I couldn't find the answer to this anywhere. Maybe it's obvious but I have been wrong before. 😏 If I declare Beregond as a defender against a 1 health attacker and he destroys the enemy with a spear of the citadel before shadows effects are resolved / attack vs defense is calculated is he still considered to have defended against an attack and taken no damage to trigger his ability?

I think if the attack is never resolved, you can't trigger Beregond's ability.

12 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

I think if the attack is never resolved, you can't trigger Beregond's ability.

I would say the same

I think because of the nature of the language, GrandSpleen and Halberto are correct. It would be different if Beregond's text box said "After Beregond exhausts to defend an attack..." or "After Beregond is declared as a defender..." but instead it says "After Beregond defends an attack..."

Thus, the attack must be completed in order to trigger the ability. The spear interrupts the attack.

If you refer to Seastan's guide to action windows ( https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/10407/a-guide-to-action-windows-1.0 ) Spear of the citadel would trigger at 6.4.1 while Beregond's ability would trigger at 6.4.4.

It feels more intuitive to me for the attack to be considered resolved even if it is aborted for whatever reason at some point during the process. I don't have any rules evidence one way or the other though.

Of course, the Spear's ability is a Response, so if you need the threat reduction you could opt not to trigger the Spear. At least you have the choice!

@NathanH nailed it this time (for the record, I was privately leaning in the wrong direction, heh):

The FAQ states: "When resolving an enemy attack, the defending player should check the status of the attacking enemy at end of each step: is there still an attacking enemy? ... If no, end the attack." What does this mean for card effects that trigger "after [a character] defends"? e.g., Spirit Beregond has a Spear of the Citadel, and he is declared as a defender against an enemy attack. The Spear kills the enemy. Can Beregond lower my threat by 1? Similarly for any hero that has a Spear and Armored Destrier attached.

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An attack was initiated, and Beregond was declared a defender, so Beregond has defended an attack regardless of whether or not all the steps of that attack were fully resolved. That means you would still be able to resolve his Response effect.

Cheers,

Caleb

Huh. I never would've guessed that would be ruled that way.

While I'm here though, I will point out that Spear of the Citadel has to attach to a Tactics character and can therefore only attach to Spirit Beregond if you first give him a Song of Battle.

I was wondering when someone was gonna point that out...