If I have Dragon Sight and Orell the Eagle on field and I declare a challenge, what happens? Dragon Sight means they have to allocate defenders before-hand and not after, but Orell's effect only activates when they select defenders normally, so either it just doesn't matter and they just defend as if Orell's effect weren't there, OR(and this would be awesome) they can't defend regardless of choosing defenders beforehand because they can't fulfill the requirement of Orell's effect.

Gargoyle said:

And declaring Orell after defending characters are declared won't do anything, either. The defending characters are already participating, legally, and there is nothing in Orell's effect that removes characters from the challenge (he only prevents them from getting in in the first place). So they are there, participating in the challenge.

If you play Dragon Sight, you effectively give up the advantage or Orell's effect - the same way you effectively give up the advantage of Queen's Dany's Horde and Stealth.

this is the same reasoning why you can't Declare stealth targets after defenders are declared using this attachment.

this may have come up before

but is there a functional difference between having characters participating as defenders and the "to defend the challenge."? Like the character played vs character put into play differentiation. I was just thinking that dragon sight may let you declare only one character as a defender, but could Orell's ability still make the challenge considered unopposed?

I would go with no, but I figured I would throw it in here to keep the discussion going.

Mathias Fricot said:

The functional equivalence between the "to defend the challenge" text and defense mechanics in in declaring the defenders. Orell's text pretty much says that "in order to declare defenders when he is attacking, you have to declare at least 2." For example, if Orell attacks in a power challenge and I only have 1 eligible power character standing, I can't declare it. But I can Catelyn Stark into the challenge from my hand because I am not declaring her as a defender.

So you can look at it as "declaring a character as a defender" then if that happens "character participating as defender" then "challenge being defended/opposed" ?

I may be wrong, but the way I understand it from your post is that Orell stops a single character declared as a defender from being enough to have the challenge considered defended, or opposed. This doesn't actually stop a single characters from participating, it just means the challenge would go through regardless of the lone defenders Str (the challenge is considered unopposed).

So would Orell attacking on a power challenge alone be stopped by CS Catelyn Stark? Her ability would nerf his Str, making the attacking Str zero, even though she is not considered defending? (Her ability triggers on being declared as a defender, not being considered a defender, which Orell stops her from doing).

So really what I am asking is can I declare a single defender against Orell and just have the challenge considered to be unopposed for the sake of challenge resolution? I hope I am being clear.

I guess what this really breaks down to is "Are all characters declared as defenders at the same time?" If you can declare one, then the second, then the third, the above might make sense. If it is all at the same time you can't declare one a fail Orell's requirement, you declare none or you declare two (or more).

Mathias Fricot said:

So Orell's ability prevents you from declaring only 1 character as a defender. When you declare defenders, you must declare at least 2 (where the rules say "any number"). That's all he does. There is no impact on challenge resolution, counting STR, etc. (beyond making it harder to get defenders into the challenge).

But if you get a single character into the challenge as a defender without declaring it (like Catelyn, Greatjon, etc.), it would still count its STR during resolution and the challenge would be opposed.

Thats the way I thought he worked initially, but the clarification is good. Thanks ktom.