I just played The Hills of Emyn Muil last night and had a question. Before I get to the question, though, let's start with what we know. If Amon Lhaw is the active location, you treat attachment cards as though the text is blank. So if it's the active location and you have Ancient Mathom on something in the staging area and Northern Tracker clears that location, you're out of luck because you lose your Ancient Mathom without the card draw.

So what if your Ancient Mathom is on Amon Lhaw? At what point does the Ancient Mathom regain its text? Can I draw cards after Amon Lhaw is explored? Or does it not trigger because the Response effect is missing unttil after it is already explored?

Budgernaut said:

good one, i would say a response text HAS TO be there before the response is triggered, and as there is no text, there is no response even when the location is explored, so no card draw

i may be wrong, this is one that others need to talk about

I'd say that Amon Lhaw ceases to be the active location the instant it is explored, at which point the Mathom would regain its text, and responses to a location being explored would be able to be triggered.

I'd send this one to Nate to be sure, but my take is that Ancient Mathom on Amon Lhaw is an ok thing to do.

I would say that the effect is active until the card LEAVES the table. I do not think there is any window of the location being explored, sitting in the travelled zone, and still being on the table. As soon as it is explored it is discarded, and at that point the effect is removed. So if you had a mathon on it, and it was in the travelled zone the mathom would be discarded with otu a draw effect.

Thanks for your thoughts. When I was playing I ruled like Radiskull did, but as I thought about it, I began thinking the situation should have been dealt with as Richsabre and Booored suggest.

How would I submit this question to Nate?

But if the location gets removed instantly, then wouldn't the attachment go instantly too? So Ancient Mathom could *never* be triggered?

Budger - there is a "Rules Questions" link at the bottom of this page (and every page). Click it and fill out the form to send the question to the designers. (When you're looking for this game, don't forget the word "the" in the listings.)