Hi All.

Quick question which came to my mind thanks to "Death and Calamity" card and its shadow effect: "Attacking enemy gets +X Attack, where X is the number of Sorcery cards in play." So the question is: Does this card also count in? It is in play as shadow card and has also Sorcery trait. But I don't know if we look only at the shadow part of this card or the whole card. Thanks for your help

I've never played as if shadow cards were "in play", but I just looked up the Core Set rules and there is a section called "Shadow Cards Leaving Play" (I think this should actually say "Discarding Shadow Cards" which is different than something "leaving play".)

Then, I also found this section that say "Shadow Effect Icon: If a card has a shadow effect, that effect is denoted by this icon, which also serves to separate the shadow effect from the card’s in play effect" which implies shadow cards are not in play.

I think there is some ambiguity here because the two are contradictory, but I think the intention is that shadow cards are not actually "in play" and only the text below the shadow effect symbol is supposed to be considered when resolving it.

Agreed. Shadow cards aren't in play--or at least, all parts of the card except the shadow text. (This includes traits.)

There's a question in the FAQ that (I think) addresses this:

Q: What happens to Banks of the Anduin (CORE 113) if it is drawn as a Shadow card?

A: It will be discarded from play at the end of the combat phase, like other Shadow cards. When a card is drawn as a Shadow card, only its Shadow text is considered to be active

Emphasis mine.

EDIT: But then there's the Witch of Angmar, who has the forced effect "When you resolve shadow cards dealt to Witch of Angmar, if they have the Sorcery trait, resolve their "when revealed" effects. (Resolve any shadow effects first.)". So I guess it does comes down to whether a shadow card is "in play" or not.

EDIT(2): Stage 2A from Battle of Carn Dum says "Raise each player's threat by X, where X is the number of shadow cards in play". Hmm. Guess that means it does count itself?

There's a question in the FAQ that (I think) addresses this:

Q: What happens to Banks of the Anduin (CORE 113) if it is drawn as a Shadow card?

A: It will be discarded from play at the end of the combat phase, like other Shadow cards. When a card is drawn as a Shadow card, only its Shadow text is considered to be active

Emphasis mine.

EDIT: But then there's the Witch of Angmar, who has the forced effect "When you resolve shadow cards dealt to Witch of Angmar, if they have the Sorcery trait, resolve their "when revealed" effects. (Resolve any shadow effects first.)". So I guess it does comes down to whether a shadow card is "in play" or not.

EDIT(2): Stage 2A from Battle of Carn Dum says "Raise each player's threat by X, where X is the number of shadow cards in play". Hmm. Guess that means it does count itself?

The quote from the FAQ answered it, in my opinion. The Witch King is just a case of the Golden Rule overriding it.

Well considering you discard shadow cards at the end of the combat phase, they clearly stick around after being revealed so they have to be considered "somewhere" right? And in the core rules about "Shadow Cards Leaving Play" it seems obvious - without be explicit - that they are considered in play.

I think the shadow cards are In Play, but by default they have no properties apart from 1) their shadow effects and 2) being shadow cards, unless explicitly referenced by another card (such as Smaug The Magnificent in On The Doorstep).

What if we change the theme a bit...

If a Sorcery treachery is your shadow effect, it's kind of easy to understand why you might want to consider it as a "Sorcery" card and "in play." Shadow effects are sort of like magic, after all.

What if we were talking about Goblins? If the shadow card was on a Goblin enemy card, would you consider its Goblin trait to be active while resolving the shadow effect?

How about Clues in The Hunt for Gollum? Are you giving Hunters from Mordor +2 attack if it happens to get a Clue as a shadow card (those Hunters get +2 threat and +2 attack for each "Clue card" in play, it makes no reference to card type).

Or, back to Sorcery cards. Now you're fighting Daechanar in a 4-player game of Dread Realm. You've got 5 enemies on the table and three of them have shadow cards which happen to have the Sorcery trait. Is Daechanar getting +3 attack and is he invulnerable until those shadow cards are cleared off? You would have to deal with a big wave of new Sorcery cards every round, in addition to the Sorcery conditions being revealed by the encounter deck every turn. You could defeat all enemies every round before attacking Daechanar, I guess... or just hope to trigger his Forced response many times per round.

No, a shadow card is in play but its Trait text is inactive while it is a shadow card. A Sorcery-traited card dealt as a shadow card is not counted as a Sorcery card.

^^drops the mic^^