Illusions show their face, and empathy answers the call

An automaton's ILLUSIONARY ATTACK arrived as a mystery: the modal
showed only the illusion card, never the spell being faked — though
the stack has always carried it face-up. The defender now sees both
cards side by side, the caption names the fake ("an ILLUSIONARY
Fireball — it bites only if believed"), and the hint bar says which
spell to weigh a counter against.

And EMPATHY — corner: COUNTERACTION — was refused at the door like
INVISIBLE before it, while the automatons' own counter ladder had
been reaching for it and silently failing into the fallback all
along. It now raises mid-stack: the blow lands on both wizards, the
link lingers for its NUMBER card's turns, and ANTI-ANTI severs it
cleanly (empathy is no escape). The number-riding-a-counter idiom is
one shared helper now. Permissive both ways: no stored ledger
contains either play, so no rev gate.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

packages/engine/test/casting.test.ts

@@ -906,3 +906,44 @@ describe("escapes and elemental walls as counteractions", () => {
     expect(refused.ok).toBe(false);
   });
 });
+
+describe("empathy as a counteraction", () => {
+  function empathyRig() {
+    let { state } = createGame({ playerIds: ["alice", "bob"], seed: 42, sets: ["basic", "expansion1"], deckRev: 15 });
+    state = toRound2(state);
+    const { attacker, defender } = faceOff(state);
+    const fb = giveCard(state, attacker, "fireball");
+    const d = state.players.find((p) => p.id === defender)!;
+    d.hand[0] = { instanceId: "empathy#T", cardId: "empathy" };
+    d.hand[1] = { instanceId: "number-3#T", cardId: "number-3" };
+    state = must(state, attacker, {
+      type: "cast", instanceId: fb.instanceId, target: { kind: "player", playerId: defender },
+    });
+    return { state, attacker, defender };
+  }
+
+  it("the blow lands on both — and the link lingers its number's turns", () => {
+    let { state, attacker, defender } = empathyRig();
+    state = must(state, defender, {
+      type: "counteract", instanceId: "empathy#T", numberInstanceIds: ["number-3#T"],
+    });
+    state = must(state, attacker, { type: "pass" });
+    state = must(state, defender, { type: "pass" });
+    expect(state.players.find((p) => p.id === defender)!.life).toBe(10);
+    expect(state.players.find((p) => p.id === attacker)!.life).toBe(10);
+    const fx = state.sustained.find((f) => f.cardId === "empathy" && f.targetId === defender);
+    expect(fx?.remainingTurns).toBe(3);
+  });
+
+  it("anti-anti severs the link: no mirror, no lingering spell", () => {
+    let { state, attacker, defender } = empathyRig();
+    state = must(state, defender, { type: "counteract", instanceId: "empathy#T" });
+    const a = state.players.find((p) => p.id === attacker)!;
+    a.hand[1] = { instanceId: "anti-anti#T", cardId: "anti-anti" };
+    state = must(state, attacker, { type: "counteract", instanceId: "anti-anti#T" });
+    state = must(state, defender, { type: "pass" });
+    expect(state.players.find((p) => p.id === defender)!.life).toBe(10);
+    expect(state.players.find((p) => p.id === attacker)!.life).toBe(15);
+    expect(state.sustained.some((f) => f.cardId === "empathy" && f.targetId === defender)).toBe(false);
+  });
+});