Azor Ahai Born Again is an event that states: "Challenges: choose a non-Army character with the highest STR in play".

If two characters have both the highest STR (same STR), can I still choose one of them? Or must I have exactly one single character with STR above all other ones?

Regarding the "non-Army" part...

Does it means that the character in play with the highest STR must be non-Army?

Or, that I have to exclude Army chars from my choice, and take the highest STR among the other chars?

For example... if I have:

- Host1 Army STR 6

- Host2 Army STR 4

- Stannis non-Army STR 5

- Robert non-Army STR 3

- Renly non-Army STR 3

Can I choose "Stannis"? Being not English mothertongue, I would say that "Stannis" is the non-Army character with the highest STR.

Thanks..

There are two separate restrictions for the card: non-Army and highest STR in play. Your target must meet both criteria.

"Highest STR" means that the character has more STR than any other character. Think of the event card "A Game of Cyvasse," which says that the player who knelt the character with the highest STR gets to choose and bounce a character to hand. If you and I both kneel a character with 3 STR, neither of us knelt the character with more STR than any other, so no character gets bounced back to hand.

So, "ties" for the most STR do not count as "highest," so if you have 2 5-STR characters in play (and no one with more than that), you could not play the event. If the card said "greatest STR in play," then ties would be OK.

The chosen character must also meet the non-Army criteria, not having the Army trait.

So, if there is a 7-STR Lord and an 8-STR Army, you cannot use the card on the Lord because it does not have the highest STR in play. And you cannot use it on the Army because of its trait.

Hmm, that's not how I would have read the card. It specifies "a character" rather than "the character" (in contrast to, eg, A Game of Cyvasse and Rule by Decree). If you ask the question "what is the highest strength of all characters in play?" you will always get an answer as long as there is one character in play. So I would have thought you could a character and then ask "does this character have the highest strength in play?" and "is this character non-Army?" and then be free to choose that character if both answers were positive.

Nope. The "a" vs. "the" is not the deciding factor. "Highest" or "most" vs. "greatest" is the key. Choosing "a non-Army character with the highest STR" doesn't change the fact that there can be only one non-Army character with the highest STR in play.

Anyway, if you had said "choose the non-Army character with the highest STR in play," that very much makes it seem that you could choose a character that did not have the highest STR in play so long as it was not an Army. So there is undoubtedly a design choice in there somewhere.

Could you explain what differs between "highest" and "greatest" please? Using dictionaries I can't find really a difference.

Why do you think "a character" vs. "the character" is not significant?

Highest means the top. Why can't I think of it like "there is nothing above"? Why must I have an edge on others STR?

Thank you.

"Trial by battle", a plot from "A House of Talons" states:

"When revealed, each player must choose and kneel a non-Army character he or she controls. Kill all chosen characters except those with the highest chosen STR"

It says "those" and not "the one", despite using the adjective "highest"

Isn't the same thing as Azor Ahai?

Differently (always to a non native speaker), "A game of cyvasse" uses " the character with highest STR"

So, to me, sounds like "Trial by battle" admits a draw, "A game of cyvasse" wants a single winner. And Azor seems to me more similar to the plot..

I really don't feel like going into depth on this because I am not an English teacher. You also have to remember that the game has its own idioms that may or may not be the same as conventional/conversational English.

With this event, you have to parse the whole thing. You are looking at it as: "choose a character that is not an Army" and "choose a character that has the highest STR in play" as if you were making two different choices. But you aren't; you are making one choice that has to meet two separate criteria. Therefore, it should actually be parsed as "choose a character that is not an Army" and "that chosen character must also have the highest STR in play." Or, you can look at it as "choose a character that has the following two characteristics; #1 - it is not an Army; #2 - it has the highest STR in play." Either way, for the "highest STR" requirement, it isn't the difference between "choose a character with..." and "choose the character with..." that is important here. It is the difference between "highest" and "greatest."

Now, unless I've got this backwards (and I don't think I do), within the context of the game , "greatest" is read as "nothing less than" (or, as you say, "there is nothing above"). However, "highest" is read as "more than any other card" (or, " all others are below"). In the case of this event, it is the reading of "highest" as being "more than the rest" or "ALL others below" that requires the card to have the "edge" over every other single card in play.

This fits with Game of Cyvasse, regardless of the use of "the" because you have to have a higher STR than all the other chosen cards in order to trigger the "then" part of the effect.

In Trial By Battle, you are missing the fact that there is a difference between "highest STR" and "highest chosen STR". That creates a different basis for comparison. You are not looking at characters themselves at that point, but the values of STR chosen. If I choose one character with STR 2, you choose one character with STR 3 and schreck choose a character with STR 3, there are 3 chosen characters, but only 2 chosen STR values. Of the chosen STRs, the value "3" is more than all the other values chosen. All other chosen values are below that. So the singular, highest chosen STR is 3. There happened to be 2 characters that share the value, so they both survive, but the chosen STR itself is still singular.

It's all about the context and the idiom of the card template.

I actually disagree with ktom. Kinda rare, so I'm wondering if the card text quoted is accurate.

Assuming that it reads as: "Challenges: choose a non-Army character with the highest STR in play".

I would parse it as follows:

step 1: I look at all the characters in play.

step 2: I narrow the list down to those who are non-Army.

step 3: I pick the highest STR value.

step 4: I choose one of the cards that match that value.

It would be similar if we were at a convention, and someone said: "choose a male person with the highest height (ummm... tallest) at the FFG booth".

... I'd only look at the people in the booth, so it doesn't matter if someone outside the booth is taller.

... I'd only look at the males, so it doesn't matter if someone female is taller.

... I'd find the highest height value, which might actually belong to more than one person, depending on how good my measuring stick is.

... and I'd be able to choose one from among those who have that highest height value.

I'll just point out that when this card was first published, I was actively playing the CCG. And "no character with the same STR and no Army with the same or higher STR" was the way that FFG ruled the card was to be played at that time. So I'm speaking from a certain perspective of experience as well.

In my humble opinion, the phrasing doesn't seem to match that ruling. Perhaps it is the word "Choose" that is throwing me. The ruling seems to be more of a "find" or "search" statement that only accepts a single unique answer.

The ruling seems to say:

"Find the highest STR in play first ... then, if you have only ONE character with that value, and he's Non-Army, you may "choose" that one character"

(really, no "choice" at all, right?)

The ruling also seems to say:

"Find the highest STR in play first ... then, if you have more than ONE character with that value. eliminate those who are Army ... then, if you still have more than one character, then you may NOT choose anyone"

(again, no "choice" at all, right?)

I guess the question becomes: what is the intent of this card?

Is it true that you can't play the card on either the 7-str Lord nor the 8-str Army simply because each one disqualifies the other (assuming all other characters have a lower str)?

And is it true that you also can't play the card on either of two 5-str non-army characters because neither one is "highest" (assuming all other characters have a lower str)?

I have a hard time swallowing that. I can almost accept the first one, but like schrecklich, I'm having big problems with the second one.

So ... I started researching what this "Azor Ahai" is supposed to be. I haven't read all the books, but here's a wiki entry:

R'hllor is a prominent god across the narrow sea, but has only a few followers in Westeros. He is also called the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, and the God of Flame and Shadow. His symbol is a fiery heart. The followers of R'hllor worship him as the god of light, heat, and life. His enemy is the "great Other", whose name is not spoken, the god of darkness, cold, and death. R'hllor and the great other wage an eternal war over the fate of the world. Followers of R'hllor believe that Azor Ahai, the messianic figure prophesized to return in ancient books of Asshai, will tip the balance of this war. Azor Ahai is also called the Prince that was Promised, the Warrior of Light, and the Son of Fire. Prophecy holds that he will wield a flaming sword called Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and raise dragons of stone.

Sounds like a rather unique guy, eh? I guess you can almost think of it as "The Second Coming" ... my apologies to my fellow Christians, but that's essentially what is being described.

With that context in mind, the rule of "you can't play the card on either of two 5-str non-army characters because neither one is "highest" ... is like saying "the messiah" can't come until someone is strongest....

...and...

With that context in mind, the rule of "you can't play the card on either the 7-str Lord nor the 8-str Army simply because each one disqualifies the other" ... is like saying "the messiah" can't come until someone is stronger than any army ...

Yeah ... given the context, the ruling makes sense.

But lacking the context, the phrasing is hard to interpret.

I'll take it by fate 'cause You are the bible...