I have a question regarding Spectral Visitation and it’s intended working. At the moment it would seem like the target character mentioned in its pre-dash text would prevent Spectral Visitation from activating on an empty dynasty discard pile. As there would be no legal targets, hence the ability can’t trigger and costs can’t be paid.

But the “Discard 4 cards” cost has a lot of people assuming that, Rules as Intended, it would always be sure to discard 4 cards first, so that you have a chance at a potential target even if the province would be revealed without any cards in the dynasty discard pile.

Just now, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

I have a question regarding Spectral Visitation and it’s intended working. At the moment it would seem like the target character mentioned in its pre-dash text would prevent Spectral Visitation from activating on an empty dynasty discard pile. As there would be no legal targets, hence the ability can’t trigger and costs can’t be paid.

But the “Discard 4 cards” cost has a lot of people assuming that, Rules as Intended, it would always be sure to discard 4 cards first, so that you have a chance at a potential target even if the province would be revealed without any cards in the dynasty discard pile.

Play the province as intended—you can trigger the ability even when there are no characters in your discard pile.

[Tyler Parrott, Apr 8 2020]

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In regards to non-targetting effects, the RRG mentions the folowing under “Effects”: “When a non-targeting effect attempts to engage a number of entities (such as “search the top 10 cards of your conflict deck”) that exceeds the number of entities that currently exist in the specified game area, the effect engages as many entities as possible.” The question I have relates to when this wording is present in a cost. For example see Spectral Visitation. If I don’t have the 4 dynasty cards available in my dynasty deck that are mentioned in Spectral Visitation’s cost, does the same rule as for effects take in effect here? Or does it mean that if I have less than 4 dynasty cards left, I can’t pay Spectral Visitation’s cost?

On 12/1/2020 at 12:36 PM, Goateh said:

You are correct—if you do not have 4 cards in your dynasty deck, you cannot pay Spectral Visitation’s cost.

[Tyler Parrott, Jul 20 2020]

This is now replaced by the RRG v16 reprint changes and no longer valid. Discarding cards, choosing an event and playing it are all part of the effects so it can be triggered as long as there is at least 1 card in your deck and/or a character in your discard pile.