If I flip Power of Blood and my opponent flips Valar, do my noble characters live (assuming that I win the initiative)?

divinityofnumber said:

I start this by saying I am not 100% sure about my answer but want to post it so that if I am wrong or right we can both learn from my thinking process

I think the answer is that your nobles lives. I think the reason is that you have the higher initiative and so your are the starting player and as such get to choose the order of the plot effects.

Now what if it was Wild Fire Assault and you had 4 nobles ? WFA says pick 3 and "kill" the rest "can not be saved". But since nobles can not be killed because of Power of Blood then do all 4 live because there is nothing to save as nobles can not be killed this round?

Ivengar said:

Your Noble characters live, no matter who the First Player is. The Power of Blood is a constant effect and it applies before Valar's passive effect.

Ivengar said:

The First Player only gets to choose resolution order when effects conflict. Effects only conflict when they try to resolve at the same time. As far as plots go, only passive effect plots (ie, "when revealed" plots) try to resolve at the same time. So the First Player only gets to choose the order in which "when revealed" plots activate. Continuous effect plots - like Power of Blood - do not try to resolve at the same time. In fact, continuous effects don't really "resolve" at all because there is no place that they initiate. The effects just apply (or don't apply) to other cards. Power of Blood is active and applicable to Noble characters as soon as it is revealed. It doesn't matter who is First Player because the First Player cannot stop - through some choice of timing - to activate Valar before activating Power of Blood. The First Player has no specific interaction with Power of Blood at all - just like the First Player would have no specific interaction with a location that said "your Wildling characters get +1 STR."

The same is true for Wildfire. It doesn't matter who wins initiative or who is the First Player. The continuous effect of Power of Blood will always make Noble characters "cannot be killed" before the passive effect of Wildfire resolves and kills the unchosen characters.

Awesome. I usually hold back on playing Power of Blood until I have to. Several of my decks are good about having duplicates or other various saves on important characters, but it is nice to know that I can flip Power of Blood the same turn that they flip a Valar and save my nobles (without having to discard a duplicate or use some other save mechanic).

To follow up with something that Ktom said, note that you DO NOT have to choose characters that "cannot be killed" when choosing characters for Wildfire Assault. In other words, if you have 6 characters...three that cannot die for some reason (ie Power of Blood) and three normal characters...you can (and probably should) choose those three normal characters. The three "cannot be killed" characters were not chosen, but because they cannot die, they are NOT killed to Wildfire Assault.

I suspect that people read Ktom's post and came to the same conclusion, but I just wanted to clarify, since it can catch players off guard the first time their opponent says "I'll choose to keep my three that can die, and since the other three can't, I'll keep six characters in play." (This of course works with any number, with the main point being that you can always elect to not choose your "cannot be killed" characters but still keep them around.) Note, however, that when you have to kill a character, for example for claim or to satisfy a card effect, you cannot choose to kill a "cannot be killed" character, thus negating claim. If it's less confusing, just remember that you can always choose a character without immunity, whether the choosing is for him dying or living.