Hello.

I have few questions, that are probably matter of Timing Structure. I read the FAQ, but couldn't find answers myself.

1. Player A Initiates a power challenge with Benjen Stark (Core), and declares "Stealth" on player's B Ser Cortnay Penrose (KotS).

Can player B use Smuggler's Cove (KotS) in response, to give Ser Cortnay Penrose "Stealth", so he can't be the target for player's A Benjen Stark's "Stealth"?

2. Player A initiates a power challenge with Littlefinger (Core). Player B Declares John Snow (Core) as a defender. Player A passes, player B trigger Swamps of the Neck (TPoL) to Stand John Snow, and remove it from the challenge.

Is the player A challenge opposed or unopposed?

3. Player A initiates a power challenge with Littlefinger (Core). Player B Declares Catelyn Stark (Core) as a defender. Player A passes, player B trigger Catelyn Stark's Response ability, player A passes, Player B trigger Swamps of the Neck (TPoL) to Stand Catelyn Stark, and remove it from the challenge.

Does Littlefinger's Strenght counts to determine winner of the challenge, even if Catelyn Stark is not in that challenge anymore?

4. Player A controls Ser Ilyn Payne (Core). Player B controls Marya Seaworth (KotS) and have Painted Table (TbC) location in play. Player A triggers Ser Ilyn Payne's ability to kill Marya Seaworth.

Can player B cancel Ser Ilyn Payne's ability with Painted Table? Is that effect to cancel next triggered ability on the stack, or next triggered ability that is about to activate somewhere during that phase?

I am sorry for this wall of text, i just coudn't find answers myself.

1) No. SC must target a Participating character, and stealth prevents SCP from participating.

2) Unopposed. It's checked at a certain point in the sequence after such Player actions. See the FAQ timing charts.

3) the attacker's STR has been lowered for the duration of the challenge. Catelyn lacks any "while she is participating" language found on some other cards.

4) AGOT has no stack. The only things you can do to react to such actions are labeled as "Response" effects, and they will tell you when they can be played. In the case of the Painted Table, it's a card that must be used preemptively. Again, see the FAQ timing section for more details.

Hello and welcome to the forums

Its good that you have had a browse of the faq, hopefully i can give you some explanations that will help clarify the timing structure and with the faq answer your questions.

1. Unfortunately it wont work like that, the timing flowcharts in the faq will help show this but the basic breakdown is that
Sequence of play rough guide

1. attacker declares Benjen Stark as an attacker in a power challenge
2. Players can take an action here, ideally you want to use smugglers cove on Cortnay here but the cove stipulates that it must be a 'participating character' which he is currently not.
3. The attacker now gets to declare stealth, which Benjen does pick Cortnay, and then the defender can declare defenders. But as Cortnay cannot be declared because of stealth he is not eligible.

2.
This is handled in the core rules and the faq can help clarify it, for a challenge to be opposed the defender must count at least 1 strength in that challenge at the resolution of the challenge.

The distinction here is between 'standing' and 'removing'. Once a character is involved in a challenge they are considered participating until something 'removes' them (like swamps of the neck). Once removed a character is no longer adding strength to the challenge.

If a character stands during the challenge it does not inherently remove them from the challenge (check out cards like frozen outpost in lords of winter for an example).

So in this example when the challenge resolves the defending player is counting no strength so the challenge is unopposed.

3.

In a game of thrones the general rule of thumb is that effects resolve independently, in order and completely before the next effect.

In this example, the sequence of play is largely correct, cat's effect removes little fingers strength, and then with cat removed from the challenge the challenge resolves with 0-0 in strength but the core rules tell us that a challenge must have 1 point of strength at resolution to be successful so the challenge fizzles and nothing happens. (no win, no unopposed power no responses to winning etc)

4.

Ah, the stack word - i take it you have played magic a bit?

As i mentioned above each effect resolves completely before the next in agot (some exceptions aside like cancels/saves) so the timing is well off here.

The painted table is not itself a cancel, what it does is create a lasting effect in the game that cancels the next triggered effect. For the situation to work as you would want
1. player a marshals Ilyn payne
2. player b, seeing the threat, kneels the painted table to create the lasting effect that will cancel the next triggered effect
3. Player a goes to kneel Ilyn and the effect is canceled.

Of course the painted table is 'dumb' and thus is easy enough to play around by playing another triggered effect (which you may not need, like say a western fiefdom ) and then Illyn can get back to chopping heads. Which would look something like.

1. player a marshals Ilyn payne
2. player b, seeing the threat, kneels the painted table to create the lasting effect that will cancel the next triggered effect
3. Player a kneels a western fiefdom to deduce the next lannister card by 1, the effect is canceled.
4. player b weeps tears of defeat and passes

5. player a kneel Ilyen and decapitates another hapless victim.

Ah, the stack word - i take it you have played magic a bit?

Yes, i did.

That is why i am a bit confused about some things like defending and removing from challenge, and about Stack which doesn't exist in this game.

Question about Smuggler's Cove was just dumb... I could answer myself if i have read it once more.

Thanks to Grim, and 40k for lifelike detailed explanation .

Another question about character gaining Stealth came up on my mind:

Player A Initiates a military challenge with Benjen Stark (Core), and use Benjen's "Stealth" on player's B, Arya Stark (Core).

Can player B use Arya's ability to gain "Stealth" from Benjen, or any other in-play character with "Stealth" to prevent "Stealthing"?

Is there any space for doing that?

In this instance the flowchart in the FAQ also gives the answer:

1. Attacker declares challenge type and kneels attackers

{player actions}

2. Attacker declares stealth; Defending player kneels defenders

{player actions}

3. Challenge Resolution.

In this instance, you'd use Arya's ability in the first player action window to remove Benjen's Stealth and forestall his ability to use it on you. There is no window to use Arya's ability after stealth is declared: by the time you can, you would have already had to kneel eligible defenders and so (all things being equal) you couldn't enter Arya into the challenge.

Now, there are shenanigans in the card pool that can circumvent this sequence, but they're not worth muddying the waters with at this time.

One of the hardest things for M:tG players to get used to in AGoT is that, because there are no LIFO (last-in-first-out) effect stacks, strategy tends to be more proactive than reactive.

The questions about Stealth are a good example of the different ways of thinking between the two games. The questions asked about stealth here have more-or-less been, "Once Benjen uses stealth so I know which defender he is trying to keep out of the challenge, what can I do to negate his choice and use that character as a defender anyway?" The answer is, "Nothing" because once a choice is made in this game, it is too late (short of a Response effect that uses the word "cancel" or "save" - the only true interrupts in the game) to do anything about it.

A seasoned AGoT player is instead going to say, "He just attacked with Benjen who has stealth. It would be really inconvenient for him to sealth past Ser Courtnay Penrose. What can I do to take that option away from him before he gets a chance to do it?"

Essentially, the timing rules of M:tG encourage players to think reactively - ie, see what the opponent does and try to block it on the fly - while the timing rules of AGoT require players to think proactively - ie, anticipate what the opponent might to and find ways to take the choice away, or set up to mitigate the consequence.

Grim is quite correct on this but it is worth noting that the flow chart also has an option for players to take actions before the first challenge is initiated which would be another valid window for Arya's ability.

The games timing structure is very rigid (As opposed to how i remember magics stack allowing for rather fluid series of interactions - although that was many years ago and i may well have forgotten everything about it) so i have often found it best to play with the faq timing sheets for a few games and call out every possible step just to get the timing drilled in.

Then you can move onto the fun of passives, constants and the wonderful and weird interactions

One of the hardest things for M:tG players to get used to in AGoT is that, because there are no LIFO (last-in-first-out) effect stacks, strategy tends to be more proactive than reactive.

The questions about Stealth are a good example of the different ways of thinking between the two games. The questions asked about stealth here have more-or-less been, "Once Benjen uses stealth so I know which defender he is trying to keep out of the challenge, what can I do to negate his choice and use that character as a defender anyway?" The answer is, "Nothing" because once a choice is made in this game, it is too late (short of a Response effect that uses the word "cancel" or "save" - the only true interrupts in the game) to do anything about it.

A seasoned AGoT player is instead going to say, "He just attacked with Benjen who has stealth. It would be really inconvenient for him to sealth past Ser Courtnay Penrose. What can I do to take that option away from him before he gets a chance to do it?"

Essentially, the timing rules of M:tG encourage players to think reactively - ie, see what the opponent does and try to block it on the fly - while the timing rules of AGoT require players to think proactively - ie, anticipate what the opponent might to and find ways to take the choice away, or set up to mitigate the consequence.

Wow, that's an amazingly good distinction. I've been playing for two and a half years and I never really thought of it that way.

The Painted Table as referenced in the OP is a prime example of this kind of design in the game: to answer the original question, it quite deliberately is a pre-emptive cancel. The next triggered effect anyone tries do, The Painted Table will say "NOPE." Canny players will play around that and try to bait the cancels and the counters so they can push through the moves that really matter.

This really does require looking at the board state and anticipating what might happen. The player who wants to make a challenge, even though Benjen has Stealth, has to look across the table and spot Arya's ability, or realize the implications of what Smuggler's Cove can do.

He's not likely to attempt an action doomed to fail, not unless it either won't matter or will use up the Defender's options to his advantage. Maybe he's first player and needs to make a second challenge, and *that* one he wants to go through, maybe because he has some Event to play that requires a successful challenge. Maybe he needs to kneel out defenders so that he's not going to be counterattacked. That's the advantage of something like Swamps of the Neck: you force the attacker to overcommit, then cut your losses on a challenge you'd lose anyway in hopes of swinging back more effectively come your turn. Doubly so with Core set Catelyn: Not only does the attacker need to put more than just Littlefinger into the challenge just so his only attacker isn't neutralized, he could anticipate that he'd be overcommitting for no effect--and maybe that dissuades him from making the challenge in the first place.

This might or might not suit the Stark player, if he figured he could accept losing a Power or Intrigue challenge to gain the benefit of kneeling out something on the opponent's side.

And so it goes, move and countermove played out with planning and foresight, trying to suss out your opponent's true motivations for his choices and turn those choices to your advantage.