The topic about Ser Balon Swann makes me wonder how the card Shadow Politics works.

The card text is :

Response : After Shadow Politics comes out of Shadows, choose a player. That player may initiate an additional Intrigue challenge against an opponent of his or her choice as a standard player action this phase.

If I bring this event out of the shadows at the beginning of the Marshalling phase, and I trigger its Response , may I declare an Intrigue challenge during the Marshalling phase?

The event does not says "even if it is not the challenge/epic phase" so I'm not sure this restriction has to be met or not.

EDIT : I guess since it says "this phase" then it can be any phase not just challenge phase?

So when the word "may" is used they also specify every rule restriction that is bypassed by the rules.

Bolzano said:

Sort of. The "this phase" text gives you a duration of opportunity to declare the challenge and so does give you the chance to declare the intrigue challenge in any phase during which the event comes out of Shadows. However, the real element here that allows you to declare the challenge in any phase is "as a standard player action." Without that text, you would have to wait for a framework action window that allowed you to declare a challenge - something that only comes up during the Challenge phase. But the "as a standard player action" text gives you instructions on when you can declare the challenge. And since "standard player actions" happen in every phase, the event can be used in every phase.

Bolzano said:

Not even remotely sure what this means. All the other basic requirements for challenges (standing characters, appropriate icons, character control, etc.) still apply to the additional challenge. The only requirements Shadow Politics contradicts is "you can declare one intrigue challenge when you are the active player in the Challenge phase."

The word "may" in the Shadow Politics text doesn't do anything other than indicate that the chosen player is not required to initiate the intrigue challenge if they don't want to. For example, in a Joust game, I cannot use the event to force my opponent to initiate an intrigue challenge against me that they cannot win just so I can collect power with the Lords of Winter Bran Stark (although that would be a sweet deck strategy).

Thanks. I didn't notice that the word "standard player action" was actually important.