free (and put it on the top of my deck).

I instinctively assumed that ally abilities are only active while the ally card is in play.
However it appears that once activated, an ally ability can be triggered even once the ally that activated the ability has left the table.

I suppose it's perfectly reasonable behaviour for an electronic card game, but with physical cards it must add some complexity. (as the game state becomes dependent upon more than just the current state of the table)

[DePhoegon]

the ally ability trigger on summon or as soon as there is 1 or more other of the same faction.

They are not a persistent 'buff' and they shouldn't be considered that either.

Yes, there are legitimately setups that can do far far worse, and the time where you can play, then scrap, then rebuy the same card & put it on the top of your deck is situational & mid tier at best.

if you where to swap the 'trigger' for a persistent bonus, then an argument of why not per ally if it has to remain to keep the buff? (which isn't bad... so much as it would completely alter & desimate the current play styles along with making some ai fights impossible, when they use to be middle the road affairs.
-- You'd have to legitimately re-balance the entire game & at the minimal redo the entire storyline & all the ai fights as some even pull special rule sets that persistent buffs would just end up destroying the player without them wanting to do it.

[Frendley]

Well. OP is right calling that bug out.

In Paper you are free to decide when and if you want to trigger ally abilities (The difference is very noticable with Central office e.g.). And they can only be activated when the faction ally is on the battlefield.
In digital each ally trigger proccs immediately with the only exceptions being triggers with a target (Command ship, Blob Carrier, Patrol Mech etc.) which have to be chosen manually.

Once you "unlock" their ally abilities you can still use them which is an oversight and no it can't be a "feature", cuz as mentioned above that is not how the paper is designed and it creates a huge discrepancy if you consider cards which have targeted ally abilities AND their own scrap ability.

It is a very niche case though and even though it can decide some games I think the developers will just call this a "feature" and be done with it....