A friend and I were discussing Immunity the other day and a few questions came up:

(FYI, The Red Viper will always be referring to the PoTS version)

Q. Would The Red Viper return to it's owner's hand if a player played Someone Always Tells?

He was unsure because The Red Viper isn't "chosen" by the event. I argued that while not chosen, The Red Viper is still directly targeted by the event, and as the FAQ tells us, "(3.15) Targetting and Immunity: A card cannot be chosen as a target of effects to which it is immune." Therefore the Red Viper would stay in play.

Q. If The Red Viper gained Stealth through Lost Oasis, would he be able to Stealth and kneel Hodor?

Hodor cannot be bypassed with Stealth, but my friend felt that since The Red Viper is Immune to character abilities that maybe he is able to. I argued that Hodor's ability doesn't affect The Red Viper himself. That is, it doesn't target The Red Viper. Hodor's ability is more of a restriction on himself, more so than anyone else. It's like "cannot be discarded" or "cannot be killed." Not only can those cards not be discarded or killed, you can't even TRY to discard or kill them. I feel Hodor works the same way. You can't even try to Stealth him.

Q. Is/can there be a difference between characters that are Immune to events and Immune to triggered effects when an event is played and resolved?

Suppose the CCG card Maritime Sneakthief was was legal and slightly tweaked into an event that read:

"Challenges: During a challenge in which there are few than 3 total participating characters, put a character from your hand into play, knelt, participating in the challenge on your side as the attacker. After the challenge resolves, discard that character from play and return all other participating characters to their owners' hands."

Let's say I'm the attacking with The Red Viper and my opponent decides to defend with the KL Joffrey Baratheon, who is Immune to triggered effects. Now, I know that the second part of our imaginary event is NOT a triggered effect. The first part of the event where you put a character into play from your hand is the triggered effect. The second part is a passive (or lasting?) effect. Therefore, Joffrey would return to his owner's hand as the effect affecting him is not a triggered one. Where my friend and I became confused is whether or not The Red Viper would return the his owner's hand because the effect is the result of an event. Does his immunity protect him from it, or does it somehow being a passive (or lasting?) effect make him susceptible? I want to say that he wouldn't bounce back, but I'm really not sure.

I feel certain about my answer to the first question, but I'm not so positive about the other two. I hope I didn't create an impossible scenario in the third question. If I did, I apologize and hope that you can create one that still addresses my concern, or at least be able to address the heart of the question without an example. Thanks for helping me out and letting me know where I stand in between being completely wrong on spot on!

Probably first and foremost, you need to break out of the mindset that "immunity = cannot be targeted." It is a lot more than that.

FATMOUSE said:

Well, you need to be careful about your terminology here. The Viper is not "still directly targeted" by the event. In fact, nothing is targeted by the event. A card is only considered to be the "target" of an effect if it is "chosen" by that effect. If the word "choose" is not used in the effect, there is no target. So your reasoning - or at least the wording - that "the event still targets him, and the immunity stops him from being targeted" is misplaced here.

What you're looking for is the much more basic "(3.14) Effects of Immunity: A card with immunity ignores the effects of card types to which it is immune." That says that regardless of whether an event card targets The Viper or not, The Viper ignores the effects of event cards.

It comes down to this - Immunity does two separate things:

1. The immune card cannot be targeted by what it is immune to.
2. The immune card cannot be affected by what it is immune to, whether it is targeted or not.

So yeah, Someone Always Tells does not target The Viper, so it does not run afoul of "immunity prohibition #1." However, the event does have an effect that is applied to character cards - like The Viper - and is therefore blocked as far as The Viper is concerned by "immunity prohibition #2."

FATMOUSE said:

Closer, but again, remember that since Hodor's ability doesn't "choose" anything, it doesn't "target" anything either - including himself.

You have the right overall answer, though. As said above, immunity makes it such that the immune card cannot be affected by what it is immune to. However, Hodor's "cannot be bypassed with Stealth" ability is not affecting the attacking character with Stealth. Rather, it is affecting himself - or the basic rules of the game, depending on how you look at it. His ability essentially says "Hodor is not a legal target for the Stealth keyword." That ability is not affecting the attacker, so an immune attacker cannot ignore it.

Your comparison to "cannot be..." is indeed apt because Hodor's ability is, in fact, a "cannot be..." effect. Look at it this way: If your Lost Oasis pumped Viper stealthed past a character that had "cannot be knelt," would the character kneel? No, because "cannot" means "don't even try." And, as stated in the FAQ, the word "cannot" is absolute, trumping everything else.

The easier short-hand may be to remember that The Viper's immunity only stops things from to him . In that regard, immunity is entirely defensive. It does NOT help him do stuff to other people.

FATMOUSE said:

Without getting into the complexity of your hypothetical example, there is pretty much no difference between immunity to events and immunity to triggered effects where event cards are concerned. The difference is more pronounced between immunity to triggered effects and immunity to character abilities because character abilities are much more likely to be passive than events.

What your example is getting at is "delayed effects" or "lasting effects with delayed initiation." Here's an example that is far easier to follow. Take the card Desperate Tactics ("Any Phase: Return an Army character you control to your hand to put an Army character with a lower printed STR into play from your hand. At the end of the phase, return that character to your hand if it is still in play."). Let's say you use that to put an Army into play that is "immune to events," or even "immune to triggered effects." Will it be returned to your hand at the end of the phase, or will its immunity allow you to ignore the "return to hand" effect? (That's essentially the same question, right?)

The answer ends up being "yes." The way the event works is that it puts the Army into play and creates a lasting effect ("return the card to your hand") with a delayed initiation ("at the end of the phase"). So, when you get to the end of the phase, what is initiating and sending the Army back to your hand? An event? No, the event card is long gone and in your discard pile. For example, you couldn't use The Hand's Judgement or Starfall Advisor (assume the Army is a House Dayne) to cancel the event at this point, right? Is it a triggered effect? No, the effect is happening whether any player wants it to or not. For example, you couldn't use To Be a Kraken to cancel the "return to hand" effect at this point, either, right? So what is resolving is simply a last effect, activated passively by the end of the phase, not an event or a triggered ability. So in this particular instance, there is no difference between "immune to triggered effects" or "immune to events." In order to be immune to the "lasting effect with delayed initiation," the card would either need to be immune to "lasting effects" or simply "card effects."

Said another way, you check to see if immunity applies when the actual effect initiates rather than tracing the initiating effect back to its origins to see how it was created.

ktom said:

viper is still immune to balon (cannot be declared defender) right?

Thanks, ktom. Amazing as always

Lars said:

Yes, The Red Viper would be able to defend as Balon's restriction is a character ability; unlike Intimidate, which is a keyword.

Lars said:

Yes. The difference is that Balon acts directly on the characters controlled by the defending player (i.e., he specifies "CHARACTERS with lower STR cannot be...") when he is attacking, making them ineligible defenders. Since the ability is acting on the character, the character can be immune to the ability. Hodor is acting on himself (i.e., he specifies "HODOR cannot be bypassed...") rather than the attackers with Stealth as described above.

Ok. I have a couple of question about Red Viper...

1) If I have in play only the Red Viper and my opponent plays "A Game of Chivasse" what happens?

do I have to kneel the Red Viper? My doubt is because the first part of that event says that "both players have to choose and kneel a character with an INT icon"... So the Red Viper is immune to events, but the first part of that card affects players and not characters and so I think is the player that has to kneel the Viper not A Game of Chivasse. But maybe I am wrong...

2) And then what if I lose the "game of chivasse contest"? Can my opponent choose the Viper and return to my hand? This second part I don't thinl it's possible.

3) What does happen with House Umber Berserkers if I have only the Red Viper in play? I think he dies an horrible death because Berserkers make the player kill the Viper, they are not directly responsible...

thorin_81 said:

The first part of the event - which is an effect, not a cost - does not affect players. It affects characters. A character controlled by each player kneels. Why? Because the controller said so? No, because an event resolved and made it kneel. Look at it this way: The plot "Red Wedding" has an opponent choose 2 characters (1 Lord and 1 Lady), then has the person who revealed the plot choose one of those characters to die while the other claims 2 power. Does that plot affect the opponent? The person revealing? No, it affects the characters.

The rule of thumb when determining what an effect acts on is to look at what is chosen, not who does the choosing. If someone plays Game of Cyvasse, they cannot kneel the Viper as their character with an intrigue icon.

thorin_81 said:

Again, why is the character returning to hand? Because a player said so? No, because an event resolved and sent it back to hand. The Viper is as immune to this part of the event as well.

thorin_81 said:

Again, look at what is chosen, not who is doing the choosing. The Viper is immune and cannot be choses to die when the Berserkers come into play.

ok, thank you so much.

This is an excellent thread to understand the Immunity stuff. Indeed, it is different from, say, in Magic, where it's all about targeting and preventing combat damage.. I have a few more questions :

Would the Red Viper trigger Events like "Blood for Blood" or "Parting Blow"? I'm guessing yes.

Trickier one : Can you attach "He Calls it Thinking" to the Red Viper after it is resolved? What's confusing is the part "Counts as a Boon attachment..." Does it mean that from the moment the first part of the Event is resolved, the card is considered an attachment and is lo longer restricted from Red Viper's Immunity?

-Marco

Marcon said:

Yes. Immunity only lets someone ignore the effects of an event card. They do not ignore (and therefore count) towards costs and play restrictions - like on Blood for Blood and Parting Blow.

Marcon said:

This has been asked and answered on the boards a bunch of times. In a nutshell, the "attach this card to a Martell character" effect is working on the event card to turn it into an attachment - not on the character it is attached to. Since the effect is not working on The Viper, he doesn't ignore it.

Suppose He Calls it Thinking said "Then, discard an attachment from a Martell character." Could that take an attachment off of The Viper? Sure, because the effect is working on the attachment, not the character. Well, the "put an attachment on a Maretll character" effect is the same thing, just in reverse.

Gday; this is my first time on this forum, im not sure if this is the correct place to ask this question but i will anyway:

In the core set,there is a Lannisport Brothel, allowing one to kneel a character. i understand characters are cards with power, but as a Targaryen player, its frustrating for my mate to kneel my dragon to go off to chase skirts. I find it equally strange that a direwolf from house Stark is also not immune to the charms of the clever ladies (and boys?) of the Lannisport Brothel. I understand these cards specify that they are creatures, but technically they are still characters, are they not? We have followed the rules as best we know (so ive been kneeling my dragons to the whim of the beckoning ladies) but it really defies logic. I understand being creatures they cannot have attatchments but they are not immune to abilities unless im missing something.

Perhaps the brothel has a large carcass on its roof in order to draw fully grown dragons in, and they can get their claws clipped while having a nibble? Perhaps they leave a dead bird in a convenient bowl out the back for the direwolves to eat while they get a behind the ears scratch from the lovely ladies (or boys?)

Any help appreciated.

Bennae said:

You are getting hung up on the name of the card. If the card did exactly the same thing, but was called "Sand Trap" instead of "Lannisport Brothel," would you be asking this question?

That the dragons or direwolves are "Creatures" has nothing to do with them being character cards. Characters are defined by card type. Creatures are defined by traits. Every character has at least one trait. Traits add flavor to the game, but they do not give any special "powers" or "immunities" to a character card. In fact, it is not the "Creature" aspect of a dragon or a direwolf that makes it so that character cannot have attachments. They must also have the text "No Attachments" on them. Not all characters with the "Creature" trait do. Some creatures can have attachments.

So, laugh at the fact that Drogon or Ghost keep getting distracted by the pretty girls in brothel, but don't try to read game rules into the names of the cards.

ahhh, much appreciated.

My dragons will continue to sample the hospitality of the girls at my cost. Slackers, they should be burning stuff. Dany is not pleased, and will give them a spanking.

Cheers!