tjstyles said:

I don't think I could play a game with anyone that would try and pick apart a game so badly that they would make it unplayable. Being right is only in the eyes of perspective. If being right is the only way to enjoy a game, then I recommend they stick to playing simple games like Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders. This way there are less rules to semantically pick apart to ruin the game for others that you play with.

They won't present official publications for every single card and rule that has been disputed before because many players come to agreements or compromises as to how cards and rules work. If they did, then the FAQ would be 400 pages long and impossible to get through. Your friend does not seem to want to compromise as to how things actually work in the game and won't take the word of several players over his own belief. I'd hate to ask your friend to tell me where to get green when he is only given yellow and blue.

tjstyles said:

Firstly, Riders of the Red Fork is not in play when it is searched for.

Secondly, a duplicate is a titleless, textless, iconless, blank card. It does not matter what card it is before it becomes the duplicate. If something attaches as a duplicate, it loses its original identity as soon as it attaches. This is why Riders can attach to Rhaegal as a duplicate.

Other cards that attach as duplicates:

Loyal Guard - Loyal Guard can be played from your hand as a duplicate on a character.

Return of the Kraken - Save 1 location from being discarded from play. Then,if that location is unique,attach Return of the Kraken to it as a duplicate.

White Hatchling - If you control Viserion, attach White Hatchling and all of its duplicates to Viserion as duplicates.

Black Hatchling - If you control Drogon, attach Black Hatchling and all of its duplicates to Drogon as duplicate.

Green Hatchling - If you control Rhaegal, attach Green Hatchling and all of its duplicates to Rhaegal as duplicates.

Ser Davos Seaworth - Response: After Ser Davos Seaworth enters play, attach the top card of your deck to him, face down, as a duplicate.

Jory Cassel - Marshalling: You may attach any character from your hand to Jory Cassel as a duplicate if he has no other duplicates attached.

mdc273 said:

They should be looking for those things. Clearly, they did not "know" that Maege Mormont was looking for a Location, because in this case she isn't. And, Maege came after the Riders, so it's not a "hindsight is 20/20" scenario. They actually have an entry in the FAQ addressing this very situation (and addressing it quite poorly, in my opinion), so it baffles me that they would still produce a card with such poor wording on it. I am currently creating my own card game, and I go over every single card to get the wording right. I try to keep in mind what might be coming, what is already out there, and how people might try to interpret the text. I get it isn't easy, but they have the FAQ with a section for Errata; why don't they just fix it now?

Bomb said:

This post reminds me of the Sesame Street "One of These Things is Not Like The Other" Song. Every single example you outlined explicitly state "attach as a duplicate ". Every one of them very clearly makes the given card a duplicate. Rhaegal does not. It searches for a Duplicate, then simply attaches it. The wording is completely different.

Now, I am not agruing the ruling. FFG clearly put in the FAQ that it works this way. They gave a hokey explaination as to why it works this way, and left huge loopholes in the rules, since nothing in the effect actually changes Riders of the Red Forks to a duplicate. What my frustration is, is that this could easily be solved with one paragraph in the errata section for Rhaegal that reads: "should say… 'search your deck for a copy of Rhaegal and attach it as a duplicate.'" Done. No ambiguity. No question on how this affects other cards. No question that Riders of the Red Forks works in the way they intend it to work. Its a nice, clean solution. The whole point of Errata is to fix things when you mess up the wording on cards. They messed up the wording on Rhaegal and Maege. Why the heck don't they just fix the wording? I mean, they felt it necessary to fix spelling errors and card numbering errors in the errata section; why the heck aren't they addressing the gameplay errors with these cards?

It is useless to continue attempting to convince you because you are not convinced and are in the minority among many players, however the riders of the red fork meets the condition of the entire search effect, including what is done to the card that is searched for. It does not matter if it really is not a duplicate of Rhaegal because it meets the condition of searching for the duplicate of Rhaegal. For the ENTIRE duration of the search effect, it is a "duplicate of Rhaegal" and is to be treated like a "duplicate of Rhaegal" until the effect is fully resolved. This is because it meets the condition of the entire search effect. This is why it attaches as Rhaegal's duplicate.

Bother….

The CS version of Rhaegal is a reprint from the CCG days. It is a reprint from a time when there were no mechanisms for duplicates to be anything other than unique cards with the same name. Heck, it's from a time when duplicates actually counted as attachments. Things have since changed and it is understood that the mechanism/effect that attaches the card - whatever the card may be - is what actually makes the card a duplicate. Rhaegal definitely could have been worded better for the modern environment, but it's not like he's the only card in the Core Set that wasn't updated when (re)printed.

It's also not like Rhaegal is ambiguous that the found card is to be attached "as a duplicate." The thing to remember is that despite using the pronoun "it" for the attaching part of Rhaegal's ability, within the context of the ability, there is no practical difference between "it" and "that duplicate of Rhaegal." So when the ability is saying "attach it to him," it very clearly means "attach that duplicate of Rhaegal to Rhaegal." Sure, if someone wants to argue semantics - and "being right" is more important than anything else, including reading comprehension - they can certainly waste a lot of time doing so. But is anyone really confused about "attach that duplicate of Rhaegal" resulting in a duped unique character?

As for the FAQ entry setting the precedent that Riders count as whatever the search effect looks for over the entire effect, it does do that - provided you are properly reading and interpreting the pronouns in "attach it to him." When you do so, there is no difference between "Any Phase: Pay 1 gold to search your deck for a duplicate of Rhaegal and attach it (aka, that duplicate of Rhaegal) to him (aka, Rhaegal) . Then shuffle your deck." on Rhaegal and "Dominance: Pay 3 gold to search your deck for a location card with printed cost 2 or lower,and put that (location) card into play. Then shuffle your deck." on Bran the Builder's Legacy. Knowing that the Riders can be found - and attached - as "that duplicate of Rhaegal" should logically lead to the parallel conclusion theat they can be found - and put into play - as "that (location) card."

Wow, I did not realize that asking for clearer rules would strike such a nerve with people.

Bomb said:

I get what you are saying. I get what the ruling is. You are arguing something completely different than what I am arguing. Nevermind the fact that the FAQ never states that Riders of the Red Fork are duplicates for "the entire effect" as people love quoting (seriously, search the FAQ for the word "entire" and see how many times Riders of the Red Fork are mentioned in the same phrase), but I am arguing what happens AFTER the effect. Fine, the card becomes an duplicate for the " entire effect", attaches as a duplicate, and then the effect ends. Now it either CONTINUES TO BE A DUPLICATE AFTER THE ENTIRE EFFECT, or it drops off like any other attachment that is attached to an ineligible card. FFG has ruled that Riders of the Red Fork continues to be a duplicate, which creates a precident that Riders of the Red Fork continues to be what you searched for AFTER the "enitre effect" resolves. I don't know how to be any clearer than that.

So, why is this not the case with Maege? Why is Riders of the Red Fork not a location after the effect resolves? That is my question. Instead of making a ruling that is counter-intuitive (and I think something that is ruled one way by FFG, then reversed, then gets an entry in the FAQ qualifies as "counter-intuitive") and creates a jumbled mess of precident for future cards, why not just errata it?

Then comes ktom's post that I will respond to.

ktom said:

I give you the benefit of the doubt that The Great Host never, ever, for any moment in time triggered when it hit the dead pile, even before the FAQ outlined the actual framework actions, but I just have to call bull on this one. First, Duplicates were considered attachments at one point during the game, yes, but not during Rhaegal's printing. That rule was changed in the first block, and Rhaegal came out much later. Second, there were cards in the CCG that attached as duplicates that were not "unique cards with the same name". The hatchlings from the set with crossed swords as the icon (cannot remember what the icons for the sets were) did exactly that. They attached to the unique copies of the dragons without being "unique cards with the same name". It is not a "new" thing limited exclusively to the LCG as you imply it is here. I appreciate that it is "understood" that the card makes it a duplicate. I appreciate the the FAQ actually clears that up in the questions section. I don't understand why simply suggesting they fix the wording with errata causes such an uproar. Also, Rhaegal was updated when reprinted; he used to be a Marshalling ability and now he is Any Phase . That was because the game has changed since the time the first Rhaegal was printed and gold sticks around for the whole turn. Hey, that sounds like what you said about duplicates. Funny they didn't bother changing the wording for that while they were already fixing the card. I personally think, better late than never.

As for the second paragraph, you are missing the point. I am not arguing whether or not the wording can be interpreted the way FFG has interpretted it. I am arguing that the ruling they have made with no changes to the verbiage has impacts to other similar situations. If it is ruled this way for Rhaegal, then it should be ruled the same way for similar cards down the road. If Rhaegal's wording makes Riders a duplicate, and that state persists once Riders are in play and the effect ends (i.e. two turns later when you want to actually use that duplicate to save Rhaegal and Riders is still a dupe long after the entire effect resolves), than that same ruling should be true with Maege and Riders should be a location as well as a character when it comes into play. I am not arguing the ruling with Rhaegal, I am saying there are concequences to having open-ended ruling like this.

I agree. There is no difference in semantics with Rhaegal and Bran the Builders Legacy. That is why I find it funny that Rhaegal changes the type of the card perminantly and Bran the Builder does not. They have the same wording but do different things. Then you have cards like Rhaegal and Loyal Guard that have different wording, but do the same thing. It is completely inconsistant and needs a FAQ entry after two ruling reversals. I think if the lead judge for FFG can't even get it right, maybe it is time to change the wording? Maybe?

How about this, instead of explaining to me why the cards work the way the FAQ says they work (which I have already stated multiple times that I agree with), why not give me a legitimate reason why FFG absolutely should not errata Rhaegal to state "attach that card as a duplicate"? Since that is my only argument here, why not actually discuss that point directly, instead of reitterating the rule that I have already said I understand is the rule. Is there a reason other than "it's understood that it works this way" or "Rhaegal is a holdout from the TCG" that someone has for not just making it absolutely clear how Rhaegal works? Is there a reason we don't want his ability to explicitly make the change of Riders to a duplicate like all the other cards with similar functonality , and we want a weak global ruling that can have an effect on how other cards worth with Riders of the Red Fork or any future card they may print like it?

Here's what you're missing. A duplicate has no card name nor text. It is only a duplicate. Ergo, Riders of Redfork, when being used to duplicate Rhaegal, is never, not even for an instant, riders of redfork. It is simply a duplicate of Rhaegal. However, once they hit play as they do with Maege's ability, they have their name, text, etc. The game then recognizes them as a character and not a location.

Shadowcatx said:

I am not missing that. I get WHY the ruling is what it is (at least the rational behind it). I get that the ruling is that Riders of the Red Fork "actually becomes" what is being searched for the entire effect. I get that. He "becomes" a duplicate, and comes into play as a duplicate. So why does that same ruling not apply to Maege? Why is he magically not a location when he comes into play? He comes into play during the effect, where you just told me verbatim that he is a location based on Rhaegal's ruling. The game should recognize him as a location the exact same way that it recognizes him as a duplicate when a duplicate is what is being searched.

There is nothing in Rhaegal's actual wording that suggests that Riders stays a dupe after his ability resolves. It does so because the FAQ says that is how Rhaegal's works with the Riders. Other cards that do the same thing explicitly change the card to a dupe permanently. Rhaegal's is implied, and it should also be implied for any other effect like Rhaegal's, too.

For example, how does Abandoned Forge work with Riders? Riders gets attached, then discarded because it isn't a weapon attachment anymore, right? Well, the cards attached to Abandoned Forge do not have active game text, either; if they did, the card would have no effect since basically every weapon in the game attaches explicitly to characters. But, it "is known" that weapon attachments can stick on the Abandoned Forge after the search effect. Why then would the two work differently? Why would Riders attach to Rhaegal's as a dupe and remain that way simply because it "could be searched" and because dupes have no active game text, but the same would not be true with the identical scenario with Abandoned Forge?

The fact is that Rhaegal works differently than every other effect with Riders, and it's all based on this entry in the FAQ. The idea that Riders is a dupe when hitting play for Rhaegal but is not the card type being searched for any other effect upon hitting play is exactly why Rhaegal should be errataed to be more clear. Otherwise Riders enters play as a location and a character when fetched with Bran the Builders Legacy or Maege Mormont. And the tourney mounts and locations that become characters from old-school ccg days have already made it possible for a single card to be multiple types at once. Consistancy matters; and in this case Rhaegal's ruling muddies the water for every other search effect out there. One single errata entry would completly and utterly solve this and make Rhaegal's effect consistent with all the other similar effects, but people's reactions are as if I suggested waterboarding people for playing Rhaegal. It's one freaking sentence in the FAQ, and the could take the current entry out of the FAQ. Why is it such a big deal that I suggested errata?

tjstyles said:

Oh to be the bearer of bad news… Haha.

I'll be honest, I was giving an empty argument with conviction in hopes you could turn it around and use it (although I stand by the Trench Run bit… The card says it. Do it)

With regards to official rulings, I'm just gonna say your SOL again, at the risk of being obnoxious. This game gets official rulings every so often, but during the ruling dry season, it's pretty much defer to the players on these boards, make up your own house ruling, or don't try to play Thrones.

Also, did you ever send an e-mail? That's the only way to get an official ruling.

I doubt Ktom or anyone will be able to sway you from your stance. I am never swayed from mine (I agree with you that this game is horribly managed rules-wise), but I ultimately adhere to what Ktom says because it's good for the community to have consistent competitive expectations. Don't get heartburn over this game, it's not worth it.

Also keep in mind that Ktom has judged Gencon a few times I believe. His word isn't straight from the designer's mouth, but he's probably the most official answer you're likely to get without getting an actual official one.

mdc273 said:

To be clear, I am not, nor ever have been, suggesting that the ruling given here for Rhaegal is not correct. All I am saying is that it would be clearer if he errataed him. That's it. As it stands, the ruling affects more than just how Rhaegal works with Riders. Errata on Rhaegal would make it completely clear, and this silly concept of Riders "changing its type" would go away. It's only needed to make Riders "become" a duplicate for Rhaegal.

if ktom tells me how a card works, I take that to the bank. As far as I am concerned, ktom is as official as the FAQ. But, I feel I have a right to have the opinion that AGOT is not handling this particular rules situation as well as it could/should. I feel I have a right to have the opinion that they errata Rhaegal. And, you are right, nobody is going to be able to convince me that I don't have a right to my opinion on that.

1) The last thing the majority of people want is to add to the ever growing ranks of errata.

2) The current wording makes perfect sense to the majority of people.

3) Abandoned Forge only allows weapon attachments. I suspect searching for a riders is perfectly legal with it. And I do believe that it would attach. However, once you attach riders to it, the search effect being over and resolved, the riders are not a weapon attachment and that creates an illegal game state. (Show me anywhere in the game that says attachments attached to a location don't have text. Or anywhere that says the weapons attached to the abandoned forge loose their game text.) That is why riders fall off. That is not the case with duplicates however.

Shadowcatx said:

1) Rhaegal and Riders already have a ruling in the FAQ. Errata would be much clearer than their hokey explaination that they have in there and it would take up less space. It would also be easier to find, because the first place I look for ruling on a particular card is under the errata/clarifications section where it lists the cards.

2) The current ruling makes perfect sense for Rhaegal and the Riders; its the other cards that it messes up for. I don't know how to state this any clearer than that.

3) Can Abandoned Forge grab a Burning Sword? How about a Lightbringer? What happens to those attachments after Abandoned Forge searches them out? Do they stay on the Abandoned Forge until you use the Forge's ability to return them to your hand? Or do they get discarded as the effect ends because Abandoned Forge is not a valid target for either attachement? Burning Sword says "Unique Character Only" and Abandoned Forge is certainly not a unique character. Lightbringer says "[baratheon] Character Only" and Abandoned Forge is certainly not a Baratheon character. So, they either drop off immediately because their game text is active and Abandoned Forge is not a valid card for them to attach to, or their game text does not apply, and they are attached to Abandoned Forge because of Abandoned Forge's ability; not because they are attachments. Even the other two Baratheon weapon attachments, Hunting Spear and Warhammer, which don't explicitly say that they must be attached to a character refer to the "attached character" in their game text. Would anyone here just ignore me playing a Hunting Spear on my King Robert's Hammer at Worlds? Or would someone go, "that can only be attached to a character". And, assuming that the cards do actually stay put on the Forge and that the Forge actually has game text that can have an effect in the game, then if we assume that the game text is active on these attachments, then I can kneel Burning Sword to make Abandoned Forge Immune to card effects, right? We have already established that the "give attached character " does not really apply in the same way "put that location into play" does not apply on Maege. Once it is a legal target, it no longer matters that the effect refers to a particular card type, as we have established earlier in this thread.

Now, let's pretend that Abandoned Forge sought out Kingdom Locations instead of Weapon Attachments; would those locations' game text be active when they were attached to the Forge? Would they fall off because they aren't "really attachments"?

tjstyles said:

tjstyles said:

tjstyles said:

tjstyles said:

But if the fact that it is worded the way it is results in 4+ hour-long arguments that the semantics make a practical difference? Let me just say you have more patience than I would with such people.

tjstyles said:

On the other hand, while we do have rules that say "once something is transformed into an attachment or a character through a card effect, it stays an attachment or a character until that effect ends of the card leaves play," we don't have anything that says "if something is treated as something else for the duration of an effect, it stays what it is being treated as once that effect is over."

So, you see, it is not the Rider's effect letting it be found that transforms it into the dupe, it is Rhaegal's ability. But Maege's ability doesn't transform the card it puts into play into a location, so the idea that the Rider's "treat as what is searched for during the entire search effect" interpretation does not lead to an interpretation that if it is put into play by a "location" effect that it would not revert - and stop being treated as the search target - after the search effect, unless there is an actual transformation (like attaching it to something as an attachment).

tjstyles said:

Shadowcatx said:

BUT: The Riders will never meet the play restrictions for the "put the Weapon attachment into your hand" effect. So they would effectively be locked on the location until either a "discard an attachment" effect hit them (remember, once a card is attached to another card, it is only considered to be an attachment) or a "discard a location" effect hit the Forge.

Sorry, I read the phrase "reprint from the CCG days" a bit differently than you meant it. It seemed to me that you were saying 1) that the CCG did not have any concept of dupes being anything other than other copies of unique cards (meaning there would be no reason for a change of verbiage when they printed core); and 2) that errata for Rhaegal would be a bad thing because it was a reprint from a previous set. That is why I posted my response. I was trying to point out that there were duplicates that were not copies of unique cards when Rhaegal was reprinted, and that he is not a straight reprint, so errata would not affect the earlier version (I thought you were against errata, and suggesting that errataing the current version would affect the previous version).

But, really, I am just glad that I got my point across. I don't really think that is how it should work. I am not going to go into a tournament and argue that I can take control of a Riders played by Maege when I play Direct Assault. I am just pointing out that when the rules are not 100% clear, they create loopholes that can be exploited, and while this particular incident (and the one I mentioned with Trench Run) seem quite obvious to be "malicious", that is not always the case. There is also a debate that we are having in our local meta about the effects of Heroic Sacrifice with X-Wing Escort. My buddy argues that when you play Heroic Sacrifice you must choose the target that would be destroyed, and then your opponent can simply sacrifice that unit to X-Wing Escort's ability. My arguement is that the rules do not state anywhere that the target must be selected before the resolution of an effect (simply that there must be an eligible target to play a card), so there is nothing ot suggest that targets are selected prior to X-Wing Escort's effect resolving. Because many other TCGs make targets be selected before the ability, my buddy assumes that Star Wars will be the same, and he could very well be right when everything is said and done. But, I think AGOT has shown that FFG doesn't necessarily cater to what everyone else does. Here, I think it is easy to argue either way for the intent of the developers. (Note, I have not read Star Wars' new FAQ yet, so this could already be resolved, but that is an example of rules "holes" that create confusion without malicious intent.)

I should also mention that we don't get into 4 hour debates where we just sit there and argue over a rule. We typically "resolve" the issue in a few minutes and continue with the game, continuing to discuss the situation and make points for hours or days later. Not a constant back and forth, but it does come up over and over and over again until someone finds a ruling in a FAQ or on a message board.

Yeah, I get what you are saying about being able to get to the right conclusion without any errata. I just think that FFG's goal should be to be able to get to the right ruling without having to talk to a judge. To get to this ruling, you have to combine so many elements from different documents. A lot of times, this stuff can come up in the middle of a timed match in a tournament. If you are having to break out all of the documentation to try and figure out what the resolution is, that can be quite a problem for the event. And, while we have hashed this out a lot here online, not every Night's Watch is going to read this particular thread, and could be faced with the same question in a tournament.

I get when people want to reduce the numbers of entries in the FAQ, but I am one of the people who would rather have a 400 page FAQ (with searching capabilities, mind you), and easy to read/understand rulings and errata, than having to hope that every Night's Watch representitive are going to read and interpret a complicated ruling the same across the country. There is nothing quite as demoralizing as playtesting your favorite deck for months, showing up to a major tournament and finding out that your deck doesn't actually work the way you thought it did because your judge made the wrong ruling. My buddy has had to break it to someone in a Lord of the Rings tournament that the 15 otherwise worthless allies in his "Unbound Hobbit" deck, weren't actually considered "Unbound Hobbits" in a regional tournament. His deck went from top-tier level deck to the level of a randomized starter with one misinterpreted ruling. That is someone that liked the game enough to pay some $200+ to travel to an event in Vegas or San Diego (can't remember which of those events it was), who may never play the game again after an experience like that. If one entry in the FAQ can prevent someone else from going through that some day, that seems like a very small price to pay.

That comparison is ridiculous, Rhaegal being poorly worded (as many of us are well aware that he is) is nowhere near being a game breaking issue. Just imagine that his attach as a duplicate effect is worded the way that every other one is and there is no issue or apparent precedent setting problem. Duplicates do not exist in your deck, so it should say to search for a copy of Rhaegal and attach it as a duplicate, so, yes they should erata it, but until they do, the intent is easy enough to figure out.

I am someone who maybe wouldn't play this game if the FAQ was 400 pages. I know that was an exagerration, but maybe they do not have as many entries in the FAQ because many of your concerns are statistically not a FAQ.

I now understand what you were saying before even though I don't agree with the strictness of your interpretation of cards. I don't think a game should be designed for only players that have the ability to perfectly interpret the English language and the ability to pull apart the structure of sentences in such a way that there is only a single interpretation that is possible for everyone who reads the sentence.

If you are entering a tournament, it is your responsibility to know how the cards will work. You should never assume that everyone uses the same exact interpretation as you(even if you think you are 100% correct). This is why we have the online community and the rules question submission. This is also why we have the FAQ.