Can you trigger the effect of House Dayne Skirmisher by killing it to satisfy a challenge claim?

BrooklynMike said:

No, for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, killing House Dayne Skirmisher to trigger his effect is a cost. The result of one effect (like killing a character for claim) cannot be used to pay the cost of another. Look at it this way: If I have a card that says "choose and kneel a location" and I choose you kneel your Fiefdom, can you use the result of my location kneeling effect to pay the influence cost of some event card in your hand? Same situation with the Skirmisher being killed for some effect other than his own.

The other is that the Skirmisher's effect is an "Any Phase" effect. There is nowhere for you to trigger an "Any Phase" effect between choosing a character to die for military claim and that character being removed from the table.

For you to do what you want, his effect would have to read "Response: After House Dayne Skirmisher is killed..." - making his death a play restriction instead of a cost. Of course, then you'd have to wait for something to kill him before you could use his effect instead of making it happen at (timing-structure-allowed) will.

Thanks for the clarification, I suspected as much but getting the specifics of the timing interaction is enlightening and interesting. I'm playing my first game of melee with the new Martell deck, so I wanted to be sure exactly what nasty tricks I can play.