In the FAQ, under the "Rules Exception" heading, it is stated that, while a moribund card can not be removed from play a second time as part of an effect or cost, the "state" of a moribund card can be changed by an effect that does not attempt to remove the card a second time. I'm just curious - what would be an example of an effect that could change the state without removing the card a second time?

Retreat is a good example of this.

Retreat is the best example of it in LCG.

Technically, the replacement effects on things like The Red Keep and CoS-Arya change the moribund state as well. You could argue that since they are passive, the original kill/discard/etc. state never happens and "into Shadows" is the only moribund state they ever enter, but it amounts to the same thing.

For the most part, the indicator that the card/target's moribund state is being changed without the card actually being removed from play a second time is the word "instead."

Ah, okay, thanks for the example and the key word to look for. So for the moribund state to be changed an effect needs to signal that it's aware of the fact that the card was going some place and is now going somplace else "instead."

The reason I started thinking about this is that I think the moribund rules exception is the rule that prevents The Titan's Bastard from being able to hop back into its owner's hand following Valar and then hop back into play (assuming the opponent has a character killed as well). Is this correct?

schrecklich said:

Correct. In fact, the comparison between The Titan's Bastard's "return to hand" ability and Retreat illustrates all aspects of the Rule Exception very well.

When Valar resolves, it resolves completely before any Responses to the characters being killed can be played. So The Titan's Bastard is "moribund:dead" by the time you could use his Response. Assuming Valar killed some of your opponent's characters, too, you could not use TTB's "return to hand" Response because it attempts to take him from play into your hand (out-of-play), which is illegal because he is already "moribund:dead." However, Retreat, with it's "return to hand instead ..." wording (different from TTB's wording) could effectively return him to your hand by changing "moribund:dead" to "moribund:hand."

Important note here: if you did use Retreat to make your TTB "moribund:hand" in this Valar example, you could not immediately trigger his "put into play" Response and make him "non-moribund" because he his not physically in your hand. Technically, he is still on the table, in play, though in a moribund state.

Thanks again, after a year, I think the rules to this game are starting to feel natural.