Playing Emery with Emery in play

By DaeMord, in Rules questions & answers

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So an interesting thing came up the other day.

Emery was in play, Emery is unique, and the rules state that you cannot play a unique char if that char is in play

This is all good no problem there however the rules also state the following

" Any attempt to do so will fail to the extent that the card attempting to enter play remains in its current location (hand, deck, discard pile) and does not enter play." (emphasis mine)

Any attempt to do so implies you can attempt, why is this important to us

What if you use emery's action to attempt to play her, does it completely fail, or do you do the action and then reverse it.

Basicly if you attempted to play a unique when the unique is in play, do you still pay the cost, be it resources or an action, and if you do so does it get reversed.

Im aware in other games they have much more complicated rules governing this that answer the above question and it wouldnt have even been a question had the rules not stated "any attemt to do so" impliing by its wording that you can attempt.

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I think that you can attempt it and the card (Emery) would stay in your hand. Three cards would need to be discarded from the top of your deck in order for this event to occur.

Why do you want to do this?

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It's an interesting question. I could absolutely see this being a strategy in a Caldara deck where you need allies in your discard pile. It could also help trigger Hidden Cache or give you more options for Dwarven Tomb.

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I agree, I think you should be able to do the discard portion of her action, and keep Emery in hand.

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Hmm, if that's the case, there's probably some way to discard your entire deck using two Emerys, although you might have to run mono-Spirit.

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why do you need two Emerys for this? You can discard three cards directly after the attempt fails. There is no rule, which forbit to make additional attempts to bring Emery in play at the same turn.

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@JanB: one in play, one in your hand to play

I say that you can't even do the action, it's more logical. You don't pay the cards then realize you can't put it in play. You play the cards or you don't play it.

An action that put it in play is the same.

Attempt to do so are restricted to attempt that didn't know it would bring a unique. If I remember correctly, concerning Gildor objective, it was said to be discarded instead of remaining on top of the deck...

Also, discarding your deck is too powerful, be it gandalf hero, hidden cache, caldara, dwarven tomb, map of earnil, to me o my kinsfolk ... so I hope I'm correct.

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If you put her by Vilya, and first copy is yet in play? What would happen?

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Vilya let you look and put the card either in play or at the bottom of your deck, that's where the second copy would go. You won't be able to put her in play with vilya.

Edited by alogos
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Oh, good appointment. Ok thanks

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I hear a lot of speculation without a hard answer, so I sent an email to Caleb.

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@JanB: one in play, one in your hand to play

I say that you can't even do the action, it's more logical. You don't pay the cards then realize you can't put it in play. You play the cards or you don't play it.

An action that put it in play is the same.

Attempt to do so are restricted to attempt that didn't know it would bring a unique. If I remember correctly, concerning Gildor objective, it was said to be discarded instead of remaining on top of the deck...

Also, discarding your deck is too powerful, be it gandalf hero, hidden cache, caldara, dwarven tomb, map of earnil, to me o my kinsfolk ... so I hope I'm correct.

See this is how we played it, it seemed more in keeping with the spirit of the rules if not the letter of them.

Basicly we were playing a game, i was playing a caldara deck and acidently put 2 emery's into play, didnt notice for a round (non of us did) then noticed and decided to simply retcon the playing of emery, oh dear we made a mistake but its a co-op game so no harm no foul.

The issue became what to do about the 3 cards that had been discarded in order to put emery into play in the first place

We looked in the instruction book about the unique rule to see mainly what would happen to the resources had i played a unique normally, ie gandalf in play, accidently payed 5 to play gandalf this being the first thing you do as per the rules regarding phase 2 planning on page 12 of the rule book. then you would get to the end realise there is a gandalf already in play and he would go back to your hand.

Unfortunately nothing is mentioned about the 5 resources used.

Now we always use "worst case" when trying to work out unclear rules, and in this situation "worst case" would clearly be you were silly shouldnt have used the resources ner ne ner ne ner ner, they are gone, even though gandalf is in your hand.

Apply this logic to emery and see the 3 discard as a cost, and now you have an issue as dumping 3 cards but keeping emery in certain decks could be increadibly powerful.

Logically you cannot even attempt it but the letter of the rules imply you can attempt and it fails but does not describe how it fails

We figured the best neutral stand point would be the cost is refunded however then you do get to at least look at the top 3 cards, quite powerful in and of itself

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Official response from Caleb:

Hi Jim,
If a unique ally is already in play, then you cannot start to play another copy by paying even part of its cost. Therefore, you cannot discard 3 cards from the top of your deck in an attempt to play Emery if she is already in play.
Cheers,
Caleb

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:rolleyes:

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Hi guys

Please look at this deck:

https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/guest-campaign-heirs-of-numenor-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-9453

In this deck Emery is used only to ready a character (Imrahil) when she leave the game with her action.

The question is: is it possible to play her action without a Spirit Hero?

Do you need first to attach the Celebrian Stone to Aragorn, right ?

Thanks

In this case, yes, because the cost to play Emery is not paying the resources (for which you'd need a spirit hero) but the Action...

From FAQ:

Q: Can a player have cards in his player deck from a sphere that doesn’t match the sphere of one of his heroes?
A: There is nothing in the rules that disallows this, although a player will need to find clever card interactions to make use of such cards.
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In other words, you don't need a sphere match to use Emery's Action.

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Rulebook, pg. 12: "Cards with a cost of zero do not require a resource to be spent in order to pay their cost, but they do require at least one hero under that player’s control to have a resource icon that matches the card’s sphere."

This is why you can't play 0-cost event cards without a sphere match (and leads to all that confusion with A Good Harvest and 0-cost cards, but that's a different story). Anyway, I'm not sure I see the difference with Emery. Is the claim that the above quote doesn't apply because the cost of Emery's action is "discard the top of 3 cards of deck [to...]", not a resource-based one?

And by that logic, wouldn't Elven Jeweler ("Discard 2 cards from your hand to put Elven Jeweler into play from your hand, under your control") also circumvent the Spirit sphere match? And I guess Curious Brandybuck too?

Sidenote: Thinking about 0-cost cards brought up a combo I hadn't thought of before: Stand and Fight and Dunedain Hunter. Did the Hunter whiff? Try it again for free! Or bring him in from a partner's discard pile to give your deck some extra combat bite, which you'll probably need because the Hunter just put an enemy into play engaged with you...

Edited by sappidus
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Yes, it would. You don't need a sphere-match to trigger an action - the same would apply to an out of sphere ally (with an action or response) in a Spirit deck brought in by Stand and Fight, or in a Leadership deck with Timely Aid, Sneak Attack or A Very Good Tale. You need a sphere-match to play a card but triggering the action is not playing the card.