I was playing The Hunt For Gollum with Tragictheblathering and HilariousPete last night and we had an interesting conundrum. At the time the Eaves of Mirkwood was the active location and it says this: While The Eaves of Mirkwood is the active location, encounter card effects cannot be canceled.

What we debated was whether a Shadow card is considered to be an Encounter card and therefore can't be cancelled while Eaves is Active. I haven't as yet found anything in the rules or official FAQ that would indicate either way. Does anyone know if I missed something?

Cheers

ive alway read this as anything from the encounter deck is an encounter card, i.e. if a cards interacts with you (shadows cards also) then you have ENCOUNTERED it

In the rule book there seems to be a couple of important terms.

Encounter Deck

Encounter Card

Shadow Card

There are two main ways to think about these terms and I can't say the rules support either perfectly.

#1 - The Encounter Deck is made up of Encounter Cards which are sometimes used as Shadow Cards.

#2 - Both Encounter Cards and Shadow cards are drawn from the Encounter Deck as needed by the mechanics of the game.

I personally lean towards option #2 but there are sections of the rules that seem to support that theory and others that do not so not sure which way to go.

Wraith428

just another example of terrible rule definition from bad writing. The manual uses the term shadow card, shadow effect, encounter card, encounter deck and encounter effect... when dose what mean what?

Is a Shadow Effect, just a encounter card? then what the **** is a "shadow card"? Is that different to a "encounter card" but they all come from the "encounter deck"

******* retarded. People will most likely wax on about one way is correct or the other.. but the truth is like a lot of these problem there IS no correct answer. The rules have no definitive answers due to bad writing and it is just your own decision to play either way that is important..

Yet another thing that needs to be fixed b4 competitive play starts.. they keep talking about competitive events at FFG but how is this possible when people do not even know what the rules are? All those scores in Juices events and the quest log are ******* bull.

I think It is obvious to consider that SHADOW CARD is different from ENCOUNTER CARD.

The Eaves of Mirkwood description meen it can't cancel ENCOUNTER CARD efects that is played during Questing Phase, but all Shadow efects are from SHADOW CARDS and it is different.

Aluminium said:

i still hold that shadow cards are encounter cards.....if not then this card is considerable less powerful than i thought

richsabre said:

That meens we really have stupid description of the rules =))

Aluminium said:

well yes you are correct here...all it would have taken was one sentence saying ye or nay on whether they are encounter cards or not, i think nate needs contacted

Until I hear otherwise, I shall take it that we draw cards from the 'Encounter Deck'. During 'Questing' we draw them as 'Encounter Cards', but during 'Combat' we draw them as 'Shadow Cards'. There are 2 different types of card in the 'Encounter Deck' depending on what they were drawn for. Cheers!

Rashley said:

Same way/

Aluminium said:

It's not that easy ;-) I've been searching the rulebook right now, and I agree with booored. Just no clear ruling here.

Points for "shadow card is also an encounter card":

• Rules p. 3: The game component list in the upper left (with the dots) refers to quest cards, hero cards, player cards and encounter cards. Like an attachment card is also a player card, a shadow card is an encounter card.
• Shadow cards come from the encounter deck, therefor they are encounter cards, too.
• The intention of Eaves of Mirkwood is to be a place full of unexpected evil, from which there is no escape. Its intention is that neither when revealed effects, nor shadow effects can be canceled.

Points for "shadow cards are no encounter cards":

• Rules p. 6, upper left: encounter deck consists of enemy, location and treachery cards. No shadow cards are mentioned.
• Shadow cards are a means for establishing randomness in combat, and are a (much better) replacement for dice rolls or something. They are not inteded to be encounter cards.

Pasages not saying anything or indicating both at a time:

• Rules p. 20, lower left: "Whenever a card is discarded, it goes to the discard pile belonging to the card’s originating deck." If this would have been written as "each card goes to the discard pile determined by the card type", it would be clear that shadow cards are also encounter cards, too. But FFG uses "originating deck" which tells us nothing.
• FAQ 1.2 p. 6, right column, in the middle: Q: "What happens to Banks of the Anduin (CORE 113) if it is drawn as a Shadow card?" A: "... When a card is drawn as a Shadow card, only its Shadow text is considered to be active." So keywords, traits, escape values and non-shadow effects are blanked. What's with the title, what's with the card type? Can a card type be "inactive" at all?
• Rules p. 23, lower right about shadow effects: "Some of the cards in the encounter deck have a secondary effect ...". The "secondary effect" indicates that a shadow card is an encounter card secondarly. The fact that FFG has not written "Some of the encounter cards ..." could indicate that shadow cards are no encounter cards.

Don't get me wrong. I really love this game, and I regard it as much better, innovative, thematic and player friendly than all other card games I've been playing so far (MTG, SWCCG (from Decipher), MECCG, STCCG 1+2, X-Files CCG and perhaps some more). And I like the rules splitting idea (basics into rulebook for everyone, details in FAQ), too. But some things just need to be clarified more and put into the details section...

Has anyone submitted a rules question yet?

I did actually ask for a reference to a rule or official FAQ, But I don't think there is one so I will email Nate and see what he says...

I did actually ask for a reference to a rule or official FAQ, But I don't think there is one so I will email Nate and see what he says...

Personally I play it that this location is only stopping cancels of cards from during the questing phase... but you can make perfectly solid arguments either way.. in fact, each alternative posting in this thread I will argue the opposite position form last time.. .

Rashley said:

Yes, but all the cards come from a single deck.. the "encounter deck" the location dose not say anything about encounter effects, cards, or shadows.. it says.. coming off the "encounter deck". There is no mention about the cards themselves.

just wanted to bump this up, as no clear answer has came through..... has nate got back yet?

I also wonder if a Shadow Card is also considered an Encounter Card. I was playing solo on one of the Khazad quests and I used Thalin as one of my heroes. I quested with him one turn and when the combat phase started one of the shadow cards dealt was a Goblin Swordsman and it's shadow effect puts that little turd right into the staging area. So does Thalin deal 1 damage to that Goblin Swordsman?

My question and then Nate's response:

Q: Are shadow cards considered to be 'encounter cards' for purposes of things like The Eaves of Mirkwood?

A: "Shadow card effects" are a distinct category from "Encounter card effects." Eaves of Mirkwood does not protect Shadow effects.

Hope this helps! (I think it does.)

soullos said:

This doesn't require clarification, Thalin is only questing during the quest phase, not anymore during the combat phase.

"Characters committed to a quest are considered
committed to that quest through the end of the quest
phase" (p. 14)

we should start consolidating FFG responses in a single thread ....

booored said:

i agree....does anyone have a list of previous 'Nate's' Q & As out there?

richsabre said:

Including this one, I personally have three.

silverhand77 said:

maybe start a thread? thats if people (and you) want to do booreds idea

radiskull said:

radiskull said:

I think the way the answer is worded is a little abiguous where he says "Eaves of Mirkwood does not protect Shadow effects". But I think he's thinking about it from a story based perspective than a mechanic based one. I think its clear enough though

richsabre said:

I will, I have to go through me emails sto find them. I'll have to do it when I get back from work tonight

silverhand77 said:

nice one............