Let's say Gloin has Steward of Gondor attached, giving him the Gondor trait. He also has a Song of Battle attached to give him access to the Tactics sphere.

If he takes a damage, and gains a resource, then plays Gondorian Discipline (GD) to cancel the damage, does he have to give up the resource he gained? My guess would be yes.

Now let's complicate it a bit. Gloin is initially at 0 resources. There is also a copy of Heavy Curse in play, and a copy of GD in the discard pile, making GD cost 1 to play.

Now when Gloin suffers a damage and takes a resource, he uses that resource to play GD. What happens to the damage? What happens to the resource?

We know from past rulings that if you cancel damage, you should treat it as if it never happened. Frodo vs the Muck Adder in Conflict at the Carrock -- it would seem that the Adder's Forced effect would cause you to discard Frodo if you place the damage, then remove it. But the old ruling just has you never place the damage to begin with. And then we have more recent rulings that actually have us rewind some actions if we cancel something, do we not? That whole mess about how you can't use Wingfoot if you use Quick Ears (so you have to kind of "unwind" Wingfoot, since Wingfoot's effect would trigger before you can play Quick Ears).

With that in mind, if you trigger Gloin's Response first and then do Gondorian Discipline, I guess you'll have to remove those resources as well. And then if you had used Gloin's Response to get a resource in order to pay for Gondorian Discipline, I think probably the universe will splinter and the game will be over for everybody, so please don't do that.

Yeah, that rewind stuff is bonkers. Really what should happen is you choose to trigger Gloin first, then you use Gondorian Discipline, and you just get free resources. And you can use Wingfoot with Quick Ears.

I would think that damage "suffered" by Gloin is damage that actually sticks. Thanks to Honour Guard and Beorn we know that damage can be targeted independently of the hero and cancelled, therefore there is a moment where the damage is out in space and not attached yet.

For the second question, if what I said above is accurate, the damage would have to have been assigned to Gloin after the window where you could cancel it; then he would get the resource, but it would be too late to target the damage with a response.

I would think that damage "suffered" by Gloin is damage that actually sticks. Thanks to Honour Guard and Beorn we know that damage can be targeted independently of the hero and cancelled, therefore there is a moment where the damage is out in space and not attached yet.

For the second question, if what I said above is accurate, the damage would have to have been assigned to Gloin after the window where you could cancel it; then he would get the resource, but it would be too late to target the damage with a response.

You are making a distinction between "suffered" and "dealt". I could buy that, but then you have a card like Shadow Key. Could you not cancel the effect of shadow key using GD?

Yeah that appears to mess up that theory. I still think the spirit of Gloin's effect is to gain resources with the damage actually taken and not cancelled damage. With cancelled damage I think the intent is to act is if damage never occurred.

i think "suffer damage" [Gloin (core), Shadow Key (Core) and Wilyador (Journey to Rhosgobel)] and "is damaged" implies that the damage is placed on the card and "damage dealt" means the damage goes to the card.

If you cancel damage which is already on a card then you will actually heal that card. if you cancel the damage which is dealt to a card you prevent a card suffering damage or get damaged. Its not healing.

So if Gloin suffers any kind of damage it is already on the card and a close call could not be used because the damage has reached the card already.

Frodo gives a good example how close call should be worded to cancel damage on a card

Don't you wish Fantasy Flight would site down and write out a doc like this

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/mylittleponyccg/images/0/0a/MLP_CCG_Comprehensive_Rules_%28v3.1%29.pdf

The general rule of this game is that whatever screws the player is typically right, so I believe this would fall under the same ruling as GrandSpleen mentioned, and you simply cannot spend resources gained from Gloin's passive to pay for this card, it's a paradox and the only way to end it is to just not do it.

That or ffg writes a rules doc

Gondorian Discipline and similar cards should read "Response: When a Gondor character would be dealt damage, cancel this damage".

Clearer still would be to have the system used in Conquest, where there are formally two steps to damage: assign damage and apply damage. The response from damage-cancellation effects takes place after the "assign damage" step, and the response from Gloin-like effects would take place after the "apply damage" step.

Seastan for president of the anti-timetraveling club!

Clearer still would be to have the system used in Conquest, where there are formally two steps to damage: assign damage and apply damage. The response from damage-cancellation effects takes place after the "assign damage" step, and the response from Gloin-like effects would take place after the "apply damage" step.

I think technically that might be a thing - I recall a ruling to do with archery that said essentially archery damage is first assigned, point by point, then dealt, all at once (the rules question was something to do with using Frodo and Song of Mocking to soak archery IIRC).

More generally, I really don't get all the confusion about cancelling things and triggering things off them. If you cancel something, it never happened. If you trigger and effect off that thing, then cancel it, then you triggered an effect off an occurrence which never happened, creating a paradox, as you guys have pointed out. This is why you can't do it. If you trigger a response off something, that requires the thing to have happened, so at that point you can't cancel it.

This is why you can't do it. If you trigger a response off something, that requires the thing to have happened, so at that point you can't cancel it.

It's odd though because that's not formally laid out in the rules. So the developers can do one of three things (possibly more):

1. Edit the FAQ to describe that you cannot cancel something that could ordinarily be cancelled if you trigger a response/forced effect, etc. off of it.

2. Errata all the cards that say "cancel x damage just dealt to a character" to instead say "cancel x damage assigned to a character" and then errata any characters that say "after any damage is assigned" to say "as damage is being dealt" (Dori, namely).

3. Allow you to keep the benefit of triggering the response (say gaining a resource) and then subsequently cancelling the effect.

Any of these resolutions is fine so long as it is defined. It seems the most intuitive would be number 2, but unfortunately that takes a lot of erratas to fix the problem so we shouldn't bank on that. I think the developers are going towards number 1.

The Quick Ears scenario seems to make the most sense: if you cancel damage then you proceed as if the damage never happened.

Gloin is dealt damage, gains resources, but then you cancel the damage with a card effect, therefore the resources are cancelled as well and any effects that may have triggered from gaining resources (e.g. Heir of Mardil) etc.

The Quick Ears scenario seems to make the most sense: if you cancel damage then you proceed as if the damage never happened.

Gloin is dealt damage, gains resources, but then you cancel the damage with a card effect, therefore the resources are cancelled as well and any effects that may have triggered from gaining resources (e.g. Heir of Mardil) etc.

The problem with this is it creates a paradox where you have Heavy Curse in play, Gloin with no resources and a Tactics resource icon and a copy of Book of Eldacar attached and a copy of Gondorian Discipline in your discard pile.

Gloin takes 1 damage, gains 1 resource due to his effect, you use this resource to play Gondorian Discipline for one resource (the one you just gained) to cancel the damage. So now you go back, and remove the 1 damage Gloin suffered and you also roll back the resource that he gained meaning you could never have afforded playing Gondorian Discipline in the first place...so you couldn't have played Gondorian Discipline, so Gloin takes 1 damage, and gains a resource, and .... so on and so forth.

And this is exactly what Seastan's crusade (okay maybe crusade is too harsh, but I'm quite enjoying watching it ) is all about.

To me this is old news. It is just another example of the same issue again. I am not criticizing Seastan for posting it. I am just tired of the problem.

It does need to be addressed though. And not using the band-aid method that the developers seem to lean towards. Saying "because you triggered Gloin's response, you cannot play Gondorian Discipline" in order to prevent the paradox is quite awkward because the timing window is still there so you should be able to play it. The rules allow for the paradox and that's the problem.

In reality, it seems that there is a timing window where Gondorian Discipline needs to be played before the timing window opens for Gloin's response to trigger. This is mostly a problem with Gondorian Discipline using the past tense in its game text.

Edit: I suppose you can say that "just dealt" comes before "after" which is similar to how A Test of Will works, though. This supports that the window for Gondorian Discipline does come before the window for Gloin's ability. However, there may be other examples where this is not true.

Oh I know it needs to be addressed. In my opinion the solution is to use hypothetical language instead of past tense language whenever a cancelation or replacement effect occurs. That is the way Magic the Gathering does it and it resolves all these issues just fine.

In this particular case GD would read, "whenever damage would be dealt, cancel it instead" With such a wording there wouldn't be any rewinding of time. As a result, as soon as you collect the resource the opportunity to play GD is clearly passed. Problem solved.

That is the way all these problems could be solved, but FFG insists on using the phrasing it uses, which requires a rewinding of time to cancel effects, which causes paradoxical loops. There have been at least a half a dozen examples brought up by now and they will just keep coming. Honestly, there isn't anything new to say. It is just rehashing the same points over and over again.

I think the best way to rule this is to simply add to the FAQ that if you cannot cancel anything you've used as a trigger.

This creates a clear situation where IF you use Gloin's trigger to gain resources, you cannot cancel the damage.

Seems simple enough to me... I'm with PocketWraith on this one. It could certainly be laid out more clearly in the rules, but it seems the errata is consistent on this.

I think the best way to rule this is to simply add to the FAQ that if you cannot cancel anything you've used as a trigger.

I don't like this system because it causes trouble whenever there is a non-optional reaction that comes in front of your cancellation---it seems unfair to prevent me from cancelling something because of some unrelated non-optional trigger that just happened to be lying around.

I don't think it's consistent with previous ruling either, because Wingfoot's effect ought to come before Quick Ears as written, but the ruling was that it's Quick Ears that takes precedence over Wingfoot.

I much prefer the idea that all cancellation and replacement effects must trigger before the event in question occurs and that all other effects should trigger after .

It always seemed obvious to me that damage cancellation and replacement effects must necessarily trigger before the damage is placed, otherwise the character might die before the card could be played anyway.

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. If you used it as a trigger ie - response - then you can't cancel it.

Forced effects are what canceling is for, so you certainly should be able to block those. We're talking about optional responses such as Gloin gaining resources for taking damage. If you use him taking damage to trigger his response, then you cannot then cancel the damage.

I simply don't think that the trigger for Gloin's response and that for Gondorian Disciple's response can be the same moment. Thought experiment: change Gloin's Response to Forced. Then, if Gloin and Gondorian Discipline trigger off the same "moment", then Gloin's forced necessarily resolves first, adding a resource. Then you must be able to cancel the damage with Gondorian Discipline (otherwise it isn't fair) but then the damage was cancelled, so how come the resource got added? This is weird. It's even worse if Gloin takes enough damage to die, because he surely departs to the graveyard before or while his forced response is resolving, and thus before Gondorian Discipline even gets a chance to fire?

Similarly, suppose Gloin takes enough damage to die. How does Gondorian Discipline even get time to fire? Surely he goes to the discard pile before the Response window even opens.

Life is so much easier if Gondorian Discipline has a different "trigger moment" than Gloin.

If Gloin would take lethal damage, and you are not using the resources gained through his response, you would have time to use Gondorian Discipline. You are able to respond to taking damage before it is "applied" to the character. I'm pretty sure this is the same timing as Gloin's response, and since they are both responses to the same occurrence you can resolve them in either order.

This paradox only applies when you must trigger gloin's response first to gain the resources to then trigger Gondorian Discipline...

idk - as I said before what this game needs is a good formal, technical write of defining exactly how it works, when it's timing windows are, and the game needs to be designed to follow it's own rules. The My Little Pony ccg has a technical rules write up and this game doesn't lol

This paradox only applies when you must trigger gloin's response first to gain the resources to then trigger Gondorian Discipline...

I believe that was precisely Nathan's point. If you imagine a world where Gloin's ability is "Forced" rather than "Response", then his effect must trigger before GD according to the rules. But in this world, it still seems that you should be able to cancel the damage with GD.

Did you already pose this question to Caleb Seastan? I'm very curious to see how far he wants to take this time rewinding nonsense.

Did you already pose this question to Caleb Seastan? I'm very curious to see how far he wants to take this time rewinding nonsense.

I don't actually think it is time-rewinding anymore (in the case of Gloin / Gondorian Discipline). I'm fairly confident we've been told that "just revealed" effects occur before "after revealed" effects. This wording seems identical in the case of Gondorian Discipline and Gloin meaning that you MUST trigger Gondorian Discipline first, and if you choose not to and then subsequently choose to trigger Gloin's response then you've officially closed the window in which you could have triggered Gondorian Discipline so gaining the resource from Gloin's response would not allow you to play the Gondorian Discipline (in Seastan's example).

The reason I say we've been told that "just" occurs before "after" is because I'm fairly certain this is true of A Test of Will (just revealed) and any of the various effects that trigger "after revealed".

Did you already pose this question to Caleb Seastan? I'm very curious to see how far he wants to take this time rewinding nonsense.

No - this scenario is just so cooked up that it would likely never happen, and I don't think Caleb bothers responding to such questions. I need to think of a more common situation where it could occur.