Finally, some more information on the new Shadows mechanic!

new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

so it sounds like its pretty much what i thought....not sure if i like it, yet. ~Its going to be tough to keep track of all these play areas now...i smell an official AGoT playmat release soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i like the bluffing aspect, though don't tell nate that its been in the game with certain events (locked, paper shield, seductive promise) and the results of int challenges...phew, THANK GOD you didn't get the other card in my hand ;P

for personal reasons i like that we have more things to do with the gold we don't marshall (speaking of bluffing...am i saving that gold for a rein or a shadow....dubbie-dubbie-do).

Hmm. So if I put a card into Shadows that I never choose to bring out, how do you know if I was allowed to do that....

Seriously, though. Interesting stuff. Anyone notice that (assuming I am reading the part about bringing 1 Shadow card out before each phase correctly) Shadow Politics can let you do an intrigue challenge in a phase other than Challenges or Epic?

quick question....how does this affect 'when/just played' i.e. can i reduce a shadow charcater with a reduce (obviously if it meets the recduction criteria)? and if we every get event cancel would shadow events be unaffectred by something like cancel the last event just played?

It sounds really interesting, IMO, can't wait to try it out.

ktom said:

I wondered about that too. It´s also not clear for me, if it means that i´m allowed to bring "exactly one card" out of shadows per phase ?! I wondered about the wording of shadow politics too, i´ve always problems with the word "additional". I somehow always assume that "additional" means there has to be another challenge before it in the special case of shasow politics another intrigue challenge. The wording on the epic events somehow supports my assumption, they read : "After the dominance phase this round, there is an epic phase during which each player may initiate a single m/i/p challenge..." .

Anyway, i think the mechanic is a good one, people that played other card games know that the morphing mechanic (MTG) or inverter mechanic "Wars TCG" (i´m sure there are others too) are rather good and ensure an exciting game play. I´m also glad that the new Tywin doesn´t seem to be "the old" Tywin from the a house of thorns expansion. And i´m excited to see how he works, i guess i´m not the only person who immediately thought that a sent back to shadows mechanic could help your deck to "evacuate" your shadow charachters to the shadows if you are planning to play a Valar/wildfire assault etc. next turn- this seems to be very strong, given that there are charachters with come out of shadow effects.

Nice preview. And no word about the release of the first cp.

Old Ben said:

didn't think about that...but it does seem to be a way ot negate the power if a reset. wait till after the reset to revel the charcaters you have in shadows...dubbie -dubbie-do.

Side note: The intor to Overburdend by Disturbed is great abckground music when reading about the shadows phsae. I found it kind of freaky that i got to this part "Shadows as a place between darkness and light, and as a representation of the space between good and evil, I arrived at the definition of what “Shadows” would be in the game: an in between place, not quite in play, but not quite out of play either, a place between the light and the dark " right as the singing part came on "(kind of a mini crescendo)

Lars said:

You´ll probably have to take a look of both sides of the medal. Yes, it can negate the power of a reset, but on the other hand it can make a rset quit more powerful. The way Nate explains the shadow mechanic i could do the following:

Round 1: I play a high gold plot and marshall about 3 charachters in the shadows.

Round 2: I play Valar (no counters yet- we should remember that!) and let my charachters come out of the shadows, while my opponents non-shadow charahcters die for the Valar. A big advantage, if not the biggest advanatage of the shadow mechanic seems to be that i can split the costs of shadow cards and pay for the whole card in two different rounds, while the card is untouchable (?) as long as it stays in the shadows. That let´s me think that we might see cards like "remove a card that´s in the shadows from the game" etc., i hope that these card´s aren´t silver bullets.

To be fair this might also be great to come back into the game. Play two charachters in the shadows and wait for the next round to regroup and bring some more charahcters out. But i see the chance to abuse the mechanism. The surprise effect is the smallest advantage in my opinion- of course it shouldn´t be underestimated.

Old Ben said:

This echos the Event card type from the Dune CCG (RIP), and the cool interaction in that game was the ability for "prescient" characters to examine what might be brewing for later. Perhaps will have something like a "Shadowsight" event, or a character similar to "The Tickler" that lets us view those face down cards. Splitting up the costs on a card that may well be untouchable, is very, very cool.

Couple of thoughts:

We have "play" and "put into play." Since Marshaling into Shadows doesn't really meet the definition of either (it sounds like the Shadows area is not considered to be "in play"), I would assume that we will also have a "play into Shadows." If that is true, I would say reducers don't help with that gold cost to put a card into Shadows. Most reducers say to "...lower the cost to play the next card...", which is not technically the same thing. Anyway, if the whole point is that a card in Shadows is hidden, how would your opponent know you're telling the truth when you use a Street or a 2-cost character reducer to put a card into Shadows? I'm guessing you cannot reduce the cost to put a card into Shadows unless an effect specifically says so.

As for coming out of Shadows, I'm thinking that sounds more like a "put into play" effect since you are not paying the (full) gold cost during your turn in Marshaling to put the card into play from your hand. You are bypassing a bunch of that. So I'd say that the card "comes out of Shadows," is "put into play" and, of course, "comes into play." So a character coming out of Shadows should bounce a Queens Knight or activate a 5KE dragon. I think a lot of that confusion, though, will be covered by Nate's assurance that no card without the Shadows crest will ever be able to go into (and thus come out of) Shadows.

Cancels should be fine because cancels don't normally say "after an event is played." So they should work whenever an effect is activated. I don't think you can cancel a card coming out of Shadows, but you should be able to cancel any "comes out of Shadows" effect (like on Shadow Politics) without creating rules problems.

As for Shadow Politics, the part that's making me think I can initiate the "additional" challenge even when I don't have an original (i.e., 1 is "additional" over 0) with this card - whereas you can't with something like the old RoK Intrigue "additional intrigue challenge" Agenda - is the final wording of "as a standard player action" bit. A card that simply says "you may initiate an additional intrigue challenge" does not create the mechanism or timing for you to initiate that challenge, so you have to rely on the game framework to tell you when you can initiate a challenge, additional or otherwise. This event tells you when you can initiate the challenge, so it is not dependent upon an existing framework timing structure for challenge initiation within the phase. If I can take a Player Action, I can initiate an intrigue challenge.

In fact, it looks like if you are the First Player, I could actually bring this card out of Shadows for the Challenge Phase and initiate an Intrigue challenge against you during the first pre-Challenge player action window, essentially getting an Intrigue challenge off before you get any of yours!

! agree with Ktom about not being able to use the current reducers on Shadow cards, and for the same reasons he gave. I also want to believe his take on Shadow Politics -- imagine being able to initiate and INT challenge against your opponent at the start of the Marshalling phase, before they get to marshall any characters, perhaps after a successful Valar/Wildfire where you have at least one surviving INT character and your opponent does not. That was my first thought when I saw the card, and I hope it holds true.

ktom said:

i was thinking of countered plots' wording "Response: If you have a higher total initiative than an opponent, cancel the effects of an event card just played by that opponent." how does that wording affect the interaction.

JerusalemJones said:

I think there´s anpther indicator that intrigue challenges out of the traditional challenges aen´t possible with shadow politics. If shadow politics would allow an intrigue challenge in every phase when player actions are allowed, you woudl also be able to initiate an intrigue challenge before plots are chosen & revealed.and thus it would be hard to determine a claim value without a revealed plot.

It seems as though the additional challenge can be initiated in any player action window that phase. Another issue thats needs clarification is the possibility of "nested" challenges, that is an Intrigue challenge being initiated in the player action window after attackers have been declared but before defenders have been declared in a different challenge(could be intrigue). I can't even comprehend all the questions that a situation like this would bring up.

Egg, i think your reading it too broadly. Its at the start of the phase when its reveled, so the response would have to happen in the action window then. There would not (i don't think) be a way to revel the event at the start of the phase and then trigger its response in the action window before defenders are declared.

Plus you're going to have to pay gold to bring a card out of the Shadows - so I am thinking you won't see to many Plot, Draw and pre Marshalling moments where these cards will get on the board. Sure there will be rare instances, but for the msot part, these guys will hit in the latter stages of Marshalling and later.

ktom said:

I can do you one better... initiate an intrigue challenge immediately following the Draw phase and before you have a chance to Marshall any cards... wicked Strong in a deck tuned to strip cards from your hand. If you are drawing two cards a turn and I can strip one before you have a chance to MArshall it you are in a serious hole.

I love that with just this mechanic and this card we suddenly have a ton of new strategies that may be developed and a few new builds that may be empowered.

*drool*

JJ beat me to it.

And there are card effects that let you hang on to gold. Tywin and Planning Ahead come to mind.

Lars said:

What are you talking about? Egg is completely correct that embedded challenges are possible because triggering the Response on the event doesn't initiate the challenge! It only gives you the opportunity to initiate it later. You bring this card out of Shadows at the beginning of the phase, activate the Response to create the option to initiate the intrigue challenge, then initiate the actual challenge when you decide to at some point when you are allowed to trigger a player action.

I think the only real problem with embedded challenges would be that there could be attacking/defending characters who would not actually participating in the intrigue challenge. I'd expect some sort of errata forbidding the initiation of one challenge while another one is unresolved.

Stag is correct that Plot, Draw and Marshaling challenges will be rare with this card because of the gold requirement. Tywin, Planning Ahead and killing Rhaegar are about the only ways to have the gold to do it. It's possible, but rare. As for the "pre-plot, no revealed plot card" situation, I'd say it's a 0-claim challenge. You go to look at the claim number on your revealed plot, find no revealed plot, so have to use a 0.

I was aware of Planning Ahead and figured someone would point it out - but I have never seen it played and wonder if the Shadow mechanic will be enough to make it really popular. Tywin of course gives Lannister a little more felxibility.

Still - i am still betting that it will be pretty rare that you see a "Shadow" card come out pre-Marshalling.

I was reading it as Response: after this is reveled intiate an intrigue challenge. Can be done as long as there is a SAW.

ktom said:

When is there no plot revealed? I thought that plots didn't move from the revealed state to used pile until there was a new revealed plot, with no action or response possible inbetween. The Core Set Rules specifically state that "When you reveal a plot card during the plot phase, it moves from your plot deck to a revealed state. When you reveal a new plotcard, place it on top of your previously revealed plot card. (All plot cards under your currently
revealed plot card are considered your “used” plots.)" and LCG FAQ 1.1 show one step in the Plot Phase "1. Choose and reveal plots" which by the Core Set simultaneously turns the previous plot to used. Even with Dragonstone Port that Step is split into two with you choosing a plot but creating a player action window before the chosen plot is revealed.

Lars said:

Nope.

The card reads: "Response: After Shadow Politics comes out of Shadows, choose a player. That player may initiate an additional (intrigue) challenge against an opponent of his or her choice as a standard player action this phase."

Since cards come out of Shadows "at the start of each phase," if the Response actually initiated the challenge, there would be no need for the "as a standard player action" because the challenge would start immediately. Anyway, Responses are not standard player actions (they are a part of other player actions, but are not considered actions in their own right).

So what the card really says is "Choose a character. A lasting game effect is created by which that player may initiate an intrigue challenge at any time they could take an action (e.g., an 'Any Phase' effect) one time this phase."

dormouse said:

Well, there's the obvious point in Round 1 after Setup and before the first plots are revealed.

But there is also this little gem from the FAQ:

"(2.3) Plot States
After a plot is used, it is considered to be in the plot card "used pile." Plots in your plot deck, as well as your currently revealed plot card, are not considered to be in your used pile.

During the game a plot card exists in one of three possible states: in your plot deck, in your used pile, or revealed. Unless prevented by card effects, plot cards move from the revealed pile to the used pile at the end of each round. Any time a new plot card is revealed and there is currently a revealed plot, the previous plot card is placed in the used pile."

The end of the round happens before the beginning of the Plot phase. So technically, under normal circumstances, no one has a revealed plot from the end of the round to the "reveal plot" framework action in the following plot phase. The pre-plot action window takes place between those two points.

Methinks this might be something to bring to Nate's attention for a future FAQ/errata entry. I've always worked off the assumption that the plot card stays in effect until the next one is revealed (and I've probably never even noticed or paid attention to that FAQ entry), but what about Countered Plots -- the event that keys off a higher Initiative value. Unless I have Init boosters, suddenly this cancel is worthless in the pre-plot phase. Part of me wants this cleared up, and part of me says "Duh, it's in the Faq. It is cleared up."