Hi there,

I stuck on few scenarious and would like to hear some clarification:

1. Opponent plays: Plague Bomb on my: Thief of Essence, some unit on Offering to Hekarti and Shades. I activate Action on Hekarti targeting Shades in response. We both pass. Now we resolve: Hekarti gives -1HP so Shades dies, now TRIGGERED action on Thief met its trigger - but because stack is resolving we cannot activate it and add to this stack (is this correct?). Bomb kills 3my units, so Thief is no longer in play(!). What happens next ? Can I activate triggered action from non-existent Thief card now creating another stack or not ? What is the ruling for triggered action, which met its trigger condition during some stack resolutions (so cannot be activated during that stack), and this unit dies before stack ends. Can we activate triggered action without source card being in play - there are two rules which say that card has to be in play prior action activation and that actions exist independently from its source ? How it is connected to triggered actions ? Is there distinction between meeting trigger condition, activating and triggering and paying cost of such actions ?

2. Dwarf Rangers have FOrced effect (so even stronger than above) what happens when they and few other Dwarf card are killed by for example Vomit ? DOes it trigger or not, when all units die simultanously?

3. THe same as above however units die in fight after applying damage - all Dwarf Rangers die - do they trigger ?

4. Thief dies, does it trigger its own action ?

5. What about Ungor Raiders (Glorious preceptor) in comparison to above examples and their action being played out of play ?

The most important is official ruling and explanation for the first question - this is connected to few parts of FAQ and wording that can be ambiguous ..

ppski said:

I think so, I'm pretty sure that your Thief action would have to be taken at the next available opportunity, which would be the next action window, but I could be wrong.

ppski said:

If one of the targeted units was indeed the Shades, then wouldn't Plague Bomb fizzle? I was of the understanding that Plague Bomb was an all or nothing card, now there is no legal target (a batch of three units) so the card doesn't go off. Let's pretend it did and your Shades weren't targeted.

ppski said:

I don't think so

The actions existing independent of the source means that they have to be executed, then something can happen to the source but the effect could still work. For example, the Thief wouldn't be able to work on itself, so it can't work while dead. The "Action", in my mind, is gone. I'm just saying how I'd play it, there may be some arcane reading of the particular cards in question that doesn't match my answer.

ppski said:

This is on the Deckbox rules summary , which also answers 3 and 4 and 5, if I interpret your questions correctly.

Bomb will not fizzle, because when activated all target were valid, meanwhile during resolution it will target as many as possible - it is inline with rules.

In terms of first question, I would like to hear official statement, if possible of course, that this triggered actions with met trigger after source dies, starts new chain or not - interpretation or official wording. Because I suspect that it should not be valid any more, however few sentences from FAQ are against this ...

2,3,4,5 - sorted out thx.

1. Yes, you can take the Thief action at the next opportunity. It has already triggered, it is just waiting to be put on the chain. (See B1 of the flowchart: Players take turns putting Triggered Actions that have met their trigger condition since the last Action Window on a chain... ) That Triggered Action is already "floating" out there, even though the unit is dead. You can choose to put it on the chain at the first opportunity, or you can pass on it and its gone.

1b. Plague Bomb doesn't fizzle. You resolve it as much as possible, and it is still possible to resolve the other 2 targets even if one dies. You just have to have 3 valid targets when you play it.

1c. The Thief doesn't trigger when he (or his friends who die simultaneously) leaves play. This is for the same reason that Dwarf Ranger doesn't trigger on himself leaving, or his buddies leaving during a Troll Vomit.

How it is connected to triggered actions ? Is there distinction between meeting trigger condition, activating and triggering and paying cost of such actions ?

Section B of the flowchart lays this out, unfortunately the sections on "Triggering a Card Effect" and "Trigger Conditions" are worded somewhat ambiguously. The best working definition I can give you is that a card effect is "triggered" when its trigger condition is met, it is "activated" when that action is put on the chain (or immediately if its a forced/constant), and you choose targets and pay costs once you elect to put the Triggered Action on the chain.

The Triggered Action rules are kind of ugly, but that is mostly due to some bad wording decisions made by the original designer of W:I. The original rules made many Triggered Actions unusable, and the current flowchart had to find a way of fixing them that didn't require errata for 100+ cards. Players just tried to do what made sense, and eventually we wrote up the flowchart in a way that reflected the most common/sensible way of resolving Actions that trigger outside an Action Window.

P.S. If you are looking for an official answer from an FFG employee, you will have to submit your question to Lukas (the current designer), as FFG employees do not post on these boards.

Many thanks Entropy.

To sum it up, you are saying that:

1. When triggered action meets its condition during stack creation it is added to the same stack which triggered it - that is what FAQ says quite clearly. No problem with sources dying, cost etc, it is on stack and is treated as simple action.

2. When Triggered actions meets its condition during stack resolution, it is triggered and ready to be executed, however it cannot be added to this stack during its resolutions. From now whatever happens to source of this action or other things, does not matter, this actions is still pending. When stack resolves complitely, we take all pending triggered actions and resolve them in turns, while each of them creates new stack to which players can add actions in response ?

3.

In terms of that second scenario, gus from other forum have one concerne:

"After card effects are triggered (usually by paying a cost or meeting a timing requirement and declaring its use ), they exist independently of the source"

that triggered action in question cannot be declared when source exists (stack is resolving), it can be done only after stack with Thief dying resolves, so source is not there, it wasn't declared so sorry no valid action from Thief, no independent existence.

4. What you are saying means that Thief when dying triggers its own action ?

5. So why Dwarf Rangers when dying with other Dwarf doesn't trigger its action ?

Entropy42 said:

THX for answers! Could You explain in more words difference between triggered action of Glorious Preceptor and Thief of Essence?

Glorious Preceptor - Action: When this unit enters or leaves play, draw a card.

Thief of Essence - Action: When one or more units leaves play, draw a card.

It doesn't fizzle, eh? Well then, I suppose this is a good time to announce my retirement from trying to answer rules questions. Obviously, no matter how many times I look at that flowchart or think about the interpretations of rules, I keep screwing it up. I'm going back to the shadows to lurk.

Entropy42 said:

In my opinion you are wrong. Yes there is a floating trigger for action but the action was not yet played. After resolving the stack Thief is dead and there is a trigger for his action but it cannot be played as Thief is not in the game.

BR,

Jaszczur

Teokrata said:

You can also take account in your exemple of Blue Horrors, Corsairs of Ghrond, Crypt Ghouls, Doombull, Sigmar's Blessed, Spirit Host, Ungor Raiders, Vanguard of Woe, Walking Sacrifice, Zhufbar Engineers. Cards that are able to trigger in a non normal way as they trigger when they are no more in play.

The "when this unit leaves play" explicitly specify that this unit is able to trigger his action in a "non normal way", as it trigger when it is no more in play."

"When one or more units leaves play,...." does not, implicitly, mean "When one or more units, including this one, leaves play..."

In "other wordds", the card check if cards have leaved play but is not able to check if it has leaved play itself, as it is not explicitly written.

@ ppski :

The answer of your question is in FAQ 1.6 p.4 :

Triggered Actions (formerly Response Actions) (v1.4)
Triggered Actions are a subset of Actions that contain a trigger
condition. Each Triggered Action can be triggered once per copy of
the Triggered Action and only once per trigger condition. If this trigger
condition is met during the resolution of other effects (or outside of an
Action Window) then the Triggered Action must be played during the first
available opportunity once an Action Window opens, or it cannot be played
at all.

The trigger condition is met during the first action window and you play your triggered Action during the next one, which is according to Jaszczurr's answer.

In your example the trigger condition is met (but it does not trigger the action itself); during the next window you can use actions with this trigger (and more generaly with any trigger that has occured during this action window), but you can't use your thief action as it is no more in play.

To use Entropy's words, only "trigger condition are floating" and they are only floating until the end of the next action window.

@HappyDD : Don't give up man .

Shindulus said:

That makes sense, however whose ruling is this? No offence, just want to know whether it is yours/others suspicion/assumption or ruling from game's creators.

So "when this unit" would trigger when card is out of play or in with no distinction, however "when other or one/more units leave" then it can only be triggered when card stays in play and cannot be triggered by itself ?

Shindulus said:

Ok, so Entropy said that Thief will fire, you are saying just the opposite, who is right then?

Entropy also says that thief does not "fire", I think that he just makes an amalgam that disapoint you, (and I must say me, when I first read) between trigger condition and the fact that the action is triggered.

Quoting Entropy :

1. Yes, you can take the Thief action at the next opportunity. It has already triggered, it is just waiting to be put on the chain. (See B1 of the flowchart: Players take turns putting Triggered Actions that have met their trigger condition since the last Action Window on a chain...) That Triggered Action is already "floating" out there, even though the unit is dead. You can choose to put it on the chain at the first opportunity, or you can pass on it and its gone.

[...]

1c. The Thief doesn't trigger when he (or his friends who die simultaneously) leaves play. This is for the same reason that Dwarf Ranger doesn't trigger on himself leaving, or his buddies leaving during a Troll Vomit.

About your other questions :

That makes sense, however whose ruling is this? No offence, just want to know whether it is yours/others suspicion/assumption or ruling from game's creators.

I think that we agree that is "all about" the golden rule, this not normal for a unit / support card to trigger their action as they are no more in play. Using golden rule must be the consequence of an explicit card text. In others cases you must follow the rules.

So "when this unit leaves play " would trigger when card is out of play or in with no distinction, however "when other or one/more units leave" then it can only be triggered when card stays in play and cannot be triggered by itself ?

Yes, cf. my first answer.

PS : I have replaced "when this unit" by "when this unit leaves play"

Jaszczurr said:

That's how I see it too. A card has to be in play for its trigger to activate. This is after all precisely why the effects of Dwarf Ranger or Thief of Essence can't be used when they are destroyed simultaneously with other units.

Shindulus said:

That caught me off guard ... however Thief does not leave play with other ones, in our situation it was triggered in the right way. 1c says about not being able to trigger not about resolving something what triggered the right way.

So I still think Entropy wrote - that it will fire.

We may assume that those actions met their triggers and are waiting to be activated till current stack resolves. After stack resolved, we want to activate that triggered action (choose target and pay cost ) however to do this we have to have source card in play - Thief is not so actions just vanishes. Is that correct ?

On the other hand, if Thief's actions triggers during stack creation, it would be simply triggered and 'in response' added/activated on current stack and would resolve eventually ?

ppski said:

Yes, this is the description of triggered action in the FAQ 1.6 p4.

I just would not say exactly "Thief is not so actions just vanishes". But something like "thief is not, so you can not actived its action, which trigger has occured during last stack resolution"

ppski said:

Yes. The simpliest example that come to me is when you have to sacrifice a unit as a cost :

- Player A plays a card that requires the sacrifice of a unit as a cost (so a unit leaves play at this moment)

- Player B can play in response Thief's action, because the trigger condition of its action occured.

I can go with this reasoning Many thanks!

Just last words - Entropy, what would be your answer ?

ppski said:

This thread saw a lot of action yesterday apparently, so I'm a bit behind, but let me try to answer these.

1. I'm saying that When a triggered action meets its condition during stack creation, it MUST be added to that same stack, or you can't use it at all.

2. This is mostly what I'm saying, except that you don't create a new stack for each triggered action. You take turns adding them to the same stack, and then once all triggered actions are added, players can add optional actions in response. And yes, my interpretation of the rules is that the source of the triggered action no longer has to be in play. (more on this in a second)

3. This is a good point that seems to contradict what I've been saying. I'm not sure what "declaring its use" means in the context of the rules though. I would interpret that as the player saying "Yes, I want to trigger this optional action. I intend to put it on the stack at the first opportunity."

4/5. After reading lots of responses on here, I'm not sure about Thief triggering his own action anymore. I originally compared it to Dwarf Ranger, but its not the same. Dwarf Ranger doesn't trigger when you resolve Troll Vomit (for example), because all the units die simultaneously, so as soon as another Dwarf leaves play, the Ranger is also leaving play. Thief is really more similar to Glorious Preceptor. Looking at Glorious Preceptor (and the other similar examples someone listed), I think the "Actions" section of the rules describes it best: "In order to trigger an action on a unit, support, or quest card, the card on which the action is printed must be in play, unless the action specifies that it can be triggered from an out of play state." As Shindulus said, Glorious Preceptor specifically says it can trigger as it leaves play. He argues that Thief is not explicit enough about this, and I don't think the card is clear enough to say for sure, but I would tend to agree with him if I had to pick one way or the other. Really, cards like Glorious Preceptor probably shouldn't be Actions. If they were written as a constant effect, it would probably make more sense.

Thief - Action: When one or more units leaves play, draw a card.

Ranger - Forced: When one of your other [Dwarf] units leaves play, deal 1 damage to one target unit or capital.

Glorious Preceptor - Action: When this unit enters or leaves play, draw a card.

Mallumo said: "That's how I see it too. A card has to be in play for its trigger to activate. This is after all precisely why the effects of Dwarf Ranger or Thief of Essence can't be used when they are destroyed simultaneously with other units."

My point is that the card is triggered while the card is in play. It is triggered as soon as its trigger condition is met (in this case, when Shades dies). But waits to be "activated / put on the stack" until the first available action window. I think maybe I am just wrong about a card triggering as soon as its trigger condition is met. Trigger is used in a lots of ways in the FAQ, and in a lot of different places, and not always in a completely consistent manner. I separated a Triggered Action into 2 parts:

1. Its trigger condition is met, and the player chooses to trigger it (they still have to choose, since it is optional). My claim was that this is now triggered, and so it exists independently of the source.

2. Once the Action window opens, they choose to "play/activate" the triggered ability and put it on the stack.

From looking over all the sections people have quoted, I don't think there is enough support for my interpretation. When we were writing up the Flowchart, this is how I envisioned that triggered actions would work, but I'm not completely sure that this is what Lukas had in mind. And obviously however he thinks it works is how it works.

tl;dr I am probably wrong, and Thief has to be in play at the time you add its Action to the stack.

I agree that we have to be careful with the distinction between a) "the trigger condition for a card effect has been met" and b) "triggering a card effect". It's tricky because for forced effects, they go hand in hand, but for actions a) doesn't necessarily lead to b). Due to them being optional, and due to timing issues.

I disagree with your 1) because for me choosing to trigger an action is the same as triggering an action. They're both the same as "playing" or "activating" or "using" an action or card, however one might call it. The thing is I'm not always allowed to do that. When I'm allowed to, I need to have a fulfilled trigger condition if there is one, and I naturally need the card to be in play in the first place (not considering the "if this card leaves play" effects that have an exception).

The FAQ says "In order to successfully trigger a card effect, the player must declare that he is activating the card [...] If a player cannot fulfill these requirements to trigger a card effect, he cannot attempt to trigger it." Actions are a subset of card effects with additional limitations (the dependance on an action window) and triggered actions are a subset of them with even more additional limitations. Doesn't mean they get around the base requirements. If the Thief of Essence is gone, I have no card to activate.

Entropy42 said:

Thanks for your interpretation.

Is there a chance, to be 100% sure, to ask Lukas ?

ppski said:

We will have big regional Invasion tournament in Poland this month, so We will be very happy to know how exacly triggered actions work ;-)))

Yeah, I'm going to ask him about this and a couple other Actions questions. I'll post all the definitive info here of course.

You are the man! We are looking forward anxiously to hearing from you.

Can a character who comes into play trigger his own effect

There is a new Dark Elf Card whos name I cant remember that says when a character comes into play discard the top card of target players deck. So when it comes into play can I trigger off himself? Im not sure cause I can see and arguement for either one

Jvirtue55, find this card and check whether it is Forced effect or Action. In FAQ there are pretty nicely described sections about 'coming into play', 'playing' etc stages.

Entropy any updates from you or Lukas on the main subject ?