I think the legit answer is that they work whenever is best for that particular card, according to designer whim on the day asked.

sappidus, o keeper of all official rulings and musings, please help us.

For the below, it is useful have RR Setup on hand—the current status is…

• [Setup steps #6 & #7 are essentially encounter setup.]
• Contract Setup occurs after the encounter setup portion of setup step #7 ( ruling , and additional ruling , and why not one more ruling ).
• The One Ring from Shadow in the East also occurs at the same step #7, despite what the rulesheet says ( ruling that appears to serve as an erratum to the rulesheet, I guess).
• Hero Setup also occurs at the same step #7 (per this ruling , which countermands an older ruling ).
• Saga setup was detailed at the end of the post here, all of which remains true AFAIK. Note the business about Gandalf's Delay:

Additional note on Nightmare Setup : IIRC it is different from quest to quest whether you do it before quest 1A Setup (pretty sure NM Assault on Osgiliath is meant to work this way), or afterwards (e.g., NM Encounter at Amon Din). Or, in the case of NM Raid on the Grey Havens & NM Storm on Cobas Haven, as a replacement for part of 1A's text. The above-mentioned principle of "whenever it seems like it's supposed to" is probably best here.

I still hope they will revert contract setup to step 2, where it was originally said to be and where it more logically belongs.

I once got a ruling from Caleb about Thurindir along the lines of: You place your heroes before drawing your starting hand, therefore you first search your deck for a side quest, then draw 6 cards. If you decide to take a mulligan you only shuffle "these 6 cards back into your deck" and keep the side quest in hand.

Card Talk just released an interview with Caleb & Matt during which Grey Wanderer's Setup timing is discussed. Essentially, they reconfirmed that the timing is as previously ruled—after encounter setup—with some further discussion that implied to my ears that Caleb is not considering reversing the ruling, or making any of the individual contracts have different Setup timing or anything like that. But y'all should listen for yourselves.

(starts at 11:52 below)

In addition to a ruling to @kainveus shared elsewhere , there is this short and sweet one obtained by Card Talk Dave:

The One Ring's Setup effect should be resolved with all the other Setup effects during Step 7.

Cheers, Caleb

But is says right in the instructional booklet for A Shadow in the East on page 6: "The One Ring has Setup text that instructs you to attach it to a hero you control. This is done immediately after placing your starting heroes in your play area (i.e. step 2)."

I'm not really sure when this whole "setup on player cards happens during step 7" originated but I'm house ruling otherwise.

6 hours ago, stimpaksam said:

But is says right in the instructional booklet for A Shadow in the East on page 6: "The One Ring has Setup text that instructs you to attach it to a hero you control. This is done immediately after placing your starting heroes in your play area (i.e. step 2)."

I'm not really sure when this whole "setup on player cards happens during step 7" originated but I'm house ruling otherwise.

I think that means search the master card in step 7.

Quote

So now not only have contracts moved to step 7, but hero abilities as well? Thurindir's timing was previously in step two.

It's difficult for me to believe that post step 7 was "as intended" for setup abilities, for several reasons:

1) Thurindir was ruled differently in the past

2) The article introducing contracts had it in step 2 with the hero setup.

3) Hero setup abilities logically belong in hero setup (step 2) anyways

4) The necessity for dead cards to find your target with the contract could have been avoided with "deck or hand" wording easily *if* that had been intended timing. Surely Messenger of the King wasn't *meant* to be unreliable, rather than just hero-ify a *predetermined* ally.

All this seems like a lot of collateral damage just to prevent Guarded player cards from being used with Grey Wanderer. As has been pointed out, there *is* an encounter deck in play in step two. I realize pulling an enemy or location in step two that was going to be set aside might make some scenarios behave in an unintended fashion, but I can't think of a quest off the top of my head where it will make it *better* for the player instead of worse.

Or just errata Grey Wanderer 's set-up to read" "... an attachment with a printed cost of 1 and without the Guarded keyword and put it into play."

Or just add two future-proofing lines to the rule about Guarded Player Cards that read: "If a Guarded card is put into play during Set-Up, it remains in the Staging Area. At the start of the first Planning Phase, for any Guarded Cards put into play during Set-Up, discard cards from the Encounter Deck until the appropriate type is discarded and attached to the Guarded card." - OR - "Guarded Player Cards may not be played or put into play during Set-Up."


What I personally dislike most about the current slew of Set-Up rulings is the tedium . Having to run duplicate copies of desired fetched-cards isn't terribly burdensome because such decks already enjoyed a lean efficiency (e.g. at the most extreme a Grey Wanderering Thurindir with the Ring is effectively running a 46 card deck with two attachments and an 8-card starting hand), so offsetting that with back-up copies of fetched cards or secondary targets isn't awful , but it does hurt efficiency somewhat.

But it does add tedious steps to the set-up of each game. Prior to these rulings, I could start my Grey Wanderer with its 1-cost attachment of choice and my desired Master Card already pulled, then shuffle my deck, draw my hand, and resolve my mulligan (if needed). Now, I have to shuffle my deck, resolve my muligan (which is needed more often since I want to pitch 'fetch card' targets), THEN I have to search and shuffle my deck twice before the game starts. Which just adds about 60 seconds of tedium before I can play. Not a huge inconvenience, of course, but a minor annoyance, as you're effectively adding 2.5* shuffles before you can start playing.

* depending on whether or not you Mulligan because of would-be-fetched cards in your starting hand .

I'm a rule nazi in general and crave challenge but as mentioned, not playing with slightly errata'd versions of these cards, assuming they do indeed work the unideal way, just results in tedium, resets, decks that are less than optimal in clunky ways, and its one thing I'm more than happy to house rule.

Just imagine a new player in your playgroup excitedly busting out their grey wanderer decker kings messenger only to tell them they actually need to shuffle the card they have out into their deck. I can practically feel the enthusiasm for the game sapping from this hypothetical characters soul.

On 2/22/2020 at 8:35 PM, Amicus Draconis said:

I once got a ruling from Caleb about Thurindir along the lines of: You place your heroes before drawing your starting hand, therefore you first search your deck for a side quest, then draw 6 cards. If you decide to take a mulligan you only shuffle "these 6 cards back into your deck" and keep the side quest in hand.

I asked him about this ruling in light of the most recent one and he explicitely answered me that the current ruling ovverules any past one, so right now Thurindir (and other heroes setup effects I guess) should happen at step 7 after the scenario setup.

26 minutes ago, Alonewolf87 said:

I asked him about this ruling in light of the most recent one and he explicitely answered me that the current ruling ovverules any past one, so right now Thurindir (and other heroes setup effects I guess) should happen at step 7 after the scenario setup.

For posterity, can you please share the text of your question/his ruling?

3 minutes ago, sappidus said:

For posterity, can you please share the text of your question/his ruling?

Of course, keep in mind that this was a follow up question after the one which placed all player cards Setup in Step 7

Quote

Hi Caleb,

Thanks for the answer but wasnt there a ruling that Thurindir Setup ability was meant to come into play during step 2 of the game setup (and that side quest would survive eventual mulligans?)

On another note how does Smeagol interact wih effects which would shuffle it in the player's deck (or a subset of it) like Lost and Alone from Foundations of Stone or a quest like Escape from Mount Gram?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is quite possible that I gave a different ruling about Setup effects in the past. I have a bad memory for that kind of thing. But any current ruling I offer overrules any past ruling.

As for Sméagol getting shuffled into the encounter deck: In that unlikely event, you would have to shuffle a double-sided card into your encounter deck.

Cheers,

Caleb

11 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

I asked him about this ruling in light of the most recent one and he explicitely answered me that the current ruling ovverules any past one, so right now Thurindir (and other heroes setup effects I guess) should happen at step 7 after the scenario setup.

Well, that is a bummer. Hopefully there will be a FAQ soon to keep track of all these rulings.

35 minutes ago, Amicus Draconis said:

Well, that is a bummer. Hopefully there will be a FAQ soon to keep track of all these rulings.

Yeah it's becoming a little confusing.

While playing the saga do Boons get pulled out of your deck at Step 7 now, too?

5 hours ago, RogueSeventeen said:

While playing the saga do Boons get pulled out of your deck at Step 7 now, too?

I'm assuming the new rule would override what's written in the Black Riders rules about Setup...

Quote

Setup instructions appear on some player cards and encounter cards in The Lord of the Rings: The Black Riders. If a player card with Setup instructions is in a player’s deck at the beginning of a game, that player searches his deck for that card and follows its instructions before drawing his first hand. Similarly, if an encounter card with Setup is in the encounter deck at the beginning of a game, search the encounter deck for that card and follow its instructions before resolving the Setup instructions on the quest.

So it would apply to boons as well. There are boons with the word Permanent. I don't think the new rule would apply to them. They still get placed out with the heroes during step 2 of setup.

1 hour ago, stimpaksam said:

So it would apply to boons as well. There are boons with the word Permanent. I don't think the new rule would apply to them. They still get placed out with the heroes during step 2 of setup.

But why would Permanent boons be any different? The Black Riders booklet says that all boon cards in the campaign pool are added to players' decks. While it does say that you fish out the permanent ones and attach them to your hero "at the start of the game," but isn't any more specific than that. The Shadow in the East booklet explicitly says to attach the One Ring to a hero in Step 2, and that's been over ridden by this latest ruling, so why wouldn't this? Caleb has been very explicit that (1) he doesn't remember all his past rulings AND (2) what he has said now about all player cards with Set-Up effects overrules all other rulings, including those explicitly printed in rules inserts to the contrary (e.g. the Master Ring) and long-standing FAQ/RulesAnswers to the contrary (e.g. Thurindir). I now see no reason to assume that Campaign Boons, permament are not, are fished from decks at any time other than Step 7 with all the other set-up stuff.

Which means by the end of a campaign, the odds of ending up with a really bad (read: small) starting hand go up, especially if you use heroes like Thurindir or Contracts like Grey Wanderer / Messenger of the King, and heroes like Galdor become unusable ... especially assuming that you cannot play set-up cards like Boons or the One Ring if they are in the discard pile... but we still don't have a clear answer on that.

Basically, Set-Up effects are a total disaster now and have become, as others have noted, unintuitive, frustrating, and tedious.

1 minute ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Basically, Set-Up effects are a total disaster now and have become, as others have noted, unintuitive, frustrating, and tedious.

Amem to that!

You can literally fix all of these problems by keeping Setup effects where they originally were and errata-ing Grey Wanderer to specify that the 1-cost attachment can't be Guarded, right?
Why don't we just...

2 minutes ago, GrandSpleen said:

You can literally fix all of these problems by keeping Setup effects where they originally were and errata-ing Grey Wanderer to specify that the 1-cost attachment can't be Guarded, right?
Why don't we just...

You can try and submit this question to Caleb, see how it answers...

Just watched a snippet of that video. It seems Gandalf's delay is the *ONLY* card that's supposed to take place out of Step 7 Set-up. So you definitely CAN draw permanent boons. Does that also mean Gildor Inglorion (Boon) and other boons/burdens don't get shuffled into the Encounter Deck until after the Quest set-up is resolved? I guess that depends on the order of set-up instructions in Step 7? I think I'm confusing myself now.

1 hour ago, RogueSeventeen said:

Just watched a snippet of that video. It seems Gandalf's delay is the *ONLY* card that's supposed to take place out of Step 7 Set-up. So you definitely CAN draw permanent boons. Does that also mean Gildor Inglorion (Boon) and other boons/burdens don't get shuffled into the Encounter Deck until after the Quest set-up is resolved? I guess that depends on the order of set-up instructions in Step 7? I think I'm confusing myself now.

I feel like the powers that be have commanded Caleb to not rest until we have to shuffle decks at least ten times before we actually get to play Turn 1... I think this is just Asmodee trying to increase the sale of card sleeves... 🤷‍♂️


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