The question came up over at agotcards, and I'm not sure what the correct answer is:

If I reveal/play a card which gains a trait through a constant effect (e.g. a plot gaining the Power Struggle trait from Stormlands or Campfire Mime gaining the Raven trait from another Raven card in play), would I be able to play a response that triggers off a card with that trait being revealed (e.g. Starve for your King) or played (Samwell Tarly)? I've argued "no", because even though the cards gain the trait as soon as they enter play, they do not have the trait when the action initiates. Others insist that the respective card has the trait by the time you play the response, so it'd be a valid play.

Who has the right of it?

In a possibly related question, if a Valar is revealed, and I use the response of Maester of the Sun ("Response: If it is Summer,kneel Maester of the Sun and discard a card from your hand to save a character from being killed or discarded from play.") and discard Darkstar ("If Darkstar would be discarded from your hand or deck,put him into play instead."), he would come into play during Step 2 of the framework action, correct? I am thinking he would not be affected by Valar because he was not in play in Step 1 when the Kill effect initiated. How wrong am I?

Saturnine said:

Consider this:

You have Winds of Winter as a plot. I play Roose Bolton with The Dreadfort out. Can I draw a card? No, because at the time I trigger the Response, Roose does not have at least 3 STR. Perhaps more clearly, say I dupe Jaime Lannister. Why can't I trigger Castellan of the Rock? Because I played a dupe, not a character, even though I played a character card. Or perhaps even more clearly, Stoic Resolve is out and you put Flame-Kissed on my Maester Aemon. Can I kneel him to save himself? Sure, because after he is knelt, he becomes subject to the plot's "knelt characters cannot be killed," removing him from the terminal state when the save resolves.

Essentially what it comes down to is that play restrictions are checked at the point of the effect's initiation. It is the state of the card that was revealed/played at the time of the Response's initiation that matters. Playing Campfire Mime creates the "character came into play" Response opportunity, but it is not until Sam's Response is initiated that anything checks to see if the card that came into play was a Raven - and by that time, it is.

Saturnine said:

It's not related, but you are right that since Darkstar missed the initiation of Valar, he is not subject to its resolution.

I'm sure you are right, but could you explain to me the difference between this and the situation in which Narrow Escape cannot bring back a duplicate that was discarded that phase, even though at the point Narrow Escape is initiated, it is simply a character card in the discard pile?

Saturnine said:

Could it be the difference between "putting them into play" and "attaching them as a duplicate"?

I think it might be more accurate to say that it is the difference between a character and a character card. Narrow Escape reads:

Any Phase: Put into play from their owner's dead piles or discard piles all characters that were killed or discarded from play this phase.

which refers specifically to characters ("cards" can not be killed, only characters can). The dupe that was discarded was discarded as a duplicate, not as a character. Thus, Narrow Escape does not view it as a character and does not try to return it. At least, that is my interpretation.

Plus if you happened to discard all the duplicates AND killed or discard that same character in the same phase, I can't see playing Narrow Escape allowing you to restore that character and all of its duplicates back into play all at once. Would be pretty nasty.

Saturnine said:

Whoa whoa whoa - hold it right there! NE doesn't bring back dupes?! Really!?! I always played it so that NE brought back dupes as well, because cards in an OOP area don't have a "memory" of what they were before they left play or something along those lines. I seem to remember explanations by ktom that went like this, although I don't recall if they concerned NE or other effects. Can somebody provide a link to where this is discussed?

Ratatoskr said:

Discussed here

Ratatoskr said:

Ratatoskr said:

Yeah, don't bother. Found it. Makes totally sense, too. Otherwise, a Bannerman or Loyal Guard that was an attachment when it left play could be brought back as a character, and that doesn't make sense.

Saturnine said:

schrecklich said:

schrecklich said:

Yes, I understand the reasoning behind the Narrow Escape situation. It just seemed to me that it was similar to the situation in my opening post in that both revolve around a card ability that checks for two conditions (one of which changes before the respective ability is triggered): e.g. Samwell: card played / card has raven trait; Narrow Escape: card killed or discarded / card is character. Actually, for Narrow Escape, the second condition should read "card WAS character" to accomodate how it works. For Narrow Escape, both conditions are intertwined, which is apparently not the case for Samwell's Response, which doesn't check "card HAD raven trait (when it was just played)" but "card HAS raven trait (and also was just played)". Perhaps they are treated differently because in Samwell's case, the conditions are the play restriction for his Response, whereas for Narrow Escape, the conditions describe the target of the effect.

I see the connection you are trying to make. Personally, I find the concept of giving things traits to trigger responses to things being played or coming into play to be quite strange. If that is the case, perhaps the rule of thumb is that effects dealing with cards in play use that card's current characteristics whereas effects dealing with cards that have left play (the small subset of cards that includes Narrow Escape) have to remember what characteristics that card had while it was in play.

Just to make sure I have this concept right.... if I play DotN Benjen Stark (Response: After Benjen Stark comes into play, choose and stand 1 Night's Watch character or choose and kneel 1 Wildling character.) and kneel a Wildling character with the Copper Link (Response: After attached character kneels, choose 1 card in play. Until the end of the phase, that card gains 1 Trait of your choice. (Limit once per phase).) attached, I can then use the Copper Link's response to give Benjen the Raven trait and then trigger my Samwell Tarly (Response: After a Raven card is played, draw 2 cards.) to draw 2 cards? Does this work both for responses checking for a traited card to be played and to come into play?

Ratatoskr said:

Saturnine said:

Compare the Campfire Bard/Sam example with the dupe Jaime/Castellan of the Rock example. We said that when you play the Bard, an "after a character is played" Response opportunity is generated. When Sam's ability initiates, that's when you look to see if said character was a Raven, meeting all of Sam's play restrictions. However with the Jaime/Castellan example, it is in part true that when you go to initiate the Castellan, no new character has entered play, but even more fundamentally, we know that playing a dupe is considered "playing a dupe," not playing a character. So the "after a character is played" Response opportunity was never generated in the first place. Perhaps an easier example is the various Chambers being played as an attachment instead of a location. There is no "after a location was played" Response opportunity created because the card was played as an attachment from the get go.

Narrow Escape effectively combines the "what is the card at the time the effect is initiated?" concept with the "what opportunity was created?" concept. Because the card specifies that the character had to have been killed or discarded from play that phase, the only cards that can be eligible to be returned would be characters that left play. Said another way, only cards that created an "after a character is killed/discarded" Response opportunity meet the first threshold for Narrow Escape. So that's why character cards that left play as something other than character cards do not count; a character was not killed or discarded. The second threshold is that the card itself must be a character card, otherwise, you are not returning a character to play.

Essentially, Narrow Escape looks at each card in your discard and dead pile and asks two questions: #1 - is this a character? (answering "no" is why the Reinforcement events stay put) and #2 - was this character killed or discarded this phase? This is where it looks at a dupe and says that the "character" this individual card represents was not killed or discarded.

The "Characters discarded as dupes do not count as discarding characters" reasoning really is the same as the "Chambers played as an attachment do not count as playing locations" reasoning, just with the card leaving play instead of entering play.

schrecklich said:

schrecklich said:

Going back to my original question, I'm going to make up an example to hopefully help me understand how restrictions work. Let's assume Samwell's ability read "Any Phase: If you have played a Raven card this phase, kneel Samwell Tarly to draw 2 cards." Now let's assume I have a Carrion Bird in play, and I play a Campfire Mime. I would be able to trigger Samwell's ability because I have played a card this phase, and it has the Raven trait when I trigger Samwell's ability?

ktom said:

You answered what I was getting at. I just thought it might have been the case that "after X is played" effects might look at what the card was at the time it was played and "after X comes into play" might look at what the card is while it is in play, so I thought maybe the cards that check for something being played might not be susceptible to trait manipulation. As you say though, they both work the same way.

Saturnine said:

It follows the logic in the sequence above, but I don't really like how it works. I feel like a Raven card was not played, but more so a card was played and then given the Raven trait.

If I hit a pedestrian with a car and got drunk later on that night, does that mean a drunk person hit the pedestrian with a car? No.

I know - it's different as a game but the "if this card was played and it currently has the Raven trait" just seems like a very weird condition. I am guessing that it is because "card x with these properties is played" is not a constant "effect" where the properties of that condition are not any reviewed until you are ready to use Samwell's "Any Phase" ability.

Just weird because technically a Raven card was not played that phase.

Saturnine said:

It's a "take the good with the bad" kind of thing. It all comes down to the fact that no matter how a card gains the Raven trait, it is considered a Raven card. Just like it doesn't matter how a card gains the Maester trait, it is considered a Maester card. If it didn't work this way, Apprentice Collar would be pretty useless for loading Links on some random guy because he wouldn't "really" be a Maester.

Like I said before, this is one of the reasons people tend to dislike trait manipulation as a concept.

ktom said:

Yes, I just have trouble getting my head around the fact that the restriction of "playing/revealing" the card is so disconnected from the trait restriction.

Then playing a Raven card and then somehow removing the Raven trait from it will keep Samwell Tarly from being able to use his ability based on that card.

Question:

Let's pretend that I marshaled the Carrion Bird this phase.

Carrion Bird is killed or discarded by some kind of card effect before the end of the phase.

I want to use Samwell Tarly's ability before the end of the phase, but Carrion Bird is no longer in play.

Does this mean I can't use Samwell Tarly's ability since there is no card currently with the Raven trait and has been played this phase?

Bomb said:

You are talking about my fictitious version of Samwell, right? Because the actual ability of Samwell is a response, so you would have to trigger it right after playing the Raven card, before it had any chance of leaving play again.

Saturnine said:

Correct. I am just trying to get to the point of understanding what can and cannot be done with trait manipulation and "if this happened this phase you can do this" because the situation is weird to me.

I'm sure you can trigger imaginary Samwell's ability even if the Carrion Bird leaves play. The was a point this phase where you played a Raven card, so the conditions are fulfilled. Take for example if you played Ill Tidings instead. It will still fulfill the "played a Raven card this turn" requirement, and it will definitely not be in play when you trigger the effect.

Your hypothetical is breaking down a bit here because there is a logical difference between "Play only if you have played a Raven character this phase..." and "Response: after a Raven character is played...". It is pretty much the reason you will never see a hypothetical card like the Sam you have proposed here. This kind of condition will only be attached to initiating/winning challenges of a particular type, winning Dominance, or some other framework action, rather than a voluntary/conditional player action.

What you are running into here is the conceptual difference between "if you have done X...," which would look only at the player actions as initiated to see if X did indeed take place (the way that limits look at what has initiated rather than what has resolved) and "Response: after X happens...," which would look at the condition of the play field when the Response is triggered.

That's where the "hypothetical Sam" reasoning breaks down: the difference between triggering an Action and triggering a Response.

Well, given that this is the way the rules work, you can count me amongst those who think that all "when an X card comes into play" and "when an X card is played" effects should be templated to include the word "printed".