I lose a challenge as the defender in which Longship Maiden's Bane attacked. I play You Murdered Her Children .

How much of the effect resolves? The discarding of the attacking LMB happens, there's no reason why it shouldn't. What about the first "Then.." effect? Will copies of LMB be discarded from the deck? I tend to say yes, because even though they are not characters themselves, they are still copies of "that character". Correct?

That's how I've interpreted it as well, Ratatoskr.

That's also how I interpret it.

A copy of "that character" would be by title.

I'd say no, based on the fact that Narrow Escape does not return non-character cards to play, even if they were killed/discarded as characters earlier that phase - or character cards that were discarded as dupes/attachments for that matter.

Ah, interesting. We'll have to send this to FFG then. Has anybody had any luck using the "Rules Questions" link recently?

I'm not sure how much precedence NE really sets, I always regarded it as a very unique, very special case that required a ruling very specific to that card. Also, the two cases are quite different. But of course it's entirely possible that "character" is a restriction that pertains to the copies in the deck as well as the card in play. That's why I asked.

Anyway, Ktom, let's assume you're right and copies in the deck are not discarded on the grounds that they are not characters. Does the Search part of the first Then-effect still resolve? That is, can I look at my opponents deck, knowing full well that I won't find any copies to discard?

Sure. They might have Riders of the Red Fork in there. Anyway, the "must have some expectation of resolution" rule only applies to initiating triggered effects. By the time you are to the "then" effect, that's no longer a consideration. So I'm not sure what argument there'd be for not being allowed to search.

Sure. They might have Riders of the Red Fork in there. Anyway, the "must have some expectation of resolution" rule only applies to initiating triggered effects. By the time you are to the "then" effect, that's no longer a consideration. So I'm not sure what argument there'd be for not being allowed to search.

Yes, I agree fully.

The thing with that rule is, it tends to be confusing to players who don't have a deep understanding of the game's timing structure. All those players get from the ruling is "You can't do something that does nothing". We can expect plenty of confusion about this, and plenty of discussion.

For example, in a recent game I played Winter Is Coming during my *opponent's* challenge against me, so his Tywin Lannister (TK) would have to kneel to attack me in subsequent challenges. The event resolves sucessfully, the claim value on my plot is raised. That WiC de facto does nothing because my claim value will in all likelihood not be checked during this challenge is inconsequential - the effect resolves, ergo it was legal for me to play the event. My opponent accepted (grudgingly), but I'd fully expected him to challenge this on the grounds of the new FAQ 3.6., and another opponent probably would have.

I get what they set out to do here, but I do fear that we'll have to deal with collateral damage and unintended consequences from this rule for quite a while.

I see that, but I think the learning curve is shorter than you'd think.

First, we get people thinking of it as "You can't TRIGGER something that does nothing." That takes care of most of it right there. Then, we get in the habit of asking "If an effect gives my character a MIL icon, but I never declare it in a MIL challenge, does the effect do anything?"

The "collateral damage" here is caused by people over-thinking and over-applying the rule -- which needed to be made. This is a big problem in the community. The game rules are not nearly as complicated as we have convinced ourselves they are.

which needed to be made.

I'm not convinced it absolutely needed to be made. They could've clarified that the draw cap acts as a play restriction, so that you can't trigger draw effects when draw-capped. We were halfway there with the latest Val ruling anyway. That would've taken care of the most egregious cases (Janos Slynt, Valyrian Steel link). Then we would've been left with people occasionally taking Cragorn back to hand when the opponent doesn't have gold, and a very few other cases with low impact. The meta would've survived that.

But overall I agree it's not a big thing. The meta will adapt, and in the long run it might be beneficial.

About people overthinking things and getting hung up on technicalities - I agree that tends to be an issue. I think we've talked about this before. I think it has gotten worse in recent years, and FFG themselves have contributed to the trend. I mean, CS Jhogo had been a Dohraki for years, and nobody thought anything of it. But then people started to rule in tournaments that Free Man was not a Wildling, and talked on 2C1C about how we cannot know it's a typo because FFG might wish to add the Wilding trait at some point, and that Archibald Yronwood doesn't work because we can't know what a character agenda is. And when FFG responded to this by adding superfluous entries to the FAQ (4.20, I'm looking at you) and issuing errata to obvious typos instead of just saying "oh, COME on", people started thinking this amount of pedantry is expected and needed. And so we ended up with people talking about how they'd go to a tournament with 6 copies of Randyll Tarly in their decks, because the KotSea version lacked an el.

You can still trigger the Valyrian Steel link if you can at least draw 1 card, though you are correct that you can't use the link if you are already at draw cap. Also Rat, it is important to note that they actually made a similar ruling/update in all of their LCG games, which stops some rather broken effects in those games as well.

I do think it was a ruling that needed to be made. There is some collateral dmg, but not really that much. Not compared to how broken things were trying to get when people had made an entire thread dedicated to abusing triggers that had no effect, such as Osha.+

That episode REALLY hurt my head.

Here's FFG's answer to this question:

“Copy” is defined by title, and it transcends card type. For instance, according to the deck building rules you can run 3 copies of Shaggydog in your deck, regardless of whether those copies are character Shaggydog, attachment Shaggydog, or some combination of both.

In the phrase “copies of that character,” the term “that character” is referring to the character that left play as a point of reference. When searching the deck, anything that would be considered a copy of that reference point is fair game. So yes, other copies of Maiden’s Bane can be discarded.

Great answer, IMO.

I'm good with that. "Copy" is the functional word when searching your deck; "of that character" is there for reference. That explanation clears up the difference between YMHC and Narrow Escape. (In Narrow Escape, the word "character" ends up being functional, not simply there for reference; I erroneously tried to treat it as functional in YMHC, too.)

Here's FFG's answer to this question:

“Copy” is defined by title, and it transcends card type. For instance, according to the deck building rules you can run 3 copies of Shaggydog in your deck, regardless of whether those copies are character Shaggydog, attachment Shaggydog, or some combination of both.

In the phrase “copies of that character,” the term “that character” is referring to the character that left play as a point of reference. When searching the deck, anything that would be considered a copy of that reference point is fair game. So yes, other copies of Maiden’s Bane can be discarded.

Great answer, IMO.

Every GJ Deck should now run 2x YMHC. Kills Maiden's Bane. Dead.

Every GJ Deck should now run 2x YMHC. Kills Maiden's Bane. Dead.

Eh? GJ decks?