after the Red viper is killed and you play "no use for grief" kneeling the 3 influence, the event allows you to search your deck and put into play all your sand snake characters. i have seen other players put into play in this manner unique sand snake characters and dupe them at the same time.

my meta, of course, disagrees with this, stating that the duplicates are only played from hand onto unique characters already in play. They interpret that the event puts into play all sand snake characters simultaneously and thus cannot dupe a character that is not already in play.

question 1) can you play characters with dupes using the event?
question 2) can duplicates come from shadows, your deck, or discard pile if a search and grab effect allows to put into play a card from those places?
question 3) when resolving "no use for grief" does the put into play multiple characters effect happen simultaneously or happen in order chosen by the acting player?

help, cite sources

thanks

In the FAQ, there is a section that reads:

" (3.37) Unique Cards Entering Play from the Dead Pile
When putting a unique card into play from
your dead pile, that copy of the card does not
prevent itself from entering play. Multiple
copies of a unique card will prevent one
another from entering play from your dead
pile, unless those copies would all enter play
simultaneously. "

So right there, you have in black-and-white that multiple copies of unique cards can come into play simultaneously. For this to happen, one of those copies must become a dupe on the other, or else only one copy of the card could enter play at all, right?

This entry formalizes a ruling that has been part of the game since the very beginning: when a "put into play" effect is used on a unique card that is already in play, or puts multiple copies into play at the same time, you get a duplicated unique.

So answers to all your questions follow from that:

1) "Put into play" effects, like events, can put dupes into play.
2) "Put into play" effects can put dupes into play from any out-of-play area (like the dead pile referenced in that FAQ entry)
3) If you can put multiple copies of a unique card into play from your dead pile simultaneously (like in the FAQ entry), there is no good reason to think you cannot do the same thing from your deck with No Use for Grief.

They are all put into play simultaneously. To put it simply, any put into play effect on a unique card will have it become become a dupe if you already have a copy of it in play. Those cards are not considered a dupe until they hit the table.

Once you pull all the sand snakes out of your deck, you choose which ones will be the dupes and which one will be the actual character. It makes no difference. Keep in mind that you can't pull copies of dead sand snakes out of your deck because it is illegal to put into play copies of your unique dead characters. It is completely legal to put each copy of them into play and choosing which ones become the dupes as that is not a play restriction.

In Marshaling, you are already playing a unique card as a dupe which is why it is played for no gold cost.

The answers given above are logically correct in every way. However, if you'd like an explanation along different lines:

I played a deck built around this combo at the most recent Days of Ice and Fire. I executed this combo with Nate watching at least 5 times. If I were doing it wrong, he would have said something.

thanks for the responses, sounds like this is an "exception to the rule" rule.

in regards to 3.37

under what conditions would you have multiple copies of the same unique in your dead pile? if a unique character with dupes is killed (cannot be saved) the dupes are discarded and the unique character goes to the dead pile. Therefore you should only ever have one copy of each unique in your dead pile.

Maybe they should rephrase it as: anytime multiple copies of unique cards are "put into play simultaneously" one enters play normally and the other copies becomes duplicates on the first.

Aegon's Hill, Visenya's Hill.

The issue is settled; it pops up around here every month or so. The FAQ doesn't directly address the issue, but the text that we do have is dispositive.

schi0384 said:

And yet, they have this FAQ entry, so it must be possible somehow, right?

Essentially, you need a card effect to move a card from an out-of-play area (like your hand or discard pile) directly to your dead pile. They are few and far between (rad cites the main ones), but they are there.

As for this whole thing being an "'exception to the rule' rule," it may be, but it has been around for so long (the very first CCG set roughly 10 years ago) and is so well ingrained that it is pretty much just a "rule" by now.