Ran into a weird situation last night. Three side quests had been completed, fellowship had flipped so I could "no longer play allies or put allies into play," and I had a Thalion in my hand. Could I still play Thalion since he is now a hero? One might assume the text that makes him a hero is only active while the ally is in play, but ally Glorfindel's text is active while he is in the discard pile, Emery's action is active while she is in your hand, etc., so I don't know. Could he possibly create a sweet loop hole where he gets to be the 10th member of the fellowship?!

43 minutes ago, RogueSeventeen said:

Could I still play Thalion since he is now a hero?

I don't think so. He only becomes a hero as soon as he enters play. In the process of playing him (paying his cost) he would still be an ally and the contract woudn't allow it. You might be able to get him down using Vilya maybe. I'm not 100% on this.

He's what it says in the online rules reference on constant abilities:

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Page 5.

Constant Abilities

A constant ability is any non-keyword ability whose text contains no boldface timing trigger defining its ability type. A constant ability becomes active as soon as its card enters play and remains active while the card is in play.

• Some constant abilities continuously seek a specific condition (denoted by words such as “during,” “if,” or “while”). The effects of such abilities are active any time the specified condition is met.
• If multiple instances of the same constant ability are in play, each instance affects the game state independently.

Stimpaksam is right. Also Vilya definitely doesn't work because the contract forbids putting into play as well.

The text on Glorfindel and Emery is only in effect because those abilities specifically reference the cards entering play from other areas.

In fact, if Thalion's effect applied in your hand then you would never be able to play him once you had three sidequests completed - the game rules do not permit you to play Heroes from your hand.

I'm inclined to agree with the previous two posts, but to play devils advocate...

The cards text seems to be active even in hand. It is not a response. It is a passive ability that stays on the card. Why wouldn't the status be in effect while in hand? It does not give any preconditions about being in play.

That being said, there isnt any context for paying for a hero in your hand.

On 1/18/2020 at 4:38 AM, player3351457 said:

The cards text seems to be active even in hand. It is not a response. It is a passive ability that stays on the card. Why wouldn't the status be in effect while in hand? It does not give any preconditions about being in play.

Already quoted above was this about constant effects (emphasis added):

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A constant ability becomes active as soon as its card enters play and remains active while the card is in play.

Also alluded to was the fact that effects like ally Glorfindel's override this principle, but mostly because the card text explicitly says so.

More generally, the best way to understand almost all card text rules is that the text is only relevant if the card is in play unless it specifically only makes sense when the card isn't in play.