Hi everyone!

After seeing the Shifting Sands story cards I had a very nice idea on how to (ab)use Twila Katherine Price's ability.

Since it seemed too cool to be true I forwarded my question to Damon. Here it is:

What happens if I use the Action of 'Twila Katherine Price, Lost in
a Dream' (Dreamlands - Twilight Horror F3) when she is committed to
'The Seventh Gate (Acient Relics - The Shifting Sands F12)'?

Here's the text of her Action:
" Action : Exhaust Twila Katherine Price and pay 2 to resolve the
effect of the story card to which Twila Katherine Price is committed ."

And here's the Story Card's effect:
" Search the story deck and choose 1 story card.
Resolve that story's effect and then place into your won pile. Then
shuffle The Seventh Gate into the story deck ."

As written, it appears that I get to place a story of my choice
(from the story deck) into my won pile (in addition to resolving its
effect).

I've already received a reply, but I thought it might be fun trying to figure out if it works for yourself (and if it doesn't, why?)!

Cheers!

P.S.: Maybe someone sees another fun way to use her ability with one of the new story cards?

Not so fun as winning by the face, but she can be a searcher for support cards as Seven hundred steps, or Things of the Ground (the Heirloom), can stall your opponent's victory reassigning one and another time their success tokens, with more fun if there is a Conspiration in play (The Opened Door), to change your hand if you dont like (Congress of the Keys), or to desperate you opponent resolving the Village of Ash.

jhaelen said:

Seems to work to me. Part of the effect says to place it on your won story pile so... ya.

Probably wasn't the intent, but... seems fine to me. Unless D wants to impose some sort of replace only effect or you can't claim a story unless you actually win it kinda thing. Not sure if we have that or not, but just reading the cards I would assume that it works.

Challenge Accepted!

I don't see anything preventing her from necessarily triggering and using The Seventh Gate, but even if they are in your "won story pile" you did not win them and the rule book says that the game is over when you win three story cards. Seems weird to essentially be removing story cards from the story deck and not replacing them with anything. hrm.

Penfold said:

Let's see what the FAQ has to say about this issue:

(v1.0) Story Totals
A player has achieved victory if he has
three or more story cards in his “won”
story card pile.
If any card effect shuffles a won story
card back into the story deck, that player
no longer has that story for the purposes
of counting his victory total.

Does the FAQ override the rulebook if they include conflicting statements?

Because the FAQ doesn't mention, that I need to actually have won the story cards in my "won story pile" to achieve victory...

It does add an interesting rule that fixes the problem of effects that cause you to shuffle won story cards back into the story deck. If it wasn't there, counting 'won' story cards wouldn't be affected by shuffling them back into the story deck

So what did Damon say?

Penfold said:

But the FAQ 1.5 says

Story Totals

A player has achieved victory if he has three or more story cards in his "won" story card pile.

I think this was added because stories like Dreamwalkers can remove story cards from your "won" pile, so you might need to win 4 stories to have 3 story cards in your "won" pile.

Never mind - already addressed. If I knew how to edit my posts I would have removed the previous one.

Penfold said:

Story cards cannot leave play nor enter your won story pile unless
they are won. This enforces the statement from the Core Set Rules of
Play pg. 4, "When a player wins three story cards, that player wins
the game." Twila Katherine Price used on The Seventh Gate would
otherwise be able to create a situation where you have story cards in
your won pile which could not count towards your victory condition
since you had not won them.

As such Twila Katherine Price cannot trigger The Seventh Gate.

But... but... How would you execute the story's ability if you won it in a traditional manner? It tells you to put a story card in your won pile that you didn't win!?

And what does the FAQ mean? Is it incorrect??

jhaelen said:

....HEADASPLODE!

X_X

Ruled for intent!

Sure - intent is the purpose, but this could be addressed by wording like "If you won this story card..." just to clarify that Twyla won't set it off.

His ruling basically overrides the FAQ which was put in to address The Well and cards like that. If we go back to the original rules (how many cards did you win, as opposed to how many are in your won pile), then cards like The Well don't do anything.

Let me qualify my previous statement. I like that an intent bandage was applied until the rules around this interaction could be fixed in the next FAQ. This sort of tactic might not work so well with MtG but since CoC is such a casual game environment it helps to keep it user friendly by ruling, "No you cannot do this becasue [insert temporary fix reason here]."

jhaelen said:

I do not like this ruling. If we are to say that stories cannot be placed into the won story pile unless won, it makes The Seventh Gate useless. It's own effect tries to put a story that has not been won into your won story pile. If we were to follow the ruling it would fail to do so and never resolve. As such I would like to see a more thorough clarification on this ruling.

Tokhuah said:

I didn't inquire further since what I mainly wanted to know was indeed if it was intended to work. However, I agree with my previous posters, that either the FAQ or the card next needs to be changed to make sure all past and present cards affecting story totals work as intended again.

Since part of the fun in playing an LCG is finding interesting new combos and cards are often intentionally designed to be part of (non-obvious) combos it's more difficult to tell what the intentions were than in other game types.

If the response had been positive, I'd immediately started creating a Miskatonic deck centered around story manipulation for the next tournament I'll participate in. Although I doubt it would have had the potential for a true winner deck, if I had managed to pull this stunt off in one or two games, I'd already been quite satisfied.

Damon has said he was looking to update the FAQ. If I had to guess this may be something he is planning on (or already has?) changing.