If I have Luwin in play at flip At the Gates and can only search for Luwin, what happens?

ScottieATF said:

If the only Maester you can find is a second copy of Luwin, it will enter play and immediately attach itself to the copy of Luwin already in play. If you only ever had one copy of Luwin in the deck, you search your deck, announce that you didn't find a Maester, shuffle and resume playing. In any case, I'd advise you to think about Riders of the Red Fork.

Really?

I can use At the Gates or On Raven Wings to search and attach a duplicate to a character already in play? I can use "put into play" to attach a duplicate?

Rule 3.27 on FAQ 1.5 states: You may not play, put into play or take control of a unique card already in play that you own control (except for putting a duplicate on a card that you own and control).

I always thought that (for doing so) a text like "put into play as a duplicate" was required. Also, coreset rules mention having it in hand during marshalling as the only way to play a duplicate...

Ikaros said:

I had the same confusion for the same reasons. Note that rule 3.27 states "putting a duplicate", not "playing a duplicate". We all know that you can't have two unique characters with the same name in play undar a player's control. However, there are times due to card effects where this condition may arise. The way this situation resolves is for the 2nd copy of the card to become a duplicate on the original card in play. For future reference, this occurs even if the character put into play would normally go back in your hand at the end of the phase - and this return effect is cancelled since the character put into play this way is no longer a character, but a duplicate.

Note the two exceptions in the FAQ for taking control of a unique character you already own and playing another copy of a unique still in play but no longer under your control. These are still prohibited game states, despite the rule interpretation that ktom stated above.

sabrefox said:

sabrefox said:

sabrefox said:

These are all applications of the rules within specific situations, not exceptions to anything. It seems like you are creating "exceptions" that you don't really need to create.

Concede - I should have said "condition may APPEAR to arise" in the first case, and "does not resolve/fizzles" instead of "cancelled" in the second. Thanks for clarifying - I knew what I meant, but it's more important that the reader does.

ktom said:

Agreed, but mostly because if a card isn't under your control, there is nothing to dupe in the first place.

ktom said:

I agree with the first part, but I can’t find anywhere in the rules or FAQ where it explicitly states that the dupe has to be a card you control or own. This may be implied from: (1) the Core rules specifically define the process of duplication as attaching the duplicate “from your hand” and that it occurs “during your marshalling”, (2) The rules interpretation apparently expands the duping process to allow “put into play” effects (which may occur after the Marshalling phase) for duping as well. (3) For “played” and “put into play” effects, it is obvious that cards must be owned by the person playing them since there is no way for a card that someone else owns to be in your hand,. (4) the 2nd sentence of FAQ 3.27 (“Thus you cannot take control of a unique character that you already have in play.”)

However, just based on wording, it appears that the 1st sentence of FAQ 3.27 (You may not play, put into play, or take control of a unique card already in play that you own or control (except for putting a duplicate on a card that you own and control), …) identifies a situation where you can use a card that you don’t own to dupe one that you do. One could apply the associative property here and determine that if “play” and “put into play” effects work as dupes, then taking control does too.

I suppose one could say the second sentence’s use of “cannot” overrides the “may” in the first sentence. Still, it’s no wonder that players fail to realize that put into play effects can dupe unique card until they find it in a thread here. If this ruling has been around for that long, I’d think it could be made more explicit.

sabrefox said:

The duping card pretty much has to be one you own. You will never have the opportunity to "play" a card you do not own (and control) from your hand because the rules pretty much limit cards to their owner's out-of-play areas. There is not a single situation in this game where you will not have a card in your hand, deck, discard pile, or dead pile that you do not own. As such, any other "put into play" effect that would utilize a card you do not own is going to include taking control of that card - or put it into play under someone else's control (where it will not dupe the card you own and control). Taking control of a unique card you already have in play is strictly prohibited.

There is only one possible situation I can think of that would fall outside of those considerations. (Anyone care to guess?)

ktom said:

Time of Trials Balon to put a unique Shadows character owned by your opponent into your shadows area? Then playing a copy of that character from your hand, then bringing your opponent's copy out of your Shadows as a dupe on your character.

(This is partially why I have a problem with Balon from a design perspective. IMO, cards you don't own should never be permitted in any of your out-of-play areas, even if it's "just" Shadows.)

ktom said:

Scouting the Pass (plot): "Any character that would be discarded from an opponent's hand as part of the claim of an Intrigue challenge may be put into play by the winner of the challenge, under his or her control"

Ikaros said:

Includes trying to take control of the character you pull from your opponent's hand. So the rules for unique would not allow you to do it if you already had a copy in play or in your dead pile.

Uhm, this would lead me to think that "putting into play under your control" automatically imply "taking control of a card controlled by an opponent".

Is a card in an oppenent hand controlled by that opponend? I though a controlled card must be a played card, thus a card in play.

Ikaros said:

Ikaros said:

So what is the interaction you had in mind that possibly breaks stuff?

The Balon/Shadows thing was it. You take control of a unique card, "hold it" in an out-of-play area, play a copy you own, then try to bring the other one out of Shadows. That's pretty much the only situation I can think of where you would even have the option of duping with a card you do not both own and control.