We have a discussion on the French forums.

What happens to Dragon Skull if the response is cancelled. Is it discarded, goes back to shadows or is attached to the character without effect ?

Dragon Skull

Item.

House Targaryen only. Attached character gets -2 STR and is killed if its STR is 0. Response: After Dragon Skull Comes out of Shadows, attach it to an opponent's character or discard it from play.

mathaplo said:

Well, it can't be attached to a character without effect because the "-2 STR and kill @ 0" part is passive. If it's attached (and not blank), that's gonna happen.

You cannot cancel a card coming out of Shadows in the normal way because it is a game effect rather than a generic triggered effect. There are no cards (currently) that say "cancel a card coming out of Shadows."

What you can cancel is the attaching Response. If that Response is unsuccessful (for example, by being canceled), it would be discarded as an attachment that is not legally attached to anything.

What is the point of the reponse on Dragon Skull then ?

To prevent attaching it to one of my character ?

The point is that without the response bringing it out of Shadows is not playing the card from hand so you would not otherwise be able to attach it to anything.

If you cancel the response of dragon skull I would say it goes to your discard pile.

The way I am interpreting it, you are not canceling the fact that dragon skull comes out of shadows, you are canceling the response which specifically mentions, "after Dragon Skull comes out of shadows".

So it does come out of shadows, but since it can't get attached to anything because you canceled the response it will get discarded.

dormouse said:

This is not technically true, any may be the source of the discussion on the French boards. The Shadows Mechanic rules actually say that when an attachment comes out of Shadows, it attached to another card (and is discarded if there are no eligible cards. When attachments come out of Shadows, they are indeed able to attach to things.

That means the Response on Dragon Skull could been replaced by the attachment restriction "attach to an opponent's character."

mathaplo said:

That would be my guess, yes. It does behave a little differently as the Response than as an attachment restriction (in control change situations where Dragon Skull didn't kill the attached character outright).

The idea here - and I know it might be unsatisfactory to some - is that the Response effect on the attachment supersedes the "when an attachment comes out of Shadows" instructions in the rule sheet (as card text often does). I'm guessing that what really happened is that the Shadow rules and the Shadow cards themselves were developed in parallel and that what we're seeing here is two aspects of that development that reach the same end.

To be precise as it was the original question on the French boards, if I don't activate the response, given that I don't need to activate it to attach Dragon Skull to an opponent's character, my opponent cannot cancel it with He Calls It Thinking.

mathaplo said:

Which is actually the problem with the rules text. All Shadow attachments include some sort of passive or triggered "when it comes out of Shadows, attach it" text. This implies that the statement in the rules is the redundant part, not the card text. And that you should not be able to attach Dragon Skull to anything without triggering the Response.

Yes, I know that isn't the way the rules read and that a judge would be well within the rules to allow attachment of Dragon Skull without triggering the Response.

But taking all cards together, I wonder if Nate needs to clarify whether attachments can attach automatically when coming out of Shadows or not. Because there is an additional consideration to your Dragon Skull/No Response/Avoid cancel scenario. If both the "rules attach" and the "Response attach" are valid, what's to stop me from bringing Dragon Skull out of Shadows, using the "rules attach" to put it on character #1 (killing it), then triggering the "Response attach" to put it on character #2 (killing it, too)? It's examples like this that make me think the statement in the Shadows rules is likely to add confusion and create possibilities that are not intended (much as I hate talking about design "intent").

ktom said:

Yeah, also things like "attach it to a unique character" and "attach it to an opponent's character" clearly show that Maester Malleon's Tome and Dragon Skull are card mistakes and/or shadow rules mistake.

Well in a case like this where there is a small inconsistency in the rules, I think we should play based on how the cards were supposed to function.

There are only 4 shadow attachments (Venomous, Skull, Pinch of Powder, Tome) and all of them have specified where you can attach the card to. That would lead me to believe that shadow attachments are required to have the "attach" process specified otherwise they won't be able to attach to anything.

And like ktom mentioned, if you can ignore the response on the skull, you can attach it to a character kill it, then attach it to another character. I don't think that's the way the card was designed to function.

Zsa said:

What if the card was designed to work like Venomous blade (e.i. not cancelable)?

Then I guess Dragon Skull would not have a Response there on the card in the first place. Same thing for the Tome.

Zsa said:

My point is, that response is always optional, so probably these cards should be passive just like Venomous blade and got "response" by mistake, but we don't know that.

I agree with you that we don't know for sure, I just made an assumption based on the other cards. I guess the best way to clear this is to ask an FFG official.

Rogue30 said:

True, but the cards may have been specifically given a Response rather than a passive in order to make the attaching more universally cancelable. So the Response is not necessarily a "mistake" in that regard.

This is why I hate talking about "intent" in design. But yes, the duplication of "comes out of Shadows, so attach" in the rules and on the card does seem to have the potential to cause confusion.

When I was in Minnesota for the mega event, I played several games against Nate. In one such game I brought a Dragon Skull out of Shadows and attached it to Nate's character. I did not trigger the response, I simply attached it. Nate said he canceled it with "He Calls it thinking". I made the counter argument. Nate wins argument (because he is Nate afterall). So while Nate hasn't publicly stated this, it did happen in a game.

What happens with Venomous Blade and Shadow of the East? Can Shadow of the East discard Venomous Blade to discard the attachment and prevent the kill?

XcentricX said:

If Venomous Blade has already come out of shadows, and already attached itself to a character, it has also already killed a character. You can certainly discard Venomous Blade from play with The Shoadow of the East, but there's no way for you to prevent it's killing effect.

Deathjester26 said:

Said another way, you cannot interrupt bringing card #1 out of Shadows by bringing card #2 out of Shadows. Unless a card effect says "save" or "cancel," it cannot interrupt anything.

So the timing of Shadow of the East vs. Venomous Blade will not work out to prevent the kill. Ever.

Dobbler said:

So that means you can't attach attachment out of shadows without specific response or passive effect. (which means Shadow rules are bad worded)

Dobbler said:

Now we know why Compelled was banned...

Nate: "I attach Taste for Blood to my Character..."

Player: "I use Compelled by the Rock, and attach it to my Character..."

Nate: "WHAT!!... Damned rules... That card should not exist...I´ll ban it...."

Do we have a final answer on this ?

A little word on this in the FAQ could be great... Just say that an attachement doesn't attach itself passively when coming out of shadows and all is fine with all the attachements (s)

Well, I guess Nate kind of made a ruling on this according to Dobbler and he is the official rules guy. To get something more official, you might want to try sending him a message directly. If you use the "Rules Questions" link at the bottom of the page here and AGoT LCG, your question will be sent to Nate. Perhaps that will also prompt him to put something in the FAQ for you if he feels that the cards are unclear as printed.

schrecklich said:

Unfortunately he sometimes ignores it.