Hello guys! Me and my friends held a small tournament yesterday, and a slightly complicated situation came up during the finals. I wonder if you could help me in understanding the rules necessary to adjudicate similar situations in the future.

So, the match was Lannister vs. Greyjoy with Kings of Winter Agenda. There were, among other inconsequential cards (for this situation), 1x Golden Tooth Mines in the Lannister side of the table, and White Raven attached to the Greyjoy house card. Also, there were 2x Frosfang Peaks, 1x Desperate Looters and 1x Motley Crewman on the Greyjoy's side. The Lannister player had 2 cards in hand, and the greyjoy player had 1. So, on the plot phase, the Greyjoy player chooses and reveals A Time for Ravens and the Lannister player chooses and reveals Valar Morghulis. The Greyjoy player elects to go first, and decides to resolve Valar Morghulis first. The text on the cards are as written below:

Kings of Winter Agenda : If it is Winter, any opponent with as many cards in hand as you, or more, must randomly discard a card from his or her hand at the end of the draw phase. If it is Summer, any opponent with fewer cards in hand than you draws a card at the end of the draw phase, if able

Golden Tooth Mines : Each time you reveal a plot card, draw a card.

Frostfang Peaks : Response : After you reveal a plot card, discard the top card of each opponent's deck (Discard the top 2 instead if it is Winter).

Desperate Looters : Response : After Desperate Looters enters play or leaves play, discard the top card of each opponent's deck.

Motley Crewman : Any effect that discards 1 or more cards from an opponent's deck discards an additional card.

Here's how we decided to play it out : 1) Valar Morghulis resolves, as it is a "when revealed" plot effect and the first player (who had also won initiative) chose to resolve it first. 2) The Greyjoy player retrieved a Carrion Bird from his deck and added it to his hand. 3) The characters in play enter the moribund state. 4) Responses were made by the Greyjoy player, so the Lannister player discarded 3 cards (Frostfang peaks + Winter + Motley Crewman) + 3 cards (Frostfang peaks + Winter + Motley Crewman) + 2 cards (Desperate Looters + Motley Crewman) for a total of 8 cards from his deck. 5) The passive effect on Golden Tooth Mines resolves and the Lannister player draws a card. 6) Draw Phase: Both player draw 2 cards each. 7) End of Draw Phase: the Lannister player discards a random card from his hand, due to the effect of the agenda. 8) The game proceeds...

Did we do everything by the rules? Or there was something we missed? More: do the reasons I explain are the correct ones? Thanks for any help, I know that the situation is complicated, but it's precisely because of it that we got all mixed up and confused...

OK, I haven't read your "how we decided to play it" yet. I'm going to walk you through playing it before looking at it so as to keep my mind clear as to how the rules would work out. So if some of this is redundant, I apologize in advance.

Situation: Lannister player w/ 2 cards in hand + Golden Tooth Mines in play. Greyjoy player with 1 card in hand, 2x Frostfang Peaks, 1x Desperate Looters and 1x Motley Crewman in play. It is Winter.

First, in words:

Plot phase begins: Lanni reveals Valar, GJ reveals ATfR. GJ wins initiative, chooses to be First Player. Next thing to do is to resolve passive effects, starting with "when revealed" plots. There are 2 "when revealed" plots and 1 passive effect (GTM) to deal with. First Player (GJ) decides to have Valar go first. All characters die (assume no saves), so all characters - including the Desperate Looters and Motley Crewman - go into moribund. They are dead, but physically stay on the table until all other effects are done. Then, ATfR is resolved. The GJ player searches for a Raven card and puts it into his hand (Lanni hand = 2, GJ hand = 2). With all "when revealed" plots resolved, you now resolve other passive effects to anything that has happened so far. So the Lanni player draws a card for GTM (Lanni hand = 3, GJ hand = 2). With all passives done, you move on to Responses to anything that has happened so far. The GJ player can choose, if they like, to trigger each of the Frostfang Peaks and the Desperate Looters in any order they would like. Note that since it is Winter and the Motley Crewman is still in play (though moribund), each Frostfang Peak will discard 3 cards from the opponent's deck (2 because of Winter, 1 more for the the Crewman) and the Looter will discard 2 (its "natural" 1 and 1 more for the Crewman). So if all Responses are triggered, the Lanni player will lose a total of 8 cards from the top of his deck. After all Responses are triggered, the moribund/dead characters are physically placed in the dead pile and you move on to the Draw Phase. In the Draw Phase, each player draws 2 cards (Lanni Hand = 5, GJ hand = 4), so at the end of the phase, the Lanni player loses 1 card from hand (at random) and you head into Marshaling with 4 cards in hand, each.

So, end result: Lanni player draws 1 card before losing the next 8 from the top of his deck. GJ searches for a card. Both draw 2 in the Draw Phase, the Lanni player loses 1 at random.

Next, in flow/step fashion:

Step 1a: Initiate "Plot cards revealed" (Players flip plot cards)
Step 2a: Save/Cancel opportunity to revealing plots (nothing)
Step 3a: Resolve "Plot cards revealed" (Valar and ATfR are officially revealed)

Step 1b: Initiate "Count Initiative"
Step 2b: Save/Cancel opportunity to counting initiative (nothing)
Step 3b: Resolve "Count Initiative" (GJ player officially wins initiative)

Step 1c: Initiate "Choose First Player" (GJ player chooses himself)
Step 2c: Save/Cancel opportunity to choosing FP (nothing)
Step 3c: Resolve "Choose FP" (GJ player officially becomes FP).

Step 4: Passives (to anything in Steps 1a-3c):

Step 4a I: Initiate Valar
Step 4a II: Save/cancel opportunity against effect of Valar (save characters from plot)
Step 4a III: Resolve Valar (characters officially die and enter "moribund:dead" state)

Step 4b I: Initiate ATfR
Step 4b II: Save/cancel opportunity against effect of ATfR
Step 4b III: Resolve ATfR (card searched, added to GJ hand & deck shuffled)

Step 4c I: Initiate GTM
Step 4c II: Save/cancel opportunity against GTM
Step 4c III: Resolve GTM (Lanni player draws card)

Step 5: Responses (to anything in Steps 1c - 4c III)

Step 5a I: Initiate Frostfang Peak #1
Step 5a II: Save/cancel opportunity against Peak #1
Step 5a III: Resolve Peak #1 (Lanni player discard 3 cards, 2 for Peak in Winter, 1 for the "moribund:dead" Motlet Crewman)
Step 5a IV: Passives - if 5a I-III activates any passive effects, resolve them now

Step 5b I: Initiate Frostfang Peak #2
Step 5b II: Save/cancel opportunity against Peak #2
Step 5b III: Resolve Peak #2 (Lanni player discard 3 cards, 2 for Peak in Winter, 1 for the "moribund:dead" Motley Crewman)
Step 5b IV: Passives - if 5b I-III activates any passive effects, resolve them now

Step 5c I: Initiate Desperate Looters
Step 5c II: Save/cancel opportunity against Desperate Looters
Step 5c III: Resolve Desperate Looters (Lanni player discard 2 cards, 1 for Looters, 1 for the "moribund:dead" Motley Crewman)
Step 5c IV: Passives - if 5c I-III activates any passive effects, resolve them now

Step 6: End (remove all moribund cards from table)

tovra.pt said:

Reading through your explanation, you have a couple a mistakes. Some are a big deal, others aren't.

1-3: If Valar goes first, it resolves completely before ATfR initiates. So the characters enter moribund before the GJ player can get his Carrion Bird. In this situation, this is not a big deal.

4: When you have multiple passive effects activated by the same thing or series of things (like "when revealed" plot text, "after you reveal a plot" card effects; it's worth noting "after you win/lose initiative" and "after someone becomes FP" card effects would fall into this category, too), you have to resolve all the passive effects before you can Respond to any one of the passive effects. In short, you cannot interrupt a series of passive effects with Responses. So it is incorrect to trigger all these discard Response effects until after GTM resolves. In this situation, this is a big deal because it determines whether the Lanni player gets card #1 or card #9 on his deck.

This is a pretty common timing mistake, but ultimately, it's the same reason you cannot use Responses to "after you win/lose a challenge" until after claim effects are resolved. The order in framework windows is: All framework events, all passive to all framework events, then all Responses.

So everything you have here is correctly reasoned, but the order should be 1, 3, 2, 5, 4, 6, 7, 8.

Once again, ktom, thanks. I think it's not an overstatement to tell you that you're a mentor. If not to us all, at least to me. Thanks!

Good lord. That was epic.

Ktom, you should be an app.

Eldil said:

Hahahaha, one of the funniest things I've read on these forums in a long time

Eldil said:

LOLOL... yeah... and you're right, that was epic!