Concerning Cyvasse...

1. Does the "if able" in the text allow me to kneel one of my own eligible characters to pay the card's cost, even if my opponent does not have an eligible character to kneel?

2. Does the card hit Beric Dondarrion? I guess it does, since the card's effect is not discarding.

Something about a card's text box...

3. Apart from any abilities written, what else does it include? Can anyone, with patience and a kind heart, write down which of the following is included in it:

A. Traits

B. Crests

C. Challenge Icons

D. Income icon

E. Initiative icon

F. Influence icon

Serazu said:

As for the actual question, yes. Normally, in order to play an event card, all the specified targets must be available. However, the "if able" text on Cyvasse allows you to play the event even if each player does not have a character with an intrigue icon to serve as a target of the event. You can play it, even if you none of your opponents have characters with intrigue icons.

Serazu said:

Serazu said:

Every word on a card (below the picture) is part of the text box. So in addition to the ability text, traits and flavor text are certainly considered part of the text box. (Pay careful attention to traits when looking at "blank the text box" effects - some will specify "except for traits," so even though the text box is blank, the traits would still be in effect.)

Bonus icons (initiative and income) and influence icons are also considered part of the text box. They are not standard elements of a character card and must be "written" in order to be there. Crests and Challenge icons are not considered part of the text box. They are standard elements of a character card and are thus basic elements of the card - like the text box itself.

The FAQ will talk about Challenge Icons and Crests being carved out of the text box with heavy borders - something that income, influence, and initiative icons do not have. And that certainly works. Personally, I prefer to think in terms of the "basic elements of a character card" - something that a character can have just by virtue of being a character, like a text box - but the "heavy border" shorthand is much easier for some people.

Analytical, as always. Many thanks.

Concerning FtC Jaqen H'ghar...

1. Since he doesn't copy card title, what about the vast majority of characters who mention their card title in their text box and refer to it? If Jaqen copies CS Cersei for instance, he cannot use her ability, since the text mentions Cersei, Jaqen has kept his original name in his card's title though, right?

2. And, in the above example, the rules prevent him to use his copied ability to kneel a third opponent's Cersei (CS or not), since costs are paid with your own cards, right?

3. In the case of Cersei's attendant for instance, things change however, since the ability isn't a cost. So, if Jaqen copied the Attendant and the opponent's Cersei is killed, he may use the copied Response, right?

4. Continuing the aforementioned example, what if an opponent's Attendant is kiled? Can Jaqen use the copied ability or does the rules about self-referring abilities prohibit him?

5. Just to clarify it further, in the hypothetical example that my Jaqen copies TftRK Red Viper and since Jaqen copied the "H Martell only" as well, may I use him, if I do not play Martell or am I prohibited?

6. Hypothetically again and in order to comprehend Jaqen's ability as best I can, if my Jaqen copies Ellaria Sand:

A. He cannot trigger the copied Response to gain power, since he didn't copy Ellaria's card title and he remains Jaqen H'ghar, so no power for him, right?

B. In the case of a melee game however where an opponent has an Ellaria Sand in play and I lose a challenge, I am able to remove a power token from a character and give it to my opponent's Ellaria Sand, right? Unless of course the self-referring rules kick in and I cannot.

C. Since Jaqen didn't copy Ellaria's card title, but he kept his original, I cannot put a second Jaqen in play (save as a duplicate of course), I may put an Ellaria under my command however, so as to have an Ellaria with Ellaria's text box and a Jaqen with Ellaria's text box, right?

Concerning the Poisoned Knife...

7. Can I bypass an already knelt character with Stealth, so as to use the attachment's discarding effect? The rules under Stealth do not distinguish between standing and knelt characters, so I guess I can, right?

Serazu said:

I am going to answer your questions very tersely because I think you understand Jaqen pretty well. See this thread for more discussion.

1. Yes.

2. Yes.

3. Yes.

4. Jaqen can use the ability since for him it is not self-referential (his title is still Jaqen H'ghar).

5. House X Only is a deckbuilding restriction and has no impact after the game starts.

6. A. He can't put power on himself, but he can still trigger his ability as you describe in B.

B. Yes. You could also have your own Ellaria Sand out and move power to her.

C. Yes, you may have your own Ellaria Sand out.

7. Yes, you can bypass an already knelt character.

Ok, thank you very much.

Several new questions, in order to solidify my grasping of the rules:

Concerning "Cancel" effects...

1. Since, in the action window, the Save/Cancel responses come before action resolution, if, for instance, an opponent plays "A Lannister pays his debts" to kill a character of mine and I respond by playing "Paper Shield", my character was never killed and, thus, he never left play, right?

Concerning "Burn"...

All those months reading rules and posts, I 've read everywhere that Burn is much more effective at killing than direct kill. I 've come not to focus at the killing part and considered Burn to be a better mechanic for two reasons:

A. Direct killing is countered more easily than Strength reduction.

B. Even if a burnt to death character was saved, his Strength reduction would persist. So, burn wasn't an all-or-nothing mechanism; one way or another, when you used Burn, something good would come up.

Obviously, I got it all wrong. It's not that my previous assumptions were incorrect (they weren't I guess), the thing is that, from what I 've started to realise, death by Burn cannot be avoided or, at least, it 's very - very difficult to be avoided. A few comments on "Flame-Kissed" in AGOTCards were those that opened my eyes.

So, if I got things correctly, the thing with Burn-to-kill is this:

Burn -contrarily to direct killing- provides a two-fold effect: Strength reduction (a), which leads to killing (b), so, in order to prevent it, someone has to BOTH avert killing (a) and find a way to prevent the Strength nullification (b). If he managed to prevent killing but not the Strength nullification, then the reduction of Strength to 0, would make the killing return.

2. Am I grasping this correctly?

If the opposite happened and, in response to "Flame-Kissed", an opponent opted not to focus on saving his character, but on raising his Strength instead, would he succeed in saving his character? I guess not, because, since Flame-Kissed produced its results, the character firstly had his Strength nullified and consecutively was killed. Responding by raising his Strength, would have no effect here, since the character already died. Which leads us to the conclusion that the saving effect and the avoidance of Strength nullification must happen simultaneously.

3. Am I grasping this correctly?

In AGOTCards, a poster wrote that only "Risen from the Sea" manages to produce both effects and thus save a character.

4. Is it true? Can the aforementioned card block "Flame-Kissed"? Even if the word "then" is used in its text box, are its two effects considered to happen simultaneously, since they are both parts of the same Effect card?

5. If Burn-to-death requires both saving and Strength reduction avoidance to be countered, does it mean, that duplicates are ineffective against cards such as "Flame-Kissed"?

Concerning Pyat Pree...

6. Can he be used to kill characters immune to character abilities, since he doesn't specifically target a character, but he bends the Claim rules instead, so Immunity to character abilities is useless versus his ability?

Serazu said:

Serazu said:

Keep in mind that unless your saving effect does both things - save AND raise STR - you aren't even allowed to try to use it (to just do one or the other).

Serazu said:

Serazu said:

Serazu said:

Let's say I use an event to give my attacking character Stealth. I then use the Stealth on the attacking character to bypass a character that is immune to events. Is that legal? Certainly, because it is not the event that is bypassing the immune character - it is the character I targeted with the event that is doing the actual bypassing. So you always look at what is doing the actual bypassing, not what gave it the ability to do so.

Pyat is the same thing. He changes the rules of the game for how claim is resolved, but when you go to resolve the actual claim, what effect is killing the character? Pyat? Or the claim effect? It is, indeed, the claim effect. So unless something is "immune to claim," it doesn't matter that the way to resolve that claim was modified by another card effect - it is still the claim doing the killing.

1. Opponent's character has Dragon Bite attached.

A maester of mine has Copper Link attached.

Opponent's character challenges me.

My maester is eligible to defend and does so.

I trigger the link's response to give the Dragon trait to opponent's character.

Is he killed via Dragon Bite? I do not see why not.

2. Good for the Gander: does it allow copying of any plot in opponent's used pile with the when revealed ability or is there a difference between used and revealed and this specific plot refers only to opponent's currently revealed plot?

Serazu said:

Serazu said:

hello there,

out of curiosity and continuing on the path this thread is going i'd like a couple questions answered as well

1: what happens when you have "threat from the north" and you flame kiss a str 3 character. is he discarded or killed? or do i get to choose considering i'm the one playing the card?

2: can i request a more advanced explanation concerning the placing of hatchlings on their grown up counterparts? doesn't the text read exactly as place them as duplicates? there's no "when in play" requirements or anything. there's even the precedence of some cards that come into play when they are discarded from the hand and i'm sure there must be other examples. it is my view that you simply put them from your hand as duplicates simply becouse card text takes precedence over rulebook correct? if that wasn't the case then those "enter when discarded" cards wouldn't work becouse they never entered play hence their text was never a condition.

Sutr said:

1. From the FAQ:

(2.5) Simultaneous but Conflicting Entry into the Moribund State

If a character is killed, discarded, and/or returned to a player's hand or deck at exactly the same time, the first player decides which of the destinations applies for the card's Moribund state.

2. Unless a card ability specifically tells you it activates from an out-of-play area, it doesn't. So you need to get the Hatchling's into play first before they attach as duplicates to their grown-up counterparts.

Saturnine said:

Think of it this way: If you could use the Hatchlings directly from your hand to duplicate the adult Dragons, why wouldn't simply having a card like Maester of War ("Each Maester character in play gains a MIL icon.") in your hand - instead of in play - work to grant the icons?

Come on, guys, you're really going to respond to someone asking for "a more advanced explanation concerning the placing of hatchlings on their grown up counterparts" without linking to this thread? Sutr, be warned: that is probably more than you wanted to know about attaching the hatchlings to their counterparts.

schrecklich said:

Concerning Darkstar and Maester of the Sun:

It's Summer, Maester is in play and the Darkstar in hand. I choose to use the Master's ability to save a character from being killed.

1. Can I discard the Darkstar and put him into play instead, while, at the same time, saving my character? In numerous instances I 've noticed you people mentioning that, if an ability has a cost as a prerequisite, the cost has to be met, otherwise the ability does not trigger. Is there such a case here where the Darkstar's passive ability means that he was never discarded, thus the Maester's cost was never paid and the character wasn't saved or was the Darkstar actually discarded, his ability saved him though and put him into play, whereas, at the same time, paid the Maester's cost and two birds are hit with one stone? It's the Darkstar's wording that confuses me, particularly the "would be" part, which causes me doubts whether the Darkstar is ever considered to be discarded.

For the discussion on Replacement effects and why the Darkstar still counts as being discarded when he ends up in play, see this thread.

The specific application of those replacement effect principles to Darkstar can be found in this thread.

It's just that the Darkstar features such a poor wording. The House Dayne Reserves on the other hand (a card in the exact same set), is so much better put; it leaves no room for wondering, contrarily to Darkstar. In the Reserves' case, I know that I discarded the card - the card itself says so. The Darkstar leaves it to me to interpret its content. Terribly terrible wording.

Probably a couple stupid questions here: just bought the game, and the rule book could have been a bit clearer.

If an opponent, say in a 2 player game, attacks the other player and that defender has not character cards to defend with. Can the opponent still attack three different times if he has characters with the ability to start a power, intrigue, and military challenge? How are these challenges resolved when the defender has no characters?

In the dominance phase, once you add up every characters strength and gold, what do you do with those numbers? Is it the difference between the highest and the second highest numbers? It seems to me if you just take the highest number and give an equal amount of power counters to said player, the game could often be over in two rounds.

What is the benefit of attaching a card to a house card, such as Queen Cersei's Chambers?

Lastly, if a player, say with the core Targaryen deck, uses the Rhaegal effect and pays one gold to attach a second Rhaegal to the first, can he attack with both? Or do the two count as one Rhaegal? If so, does that one Rhaegal have the strength of both or the strength of one?

Thank you in advance for your patience with someone new to a card game of this complexity.

GunslingerReborn said:

-Istaril said:

Thank you for addressing my issues, and just one clarification, if I may.

So, he can challenge three times against an undefended opponent. How many challenges net him a power token from the Throne room? Just the military challenge, or all three?

GunslingerReborn said:

The suggestion you are making is that I can get around your challenges by not playing any characters. Meaning that all a player in a weaker position would have to do is not play any characters, thereby shutting down an opponent entirely?

When you look at it that way, it should make more sense that the number of characters your opponent has available to defend has absolutely no impact on your ability to declare challenges against them. There is no requirement in the rules that a defender be able to defend - only that they be given the opportunity to defend. If their lack of characters means they cannot take advantage of that opportunity is their own problem, not the attackers.

Note that the rules on "unopposed" challenges (ie, if the defending player counts 0 STR in the challenge - whether by choice or necessity - the winning attacker gets 1 bonus power from the general power pool) do not specify any particular type of challenge. It applies equally to all challenge types.

The only problem I'm having understanding is that if the defender has 0 STR, then the normal military challenge penalty would not be able to be resolved, that of choosing a character to kill, so I can understand the power token. But if its a power challenge, the attacker could still take power tokens from my house card, and if its an intrigue challenge, I could still randomly discard a card from my hand. The only penalty I can't take would be killing a character.

GunslingerReborn said:

But the losing player of a Power challenge might not have any power on their house card, or the losing player of an Intrigue challenge might not have any cards in their hand. Being able to satisfy the normal claim effects is not a requirement.

Give the rules another read through; they're not perfect at addressing every question, but everything you're asking is clearly laid out there.

alpha5099 said:

Keep in mind that it goes the other way, too. The defending player could count 0 STR in a military challenge, even though they have characters on the board, for a couple of reasons. For example (and this is not an exhaustive list):

1. A card effect could lower their defending character's STR to 0 after they have been declared
2. The defending player could have no standing characters with military icons available to declare as defenders
3. The defending player might choose not to declare any defending characters, even though he has legal characters available to declare

In all of those situations, the defender counts 0 STR in the military challenge, so the attackers gets the bonus power AND the defender has to kill a character in play that they control for losing the military challenge.

So you see, there is no connection between the "prize" you get for winning a challenge and the bonus power you get if the defender counts 0 STR. One is not compensation for the other: they are two entirely separate things.