Hello!

I am a relatively new player of the LCG and have been struggling with how the timing rules work for the player/action windows.

I have a few friends that play and are relatively new as well that tried to explain to me how it works, but it doesn't make sense as per the FAQ.

Here is the situation:

I have Robb Stark (Core), The Blackfish (LoW), and Guard at Riverrun (LoW) out on my board.

She has two characters out, the one that matters is Cersei's Attendant (Core). The other one is knelt.

I want to make sure I am doing the timing correctly.

Here is my understanding of how it works:

Framework Action Challenges begin:

I have no player actions, she has none. We move onto declaring attackers. I declare Robb Stark and the Blackfish as Attackers.

I then kneel them. It then goes to player actions again. I have no stealth and she kneels no defenders. Then player actions. Then we determine I win. She then takes her knelt character for the claim. Then I get power for unupposed challenge. Blackfish then gets renown. Challenge is over. Robb then can use his "Response: after you win a Military challenge in which Robb Stark participates, choose and kill a character controlled by the losing player." ability, declaring Cersei's Attendant. She, in response, kneels Cersei's Attendant and plays "A Lanister Always Pays its Debts" (core), declaring Robb as the target. I have no responses, so both die.

Is that right?

In general, I get when you can play save/cancels, but when can you play responses? Would there have been a way for her to play that BEFORE Robb kill her?

Just in general, I come from a magic background and I am used to that timing structure and I THOUGHT I had this one down, but I am really confused on it now.

Thanks!

Someone more knowledgable than me will comment on the timing, but even though she is killed from the claim she is not removed from the board and is considered to be in a moribund state. This allows you to play responses and triggers off characters before they are removed from the board. As I understand the rules, what they did is legal.

For the most part, you have got the whole thing down. The differences are primarily terminology, but some of it might help clarify some of the overall concepts. So let's go through the anatomy of the challenge again:

• Player Actions (Before the challenge begins, players take turns - starting with the First Player - using "Challenges" and "Any Phase" effects.)
• Active Player Initiates Challenge (The active player announces the challenge type and defending player, then identifies - and kneels - the attacking characters.)
• Player Actions (Players take turns - starting with the First Player, not the Active Player - using "Challenges" and "Any Phase" effects.)
• Active Player Chooses Stealth Targets/Defending Player Declares Defenders (by identifying - and kneeling - the defending characters.)
• Player Actions (Players take turns - starting with the First Player, not the Active Player - using "Challenges" and "Any Phase" effects.)
• Challenge is Resolved:
• ---> A: Determine the winner by counting and comparing total attacking and defending STR
• ---> B: If attacker wins, resolve claim effects (in a military challenge, the character(s) chosen to die are considered dead, but remain physically on the table and can be used to do anything, except be removed from play again, until the "Challenge is Resolved" window closes. This is called the "moribund" state and happens whenever a card leaves play for any reason)
• ---> C: If attacker wins and the defender counted 0 STR, attacker claims 1 power on their House for "unopposed."
• ---> D: Participating characters on the winning side with Renown claim 1 power each
• NOTE: The challenge is not counted as "over" at this point (you mentioned above that it was)
• ---> E: Passive effects, activated by anything in A-D are initiated and resolved.
• ---> F: Starting with the First Player (not the Active Player) Responses to anything in A-E, or earlier in F, are triggered (this is where both Robb's Response and "A Lannister Pays His Debts" are played.
• ---> G: Once all Responses by all players are complete, the challenge ends, the resolution window closes, and all characters that were killed (or otherwise removed from play) are physically removed from the table and placed in their respective "out-of-play" areas.

So, when you follow all of that, you got the timing just right in your description - except for the fact that the challenge ends at G, not between D and E. (This actually should make some sense: ALPHD, for example, says to choose and kill a participating character. If the challenge officially ended before Responses were played, the characters would no longer be participating and ALPHD would never have a legal target.)

The concept that you seem to have picked up, even though its exact timing and application may have been confusing you, is the idea of "moribund." As mentioned above, anything card that is removed from play in an action window stays physically on the table until that window closes. Each action is a single window - so it doesn't come up too much in Player Actions (where, even though it is listed above as a single step, each individual action triggered by a player takes place in its own window. The (framework) action of resolving the challenge just has a whole of stuff happening in a single window, so the concept comes up there more often than anywhere else. When a card becomes "moribund" (say, because it was killed by military claim or by a Response like Robb's), it is considered dead (and you can Respond to it being killed), but it stays on the table, where it can still do absolutely everything it could do before it was killed - except for being killed, discarded, etc. a second time. So that means, while already dead, the standing Lannister character is still around to pay the cost of ALPHD. "Moribund" is this game's version of saying cards can still do certain things "on their way out."

The other common trap I am happy to note you did NOT fall into is that people often want to Respond to things as they happen, rather than waiting for the appropriate time to play the Response. Specifically, many people want to use Responses to winning or losing the challenge between A and B above, instead of waiting until F as the timing structure requires them to do. So good job on recognizing that aspect of the timing rules. Not everyone does on their first couple of passes through the rules.

Overall, it looks like you are barely confused at all.

Thanks for the reply!

So event cards such as Im You Writ Small could be played during the player actions before each framework event in the guide you typed up, correct?

I think the thing my buddies were caught up on was to wait until a response was completely resolved until the next response was played. As I understood it, it kept just opening "windows" or "gates" that you could reply to.

Is that correct?

blitzmonkey said:

blitzmonkey said:

Once a response opportunity is created within an action window (player or framework), it stays open and available until the window closes. And anything new that happens in that window opens another response opportunity - that also stays open until the end of the window. Responses can be played in any order, no matter what order their opportunities were created in.

This is an interesting one. We play that you can play cards to cancel other players cancel cards…So for example I try and use He calls it thinking and an opponent uses paper shield to cancel that, then perhaps I use something to cancel paper shield so my original he calls it thinking goes off…??

Sorry for bad example I'm being rushed off for dinner!

Yes, you can do that, because cancel effects do come between initiation and resolution (and both He Calls It Thinking and Paper Shield have no gold or influence cost, making them legal triggers for Paper Shield).

ktom said:

Emphasis is mine. This is the part that I am getting hung up on and disagreeing with them about.

For example, let's say I was playing Martells vs Lannisters. My opponent just lost the challenge and we get to the response phase and they play ALAPHD. As I understand it, it works like this:

Step 1 through 4 of the Framework phase doesn't so much matter.

Step 5 is responses. I am the first player. I won the challenge, so he plays Lanisters always plys his debts. At this point, this goes to 5.1 (Response is initiated). It then goes to 5.2, Save/Cancel. I have none. It then goes to Step 5.3, Response is executed. In the rule FAQ, there is an arrow point to Follow Steps I though IV. I think this is where the confusion between my friends and I lie. It then goes to step 5.4, Passive Abilities.

MY take on that is that I would play "He Calls It Thinking" on step 5.3. Essentially, I think they are saying I wouldn't get to respond since, as I bolded, each response is resolved completely.

I think my take on it is that A Lannister Always Pays His Debts would essentially "resolve" putting one of my characters into morribund. As a response, I play He Calls It Thinking to cancel HIS out, thus bringing that character BACK from Morribund.

Does this make sense?

I might add that Step 5.1through 4 for "Response is Initiated" through "Passive Abilities are initiated" I think is a big source of the confusion. Why does it say "Follow Steps I through 4,etc" again? I took step III to be MY time to play the responses to HIS response.

blitzmonkey said:

blitzmonkey said:

blitzmonkey said:

"The only effects that in this game that can take place between the initiation and resolution of another effect are Responses that specifically use the words "save" or "cancel." Those are the only true interrupts in the game."

?

THAT'S what is going on in your scenario. You are trying to use a cancel effect, one of the only true interrupts in the game, to stop the resolution of ALPHD and prevent your character from ever going into moribund in the first place. Showing the place where these "save" and "cancel" responses take place are the entire point of "5.II" on the chart. Perhaps it will make more sense if I tell you 5.II should probably say "Save/cancel responses to this Response effect"? Your opportunity to save/cancel against the things that opened the window came back in Step 2.

blitzmonkey said:

On the other question, you're being a bit to literal about the "arrow from III saying 'Follow steps I through IV, etc.'" question. All it is telling you is that you keep repeating or cycling through 5.I - 5.IV for each (non-save/cancel) Response to anything that happened in Steps 1-4, or earlier in Step 5. It is not your opportunity to Respond to his Responses. Your opportunity to Respond to his Responses is folded into the opportunity to Respond to anything that has happened in the window. That "Follow steps I through IV, etc." bit is telling you (for both passives and Responses) that there can be more than one per window, and that each one goes through the sub-steps separately.

I could write out a big, long example, but what it comes down to is that "He Calls It Thinking," as a cancel, would be initiated and resolved within the steps for resolving ALPHD. If it wasn't successful (because he interrupted HCIT with Paper Shield, for instance) and your character died anyway, you now, as part of your normal Step 5 response opportunities, have the additional Response opportunity of "after a character you control is killed." You can either play a Response to that, and come back to Responses to winning the challenge later, or you can continue to play responses to winning the challenge and come back to responses to the character being killed later. You can play Responses to anything that happens in the window - main action, passives, or Responses - in any order. The order in which the things happen have no impact. 'Follow steps I through IV, etc.' meant that this was your chance to Respond to his Responses, the order would matter and the rule about Responding in any order would not be true.

Mostly, it sounds like your confusion is that you are misunderstanding when cancels and how cancels, particularly cancels to Responses, are played. Remember the "except for saves and cancels" part of "resolved completely before another can be played - except for saves and cancels."

I used a bad example. I was trying to rush before I had to leave. My apologies. It also doesnt help that it sounds like Ive been playing it right from the get go, but my friends are trying to convince me I am not.

I get how cancels work.

Let me sum up again:

They told me that when it comes to playing responses, once someone plays a response, I can't react to it unless it is a Cance;/Save Effect. Let's use ALABID vs Distinct Mastery.

He loses a challenge. He then plays Lannsiers pays his Debts. He decides he wants to kneel someone with a Noble Icon. Could I do anything about that BARRING save/cancels with Distinct Mastery? Could I in response to his response, play Distinct Mastery and Kneel his character before he can kneel it for Pays His Debts?

blitzmonkey said:

No. But if you played Distinct Mastery first, he couldn't then say "well, I'm gonna kneel him to pay for Debts before that resolves" either.

blitzmonkey said:

Distinct Mastery is not a cancel (and it only stands a character after they are knelt). The important thing about cancels is the cost is paid, but the outcome is cancelled. Such as, he plays Lannister Pays His Debts and kneels a character. You can play He Calls it Thinking to cancel the effect, but his character is still knelt.

If you were intending to use it as some cancel to his Debts event, since DM only stands a character, his event cost would still have been fullfilled by him kneeling the character first, so the event finishes and he can choose and kill a character.

Slothgodfather said:

Again, apologies. I am struggling to name specific cards.

Point is that in the response phase, once someone plays an event, you cannot respond to the event directly unless it is a cancel/save effect.

Distinct Mastery isn't even a response… so no chance to play it in a framework action window.

blitzmonkey said:

Correct. If it is not a save/cancel, the effect is resolved. Then you can trigger responses off of that effect. Such as using Blood for Blood to kill a character of his after he used Lannister Pays His Debts to kill a character of yours.

blitzmonkey said:

1) Are you trying to Respond to his character being knelt to pay the cost of the event or to Respond to your character being killed? (ie, use an "After a character kneels…" or "After a character is killed…" Response?) If so, the answer is "yes." Those response opportunities are created and "folded in" to all the other Response opportunities available to you.

2) Or are you trying to use some sort of "stand a character" effect to stand the character he used to pay the cost of the event, and then say that since the character isn't knelt, he didn't pay the cost of the event and he doesn't get the effect of it either? In essence, are you trying to "undo" or "unmake" the cost he pays? Or perhaps you are trying to use some sort of "kneel a character" effect to kneel the character he wants to use to pay the cost of the event before he gets a chance to kneel it, then saying that since your effect knelt the character instead, he didn't pay the cost of the event, so he doesn't get the effect, either? If that's what you are trying to do, the answer is "no." Once your opponent initiates an effect - any effect - the only thing you can do to stop it from resolving is to play a "save" or "cancel" effect.

There is no "ha! you showed your hand and now I'm going to outsmart you by beating you to the punch" in this game (other than saves and cancels). You either anticipate the move and take steps to prevent it before it is triggered, or you try to mitigate the damage once it is triggered.

If you are trying to do #2, the fact that you are having trouble coming up with specific cards that will illustrate the question should clue you in that it is not possible.