So, how far down the rabbit hole can this cancel go when both players have one in play.

Assume that both players have 5 characters in play and both have Harrenhal in play with no gold on it yet. Lets name them HH1 and HH2.

Player One triggers an effect, such as the new Khal attachment.

Player Two kills a character with HH2 to cancel the effect of the Khal attachment.

Player One kills a character with HH1 to cancel the effect of the cancel from HH2.

Player Two kills a character with HH2 to cancel the effect of the cancel from HH1.

At this point, Player 1 has sacrificed 1 character, Player two has sacrificed 2 characters and the Khal attachment was successfully cancelled. How much gold is placed on HH2?

From here, can each player continue to attempt to cancel the other's HH effect provided they have the characters to sacrifice?

I've been trying to wrap my head around this, but it's tough.

Let's give it a try.

Scenario 1:

I trigger effect E.

Cancel C1: You trigger your Harrenhal to cancel E. Character Y1 goes moribund.

E gets cancelled. Y1 dies. Your Harrenhal gets a gold token. So far, so good.

Scenario 2:

I trigger effect E.

Cancel C1: You trigger your Harrenhal to cancel E. Character Y1 goes moribund.

Cancel C2: I trigger my Harrenhal to cancel C1. Character M1 goes moribund.

C1 gets cancelled. E goes through. M1 and Y1 die. My Harrenhal gets a gold token. Yours doesn't, because your Harrenhal didn't resolve sucessfully. So far, so good.

Scenario 3:

I trigger effect E.

Cancel C1: You trigger your Harrenhal to cancel E. Character Y1 goes moribund.

Cancel C2: I trigger my Harrenhal to cancel C1. Character M1 goes moribund.

Cancel C3: You trigger your Harrenhal to cancel C2. Character Y2 goes moribund.

C2 gets cancelled. Ergo C1 resolves. Ergo E is cancelled. Y1, Y2 and M1 die. C3 and C1 resolve successfully, ergo your Harrenhal gets 2 gold tokens. Mine gets none, because my trigger didn't resolve sucessfully.

Scenario 4:

I trigger effect E.

Cancel C1: You trigger your Harrenhal to cancel E. Character Y1 goes moribund.

Cancel C2: I trigger my Harrenhal to cancel C1. Character M1 goes moribund.

Cancel C3: You trigger your Harrenhal to cancel C2. Character Y2 goes moribund.

Cancel C4: I trigger my Harrenhal to cancel C3. Character M2 goes moribund.

C3 gets cancelled, ergo C2 goes through, ergo C1 gets cancelled, ergo E goes through.

C4 and C2 resolve successfully, ergo my Harrenhal gets 2 gold tokens. Yours gets none, because none of your triggers resolved sucessfully.

This can go on for as long as there are characters to kill. Only the Harrenhal of the player who "wins" the chain gets gold tokens, one for each character killed. The player who "loses" the chain does not put gold tokens on his Harrenhal, because none of his cancels resolved sucessfully. Any Harrenhal with 3 or more gold tokens will get discarded during the passives step of the action window. The "each response only once per trigger" is not violated, because all triggered effects are actually *different* triggers.

Is this correct? Because it feels *wrong*. I'm obviously missing something. What is it?

Why does it feel wrong?

> Killing a character is a cost for Harrenhal, so characters are killed whether the cancel is successful or not. Check.

> Getting the gold token is a "then" effect, so only successful cancels result in gold. Check.

> In any chain of cancels (Harrenhal or not, no matter the length), every other cancel triggered will be successful starting with the last one triggered. Check.

> In any chain of cancels (Harrenhal or not), if the total number of cancels triggered is odd, the original effect is canceled; if the total number of cancels triggered is even, the original effect goes through. Check.

It all seems reasonable to me. What intuitive result is expected here that is coming up different?

Here's a little timing example:

Thanks for the input. That really cleared it up, though it does still feel odd that it can keep going like that - provided you can pay the cost.

It all seems reasonable to me. What intuitive result is expected here that is coming up different?

Thanks for the confirmation. It's coming together for me now. Somehow I had problems wrapping my head around the whole thing. Just understanding LivingEND's awesome picture took me longer than I care to admit...

Is this how that stack from Magic works that I keep hearing about? I never played Magic, maybe that's why this comes natural to others but not me.

more or less, only in that game you'd literally be putting the cards on top of one another in the center of the table.

I play a critter, put my card on the table. You put "counter-spell" on top of my critter. I put "counter-counter" on top of your card. You put your "Nice Try" on top of my card. I put "I DO Call It Thinking TYVM" on top of your card.

At which time, we resolve top-to-bottom: I cancel your cancel, so my cancel is never cancelled and so your intial cancel is cancelled, and my critter stays on the board.

Or so I'm told. I haven't played MTG this millennium and what I've read of this whole "stack" thing in the rules makes me think that it's an Ascended Meme that mutated from the old "LIFO" mnemonic.

That's really the difference. In a game that follows a LIFO ("Last in, first out") framework, pretty much everything can interrupt everything else. It's been a really, really long time since I've played M:tG, but I believe that is their basic timing structure.

And that's why this game is so hard for people coming from M:tG. NOTHING can interrupt anything else (other than "save" or "cancel" Responses -- the only interrupts defined by the game). The result ends up being that AGoT tends to be more about anticipating what your opponent might do instead of reacting to what they have done.

Try Netrunner. In that one they've even done away with almost all "response" timing. It's all Framework Action, Player Action, and a smattering of explicitly worded "prevent X" or "Avoid Y" effects which (to date) are never played from hand, only from cards already on the table.