His text says: "Forced Response: After a player plays a card, until the end of the phase that player can only play cards that belong to a different faction than that card."

Scenario 1) A player plays a Hastur card, may he then play a neutral card? A neutral card doesn't belong to a faction so I assume he may not.

Scenario 2) A player plays a neutral card first, he then may play a Hastur card?

Conclusion: If a player wants to play a neutral card he has to play it as his first card. Seems like an ugly card to treat mono faction decks.

His text says: "Forced Response: After a player plays a card, until the end of the phase that player can only play cards that belong to a different faction than that card."

So, if you look closely to the rules, Neutral do not belong to factions, so you won't have any problem to play Hastur+neutrals in any orders.

Is "no faction" really a different faction than e. g. Hastur?

Could I play then 2 neutral cards one after another in a phase?

mischraum.de said:

I agree that a Neutral can be played, but I think the question about the grammar is not if no faction is different from a given faction, but rather

if a Neutral belongs to no faction, then does it satisfy "belong to a different faction"?

I think the question is worthwhile. Grammatically, Neutral doesn't belong to any faction, so doesn't belong to a different faction.

If that is true, you can't play a neutral card after a faction card in response to Prof. Lake.

Hmm.... What am I missing?

I think you forget the rule for Eligible target (cf faq)

Neutral cards are not a faction card so they can't be targeted by effects which target a faction card (they are not a valid target for the lake's effect, so the effect is ignored).

I see where you are going, but I'm not sure I grok the logic.

After a player plays a card (trigger is playing a card - with a faction or not),

until the end of the phase (duration)

that player can only play cards that belong to a different faction than that card. (effect)

Which is the target? The player? The card? This effect is different than what I think of as something containing a "target".

I'm sure I'm over-thinking this, but that's the fun part of a rules forum.

Take an example 'attach this card to an agency characters". If there is not agency character in play, you can't attach this card and so can't play the card (you have a target requirement, you want to play a card on another card which are not in play so you can't play it).

Lake says with a wording clearer "after you play a card you cannot play a card from the same faction". "Play" means a card from your hand which enter in play by paying is normal cost (cf faq) :
- It means you could play an hastur card for example and then play an effect from a card to put into play another hastur card (this one is put into play and not played).
- It means after you play an hastur card you can only play a card from another faction so 2 interpretations because neutral is not a faction : so it means you couldn't play a neutral card after you play the hastur one (the words "only another faction" could exclude non-faction neutral cards) or because the effect deals only with faction cards, the neutral one can't be target by the effect (target requirement is not right) like my example with attachment.

So it's true it's difficult to know what is the original idea of the card. I used to play it like "after you play a card you cannot play a card from the same faction" so I can play neutral cards but may be I'm wrong.

I think we're in the same boat. I used to think Prof Lake really meant "...you can't play a card from the SAME faction." But now as I think about it in detail, that is not equivalent to "only play cards that belong to a different faction" because our universe of cards includes cards with factions and cards without factions.

If every card had a faction affiliation, those two sentences would be equivalent. But....

So I'm back to not knowing what was intended in the design of Prof. Lake. His flavor text and actual story line don't really give any good hints here.

I sent my question to FFG a while ago. Still waiting for an official answer.

According to page 3 of the core set rules of play, "Neutral cards do not belong to any faction." I would have to assume that they cannot be targeted by effects that target faction affiliation, for instance. I would also have to assume that they cannot be played when Prof Lake is in play. The current wording states that the player is forced to play only cards that belong to a "different faction." As neutral cards are faction-less, according to the strict wording, it would seem that neutral cards are off-limits alongside the faction of the card that triggered the effect.

If the card were: "" Forced Response : After a player plays a card, until the end of the phase that player can no longer play cards of that faction," there's no doubt. Only the faction of the card played is off limits (which I honestly believe is the true intention of the card).

I hope FFG responds with something official.

Yesterday I got an official answer!

The questions:

How do neutral cards interact with Professor Lake?
Scenario 1) A player plays a Hastur card, may he then play a neutral card? A neutral card doesn't belong to a faction so I assume he may not.

Scenario 2) A player plays a neutral card first, he then may play a Hastur card?

The answer from James Hata:

A neutral card does not have a faction.

1) He may not. Having no faction does not count as being a "different faction"

2) Yes, he can.

mischraum.de said:

I assume, this also means that neutral cards don't have a resource type?

Thing from the Stars:

"Lower the cost to play Thing from the Stars by 1(to a minimum of 1) for each resource type other than <Hastur> attached to the domain drained to pay for Thing from the Stars".

I.e. neutral cards do not reduce the cost, correct?

EDIT: Stupid quote functionality.

Scenario 2) A player plays a neutral card first, he then may play a Hastur card?

2) Yes he can.

So ... answer 2) ... you can trigger Professor Lake with a neutral card even though it doesn't have a faction? Or does the neutral cards simply fail to trigger, making Hastur the "forbidden" faction for that phase?