Viper's Rage vs No Time for Grief

By the1andonlime, in 2. AGoT Rules Discussion

The following happened today during a game:

Player 1 attacks player 2, who plays Viper's rage on player 1.

Player 2 then initiates a military challenge against player 1. Player 1 loses the challenge and choose to kill the Red Viper.

Player 1 plays No Time for Grief (kneeling 3 influence to put any number of Sand Snake characters into play).

Question: Are the Sand Snake characters who have entered play through NTfG affected by the loss of icons?

the1andonlime said:

Question: Are the Sand Snake characters who have entered play through NTfG affected by the loss of icons?

Yes.

Rogue30 said:

the1andonlime said:
Question: Are the Sand Snake characters who have entered play through NTfG affected by the loss of icons?

Yes.

Note that the text on Viper's Rage talks about characters controlled by the attacker. When the Response resolves, it puts a lasting effect (taking away the icons) on those characters that are eligible, ie, controlled by the player that is currently the attacker. Then, the challenge duration ends and there is no "attacker" anymore. So after the challenge is over, there can be no new characters "controlled by the attacker" because there is no attacker for that challenge anymore. So even if that player puts new characters into play, they don't meet the restrictions for applying the "lose icons" effect.

The Sand Snakes that come into play during the same phase, but after a different challenge, will not be subjected to the effects of "The Viper's Rage."

Rogue30's answer is understandable. There are plenty of effects that say "characters controlled by that player gain/lose X until the end of the phase" or "characters controlled by you gain/lose X until the end of the phase." In those situations, characters that come into play after such an effect is activated would gain/lose whatever X is, because the way the effect identifies which characters it applies to ("that player" or "you") still has meaning. The difference here is that Viper's Rage identifies the characters it is applied to by a player status that can be lost (pretty quickly, actually). Once that status is lost, new characters subject to the effect cannot be identified.

ktom said:

Note that the text on Viper's Rage talks about characters controlled by the attacker.

Sorry, I missed that.

Rogue30 said:

ktom said:
Note that the text on Viper's Rage talks about characters controlled by the attacker.

Sorry, I missed that.