Hi all,

I have a question in mind about the word "then"

Do I need to fulfill the "then" word to fulfilled the effect?

E.g. If I have: "The Laughing Storm" in play and I played "Threat from the East" Plot.

Can I still draw 3 cards and not suffer the discard 3 cards?

Text for:

The Laughing Storm (Character): While The Laughing Storm is standing, cards cannot be discarded from your hand.

Threat From The East (Plot): When Revealed, you choose one:

Each player draws 3 cards and then discards 3 random cards from hand.

Each player discards 3 random cards from hand and then draw 3 cards.

The "then" part of an effect only executes if the previous part of the effect resolved succesfully. So if you choose the option to discard cards first, then draw, you would not be able to draw because The Laughing Storm prevented you from successfully discarded cards from your hand. If you choose draw first, then discard, you can draw the cards. If you've successfully drawn 3 cards (if the draw cap or some other effect did not prevent you from doing so), the second part of the effect would kick in. But The Laughing Storm prevents you from discard cards, so you get to keep all the cards in hand.

Thanks alot!!

That will answer alot of the then cards in mind.

All you need to remember is this: The "then" part only occurs if the previous part was successful. The first part, however, resolves regardless of whether the "then" part is going to resolve successfully or not.

So if one player had only 2 cards in his/her hand, and the second option is selected, he/she would not be able to draw 3 cards since there were not 3 cards discarded?

nikotina said:

Yes, but do keep in mind that he will still have to discard the 2 cards, since the first part triggers no matter what (unless cancelled, of course).

nikotina said:

First, as mentioned above, the part before the "then" must be completely successful before the part after the "then" is allowed to happen. So if you are supposed to discard 3 cards, "then" draw 3, if you do not discard 3 cards, the part before the "then" is not successful - and so you don't get to draw.

The second rule to keep in mind is that if you are unable to complete an effect, you must complete as much of it as possible. For example, if you had already drawn 2 cards in a round and then triggered an effect that said "draw 2 cards," you would be unable to do so because the draw cap would prevent you from getting more than 1 card. But you still resolve as much of the "draw 2 cards" effect as you can - getting the 1 card you can before hitting the draw cap. Same thing here with Threat from the East. If you only have 2 cards in hand, you would still have to discard as many as you could until you got to the 3 demanded by the plot effect.

So a player with 2 cards in hand when Threat from the East is revealed and the "discard, then draw" effect is chosen cannot say "I don't have 3 cards to discard, so I don't lose any."

If the effect said "discard 3 cards from your hand at random if able, then draw 3 cards," the part before the "then" would be considered successful, even with fewer than 3 cards in hand to discard.

Notice also that this logic applies to the "draw, then discard" choice too, but it is not very often that people have fewer than 3 cards left in their deck to draw.

Just to check one other situation that wasn't spelled out explicitly above.... if I somehow draw one card before revealing this plot and then I chose the draw first option, I would only be able to draw two cards because of the draw cap and so would not have to discard?

schrecklich said:

So...this part:

ktom said:

was the part that said if you do not draw the full 3 cards, the "pre-then" part is not considered successful and there is thus no "post-then" discard. I'm sorry that the "fewer than 3 cards left in their deck to draw" part made it seem like physical cards - as opposed to draw cap or some other effect - was the only way you could draw fewer than 3 cards here.

ktom said:

Thanks, ktom. I was pretty sure that was the case, but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't some special exception by which cards not drawn due to the draw cap were still considered drawn for the purpose of resolving other effects.