I had a strange situation come up today with a guarded card. Playing the Kings Quest and the Hobgoblin enemy came out; this takes the top card of your deck and guards it (and adds the card’s cost to its threat, attack and defence). The card happened to be core set Gandalf.

Is Gandalf then “in play”? If he’s not, then he presumably won’t block another player playing Gandalf to rescue Gandalf (which is weird). But if he is in play, does his “enters play” effect happen? And will he leave play at the end of the round? Or is his text somehow blanked?

I played that only his cost counted and he didn’t leave play or have enters play effects, as that seemed how it “should” work (and was worst for me), but I can’t find it specifically in the rules.

When a card becomes Guarded by an encounter card, it’s game text is not active unless otherwise specified, so no. You could not trigger Gandalf’s response.

The second question regarding playing Gandalf is a good one. When cards are guarded, are they in play?