I'm pretty sure i know the answers to these, but since inexplicably i'm the one my small game group looks to for rules knowledge, i want to be sure i'm on the right track.

1) "After Varys comes out of shadows, choose and discard 1 Ally character from play." This ability is not a Response and he is an Ally himself, so does he discard himself if there are no other targets?

2) When an effect discards multiple cards from someone's deck, are they discarded one at a time in the same way cards are drawn one at a time? If i discard 2 cards from someone's deck and i have a "Response: after a card is discarded from a player's deck..." can i activate that response once or twice?

3) Varamyr Sixskins: "Put 1 Creature character into play from your hand to return Varamyr Sixskins to your hand. At the end of the phase, if that Creature is still in play, discard it from play." Following the "do x to do y" rule, putting a creature card into play is the cost to return Varamyr to my hand, and if i cancel the effect the cost is still payed. so if i have two duplicates on varamyr, can i put 3 creatures into play, saving varamyr twice before returning the last copy to my hand? And regardless of whether or not Varamyr is saved, the creatures will still be discarded since there is no "then" linking varamyr returning to hand and discarding the creatures?

4) When an event cancels the determination of a challenges winner, that does nothing to effect which characters are participating for the purposes of collecting renown and activating abilities, correct?

thejibboo said:

1) Yes.

2) I'm not sure about this and defer to greater minds. I would think, though, that discard effects behave like draw. Because otherwise, if an effect asked you to discard X cards (from your hand or from your deck) and you had less than X cards to discard, the whole effect would fizzle out because it cannot resolve successfully and thus discard none of your cards, and that doesn't seem right. But maybe I'm talking out of my arse here.

3) Sounds right to me.

4) Correct. All Renown is claimed and abilities triggered in accordance with the new challenge winner (if there is one), of course, and not based on who would have won initially. But participating characters are still participating (why would it be otherwise?)

Regarding 2, the answer is yes. ktom answered this question a little while ago in this thread.

thanks for the answers guys!