Talk:Dragon Knight, Hijikata/@comment-10794218-20141218025619/@comment-4764137-20141218064509

I can tell you exactly why it works that way, if you really care. It's because of how resolution works in this game. It's a three step system:  Declaration > Activation > Resolution

Let me clear that up now.

1.  Declaration:  You declare that you are making a call, casting a spell, or activating an ACT ability.

2.  Activation:  You check to make sure the conditions are met and the cost can be paid. At this point, if any necessary conditions are not met, the call, spell, or ability cannot be activated, and it "fizzles", for lack of a better word. If all the conditions necessary to call/cast/activate are there, you pay the cost... However, everything relies on the field as it was at time of activation. Any changes to the field due to paid costs do not technically happen until

3.  Resolution:  Your opponent may attempt to play a Counter card, otherwise all resolution happens simultaneously, in the order the card text lists them. (In short, costs are paid before resolution, but technically don't get moved from gauge, for example, until resolution.  Anything relying on number of cards in hand would take your discard into consideration before resolution occurs, for example, but the card you discarded isn't in the drop zone yet)

Sucky, counterintuitive, and maybe not exactly how other people would word it, but I was doing this for illustrative purposes.