Do the terms "initiate" and "declare" with respect to a challenge mean exactly the same thing or is there some difference? Perhaps a challenge is only "declared" during the challenge phase? For example, Focused Offense in part says "You cannot declare more than 1 challenge." Would that prevent the player from declaring a challenge in the Challenge Phase and also initiating one in the Epic Phase (the epic events' effects use a template of "initiate a single [...] challenge")? Does it matter whether the epic event specifies the type of challenge (so, perhaps technically the attacker doesn't have to "declare" the challenge type) or does not (and thus the challenge type has to be declared?)?

LetsGoRed said:

Exactly the same thing. ~Now if someone says otherwise I will commit seppuku.

otherwise

goshdarnstud said:

Keep in mind here that "initiate a challenge" and "declare a challenge" are interchangeable terms, but that does not mean that the words "initiate" and "declare" are interchangeable in all situations.

For example, "initiate a character" would have a vastly different meaning from "declare a character." (To the point that you will never see "initiate a character" on its own, anyway, so perhaps not the best example...).

Then initiate an effect (step 1 of resolving it) may be different from declare an effect

Bolzano said: