Svenn said:

This would be true if the effects actually conflicted, but if you follow the steps I outlined in the thread above you will see thatthey don't so its not the same situation. and you still haven't shown me where it says that you can't resolve an effect on a card no longer in play. Let me describe the situation like this:

If Legolas shoots an arrow from his bow, and is then immediately killed, what happens to the arrow? does it continue on its path and hit its target or does it simply vanish from existence?

My argument is that it continues, yours is that it vanishes. I'm happy to concede to your point of view with all humility if you can show me but so far I'm not convinced

silverhand77 said:

You did NOT just take a real life example of Physics to support your card-game-rules argument, did you?

Please say it ain't so.

I'm out. Thank you for playing.

/wolf

The problem is that there is no real stack or queue or anything of that sort. You are still resolving effects one at a time.

So you resolve the When Revealed first. That gets canceled and the card is discarded. The Surge/Doomed effects have not happened yet, so when you proceed to the next thing (Surge/Doomed) they don't exist anymore. The card is gone.

I understand what you are saying, but nothing in the rules supports the fact that effects can trigger after their card is discarded. Since there is no stack for the effects to go on, they resolve in turn. If a card is discarded, nothing in the rules supports resolving additional effects from that card afterwards.

Svenn said:

This. 100% this.

Yup. All evidence points to this as the correct way to play. Elanor just got better (well she always was, I was just handicapping her)

Well, guess we were wrong. Although, he doesn't mention the discard part...

"If the surge or doomed are printed on the card as a keyword, they are still resolved. (Eleanor only cancels the When Revealed effects.)

If the When Revealed effect would cause the card to gain surge or doomed, and the When Revealed effect is canceled, the surge or doomed is not gained.

Nate French
Senior Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games"

Svenn said:

That's how I figured it was. See, this game is supposed to be punching us repeatedly in the face. Whenever we come to a conclusion that is favorable for us, instead of the game...we're probably wrong. Just assume the worst scenario happens when we question this stuff. Take the punches. I'm going to buy one of those mouth guards that athletes use.

Treachery cards! *shakes angry fist*

Marlow said:

is this an email that Nate sent or something like that?

Svenn said:

The game has a stack-like mechanic. If you have multiple effects simultaneously triggering and resolving and the rules and FAQ indicate a sequence like they do for surge (resolves after when revealed) or Thalin (resolves before keyword or when revealed), then you have a stack. it may not be as well defined as the one in Magic The Gathering for example, but it still exists. Also we need to be more clear, we are not just resolving effects, we are triggering them first. An effect can't be resolved unless it has been triggered first. You seem to be of the belief that not only does surge resolve after the when revealed effect, but it also triggers after it too. The question is when is it triggered and if the card is discarded, does it still resolve? You say that nothing in the rules supports this, I'm saying that nothing in the rules says its wrong either. which is why we need clarification

The defining characteristic of a stack is LIFO. If it isn't "Last in First Out", then you don't have a stack. Lord of the Rings has no stack.

We really have to be careful not to use Magic TG assumptions/rules when playing this game. As a Magic TG player, I realized that whenever LoTR does not explicitly mention a rule, I tend to use Magic rules to fill in the gaps, which is wrong. LoTR is not Magic, there is no stack in the game.

If something triggers and it leaves play (except Treachery and Event cards) before it resolves, then I do not resolve the trigger, unless the card or rule specifically says so. Page 25 or the rulebook says "Card effects do not interact with cards in an out of play state unless the effect specifically refers to that state."

As for "Eleanor vs Surge and Doomed", I think Eleanor's ability does not apply to Surge or Doomed because Eleanor's ability specifically apply to "When revealed" effects of a treachery card. On page 23 of rulebook, under Card Effects, it says card effects fall into one of the 6 categories (for quest and encounter decks): constant effects, forced effects, when revealed effects, shadow effects, travel effects, and keywords. Eleanor's ability refers to the "when revealed" effect category and not the Keyword category (Surge or Doomed).

Bohemond said:

A little bit more clarification from Nate:

"Yes, Doomed an Surge do still resolve in this situation.

Treachery cards generally do not "enter play," so the card being discarded is irrelevant w/r/t what is or isn't canceled. Doomed and Surge both initiate if the card is revealed from the encounter deck. Eleanor cancels the "When Revealed" effects of a card, but not the keywords.

Nate French
Senior Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games"

Again I think Nate is off the track.

Primaryily because there are a number of falacies in this text that seem to indicat that Nate is not aware of current FAQ entries.

"(1.01) Encounter Keywords
Surge, Doomed, and Guarded keywords should be resolved any time the card on which they occur enters play , including during setup."

If as Nate says Treachery Cards do not Enter Play.... why is this FAQ even written?

He also makes no metion about the fact tha Eleanor not only instructs you to cancel a When Revealed effect, but also instructs you to discard the card and replace it.

"Response: Exhaust Eleanor to cancel the "when revealed" effects of a treachery card just revealed by the encounter deck. Then, discard that card, and replace it with the next card from the encounter deck. "

I'll be honest guys... as long as Nate continues to ruin this game for me, making things a lot more complicated than they have to be and generally contributing to my feeling that FFG cannot maintain a proper FAQ in a way that keeps everything alligned, I will continue to ignore him.

I know how to play my game, you decide how to play yours .

Oh and the next FAQ SHOULD say:

"(1.02) Simultaneous Effect Timing
If two or more conflicting effects would occur simultaneously, Nate decides the order in which the effects resolve."

So sick of this....

/wolf

Well, Nate wrote the FAQ, so...

1.01 was written because it represents a change from the printed rules. As written, Surge, etc., resolve when a card is "revealed". 1.01 changes that to "any time".

If you want to invent your own rules and play however you want at home, that's fine. Some of us are looking forward to organized play and would like to play the game as intended, and the same as everyone else.

The next update to the FAQ will be released soon, most likely. I can't believe you're gonna whine about the fact that we have a direct line to the game designer and can get these questions answered before the FAQ is released. Your comments are the kinds of things that might make the people at FFG quit responding to rules questions.

Also: what "falacies" do you see? I do not think that means what you think it means.

I agree we need a more detailed timing chart. But snarking at Nate isn't the way to get it.

radiskull said:

I missed an L in the spelling but other than that I know exactly what it means. (Or think I do)

A fallacy is usually incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption.

I think the response above is ripe with it.

Snarky... hell yes. Does it help me or anyone else that I do so? Nope. Not one bit. But I react when I think something will ruin my fun. I've been here before on FFG game Forums, and it has cause me to quit playing quite a few of their titles. It's not only Nate.

But I'm done talking here. Since I have little but anger to share over stuff like this.

/wolf

The second response was a direct response to my asking specifically about the discard effect. I sent a second email to him explaining that this was a question of the card being discarded before the effect occurs... and that was his response. Note that he does specifically mention the discard.

I'm with radiskull here. Having a direct line to the designer is awesome. Honestly, most of the questions and complications I've had have come from the forums where people try and pull things out of the rules that just aren't there.

If you really have a problem with Nate's answers though, you could always message him asking for further explanations and state your case.

So what is his take on Thalin vs. Crows then? I don't get it... It's like they do a full 180 here.

"Yeah sure Thalin kills the Crows before the Surge resolves.... (long paus for a few weeks just to give everyone a chanse to play it the wrong way) ...But then the surge resolves anyway! Hahaha!"

To me this is the exact same thing. As the example discussed in this thread.

1. One effect causes a card to be discarded/defeated.

2. The card to be discarded includes other effects that trigger at the same time as the effect causing the discard.

3. The resulting timing conflict could then be resolved by First Player, normally resulting in Favour of the players.

This to me is Crystal Clear.

Anything else is just making stuff up and introducing new rules that is nowhere in the game to begin with.
(Such as event-stacking etc discussed in this thread.)

/wolf

ADDED: And I don't want to communicate with Nate because I see little point in doing so. I understand his answer perfectly, it makes me mad, and raises tons of more questions for me, and I also forsee an FAQ that will soon be thicker than the rules themselves... I know where he is leading us, I'm just very , very disapointed with the destination and I don't think I want to follow. But him being the designer what chances do I have to make him change his mind? None. Or close to none. So what's the point in trying. I'll just disagree and be mad about it. Writing to him directly would probably just make us disagree more.

As I said previously, Thalin's ability is constantly in effect while he is committed. It's not a response like Eleanor's ability. This is the key, I believe, as to why each situation is handled differently. Thalin kills the Crows before Surge can happen, Eleanor can't respond before Surge can happen. Tiny window.

Think of Eleanor's ability as reversing a "When Revealed" effect. You read it, it's happening, then you respond "I don't think so, undo that garbage!" Surge and Doomed already did their thing.

Crows don't even get to flap their wings before Thalin kills them with mind bullets.

The Official FAQ already changed how keywords like Doomed and Surge resolves. In the Core Set rulebook (p 24) Surge resolves after When Revealed effects. The official FAQ (p2,, 1.01) changed that. It says Surge, Doomed, Guarded keywords should be resolved any time the card on which they occur enters play. I interpret the "any time" to mean it must resolve, not that "first player can choose when it resolves like after When revealed resolves". So since surge and doomed appears before the "When REvealed", I think it also resolves before the When revealed. Then Eleanor can cancel the when revealed and replace it with another card. Pretty consistent with Nate's answer. Makes game harder? Yes. Tough luck. But then again, nobody wants an easy game, right?

ppsantos said:

The official FAQ only clarified Surge and Doomed, therefore both what is said in the rule book and the FAQ should still be accurate - therefore Surge should still occur after when revealed.

I agree that making surge and doomed occur before when revealed is another clean solution and consistent with Nate's answer, but that isn't what the FAQ says to do, and I think that is where the frustration is coming from - the ruling now seems to be at odds, or at least makes previous rulings/FAQ pretty messy.

I'll now play the way Nate has described, which now means I probably won't get much use out of GhostWolf69's funky sequence chart that I've only just got my hands on, because that has surge occurring after when revealed ancd based on his posts I doubt he is about to change it!

pumpkin said:

You got that right.

And no, I don't mind making the Game harder to succeed at. Not at all. I like hard.

What I do mind is making the game difficult (harder) to explain and understand. That I mind very much.

I can just see myself trying to explain these things to my wife... *shivers*

/wolf

so the resulting question is: do I trigger surge FIRST and THEN put another card instead of the discarded one because Eleanor says so - or do I FIRST put in the other card via Eleanor and THEN trigger surge???

Vyron said:

The better question is... does it matter?

Svenn said:

If you read the steps I outilined previously on this thread, it shows you the sequence of events.