The Greatswords Unit does get a power token for its own entry into play. My question and Nate's ruling below.

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Rule Question:
The Empire Unit Greatswords text says "Forced: After a unit enters this zone, The Greatswords gains P until the end of the turn."

If I play a Greatswords from my hand into play, does the Greatswords forced ability give the unit an extra power because of it's own entry into the zone.

Put another way does the Greatswords unit have to already be in play prior to a unit entering the zone in order for the effect to trigger?

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Nate's Answer

The Greatswords does trigger off of its own entry into the zone. It enters play prior to the time its Forced effect would trigger.

Awesome (not the ruling itself I don't care one way or another, but that we have a ruling). This tells us a lot about how the flowchart is going to look regarding forced effects.

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me at all.

In order for the Greatswords Forced Effect to work, the Greatswords would have to ALREADY be in play and then see another Unit appear into that zone. The Greatswords would have already been played into a Zone BEFORE their Forced Effect could work, so there wouldn't be a unit coming into the zone as the Greatswords themselves would already have been played.

This makes zero sense.

I hope all of the rulings don't fall into this kind of nonsensical fashion.

It is no more non-sensical than passive effects and response effects on characters in Thrones. The way I suspect it will work in the flow chart is after a card is played that action creates a series of steps one of which is to check for constants and forced effects and then an opportunity for responses to that card being played. If this is the case then the forced effect of the card played would in fact be able to initiate to itself, since it would now be in play and then comes the check for effects.

AH! Okay, I see what you're saying. Fair enough though I think it could open a can of worms going down that route but I don't have as keen of a mind for CCG rules as you do, Dormouse, so I'll refer to your expertise in this case. If you think it makes sense, good enough for me.

Here is the way I suspect it will work -

Card is played or card effect is triggered.

1. Constant Effects are checked. Any with conditions that are met now initiate and resolve.
2. Forced Effects are checked. Any with conditions that are met now initiate and resolve.
3. Responses to the card played or effect triggered are triggered here.

Note: Constant and Forced effects may end up intitiating at the same time and resolve in the order as chosen by the Active Player. Each Constant and Forced Effect, as well as each Response would start this cycle all over again.

This is speculation, but I haven't seen anything yet that contradicts this (though that still doesn't mean it is 100% correct).

Ok, I have to admit I had ruled that I would play GS as not getting a power for being played into the zone. Now that I have the official answer I'll change, but this does change the way I look Forced effects.

What if you play 2 GS's, does the 2nd one get the power for the first GS played?

hmm, wasnt expecting THAT ruling.

ventura72 said:

I don't think so - you can't respond to playing a unit by playing another unit, so by the time you could play the second one the first would have already completed its action stack. The ability to see into the past is, at least for the moment, still limited to the actual action stack which is in progress.

RexGator said:

It's valid because it was played prior to the time the Forced effect would trigger? That's kind of confusing. So any card played into the zone before the effect is triggered would be counted, right?

Its valid because Itself (which had the card effect) was in play before the effect triggered (which is the moment after it entered play). The effect was not in play to be triggered for all cards put in to play prior to the Greatswords.

This definately isn't the rule answer I would have expected. I'll apply that one ruling without trying to understand its logic (if it has one).

Apparently, we'll have to ask Nate for nearly every single card to play it the way it was designed to be played.

The hyperbole really doesn't help.

A flowchart is needed for complex timing questions and we don't have one, Nate does (even if it is just in his and/or Eric's head). This was one of those questions where the players were 50/50 on. I suspected this might be the case because it is how it would work with Lang/French's Thrones LCG, but without a flowchart it seemed reasonable to say that the card had to be in play when the triggering event happened. This ruling actually clears up a lot of timing questions rather than creating new ones, and that to me is the sign of a good ruling.

I'm just wondering about this rule!

Example:

In my capital phase i first play "Warrior Priests", then "The Greatswords", after that "Pistoliers" into the Battlefield.

For this turn "The Greatwords" has Power = 4 => one + one for the "Warrior Priests" + one for itself + one for the "Pistoliers"

Thats definitly not the way i thought to play this!

That is it precisely. The only difference from the way you should have been playing is that it gets one more +1. IMO it does not come close to breaking the card and just barely changes its power level in my eyes, which is to say it is powerful, but not an auto include.

kiddo said:

Unless I am mistaken, with this new ruling the Greatswords still not get the power boost for the Warrior Priests, but would for themselves and the Pistoliers.

The past few rulings that have been posted on this forum seem to go against all logic to me. how can a forced effect be triggered if the triggering condition is not is play yet? Between this and the start of the turn ruling I think the FAQ is going to cause more confusion than it is going to clear up at this point. These rule changes that defy the simple nature of what is in play and what is printed on the cards is only making the game needlessly more complex than it needs to be in my mind.

Berserko said:

I'm inclined to agree. Rulings like this may satisfy hardcore ccg players, but I think it will make this game unapproachable for casual players. I dread having to explain something like this to someone with little or no ccg experience. It just seems counter-intuitive and needlessly complex to me.

Sorry I misread the sequence order, Warrior Priest would not boost the Greatswords. The Greatsword's ability cannot go back in time and get the boost, it would be able to be triggered only during the forced effects check following them coming into play and then from then on. When a card is played it is paid for put into play and then constants and forced effects would be dealt with, then players would have a chance to respond to the card coming into play with response actions.

The playing and explaining how to do it is easy (though why it works that way will require the flowchart). You play the card, you look at the board and see if there are any constants or forced effects that must be accounted for, you see one on the Greatswords themselves, and you then you resolve it.

Ok, i understand. So the Greatswords in my example has a power of 3!

But your statement is still conflicting. You say, this effect cannot go back in time, but when The Greatswords comes into play, you will do exactly that with itself.

I agree with you, to check and trigger effects when a card is played. So I try to bring some logic in this card, so lets see.

The original cardtext:

Forced: After a unit enters this zone, The Greatswords gains P until the end of turn.

I think this "After" is the problem. Is there a time window when playing a card? Something like: 1. before playing 2. playing 3. after playing ? When is this "After"-Window ending?

What will happen if the cardtext sounds like this:

Forced: When a unit enters this zone, The Greatswords gains P until the end of turn.

In this case, The Greatswords couldn't get a Power for itself, right?

It is not important if a when or after is in the card text because you check for effects after playing the unit and not before/while. So:

1:Pay for Greatswords and play them in the wanted zone
2:Check for constants working with unit
3:Check for forced/intentional effects for playing/entering a zone -> Greatsword is in the zone, so it triggers.

jogo said:

This is the simplest way to explain how it works IMO. Also.. no I'm not a dev on the game with no official answers, I just make pretty cards =) This explanation seems to work well tho'.

Interesting. Unexpected, but will play as intended.

Still waiting on the does a GS receive +1 for a unit 'moving into' his zone from another vs. from hand question...

Have you submitted that as a question yet?

Quote "Still waiting on the does a GS receive +1 for a unit 'moving into' his zone from another vs. from hand question..."

I'm sorry, but isn't this obvious?

"After a unit enters this zone...blah". When a unit moves into a zone isn't that considered entering?