Have moved this into a separate thread:

I understand that the Greatswords ability is triggered by themselves entering their zone when they are played from hand, but actually I am not clear how exactly that works. Can someone explain how this exactly results from the game rules and mechanisms?

When Greatswords are played as an action during the Capital phase the "Play Card" action is put on the stack and assuming the opponent does not play any action the "Play Card" action resolves. During resolution, Greatswords is neither in play nor out of play. Once the action has resolved, Greatswords enter play (and their zone).

Now, I think put aside some specific cards & their actions, only cards in play can have their actions or effects triggered. So the Greatswords action can only be triggered once it has completed entering play, in which case I assume thatr the previous action "Play Card" has been fully resolved. From that point in time Greatswords would monitor if any units enter its zone, why does it then still find itself as entering the zone?

This has confused me in the past too. As far as I can tell it is because the Greatswords says "After a unit has entered this zone..." I guess technically once the Greatswords is played it counts as being "After a unit has entered the zone". You aren't really playing that action in response to anything, it just happens when units enter the zone.

Exact wording off the DeckBox unofficial rules (that I pretty much treat as official):

Q. Does The Greatswords give itself +1 Power when it enters play?
A. Yes. Nate's ruling and (FAQ v1.4 - Entering Play)

Q. Wait, what? How can it trigger its own ability when its not in play yet?
A. First, The Greatswords enters play. Once it enters play, it checks for any effects that trigger when a card enters play. It finds its own effect (and possibly others) and then those card effects initiate and resolve.

So, ya, you could think about it as when the Greatswords is played it creates a forced effect which then applies to all cards "after" they enter the zone, which the Greatswords just did.

HappyDD, you cracked it for me! I had better remember to take a card's meaning literal in most cases. Since it says 'after', not 'when' I understand now that Greatswords would indeed find its trigger condition being met by itself having just entered the zone. Very good explanantion, thanks!

tako said:

Sorry to make this confusing for you again, but all cards that say "Action: After ..." really say "Action: When ..." That was a FAQ v1.0 errata I think.

Maybe this will help clear it up. Many units have an effect that reads "When this unit comes into play, do X" How do those effects work if the card is not already in play, waiting for something to trigger the effect? Basically, the game doesn't check for those effects until after the unit enters play. Greatswords are only different in that they say "enters zone" instead of "enters play", but a unit entering play also enters that zone simultaneously.

Entropy, this is a good point. I guess the way to read it is that the entering of Greatswords into play coincides with the entering of a unit (i.e. itself) that is the trigger for Greatswords. Thus is can be the trigger for its own action at the point when it enters.