I guess it's a bit complex though: Player A declares a challenge with Deadly character involved. I defended with no Deadly characters and won the challenge. However, since I used Stark and I had an event called something like 'Routing Charge...etc', which allowed me to kill one character once I won a challenge. So I immediately killed that Deadly character.

Question: That Deadly character's been killed, so do I need to kill my defending character to satisfy that Deadly keyword?

Keywords like Deadly will happen before you even get a chance to play Routing the charge, so you would lose a character to deadly before you can kill your opponent's character with the event.

Yes, Deadly is passive and thus happens before you ever get the chance to play a Response like "Routing the Charge." Even if you think you play the event "immediately," Deadly is "more immediate."

But even if it wasn't and you could kill the Deadly character before Deadly was resolved, you'd run into the problem that the Deadly character would still be on the table, in moribund, until all passives and Responses had been resolved. So Deadly would still kick in "on the way out."

Once the challenge starts to resolve, you cannot avoid resolving Deadly by getting rid of the Deadly character. You'd need to have gotten rid of it before the challenge started resolving.

Very clear. Thank you guys.

ktom said:

Hi Ktom,

When does the challenge start to resolve? After defenders are declared? I ask because there are ways to kill participating characters in the middle of the challenge and it would make sense to know when I can kill the Deadly character it's during a moment that Deadly won't be included as a passive ability resolving.

Bomb said:

The best understanding you will get by having a look at the timing flowcharts in the FAQ. Here's a shortened overview of the timing structure of a challenge.

Framework Action Window (challenge begins here): Declaring challenge type and opponent, declaring and kneeling attackers

Player Action Window (any player action can be made here, i.e. "Any Phase:" and "Challenges:" abilities)

Framework Action Window: Declaring Stealth targets, declaring and kneeling defenders

Player Action Window (same as above)

Framework Action Window(challenge is resolved here): Determine challenge winner, settle claim, award unopposed, award renown

Deadly resolves as a passive in the final Framwork Action Window.

Thank you for your answer Saturnine. I do understand the flow chart, but I wasn't sure if there was a specific definition for the beginning of challenge resolution. So it's once you start determining the winner of the challenge. So if I have a Player Action that can kill the Deadly character between "defenders declared" and the Framework Action Window starting with "determine winner of challenge", that killed character being in Moribund and Deadly will not have an applicable deadly? Or am I misunderstanding the Moribund state?

Bomb said:

At then end of each window, be it a player action or a framework action, moribund cards are physically removed from the table. So, if you have an effect that kills a Deadly character as a player action before you get to the beginning of the "determine winner of challenge" framework window, that character is physically removed from the table at the end of the player action and never makes it to the challenge resolution in the first place.

It isn't that the character no longer has an "applicable" Deadly. It is that it is in the dead pile when the challenge actually resolves - where it certainly has no effect.

And yes, the challenge "starts resolving" when you get to that "determine winner" framework action. That's the "point of no return" for being unable to stop Deadly for that challenge by removing characters from play.