This came up last game: My opponent has one card left in hand, A Lannister Pays His Debts, and I defeat him in an Intrigue challenge. I thought the card should be discarded before he is able to play it as a response. He thought otherwise . Who is right?

Egg said:

This came up last game: My opponent has one card left in hand, A Lannister Pays His Debts, and I defeat him in an Intrigue challenge. I thought the card should be discarded before he is able to play it as a response. He thought otherwise . Who is right?

You are correct. Claim is always settled before any Response to anything that happens during challenge resolution (including winning or losing) can be played. The general timing from the FAQ is:

Step #1: "Initiate" Game Effects (in order)

Step #2: Save/Cancel opportunity to initiated game effect

Step #3: Resolve Game Effects

( NOTE : There are 4 game effects for resolving a challenge. They are 1 - Determine challenge winner; 2 - Resolve challenge effect, i.e. "claim"; 3 - Award unopposed; 4 - Award Renown. You essentially "loop through" Steps #1-3 four times, once for each game effect, in order.)

Step #4: Passive effects (to anything that happened collectively in Steps #1-3)

Step #5: Response effects (to anything that happened collectively in Steps #1-4, or earlier in Step #5)

Step #6: End (cards removed from play by anything in Steps 1-5 are not physically removed from the table until now).

The important thing to see is that Steps 4 and 5 are collective . That is, you don't move on to resolving passives and Responses for each game effect separately. You wait until all 4 are complete, then move on to passives and Responses for everything.

ktom said:

The other important corallary that follows because of step #6, should you have lost a military challenge instead, and you chose your last Lannister character to claim (and they were standing), you could have knelt them to play the ALPhD... because even though the character is dying, it doesn't leave the table (and is therefore eligible to pay the cost) until after responses. This is also why Cersei's Attendant can trigger her response too, even though she's "dead."