In a recent game, the Targaryen player used Astapor to power up one of his Dragons. The Stark player responded by kneeling an influence to move Freezing Rain onto Astapor. An argument then ensued. The Targ player said that the power-up effect was already on his dragon and couldn't be removed. The Stark player said that the power-up effect, though on the dragon, only existed because it was defined by Astapor, which was now blanked and therefore void.
Who would be correct in this?
The Targ player was totally right. Astapor created a lasting effect on the dragon, which doesn't go off until the end of the round.
eloooooooi said:
The Targ player was totally right. Astapor created a lasting effect on the dragon, which doesn't go off until the end of the round.
End of the phase, as Astapor states.
To clarify, whenever a card gains something from another card's triggered effect, it gains it for as long as the card granting the effect states, regardless of what happens to the effect-granting card. It could die, be discarded, returned to hand or blanked, and still the card that gained the ability would retain its modification. This is because the triggered effect resolves in step 3 of the action window and becomes a fact of the game, no longer conditional on anything.
However, if a card grants a lasting effect through a passive, like, say, Euron Crows Eye's stealth-granting ability, then blanking Euron would immediately remove stealth from the characters who had previously gained it. This is because the granting of the stealth does not occur at any one interval (as triggered effects do), but rather it is constantly being checked and re-evaluated based on the current game-state.
Circadia said:
However, if a card grants a lasting effect through a passive, like, say, Euron Crows Eye's stealth-granting ability, then blanking Euron would immediately remove stealth from the characters who had previously gained it.
This is correct, just one minor nitpick concerning the teminology. The above is correct because Euron's effect is not a passive, it's a constant effect.
Note also that your Stark player could not "Respond" by triggering the "Any Phase" action of Freezing Rain, but that's beside the point here.
If your Stark player has trouble accepting this answer, ask him to suppose that the exact words of Astapor were on an event card, which the Targ player used, then put in the discard pile. Would doing anything to that event card change the effect on the Dragon? Of course not, because once the "until the end of the phase" triggered effect resolved, the only thing that can stop it is the end of the phase - or the Dragon leaving play. The "fate" of the original triggered effect card doesn't matter.
Effectively, you cannot retroactively undo anything that has been triggered in this game. You can only stop continuous things from continuing to apply.