Playing in a friendly melee game yesterday, I was Martell as was one of my opponents. I had more characters than he did, so he declared an attack on me with The Red Viper (PotS) (Renown. Immune to events and character abilities. The Red Viper does not kneel to attack an opponent who controls more characters than you.).

I then used my Crown Regent redirect to force him to choose a new target. The question then arose if The Red Viper would have to kneel (since the other players had the same number or fewer characters). The FAQ doesn't have an entry on the Crown Regent so, applying the entry on Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, we decided that, having started the challenge against me, the redirect didn't go all the way back to the beginning of the Framework Action window and undo the initiation of the challenge or choice of challenge type, the kneel/no kneel determination was already set.

But the more I think of it, the more I feel like that may have been wrong. Since he's required to choose an entirely new target, he's sent back to the second half of the Step 1 of the Framework Action window in which the challenge is initiated (before kneeling is done in Step 2) so the text should apply.

Can someone tell me which is correct?

Amuk said:

You had it right the first time. When the Crown Regent redirects, you do not go backwards at all. You simply re-choose the defending player as part of the resolution of Crown Regent.

Amuk said:

He does not go backwards at all. The new defender is chosen as part of resolving Crown Regent, not by "replaying" any framework action for initiating the (already initiated) challenge.

Look at it this way: if you were jumping back and replaying the framework action "Active Player declares challenge type and opponent," wouldn't the active player get the chance to declare an entirely different challenge type? And if you are jumping back to that, you would also be replaying the "Active player kneels attacking characters" framework action, meaning he should be able to choose entirely different attacking characters if he wants. That is obviously not the case. The Active player does not get to do either of those things. The rules say that choosing the new defending player comes after all of those things, so you are not replaying them at all. As such, since the attackers are already legal, declared participants in the challenge, nothing about them changes when Crown Regent is resolved.

Essentially, Crown Regent is far more straightforward than Lord Commander. So you shouldn't try to apply the Lord Commander FAQ entry to the Crown Regent. There is no FAQ entry for Crown Regent because it is so much more straightforward. After attackers are declared, you initiate it and resolve it by choosing a new defending player. There is no need to jump backwards because you only need to identify the new defender - which happens as part of the resolution.

Lord Commander needs to jump backwards because it happens after defenders are (not) declared by the original defender. If you didn't jump backwards, the Lord Commander wouldn't get to declare defenders at all. And since nothing else jumps backwards in the game, the FAQ entry is needed to explain it. You really can't say all redirects work the same and that anything true for Lord Commander must also be true for Crown Regent, too. The situations are just too different.

ktom said:

We were just trying to resolve it quickly in the middle of the game and I couldn't think of anything else in the rules that even came close to applying, so we tried to apply the logic of LCotK to CR.

Is it proper to say, then, that the timing is that the Crown Regent resolves during the Player Action Window after kneeling and before stealth targets are chosen? Thus, there's no alteration in the flow of the windows? Do I have it right now?

As a corollary matter, does that mean that Brienne (PotS) precludes the use of Crown Regent?

Amuk said:

It's more proper to say that Crown Regent resolves as a passive effect within the framework action window for initiating the challenge/declaring attackers. "After a player initiates a challenge and declares a target and attackers…" is the timing restriction that lets you know when you "may" redirect. That's passive effect language.

But yeah, there is no alteration in the flow of the windows.

Amuk said:

As a passive, non-card effect (title effects are not considered card effects - you could be playing with the statuettes instead of the cards after all), titles are not something the player triggers. Therefore, Brienne does not prevent the use of Crown Regent - or any other title.