The new Jaqen shadow card is really cool, but I have two quesitons about it.

1.- Is this the first and only Shadow card that doesn't come out of Shadows at the start of a phase and can be played from shadows as an "Any Phase" action?. It seems so, because its ability would be pretty useless otherwise (noone can die in a phase before Shadow cards are played).

2.- When played, Jaquen takes a character from an adversary deads pool and copies everything but the card's name. So, what happens if he copies a card with a self-referential ability?. For example:

Jaqen copies basic John Snow, that says: Respone: if you win a challenge where Jon Snow or Ghost participated, Jon Snow claims 1 Power. If Jaqen H'qar copies this, he still is "Jaquen H'qar" and the ability refers to a "John Snow". What then?.

Aertes said:

He is not the first card that can come out of Shadows in the middle of a phase by its own ability. Ser Mandon Moore does it, too.

Aertes said:

To build onto this question...

this means when impersonating characters that can kneel themselves to do something (For example, Marya Seaworth), Jaqen cannot copy this ability by kneeling himself, right?

Only by kneeling another copy of Marya (which you control) could you trigger Jaqens copied ability... in which case it would be no different from triggering Marya herself... Unless somehow it was another version of marya (that does not exist)... OR to bypass once per phase type restrictions (which is also not applicable in this situation)...

Do I have that all right?

You got that right. I couldn't believe it myself, at first. See here (Reply #41 et sqq.).

VB your opponents enemy informer
Jaquen said enemy informer
play your enemy informer
kneel two characters.

Mathias Fricot said:

Yes, this is the way it works, but needing your opponent to 1) play the correct House, 2) play the correct card, 3) kill the correct card, 4) get it with Jaqen, and 5) play your own copy. Cool when it happens, but hope you weren't planning on that as a main strategy ploy.

ktom said:

Seems like Jaquan should just be errata'd to be self-referential.

Twn2dn said:

You are also assuming that your opponent doesn't see the danger of attacking "Carrion Bird Jaqen" with their own Carrion Bird in a challenge they cannot win.

Twn2dn said:

I'm telling you, the "he makes self-referential abilities non-self-referential" thing sounds a lot scarier than it really is in practice.

Twn2dn said:

Twn2dn said:

fun way to get triple renown on your fat bob in a mirror bara matchup

Twn2dn said:

~I say ban him! Seems strange to have an un-banned Jaqen in the environment...

I also think he should have an errata to make him gain the title of the card you are copying. Also he should be STR X where X = that characters Printed STR. As it is a simple VB can kill him any time. I don't like that and I do not see how he will ever see play. Terrible card as is.

widowmaker93 said:

VB will always look at the ink on the card. If you changed his "printed" STR to be "X," when VB came out of Shadows, it would look at his X, not the ink on the "dupe" card. And the fact that he gained the "printed STR" of another card would change the fact that his own printed STR is X, which would be treated as 0.

The "STR X" idea would not make him any less susceptible to VB.

As for him being terrible and never used because of the vulnerability to VB, aren't you saying that because of VB, all cards with printed STR 2 or lower are terrible and that no one can, or should, play with them?

If Jaqen is in play, he will always have a dupe on him - so you can save him from VB. Sure, he goes into Shadows again, but he can be brought out of Shadows in the middle of that same phase, assuming something dies. I think in practice, with enough gold to drive him, he's going to be a beast. Vulnerability to VB doesn't make him a bad card - any more than vulnerability to VB makes, oh, Carrion Bird or Val bad cards.