I am a bit confused about the Titan's second ability

Response: After a card is placed in an opponent's dead pile, return The Titan's Bastard to its owner's hand.

Responses are optional I thought, but, would your opponent be able to trigger this one ?

Toqtamish said:

No.

Cards, when leaving play, are always returned to owner.

I can't see anything confusing here, except "is placed in an opponent's dead pile". It means that you can trigger this response if, for example, opponent's character was killed by claim. You do not wait with this response until a card is physically placed in dead pile - you trigger it at step 5 of the action window, i.e. before the card is physically placed in dead pile.

The thing that confused me about it, was why I would want to be able to do that so I thought it might be something for an opponent to trigger to force me to return the card. I guess depending on the circumstances that could be useful.

Toqtamish said:

Another common use would be as follows:

1. Do an Intrigue challenge with Titan's Bastard.
2. Do a military challenge w/ someone else. Return (the kneeling) Titan's Bastard to hand after you the opponent loses someone for claim.
3. Play Forever Burning on someone.
4. Respond to Forever Burning by putting Titan's Bastard into play (Forever Burning was placed in my dead pile...). Standing.
5. Now, I can use the Bastard for a power challenge, to defend, etc.

And there's always the "adding insult to injury" combo of you lose a character to military claim, I Respond by jumping the Titan's Bastard back to my hand, then I Respond to my Titan's Bastard leaving play with Parting Blow, kneeling another one of your characters and drawing a card without really losing anything myself.

If you are creative, you can find a lot of uses for a self-return-to-hand ability.

Wow,, that's crazy, but interesting.

Toqtamish said: The thing that confused me about it, was why I would want to be able to do thatThere are many times when having a card in your hand is better than having it on the table. For example, if I am pretty sure you are going to play Valar next Plot Phase, I might use the "return to hand" Response in the Dominance phase (after, say, killing one of my opponent's characters with Flame Kissed) so that he isn't on the table when you play Valar.

Another common use would be as follows:

1. Do an Intrigue challenge with Titan's Bastard.

2. Do a military challenge w/ someone else. Return (the kneeling) Titan's Bastard to hand after you the opponent loses someone for claim.

3. Play Forever Burning on someone.

4. Respond to Forever Burning by putting Titan's Bastard into play (Forever Burning was placed in my dead pile...). Standing.

5. Now, I can use the Bastard for a power challenge, to defend, etc.

And there's always the "adding insult to injury" combo of you lose a character to military claim, I Respond by jumping the Titan's Bastard back to my hand, then I Respond to my Titan's Bastard leaving play with Parting Blow, kneeling another one of your characters and drawing a card without really losing anything myself.

If you are creative, you can find a lot of uses for a self-return-to-hand ability.

Hi Ktom,

After sb play Valar, may I trigger the Response of The Titan's Bastard to return it to hand?

Tks a lot.

No. The reason for this is that by the time someone has resolved Valar and characters are dead (or moribund:dead), so is "The Titan's Bastard". Since he's already moribund, you cannot successfully resolve an effect that would cause it to leave play unless it acts as a replacement effect (eg. "Retreat", which uses the word "instead").

Sorry I just read other post that during Valar, Titan's bastard is dead and cannot trigger response.

However,

1. I don't understand why after Valar killed opponent's character, Titan cannot RESPONSE to it?

2. Joffrey Baratheon could still trigger it's response after Valar killed 3 Lord included Joffery himself.

Why Joffery can trigger response to Valar but Titan cannot?

Because Titan's Bastard's response attempts to remove himself from play while he is already moribund. Joffrey's response does not attempt to remove Joffrey from play.

The difference lies in the "moribund" rules. For Titan's Bastard, the rule comes down to this:

"When a card is removed from play, it can use Response effects 'on the way out' except for Response effects that would remove it from play (for any reason) again."

So the difference between Joffrey and Titan's Bastard using their Response effects when killed by Valar is that Joffrey's Response does not attempt to remove him from play (so it can be used), but Titan's Bastard does - making the exception in the rule apply and preventing you from using the Response.

That exception in the "moribund" rule is often something people from other games need to get used to because it usually doesn't exist in the "on the way out" rules of other games.