Hi all.

Well, there is a severe discussion about those two characters.

Balon Greyjoy from "KotS" says:

"If Balon Greyjoy is the only King character in play, characters with lower STR than his cannot be declared as defenders while he is attacking."

I have Balon in play, my opponent only have Brienne of Tarth (Core), her effect:
"Immune to opponent's character abilities."

The question is... Is Brienne immune to Balon's effect (being able to defend even having less Strenght)? According to FAQ, and to my undertanding, Balon's ability does not "target" Brienne, but the PLAYER controlling Brienne, thus removing from him an option. Nor the ability "resolves" upon Brienne (because it's removing an option FROM THE PLAYER, not changing anything from the Brienne itself).

Some people here says that, regardless, Balon's effect resolves upon Brienne, and that Immunity does not have to check if the character is being "target" - Brienne is "immune to character's abilities", Balon's effect is a "character ability", so she's Immune, period.

To get the bottom of this... Brienne IS or ISN'T Immune to Balon's effect? She CAN ou CANNOT be chosen as defender? And why?

Brienne is immune to Balon.

Immunity allows you to ignore the direct effects on the immune card. To figure out if an effect is working directly on the immune card, look at the subject of the text. If the subject is the immune card, the effect is direct and ignored. If not, the effect is indirect at best and is not ignored.

That means that "characters cannot be declared" and "players cannot declare characters" are different from an immunity point of view, even though they are essentially the same from a game impact point of view.

Since Balon says "characters cannot be declared," it's direct effect is on the character, not the player, and is ignored by immune characters. That means Brienne CAN defend.

Many thanks, the point was exactly the "That means that "characters cannot be declared" and "players cannot declare characters" are different from an immunity point of view" thing. But now, it's all explained.

Again, thanks!

Question in regards to this. The Red Viper is immune toTheon Greyjoy SoW effect. In this case how do we determine if the subject is the player or the character? The wording seems to suggest we can look at it both ways. Help please.

The passive on Theon Greyjoy (SoW) targets the character ("choose and kill a character"), so immunity makes The Red Viper (PotS) an illegal target, regardless of the subject. The subject matters for untargeted effects, when you need to determine what is directly affected by the effect.

Got it. Thanks.