Any Phase: Bring Jaqen H'ghar out of Shadows by paying the rest of his cost to choose 1 non-Army character in an opponent's dead pile that was killed this phase, and attach it to Jaqen H'ghar as a duplicate. Jaqen H'ghar gains the printed text, base STR, icons, traits and crests of that card. If that duplicate leaves play, return Jaqen H'ghar to Shadows.

Let's say that because of claim 2, two characters are in opponent's dead pile. I come out of Shadows with Jaqen and then I come out of Shadows with second copy of Jaqen. I'm not sure what happens now.

Hm. The second copy attaches itself as a regular duplicate to the first copy?

The second copy enters play as a dupe. So you are unable to "attach (the target character from the opponent's dead pile) to Jaqen H'ghar" - see the rules for self-referential cards and "title-less" dupes.

I'm guessing you were wondering if this would be a tricky way to move a card from your opponent's dead pile to their discard pile. The fact that Jaqen #2 enters play as a dupe means that the whole of his ability fizzles and the target card never leaves the dead pile.

Well after the first Jaquen comes out of shadows, his response triggers, then when the second comes out of shadows it attaches itself as a Dupe as normal dupes would.

You are allowed to have multiple dupes of a card on the board. And since the second dupe of Jaquen did not get attached as a dupe according to the ability of the original it does not modify the original card.

ktom said:

Yes. I was overthinking maybe this card attaches at the same time or something. It won't hurt to ask.

Rogue30 said:

Yes. I was overthinking maybe this card attaches at the same time or something. It won't hurt to ask.

But, as mentioned before, since "put into play" dupes never enter play as characters, Jaqen's target will never leave the dead pile. Would have been cool (or at least interesting), though, huh?

Since we are on the topic of Jaqen, can Jaqen come out of the shadows in addition to the shadows card that comes out of shadows at the beginning of the phase or does Jaqen count as the one and only shadows card to come out during the phase. Basically is the rule of one inclusive or exclusive?

You get one opportunity to put a card into play from Shadows at the beginning of each phase. You can either use this opportunity right then or let it past. For most Shadows cards, this is the only way to come out of Shadows. However, there are no restrictions on how many cards you can bring out of Shadows through other effects.

Therefore I could bring two cards out of shadows during the same phase, granted I am using jaqen or some other card with a similar mid phase unmasking text? If yes, stomp your foot once, no stomp two times.

Hah, I'll stomp once then. The card other than Jaqen doesn't need any special ability though. You could bring out a card from Shadows normally at the beginning of the phase and then bring Jaqen out later with his ability. Of course, it is also legal to bring two cards out of Shadows through other abilities if they have them.

Hmmmmm, I likey. It seems that shadows is a very interesting mechanic indeed.

There is no limit to the number of cards you can bring out of Shadows is any given phase. There is, however, a limit of one (1) Shadow card that you can bring out of Shadows at the beginning of any given phase using the game's standard framework opportunity to bring cards out of Shadows. But if you have card effects that bring cards out of Shadows (like Jaqen, Guardian Wolf, etc.), there is nothing stopping you from using a ton of those.

It's no different than the fact that there is no limit to the number of military challenges you can initiate in a challenge phase. There is, however, a limit of one (1) military challenge that you can initiate each challenge phase using the game's standard framework opportunity. But if you have card effects that allow you to initiate military challenges, there is nothing stopping you from using a ton of those.

ktom said:

Yeah, this was also my logic, but I have played other CCGs in my time and there are many things that can be clarified earlier on so as to save me from tournament embarrassment.

As the topic is on Jaqen i have an interesting question (to me at least).

Let us say that my Robb stark meets an unfortunate end and Jaqen steals him from the dead pile as a dupe.

Reading Jaqen it says
"choose 1 non-Army character in an opponent's dead pile that was killed this phase, and attach it to Jaqen H'ghar as a duplicate"

Now i cant imagine that it works like this BUT with the character no longer in my dead pile (as its sitting as a dupe) if i have my own dupe in hand there appear to be no restrictions on me playing it out of my hand as a new active character. Likewise should the dupe attached to Jaqen be removed via claim as a dupe it should return to its owners discard pile (as any dupe is when triggered for save, afaik) allowing me to play out another copy of said character if i draw one.

I imagine there is some glaring fact im overlooking but its just a curiosity on the mechanics of his ability.

Underworld40k said:

Nope, that's how it works. Flavor-wise it doesn't make too much sense, but the wording of the effect would have to get really complicated to avoid letting the player play another copy of a dead unique. So you can look at it as a negative side-effect of Jaqen that he lets your opponent play more copies of unique characters.

Underworld40k said:

That's exactly how it works, actually. Jaqen not only has a very conditional ability that does not even allow you to trigger self-refential abilities of any character you might be able to copy, it also potentially helps your opponent bring a dead card into play. And you pay 4 gold for the privilege. *sigh*

Wow, that seems pretty bad. My assumption would be that the attached character is at least returned to the dead pile and that anything else was wishful thinking on my part.

My brother will not be happy when he finds this out

Jaqen is a really cool looking, thematic card that is very, very hard to play effectively (and efficiently).

Underworld40k said:

Yeah, I could understand the dead to discard pile thing if Jaqen could return any character in the dead pile because then he could just keep bouncing out of Shadows and copying the same thing, but the wording about the character needing to be killed prevents that. Perhaps FFG wanted to avoid any confusion over the character attached to Jaqen being put back into the dead pile as Jaqen was put into Shadows again....