Hi,

still learning the ropes with CoC, I've got several rules questions:

When I play Azathoth and control the Ritual of Summoning, can I respond to Azathoth's comes-into-play ability by sacrificing it to the ritual before the Azathoth's ability resolved? If not, can it be done by some Disrupt effect that would allow me to sac a character or do I always need to have additional cards in hand to deal with Azathoth if I can't win right away and don't want to lose?

Similarly, if someone play Blind Submission on one of my cultists while I control Carl Stanford, can I respond by sacrificing the cultist before it gets stolen?

The way I read the Ravager of the Deep, its Response ability only works while it is intercepting a story, right?

Does Arcane Hunter's ability resolve during icon struggles' resolution, i.e. when something dies during combat will he have Fast for the benefit of the Arcane and Investigation struggles?

In the official errata, section 2.7 tries to clarify "printed" regarding icons but I still find it confusing. What are the printed icons for e.g. Mi-Go Surgeon or Son of Yeb?

With Cthugha committed to a story, by using "their", do we count all C icons from attachments and/or locations providing C bonuses towards other characters' C icons total? If we do, what is the point of Cthugha having 3 C icons?

With Cthugha and other legendary horrors from MoM whose text box cannot be blanked, does this restriction only apply to effects that specifically "blank" the text box on a card? In other words, can Steve Clarney still circumvent the ability since making something "lose" a specific keyword (which can also be granted by another card) is not the same as "blanking" the text box?

If I play 'Small Price to Pay', can I choose a character with Willpower under my control and avoid the madness penalty if I want to wound something? I'd guess so since by playing the card I'm not yet choosing which character is going to go mad, hence I'm not breaking the rule that I cannot choose a Willpower character to go mad...

Can I sacrifice something with Come to the Altar even if I don't have any eligible character for the second part of the effect in my hand, or don't want to put anything into play?

Thanks in advance.

1) No, because it's an Action. Azathoth's ability is a Response, so it's triggered first. However, you could choose not to trigger the Response, since Responses are optional.

2) Carl Stanford's ability is an Action, so no.

3) The Ravager's ability triggers, no matter if you're the defender or the attacker. So you have to be careful not to hurt your own characters.

4) Yes. Disrupts and Forced Responses apply even during story resolution.

5) Easy! All of the icons that are printed on the card. For the Surgeon it's one Combat and one Investigation; for the Son of Yeb, it's one Combat icon.

6) Cthuga's ability ensures you'll win the combat struggle, i.e. it also affects temporary icons.

7) Mhm, good question! I'm not sure about this one. I think this might actually work...

8) Yes and no. While you can initially choose one of your characters with Willpower, you cannot pick him to go insane. Note, that because of the word 'Then' in the second sentence, you only get to wound the character if the first character actually became insane.

9) I don't think so. The wording indicates that the 'sacrifice' part is a cost. you cannot just choose to pay a cost without using the ability you paid for.

This game does not use a stack. Any effect that has been triggered must resolve before any other effect can be triggered except in the case of Disrupts which literally interrupt the resolution of the effect, and passives which may alter the initiation entirely. So a forced response, response, and action effects can only be triggered after the original effect resolves. Check the timing section in the FAQ, that will answer most of the questions you asked.

Printed in this game only ever means the actual ink printed on the card in its current state. This means a sane character's printed cost is whatever is in the upper left hand corner. It is printed icons are those printed on the left side of the card. An insane card has no printed icons or cost, or any other element. The game rules tell how how to treat it if we need to do a comparison that is not printed, and the FAQ tells us that printed is null since there is nothing printed to ever check on until the card is made restored.

Blanking a text box always uses the phrase blank a text box, so removing or causing a card to loose an icon or keyword is not blanking and can get around those ancient one's protections.

Whenever a card says 'do X' to 'do/get Y' X is the cost you must pay to do Y. Most of the time Y is going to require some sort of legal trget for its effect. Without a legal target you cannot even attempt to trigger the effect. Some effects do not use the word "choose" which is the magic word for target in this game. Depending on the wording of the card you may still attempt to trigger the effect and fail to successfuly resolve it, but most of the time even without a target the effect will be worded in such a way that the effect is doing some sort of rules restriction check to see if it can resolve on something. If it does denote a specific action or require one or more cards to be designated for its effect to work on, it cannot resolve. The easiest way to handle this is check that first sentence. Does it use the phrase if able? If so then yes it can be triggered even though it will fail. If it does not, 90% of the time you cannot.

Those were helpful explanations. Thanks, guys.