A quick question about Disgruntled Mercenary.

His text reads:

'Return Disgruntled Mercenary to its owner's hand at the end of the first challenge initiated each round.'

Let's say my opponent declares a military challenge against me and it's the first challenge of the round and I lose it. And let's say that I choose to kill Disgruntled Mercenary for the claim. Would it go into the dead pile, or back into my hand?

I ask because other cards like Catelyn (LOW) read:

'Put Catelyn Stark into play from your hand, knelt as a defender during an Intrigue or Power challenge initiated against you. At the end of the phase, if Catelyn Stark is still in play, return her to your hand.'

So in that case, she has to still be in play to return to my hand. It doesn't appear that there's that kind of restriction on Disgruntled.

Thanks.

Twentyft said:

With Catelyn, she is returned to your hand at the end of the phase. At the end of the phase, there are only two possible places for Catelyn to be: in-play, or out-of-play. Out-of-play could be the dead pile, discard pile, hand, etc. The point is that she isn't moved to your hand from anywhere other than play.

But with the Mercenary, he is returned to your hand at the end of the challenge. That's a big difference. In order for his text to be applicable, he has to be in-play at the end of the challenge. If he is in-play at the end of the challenge, there are only two possible states he card be in: free or moribund (because he was killed, discarded, etc during the resolution of the challenge). If he is moribund, his own ability cannot be applied to remove him from play a second time. That's the whole "rules exception" about moribund from the FAQ.

So if you killed him for claim in the first challenge of the phase, he will be moribund and headed for the dead pile at the end of the challenge - making his ability not work. You cannot use the Mercenary's ability to get out of killing a character for claim. The claim effect, because of the moribund rules and timing, will preempt his "return to hand" ability.

That's what I figured, but wanted to double check.

Thanks much.