Reading up on the redirects of Titles and the timing of stealth, I got confused over Varys. Apologies if this has been asked, did not find anything using search.

Varys response is "After an opponent declares a challenge, put Varys into Shadows to redirect the challenge against an eligible opponent of your chioce..."

Does this mean that the attacker gets to assign stealth against the new defender?

loffenx said:

The decision to redirect must be made long before Stealth is declared. In fact, if any "Any Phase:" or "Challenges:" player actions are done, or Stealth targets are chosen, it's too late to do a redirect. Unless someone else has jumped the gun and started doing these actions before you had a chance to perform the redirect, you cannot redirect afterward. This also applies to the Crown Regent Title's redirect ability.

In summary, you must redirect immediately after attackers are declared. Once that happens, Stealth targets may be chosen for the first time in this challenge.

To be absolutely clear:

The Crown Regent title will get first crack at a redirect, then Varys' Response. Both happen in the exact same action window in which attackers are declared. The attacker only gets to assign stealth one time - against the redirected opponent. They never actually get the chance to assign stealth against the original opponent.

Remember that stealth is assigned immediately before defenders are declared, which is after players have a chance to trigger effects after attackers are declared. It is not uncommon for people to say "I do a military challenge with X, stealthing past Y," making it seem like the attacker assigns stealth immediately after declaring attackers (instead of immediately before defenders are declared), but the people who do that are technically jumping the gun and announcing who they plan to stealth too early.

ktom said:

OK, so if Varys' Response is triggered, the opportunity to use the Crown Regent's redirect has already completely passed? I once used the Crown Regent to re-redirect my attack back to my original target after he put Varys into shadows, it sounds like that was actually an illegal move by me.

alpha5099 said:

Interesting that Varys effectively trumps the Crown Regent title, isn't it?

Thanks for providing a clear timing on those things.

Interesting that all existing effect that redirect challenges have different timings:

• Crown Regent: passive effect from declaration of challenge
• Lord Commander: cancel response to declaration of defenders
• TGM Varys: response to declaration of challenge

What's the timing between Lord Commander and support (which could be considered another challenge redirection effect)?

Every time this kind of thing comes up, my wish for updated flowcharts in the FAQ grows stronger...

Thanks for the excellent replies!

Khudzlin said:

Supporting is effectively a "then" effect. If the original defender does not declare defenders, then the supporting player can. The original defender has not "officially" declared 0 defenders until the "declare defenders" framework event resolves in its Step 3. This is pretty much the same as other "then" effects, which initiate somewhere in the Step 3 of the "pre-then" effect.

So, Lord Commander gets first crack at the "no defenders" military challenge.

But you still get the opportunity to respond to being declared a challenge right (cause of the framework action and all that moribund shannanigans)

Example:

I'm playing greyjoy / have the char that discards opp cards after being declared a challenge against (¿euron?) / have the crown regent.

Someone attack me: I redirect the challenge to another player and then do the response because in this framework someone declared a challenge against me.

Thanks

There are arguments both ways.

On the one hand, the redirect doesn't change the fact that Player A said "I do an intrigue challenge against B," even though the challenge was redirected to C.

On the other hand, at the time you trigger the Response, C is fully and completely the only defending player. And since Responses look at the situation and evaluates play restrictions at the time the Response is triggered, not at the time the Response opportunity is created, the challenge is against C at that point, not B. (The is the same reason playing Roose Bolton while Threat from the North is revealed will not let you trigger The Dreadfort.)

Personally, I'm inclined toward the "no, you can't Respond as the person the challenge was declared against after it has been redirected" because of the "at the time the Response is triggered" rule, but it might be a good idea to send that one in to FFG directly to be sure.

ktom said:

I'm inclined to agree, both with the interpretation, and with the asking FFG.

There have been a number of things in the Challenges phases where the timing is tricky.