If I use Lothriel to put ally Prince Imrahil into play during questing, what happens after questing if I have a hero in my discard pile?

I assume Lothriel puts ally Prince Imrahil into play from my hand, immediately after which point he becomes a hero card and not an ally card. Then, at the end of the phase, Imrahil gets to remain in play because Lothriel's ability checks for "... at the end of the phase, if that ally is still in play, shuffle it into your deck." But, that ally is not still in play, so the effect becomes 'blind' to Prince Imrahil. A similar thing would be possible, in theory, if you used something like Vilya or Thror's Ring to put Swordthain onto Lothriel's ally during questing, or if Lothriel had gained Ranger and put Thalion into play with three Side Quests in the Victory display.


I have some vague precedence of gaining/losing traits, keywords, or card types in medias res of extended timing windows bouncing around in my head to support this interpretation, but can't seem to pull from anything more concrete yet at the moment.

Note that Folco Pippin and Caldara can discard themselves in any action window, so this would be a lovely combo with either of them.

2 hours ago, EBerling said:

If I use Lothriel to put ally Prince Imrahil into play during questing, what happens after questing if I have a hero in my discard pile?

As you said, now-hero Imrahil sticks around. This has been well-established in the case of using Sneak Attack on an ally, then Sword-thain. While I think the wording is quite clear, here's a reference ruling anyway:

Excellent, thanks so much @sappidus . You are an invaluable asset to this community, especially for relatively new players like me!

I have another doubt concerning Lothiriel. If I put into play an ally with a response that triggers "when it commits to a quest", (such as Emyn Arnen ranger) does it trigger its ability or dont ?

I'd say it doesn't, as it "enters play commited", and it really never "commits" to the quest... but I'm not sure at all.

I've been assuming it doesn't trigger and not using those sort of allies. Since they enter already committed, there's no commitment to respond to.

Similarly, Arwen ally can't use her response to buff someone's defense, because she enters exhausted.

I would reference the rulings on putting enemies into play engaged with you to answer this one.