Rogue30 said:

~Are you insulting me or something? Who's the miss dee?

Gotta love the quote feature on these boards....

Best rules discussion I've read in a long time. Thanks for all the clarifications.

Question.

How is the order of kneeling cards for "Game of Cyvasse" determined?

IE: Who kneels a card first, second, etc?

The person playing the card kneels first and then the rest of the table follows in turn order.

OK, I've got a question about this card, because there is some doubt about it.

Situation: Martell player plays A Game of Cyvasse and kneels one of his characters. I've got only one card with I icon and this card is already kneeling. So, if I may kneel a kneeling character, so do I count my character's STR for resolving A Game of Cyvasse effect?

Grzechu said:

No. You can only count the STR of a card that is actually knelt. Kneeling an already kneeling card for Game of Cyvasse let's you avoid having to kneel a standing character you control.

JerusalemJones said:

Does Red Viper can be knelt or back to its owner's hand by Game of Cycasse?

Uncle Joker said:

No.

This is an incredible thread. I will make Cliffs for those who don't want to read the whole thing and piece together what is going on. I apologize in advance if I make any mistakes and create more confusion.

To summarize: You can choose an entity as a target for an effect that is incapable of fulfilling the action. So you can target a character to kneel with an effect that says "kneel a character," even if it is already kneeling, or an effect that says "stand a character," even if it is already standing. However, you need to be careful, because when you do this the action of kneeling was not successful. First, it has to do with paying costs, and secondly it has to do with effects dependent on a positive resolution of another effect.

A cost is denoted as "X" in AGOT LCG when a card says "do X to do Y." There are lots of cards that have a cost of kneeling themselves, like Northern Fiefdoms. You obviously can't have its ability resolve when it is knelt to use it to repeatedly lower cost, but that doesn't mean you cannot trigger it's ability. Because nothing is being knelt, the cost of your next stark card will not be lowered. The cost (in this case kneeling the fiefdoms) is not satisfied, so the effect (lowering the cost of the next stark card) does not resolve. Lets look at an example, where a card does not effect itself. The event To Be A Lion (Sacred Bonds), amongst other things, says "Response: After you win an I challenge, stand a HL character you control to choose and kneel a character without an I icon." Thus, you can still play the event even if all your characters are standing. You try and stand a standing character, and this does not happen. You didn't pay the cost (a character has not gone from kneeling to standing) so you don't get to resolve the effect (kneel a character without an Intrigue icon).

An example of an dependent effect is You've Killed The Wrong Dwarf!, from the Core set. I chose this because its the example in the FAQ (Page 10-11). It states "Any Phase: Choose and kneel a non-N character. Then, that character claims 1 power." You can choose a non-N character that is knelt as a target. But, since that character did not actually kneel, the part of the effect dependent (the part after "Then, " on that kneeling ("that character claims 1 power.") will not resolve. This isn't paying a cost, its one effect dependent on the resolution of another effect.

People are probably saying "why would you want to do that?" Well, imagine an event card that cancels a kneel effect and then gives you some bonus, such as claiming 1 power for that character. You could target a character of your own who is knelt, cancel the effect, and claim 1 power for that character. For everyone who thinks of abusing Cannot be Bribed, Cannot be Bought (Secrets and Spies), it does not work like this - it required the character actually be knelt (as in the action of going from standing to kneeling), and it has to be your opponents event. Its the first thing I thought of abusing.

I think I got that right. I will assume lots of corrections will flood my way shortly.

Mathias Fricot said:

Yup. At least one major one, too.

Mathias Fricot said:

While this is true, be sure not to over-generalize it. If the effect says "Choose and kneel a character," you can choose a character that is already knelt because there is no target restriction on the card preventing you from doing so. But if the effect says "Choose and kneel a standing character," you can only choose a character that is standing when you play the event.

So don't over-generalize this to the point where you stop reading the cards. The real point is that the anticipated effect does not place any restriction on your choice of target; just don't forget that a specific target restriction will.

Mathias Fricot said:

This entire section is incorrect.

As you say, the X in "do X to do Y" is a cost and many costs require you to kneel some other card. It is also true that if you do not successfully pay the cost, you cannot resolve the effect. HOWEVER, what is missing is that if you are unable to successfully pay a cost, you cannot initiate or trigger the effect in the first place!! So in both examples (kneeling a Fiefdom that is already knelt or standing a Lanni character that is already standing to pay for "To Be a Lion"), it is illegal to initiate the effect. So in that "do X to do Y" situation, you are allowed to play the effect just to play it knowing that Y won't happen, but you cannot play the effect just to play it if X will not happen.

Let's say it this way: I can kneel a standing Fiefdom to successfully reduce the cost of the next appropriate card by 1 even when there are no cards in my hand that I could possibly play just so I can say I triggered a location ability. But I cannot say that I kneel a kneeling Fiefdom and unsuccessfully pay for the effect just to say I triggered a location ability.

Mathias Fricot said:

This example is a little confusing coming on the heels of "You Killed the Wrong Dwarf." The 1 power claimed for the character is coming from the hypothetical "cancel, then" effect, not from the original effect.

Sorry ktom, I didn't think I over-generalized with the examples that I used, but I could see some people blanketing over the "kneel a character who is standing" with "kneel a character" if they were not paying attention. You need to meet the play restrictions; I can't use Maester Wyndamyr to save Robb Stark, he isn't house Greyjoy. I might have quoted a card text wrong though and forgotten a restriction. For the second part, I was mixed up. This thread was looking at unsuccessfully kneeling as an effect, not as a cost. I was confused because when Rozy asked

"Imagine if there is efect that say "after you triger an effect pay one gold to draw a card" I could kneel my knelt Fiefdom do do this three times."

you said "Yes, if you use an effect in an attempt to kneel a character that is already knelt, it is initiated successfully (costs paid, etc), but it is not resolved successfully."

So, I used the same example of kneeling my fiefdoms multiple times, triggering its ability, but resolving it unsuccessfully. And... after I re-read the next few posts right now, it gets cleared up in the same way it did right here. Apparently I fell into the same crack as Rozy, strong luls.

Pay the cost, then initiate the effect. Thats the way to think about it. As an effect, go ahead, kneel someone unsuccessfully. You can have an unsuccessful effect. As a cost, you either pay the cost and initiate the effect, or you don't pay the cost and you don't initiate the effect. You can pay a cost and have the effect cancelled, but you cannot unsuccessfully pay a cost. I will quote cersei on this, "There is no middle ground."

I think that got cleared up nicely. I just hope I didn't confuse anyone else in the process.

Edit: oh, and yes, in the hypothetical example I was using the hypothetical event I hope to someday create, not the one from from the previous example (You Killed the Wrong Dwarf!)"

Mathias Fricot said:

I hope it's OK that I'm resurrecting this thread instead of staring a new one.

So I was thinking about A Game of Cyvasse. What threw me is the "return a character to its owners hand" part. I always assumed that this means "return a character from play to its owners hand", and that it was used to get rid of opponent's chars, or maybe to save key uniques from an imminent Valar.

Well, we all know it's not good to make silent assumptions in this game. When pondering the card, I realized that the card text doesn't actually say where the character in question is returned from. So, I'd like to ask - is there anything to stop me from using Game of Cyvasse to get chars back from the dead or discard pile?

Thanks!

Ratatoskr said:

That would be the FAQ:

(3.13) Out of Play States
Attachment, location, and character card
effects can only be triggered (or affect the
game) when the card is in play. Event cards
can be triggered from your hand using an
action. In general, card effects on non-event
cards in a player's hand, deck, shadows area,
discard pile, and dead pile are not considered
to be actionable unless the card specifically
states that it can be triggered while in its out-of-
play state.

This establishes the default that unless a card says it interacts with an out of play area, it doesn't. Not only can you not trigger/use a card in your discard pile unless the card says so, any other card cannot affect your discard pile unless it says so.

So the fact that Game of Cyvasse doesn't say it can return cards from your discard pile to your hand is what prevents you from doing so. It is the same reason you can't use Yoren's Task to get any Baratheon character from your deck as a "Night's Watch" while you have the Baratheon "Wall" in play, or why Street of Steel cannot be used to lower the cost of Night's Watch characters you play when you have the Rangers Agenda.

I see. Thank you ktom.

I searched the forums for this (and read this very interesting thread) but didn't find an answer to this, probably very easy, question; What happens if more then one player kneel the highest strengths character (say three people each choose a standing str 3 char)?

ilgoga said:

When this game talks in terms of "character with the highest STR," it is talking about a single character. Ties are not valid. If it were talking about the highest STR value, there could be ties that apply to more than one card. Compare Cyvasse to something like Pirates of Orkmont.