How would island smuggler (Response: Kneel Island Smuggler to cancel an effect that would move a card out of a player's dead or discard pile) react with Narrow Escape, Retreat and Regroup, Valarian Spirit, Etc.

The discussion in my group was the phrase "a card" means moving only one card where all of these cards deal with moving multiple cards out of the discard/dead piles.

Thanks.

ZombiePrime said:

Out of curiosity, does that mean that if only 1 card had been killed in the phase, they'd be OK with Island Smuggler canceling Narrow Escape?

Or let's ask it this way: when Valar Morghulis says "kill all characters in play," does that mean that all the save effects that say "save a character" cannot be used because the save refers to one character while the killing effect refers to all characters?

When a single effect draws, kills, discards or moves multiple cards, each individual card that is affected creates a separate Response opportunity. So it doesn't matter if multiple cards are being moved out of dead or discard pile, Island Smuggler's play restrictions are still met. It can be used, and because of the nature of cancel effects, the entire effect as initiated (that is, everything that would be moved stays where it was).

Thanks, I read your post to my friend and he instantly knew it was you who responded.

**sigh**

I seem to have become predictable.

[threadnecromancy]Rise…RISE!!![/threadnecromancy]

There has been a new plot spoiled, "Melisandre's Scheme", with the constant effect "You may play [bARA] characters out of your discard pile during the marshalling phase as if they were in your hand."

How does Island Smuggler interact with that? It can't cancel the plot effect, since that's a constant, but can it cancel the Marshalling Action itself? Being a player action, the marshalling of a card is cancel-able in principle, but is marshalling a card considered an "effect"?

Sorry for the self-reply.

Right now I'm inclined to think that what happens in step 3 of a player action window is the effect of that action. The FAQ seems to agree with me (page 17):

" 3) Action is executed
The active player now executes the effects of the action"

That would mean Island Smuggler can cancel the marshalling of the card. Am I right?

Ratatoskr said:

Just because an action has an "effect" that resolves does not mean that all actions meet the definition of "effect."

Look at pg. 15-16 of the FAQ where it says:

"To 'take a player action' is to do one of the following: 1) Play a character, location, or attachment card from your hand (during the marshalling phase, and by the active player only).; 2) Play an event card from your hand (this is also called 'triggering' an event card ability).; 3) Trigger a card effect printed on one of the character, location, or attachment card you control in play (or, in rare circumstances, from out of play)."

So, #2 and #3 are specifically worded in terms of triggering abilities/effects while #1 is not. It is simply "taking a player action." So from that list, Marshaling a card is not considered to be "triggering an effect."

Island Smugglers says to cancel " an effect", which means it applies to something that would be considered a card effect (#2 or #3 above, or any passive/Response effect - yes, Island Smuggle can cancel appropriate passive effects). If it said to cancel " the effects, " I might buy your "execute the effects of the action" argument. As is, the FAQ, in describing player actions, makes it pretty clear that not all actions you take (specifically, marshalling cards from your hand) are considered to be playing/triggering effects.

On the one hand, I agree that it is "theoretically" possible to cancel a Marshalling action (which is not the same as triggering a "marshaliing effect") and stop someone from playing a card. However, that card would need to be very specific in terms of phrasing to make that happen. Compare Island Smuggler to The Lion's Claws , the only card in the history of the game ever acknowledged to be able to cancel a Marshalling Action.

Hi ktom,

I am a little confused because it sounds like you answered only the question you quoted.

It is the plot card effect that allows you to play a Bara character out of your discard pile(or move a Bara character out of your discard pile). Does that not constitute as an effect that moved a card out of the discard pile and thereforce can be canceled by Island Smuggler?

Bomb said:

No, you can't cancel the plot effect, because it's a constant effect. Besides, the plot effect doesn't do the moving out of the discard pile, the marshalling action does. So the question is whether marshalling a card is an "effect". Ktom doesn't think so, but I'm not convinced. Less and less so the more I think about it in fact. See my next post.

ktom said:

Nobody said triggered. A Marshalling Action is certainly not a triggered effect. Triggered effects are card effects, that's part of their definition. The passage you're quoting doesn't say a Marshalling Action is not an effect. It only says that a Marshalling Action is not a *triggered effect*, but we knew that already, because only card effects can be triggered effects.

Another thing that leads me to think of the played card in terms of an "effect" is the fact that the familiar cost-effect dichotomy is halfpart present in a Marshalling Action. If marshalling a card has a cost, as it undoubtedly has, then it suggests itself to call the result of paying the cost the "effect".

ktom said:

Curious. From reading it, I'd never have understood it that way. So you're saying that being played is part of the "effetcs" of a marshalled card, and that the card in question is discarded from hand, not from play?

Ratatoskr said:

I get what you're saying. I guess I believed that because the plot provides you such an action that has a point of initiation(and thus a Save/Cancel step), then it is a card effect providing the ability to marshal outside the normal rules and it would apply to what Island Smuggler can cancel. However with that logic, there could be many things that you should be able to cancel that you normally cannot.

Ratatoskr said:

What it largely comes down to is that when cards talk about "effects," the usual presumption is that they only refer to "card effects" unless otherwise specified (such as Maester Kerwin, who specifies that he can cancel " any effect" - as opposed to "an effect").

And, by the way, there is no "familiar 'cost-effect' dichotomy". It is well established that not everything has a cost. I think what you are referring to is the "familiar 'initiate-resolve' dichotomy" - which, of course, is not absolute either since there are effects that do neither (e.g., continuous effects have neither an initiation or a resolution, which is why they cannot be canceled). I'm not arguing that a Marshalling Action does not have an initiation and a resolution, only that it is (clearly) not a "card" effect, and that the proper way to interpret Island Smuggler - in the absence of language to the contrary - is to cancel a "card" effect.

Ratatoskr said:

Bomb said:

I mean, would an effect that said "Response: Cancel an effect that would raise a character's STR" allow you to cancel the +1 STR bonus from the plot "A Song of Summer" when you go to count character STR during challenge resolution? Of course not, because the plot has no "initiation - resolution" chain to interrupt during challenge resolution. It's no different for having the option to play characters from your dead pile as if they were in your hand.

Effectively, the plot changes the play restrictions (on which cards you can marshal). You cannot cancel play restrictions.

ktom said:

That's not quite what I meant. I might have misused the word "dichotomy" there. Of course not everything has a cost. But everything else that has a cost also has an effect. Do X to do Y. I thought marshalling actions could be expressed with the same formula. Pay 5 gold to play The Red Viper from your hand. It's in this way that I thought playing the card might be construed to be the "effect" of the Action. Not that the Action as a whole was synoymous with "effect".

Anyway, I'm still not quite convinced. Pretty much everything in this game is an effect - way beyond our normal trinity of triggered/passive/constant card effects. Claim is an effect. Titles have effects. I didn't see a reason why marshalling a card wouldn't be an effect, especially since it has a cost, and, again, everything else with a cost also has an effect.

Even so, I don't think this is worth sending to FFG, so I will do what I always do in such a situation and defer to your judgement. Thank you for taking the time to discuss these things with us puny mortals!

Ratatoskr said:

The question, really, is whether Island Smuggler refers to "any" effect, or just to "card" effects. Asking FFG would be more about clarifying the default interpretation of "an effect" as just card effects, or as all effects, game and/or card.

Huh, Interesting argument.

Had to go and dig through the LCG FAQ and Core Set Rules to see how game effects are defined and referenced, and ran into something quite surprising. As far as I can tell, they're never defined and the whole term is used only once in the whole FAQ (§3.2), and knowing FFG that can just as well just be loose terminology.

In my opinion this quite solidly supports Ktom's argument. If the term "game effect" is never defined or explained, cards can't be referencing it. That leaves us with only the definitions given in "Card Effect Interpretation", and explains why "effect" just functions as shorthand for "card effect".

Basically, I think that this means that while we can talk about things that happen due to game rules and structures as "game effects", that's just a word that we're using to classify those things (since they're quite similiar to card effects), not a specific reserved term that has a well defined meaning (like "passive effect" or "triggered effect"). And that would lead us right back to how Ktom said that these things have been interpreted before.

I know that a lot of the terms in AGoT aren't explicitly defined either, but this is one of those places where we really have quite clear definitions (for card effects) and classifications. ~I just don't see how you can start willy-nilly adding new things to that well-defined group without basing your argument on some written definition of what consitutes a game effect.

Oh, and for the record, I'm not really trying to say that "game effects" don't exist, just that they're not something that the card vocabulary can reference without more directly indicating it.

ktom, thank you again for your wonderful insight. I should have considered that it only changed the play restriction of marshaling cards instead of providing an effect that allowed you to marshal cards out of the discard pile.

For fun, I looked up a few cards for terminology consistency purposes.

Almost every card that uses the term "effect" is preceded by the identity of the type of effect or has detail following "effect" further identifying the type.

"card effect"
"any effect"
"'when revealed' effect"
"cost reducing effect"
"triggered effects"
"an effect"
"opponent's effect"
"non-plot effect"
"claim effect"

I was not really convinced that "an effect" was not inclusive of "game effect" like "any effect" is because it had no specific identity like the other cards that use it as a template.

Then… I came across Hungry Mob -

"After you pay 3 or more gold for a card or effect, kneel Hungry Mob. "

If "effect" was inclusive of playing characters, attachments, and locations, then I would suspect that The Hungry Mob has redundant text when specifying when you must kneel them. "3 or more gold for a card" is what I assume to mean marshaling or "playing" a card.

Seeing Hungry Mob's text has leaned me much further toward "playing" cards not being an effect. I wouldn't be surprised if it was ruled as an "effect" however.

The only reason I think it could be an important distinction is because Island Smuggler is not a very commonly used card at all and it may have some added value if there are a lot more things it can cancel. I think I may use it if I am Greyjoy just to help counter the Targ recursion stuff. I also think that some of the new Baratheon stuff will have more recursion as well, but who knows how often you will use them.