FATMOUSE said:

The first part before the then is to "bring Meera Reed out of shadows and into play by paying the rest of her gold cast." Since she is Meera Reed in shadows, you can do this. If not, the card is locked in shadows. But, I think "bring Meera Reed out of shadows" does happen.

Now we move to the then: "Then choose 1 non-plot... etc." It doesn't specify "Meera Reed" there, so it doesn't matter what the card comes out as.

OrangeDragon said:

Read what I wrote, and perhaps more importantly, look specifically at what the FAQ and rules says about duplicates and "then" effects. I would regurgitate/quote them when I allude to them (same for card text), but all that information is publicly and readily available (heck, I have everything in my signature box!)

Anyway, the "then" effect doesn't have to specify Meera Reed. It's already predicated on the fact that "Meera Reed" has to come out of the Shadows. "Bring Meera Reed out of Shadows....Then..."

If you don't bring "Meera Reed" (and I put this in quotes because a card with the title Meera Reed must be brought out) out of Shadows, you can't complete the "then" effect. Do X then Y. If X doesn't happen, neither does Y. This is all in the FAQ and can be easily found via a "Ctrl + F" search. So yes, Meera Reed is Meera Reed while in Shadows (allowing you to trigger her ability), but when she's actually brought out, she's brought out as a duplicate. This is again, due to the duplicate rules -- both general and Shadows. Furthermore (and again), duplicates don't have titles (see duplicate rules). Therefore, when the "then" effect checks if X happened, it sees that a titleless duplicate, not "Meera Reed," came out of Shadows. X didn't happen, so Y doesn't happen.

I can't make the explanation any simpler. If people want to insinuate non-existent special timing structures, not follow the sequence of logic in the rules and then examine said rules, simply don't trust me, or whatever -- contact Nate for an official ruling.*

*This isn't targeted at anyone in particular, nor am I saying this as a form of criticism or to be negative. There's simply nothing more for me to say without repeating myself or going line by line quoting the rules and FAQ -- while repeating myself -- and I'm not going to do that . Also, if anyone wants a ruling from Nate. Contact Nate. Don't wait for someone else to do it.

EDIT: ~My mortal analysis is supported by the demi-god himself . Reply #50

I'm sorry guys, I haven't had time to read your posts yet. Please don't take this as disrespect to your well thought out arguments, but we're about to leave to visit my mother-in-law, I'm supposed to get the baby ready, and I'm in clear and present danger of being told off by the wife if she catches me at the computer. So, without looking at any intricacies, it really comes down to this:

The pre-Then part of the effect must resolve fully and completely for the post-Then part to resolve. But in the case we're discussing, Meera never came out of Shadows, a titleless duplicate did. Ergo the pre-Then part didn't resolve fully and completely, ergo the post-Then part doesn't resolve. That's really all there is to it. This is the difference to the Fortified Position situation (which I also thought set a precedence for the duplicate thing, at first).

Sorry if this post is redundant. Gotta run!

Ok, Fatmouse, I get everything you're saying post "Meera becomes a titleless duplicate." My problem is actually a sticking point prior to that, and if I'm reading Ratatoskr's post correctly, it's the same issue he has:

Meera's ability specifically refers to paying in order to bring a card titled "Meera Reed" out of shadows. This is different from most shadows cards using their intrinsic ability, which does not name the card by titles. If "Meera Reed" never comes out of shadows, as per your assertion, it would seem that her ability fizzles from the get go, and she shouldn't be able to leave shadows to begin with.

Kennon said:

There are several things that can prevent you from triggering an effect:

• a specific interdiction to trigger effects (Brienne PotS)
• inability to pay the cost
• inability to choose targets
• the rules about bringing duplicates out of shadows (ownership and control, copy in the dead pile)

Nothing prevents you from triggering an effect that will fail (standing an already standing character, putting into play a duplicate instead of a "normal" card - I'm thinking about Catelyn and Drogo as well as Meera). Assuming you can trigger effects at that point and can pay the gold, nothing prevents you from using Meera's ability (since the pre-then part has no target). If the Meera you bring out of shadows ends up as a duplicate, the pre-then effect has simply failed, which only prevents you from using the then effect, not triggering the effect in the first place.

Khudzlin said:

Kennon's point was the one I was trying to make [FATMOUSE: my edit wasn't quick enough]. This is the key meta-rule that I was missing, and the aspect of AGOT that I dislike: being able to do something you can't do; it defies logic.

Anyway, thanks all. I'm learning more and more not to use logic to answer these kinds of questions.

Or kneeling a fiefdom and never marshalling a card

Khudzlin has the right of it.

Although worded differently, Meera's ability is the equivalent of, "Any Phase: Pay 1 gold to bring Meera Reed out of Shadows. Then..."

In AGoT, all you need to trigger an effect is to meet the play restrictions, pay all costs, and choose all necessary targets (See FAQ). You do not need to examine whether or not the effect will resolve. This might seem unintuitive, but there are reasons (other than "because those are the rules!") this is the case.*

To be completely thorough however, Meera Reed is in fact, the card Meera Reed while in Shadows. She becomes a blank duplicate when she leaves Shadows. Were this not the case, then a card like Darkstar could not duplicate a copy of Darkstar when discarded from hand. Reason being, that the card discarded from hand would not be Darkstar, but a blank? card. I don't know, it's an incorrect, made-up rule. The fact is that Darkstar is Darkstar when in your hand, just like Meera Reed is Meera Reed while in Shadows. When they come into play with a copy already in play, whether through "conventional" means or "unconventional" abilities, they do so as duplicates as dictated by the rules of the game.

As a general comment:

After several years of sifting probably a bit too closely through the game's rules, I've found that "intuition" is almost always the assertion of one's own rules rather than the application of the rules listed in the game. A person's rules (or intuition) might be smarter/better for the game, more concise, easier to explain, etc. but that doesn't make it a rule. The only sure way to clarify a "tricky" or any ruling is to assume nothing** and at look at all the rules in the game. Is this an easy task? No. Well maybe it is, but it seems like one that very few people enjoy or have the patience for. It's a task that not even design is 100% privy too. Otherwise cards like Jaqen H'ghar would probably gain titles and Meera Reed would cost an additional gold to trigger her ability when run OOH and simply blank "cards in play" instead of "non-plot cards" (plots can't targeted ala the rules). Or take the fact that for years we've played that card can be saved from "then" effects, when there was no actual written rule or explicit timing structure allowing for it! But I'm digressing, my point is when making a ruling or arguing against a specific one, don't ask, "Shouldn't Y happen instead of X because of this example, because this makes more sense, etc.?" Say, "Y happens instead of X because the rules say..." You might be misapplying those rules or forgetting to incorporate other relevant ones, but by always using the rules as a basis in your argument it's less likely that false rules or "intuitions" will enter the mix. It also makes sure you're focusing on the crux of what's at hand -- the rules of the game. If you don't have a specific rule or rules to back up what you're saying 1) there's a very good chance you're wrong 2) you should look up the actual rules to be sure you're right or, better yet, not wrong.

*Take for instance cancels. Meera's ability can be canceled just like any other triggered effect (except for those that can't be canceled ). So do we know with 100% certainty that her effect will be able to resolve? No, we don't. Everything may look peachy, until you're opponent plays a cancel from hand. Clearly, we shouldn't be able to trigger effects then unless all opponents have no cards in hand. But wait -- what if you have a cards in hand and could therefore potentially cancel the effect? Maybe no players should have cards in hand in order to trigger effects; ensuring a triggered effect will resolve! (Cancels can come from other places as well, such as from cards in play, but you get where I'm going with this.)

** Assuming your intuition, initial thoughts, etc. are wrong is probably very one good thing to assume. It'll motivate you to find specific rules relevant to the situation (aka get evidence) to support or deny your claim.

You guys can keep fighting about this all you want.

But prior to Days of Ice and Fire, I asked Nate French how this would work.

He stated that triggering Meera's ability while she is in shadows will cause the entirety of the ability to resolve regardless of the whether Meera is already in play or not. I suggest sending your emails to him if you want to argue about it.

Khudzlin said:

Sorry, I cut out all of the surrounding text and the rest of this sentence because the rest of the context is regarding Meera. I wanted to draw attention to this, however, because we have long standing rulings that there are in fact instances when you cannot even trigger an effect that would fail.

Saves.

It's been ruled many years ago at this point that if a character has a terminal effect (generally due to -STR burn) that a save would not remove (ie. Any save that does not ALSO raise the character's strength) then you are not able to trigger the save to begin with because it would fail.

@Fatmouse, for ease of future understanding and clarity of rulings, would you agree that modifying duplicate rules so that duplicates kept their title, but were otherwise blank would fix some of these questions? If so, I'd sure suggest it to Damon for whenever the next FAQ rolls around.

If Meera can blank a second time from shadows (and attaching as a dupe) would dropping a dupe of CS Eddard into play gain him a power?

seewhatididthere?

Mathias Fricot said:

Nope, because the two things are completely different. Marshalling a duplicate is very different than triggering an effect.

Kennon said:

This is true, but notice how there is a specific rule that addresses and supports this. There's pretty much an exception to every rule...because of another rule, but it has to exist (or be created by the designers ) not simply "feel right." Only designers have the luxury of doing that and even then they have to be very careful because they'd be making up new -- and potentially game-changing -- rules.

Kennon said:

To bluntly put it -- no. Duplicates having no titles is pretty fundamental to the game. The rule is from the original Core Set (and I'm pretty sure it was part of much; if not all, of CCG) and important aspects of the game are predicated on the fact that duplicates are blank. Were duplicates to gain titles, they'd become unplayable due to only being allowed to control one copy of a unique titled card. You can change it, but often when changing or adding rules there are significant consequences.

I'm also not certain why this would "ease" the understanding and clarity of future rulings. It might sync with certain "intuitions," but as I mentioned earlier -- intuitions and rules don't' go hand in hand. So we have to rely solely on analyzing the rules at our disposal and put aside what we "feel" is right.

Right now there exists a framework that explains why and what happens to Meera Reed. If Nate wants to rule otherwise that's fine, but the rules/FAQ must be changed to properly reflect that ruling (akin to the TRV power issue around GenCon 2010 -- nothing in the rules/FAQ supported Nate's ruling and a FAQ update had to be made). I'll be contacting Nate about the issue today.

Dobbler said:

Lets not get to hasty here. The two things are not completely different. Duplicates are attached from your hand to the corresponding unique card you control. Meera Reed is coming out of shadows because of a triggered ability. However, for this comparison what matters is a card is entering play and being attached as a duplicate, not how it is happening (is Meera Reed still "Meera Reed" when she is brought out of shadows normally and attached as a duplicate? Or is it a "nameless, crestless, textless" duplicate?). Eddard Stark did not enter play no more than did Meera Reed. So the resolution of the "Then..." effect or Meera, or Eddard's passive ability, won't resolve because in either case the named character did not enter play. Nomsayin? Did Meera Reed come out of shadows? no. Did Eddard Stark enter play? no. His ability is not dependent on him being "marshalled." It would be the same thing if I Gates of Winterfelled a topdeck of Eddard into play as a duplicate. Nomsayin? cool dude bro.

Mathias Fricot said:

My argument here would be that you create a lasting effect when you trigger her ability to bring her out of shadows. It doesn't matter if she comes into play as a textless, titleless duplicate or not. The "then" part of the text is not dependent on putting Meera Reed in play, its dependant on successfully triggering the effect.

But I think those points are already being argued by others.

like Hera, we will await the judgement of Zeus

in the meantime, how good of a card is Vyman right now.

FATMOUSE said:

Emphasis mine

That seems, pardon me, counterintuitive. Clearly rules are never going to be perfectively intuitive... Life certainly isn't. But the more intuitive the better, right? (explaining to players with an M:tG background that FIFO can be just as straightforward as LIFO got tiresome) The truly bad situation is when a game is only intuitive part of the time. Then, well, intuition becomes that much more problematic. This is really only an issue at higher levels of play, and those of us doing so probably don't mind so much having to parse things when necessary, even if it involves changing the way we were building a deck, but it's nice for the n00bs that might be trying to figure things out at home with just an FAQ, or don't want to fear the (generally good natured) beasts in the jungle of the rules forum.

True Story: A one-time girlfriend who saw us playing a tournament asked, "I can't manage how you all play a game like this when you don't know the rules," after hearing people spout questions over the susurrus of ten simultaneous games being played.

Altering rules, whether it be by blanket errata, editing of the rule book, or ruling codified in the FAQ happens. If it takes something to clarify things for a couple cards then they probably should just have a ruling made that says, "[it Works Like This Because We Said So]." But if you look back to the early days of the game, there were certain major shifts, some were normal growing pains (move from 40 to 60 card decks, cut from "2 of" to "1 of" plots, and the draw cap) and others, Moribund, I'm looking at you, required a wholesale re-thinking of how some of the game mechanics worked. The best parallel I can offer would be how Knights of the Hollow Hill read as printed, i.e. some cards didn't work because the games rules didn't support them mechanically. It would have been nice if there had been time in the production schedule before the Base Sets release to evaluate the rules and straighten out some templating to make it a little more ironclad. (Heaven forbid we make a distinction in word choice between power challenge and power tokens, or claim value and claim power) The [i was tempted to say "our" or "their" but I'm trying to find something neutral] game has entered it's 10th(!) year, and if they need to take a little time for a more thorough evaluation of rules structure and the sometimes-rickety rules framework to clean things up, I'm all for it.

We're not dealing with constitutional law, and sometimes it's okay to upset the apple cart. If Gualdo's gonna call himself the Communist, I'll gladly be the AGOT anarchist. >

Maester_LUke said:

or neo-marxist. i heard they just hate the status quo

I tried to be the AGOT nihilist, but it was too exhausting.

Dobbler (or anyone who knows)- was the Meera-dupe triggering question ever officially answered?

If you could provide me with Nate's email I'll bother him for you

Alright. I have finally sent the question regarding a dupe of Meera coming out of Shadows to FFG:

"[...]If I have a copy of Meera in play, and I bring a second copy out of Shadows via her ability, will the effect resolve fully? To me, the answer m ust clearly be 'no', because for the post-Then portion (i.e. Meera's blanking effect) of an effect to resolve, the pre-Then portion (i.e. bringing Meera out of Shadows) must resolve completely and successfully. But as Duplicates are titleless, textless and traitless, Meera Reed wasn't brought out of Shadows - a titleless duplicate was. Ergo, the pre-Then portion of the effect has not resolved fully, ergo the post-Then part can't resolve, ergo no blanking.
[...]
Could you please clarify the issue? Thank you very much!"

I've received the following reply:

"Hi Helmut,

This interpretation is correct; only a duplicate was brought out of Shadows and the "then" effect does not resolve"

BOOM. Thanks for getting that ruling, Ratatoskr.