What do I do with a shadow effect that may get Surge? Case in point is:-

Call of the Curse (Temple of the Deceived, Nightmare card 8) has a Shadow effect: "R esolve the 'when revealled' effect of Call of the Curse. " The When Revealed text says: "until the end of the round, each Undead enemy gets +X [att] and +X [def]. X is the number of locations ... If X is 0 or 1, Call of the Curse gains surge."

In my game, X is 0. Do I ignore the surge, deal another shadow card as the "surge" effect, or reveal another card?

(I seem to remember reading a similar ruling/topic before, but now can't find it - so apologies if I am going over old ground).

FAQ: Surge, Doomed, and Guarded keywords should be resolved any time the card on which they occur is revealed from the encounter deck, including during setup.

So if it acquires surge, you'd reveal another card from the encounter deck.

Hmm. Are you sure? Does surge on a shadow qualify as a "when revealed" effect. It's not being revealed from the encounter deck, it's being flipped over on the table.

The shadow effect in this case says 'resolve the when revealed effect.' The 'when revealed' effect in this instance grants the card surge (surge is not simply printed as regular keyword on the card). So yes, Surge would trigger here.

I agree that the when revealed effect includes surge. I just don't know if Surge would trigger here.

When an encounter card with the surge keyword is revealed during the staging step of the quest phase , reveal 1 additional card from the encounter deck. Resolve the surge keyword immediately after resolving any when revealed effects on the card (emphasis mine).

This shadow card was not revealed during the staging step, so it doesn't surge. If what you are saying is that "resolve the when revealed effect," includes being revealed from the encounter deck then I agree with you.

Look at dale's first reply. He quotes the FAQ, which clarifies that Surge is resolved any time the card is revealed, not just during the quest phase.

Agree with GrandSpleen

Alas, I have to agree with the argument! (currently struggling on that quest in a lot of ways, so one more encounter card is possibly the least of my worries). Thanks for the replies!

I disagree. If the developers wanted to cause the card to be revealed, it would have just said to reveal the card. I think the intent is to avoid the Surge, but still have the "When Revealed" get triggered.

If the card had had a Surge effect and a separate When Revealed effect, I'd fully agree with you. The doubt for me is because the Surge effect is embedded in the When Revealed. So I can't really justify ignoring it... (unless one of the designers tells me to!)

10 minutes ago, Boromore said:

If the card had had a Surge effect and a separate When Revealed effect, I'd fully agree with you. The doubt for me is because the Surge effect is embedded in the When Revealed. So I can't really justify ignoring it... (unless one of the designers tells me to!)

Oh, my fault. I should have read the whole post more carefully. Yeah, since its embedded in the When Revealed, you have to Surge.

I expect the intention is for it to surge, but a strict reading of the rules suggests it would not. The card certainly gains surge, but does that do anything? According to the FAQ, surge takes effect when a card is revealed. But the card is not being revealed, it is merely having its When Revealed effect triggered. As far as I can see, it can gain surge as much as it likes, but all the surges in the world don't trigger unless the card is actually revealed.

A fair point. Back to head scratching!

Surge is part of the when revealed effect who says "reveal an additional card". Does it solve the problem? Not really since we are not revealing cards so revealing an additional card don't necessary take sense.

We agree about the fact that the spirit is to reveal a card anyway. So even if the rules as we know them don't reveal a card I'm pretty sure that Caleb would rule to reveal one.

So the thing to do is treat the surge like it says to in the FAQ, and not the core rulebook. It still bugs me that it says "after a card with surge is revealed from the encounter deck ."

It's clear that the card is intended to surge, but the rules make it hard to be sure.