Hi Folks,

after playing Fog on the Barrow-downs and Acient Barrow (http://hallofbeorn.com/Cards/Details/Ancient-Barrow-FotBD) hits the staging area while staging.

1) What happens with the allies, do they leave play, when they go face down?

2) Tom Bombadil is an ally .. what happens, when he goes "on his owner's hand"?

1) Facedown cards aren't considered to be 'in play' as as regular card as far as I know, so yes when an ally gets stuck under Ancient Barrow, you can consider it to have left play (and can trigger effects off of it, like Eomer or Valiant Sacrifice).

2) Good question, I don't know. We were just having a similar discussion about Born Aloft over here... how do you resolve 'the owner's hand' in effects for cards that originate with the encounter deck? My answer in the other thread was that, since the encounter card's owner does not have a 'hand,' its state will not change when an effect attempts to move it into its owner's hand. For Born Aloft, this would mean the card stays in play. For Ancient Barrow, this would mean that the card remains a 'facedown' card under Ancient Barrow. Since Ancient Barrow has now been discarded, I would discard Tom as well (best guess).

Also as a side point, I would not resolve the 'shuffle Tom and the discard pile back into the encounter deck' portion of Tom's When Revealed effect. The reason being that, once Tom has left play, the effect no longer applies. I'm just guessing... but basing this on the FAQ entry about the resolution of Sneak Attack vs. the Beorn ally's Action. In that case, once Beorn is no longer in play (via Sneak Attack), the part about shuffling Beorn back into your deck 'no longer applies.' I see a similar case here with Tom Bombabil, and would resolve accordingly (Tom stays in the discard pile).

Hi GrandSpleen,

thanks for your answers. We played it so. All allies left play when placed facedown under ancient barrow. Tom Bombadil was discarded without effect after ancient barrow left play as an explored location.