Hi.

Jaqen H'gar is:

Any Phase: Bring Jaqen H'ghar out of Shadows by paying the rest of his cost to choose 1 non-Army character in an opponent's dead pile that was killed this phase, and attach it to Jaqen H'ghar as a duplicate. Jaqen H'ghar gains the printed text, base STR, icons, traits and crests of that card. If that duplicate leaves play, return Jaqen H'ghar to Shadows.

What happens if he's in play and then burned, i.e. its strength reaches 0 and is killed/discarded if its strength is 0?

Thank you

Ikaros said:

Then he becomes moribund before the duplicate does and the return to shadows effect cannot apply (you cannot use the duplicate to save him).

Khudzlin said:

If he is burned, you can discard the dupe on him to save him, resulting in him being returned to Shadows. Therefore, he is removed from the terminal state by being returned to Shadows before the "kill at 0" effect reasserts itself. (It's effectively the same thing as CS-Viserys saving himself and then going back to hand.)

This was exactly my doubt. Thank you.

ktom said:

So, in this example, Jaqen's replacement effect allows him to override the normal "cannot save from a Terminal effect" restriction, because the restriction indicates that the save can be made if the save would also remove the terminal effect. His replacement effect qualifies.

Am I understanding this correctly?

KristoffStark said:

ktom said:

Correct me here, but the save is actually not returning him to Shadows. That happens as a passive ability in Step 4). The save effect must immediatly remove the terminal state, not a while after.

If returning to Shadows would happen as part of the save effect, I would agree, but it does not seem to be the case.

Bolzano said:

• Because of the "if the dupe leaves play, return to Shadows" wording of Jaqen's lasting effect, it will resolve passively and he will be returned to Shadows after the save resolves, not as part of the save (I can buy that; if the "return to Shadows" was constant or a replacement, it'd probably be different, but as worded, I can get behind the idea I missed above that it is passive.);
• Of course, the "kill at 0" part of the burn is also a passive effect that will reassert itself passively after the save resolves (making saves that remove from the terminal state possible in the first place);
• So technically, if Jaqen discards his dupe, you create a conflicting entry into moribund situation and the First Player should get to decide the order;
• But if the First Player decides "burn goes first," it would have been illegal to trigger the save in the first place, retroactively invalidating the save effect;
• Therefore, because the "return to Shadows" effect is not guaranteed to happen after the save takes place, the save cannot be said to definitively remove Jaqen from the terminal state;
• Since the save does not definitively remove Jaqen from the terminal state, it cannot be triggered in the first place.

Does that track with what you were thinking?

I have a question.
If the kill effect of terminal effects occurs during the Passive step, then why would you "Save" the character during the Saves/Responses Step 2 of the Player Action of the Burn effect? Wouldn't you play this Save during the Passive step when the kill effect of Burn happens?

Viserys, for example, is not killed from the effect itself if the effect is only reducing the STR down to 0. If he is killed when his STR reaches 0, and that kill effect is applied as a Passive ability, then wouldn't that be when his save should occur?

Same with Jaqen H'Gar. Why would you apply his save during the STR reduction when he is not killed by the terminal effect until it applies to him passively. He should be saved(at Step II of Passive abilities Step) from the Burn effect(killed at 0) in the Passive abilities step. At step IV(Other passive abilities) you can then put him into the Shadows per the condition of his lasting passive ability.

The problem I see with that is it still creates the conflicting moribund states issue because the First Player can still decide to just apply the burns kill effect(kill at 0) again as the next Passive ability to trigger. I feel like that is very strange that it is possible to initiated the same passive effect 2 times in a row before any other passive effects trigger.

Maybe I am just reaching?

Bomb said:

The difference between saving in Step 2 vs. Step 4.X.II is pretty minimal. The difference is not often noticeable and important even less often.

There is no more of a "conflicting moribund state" if Viserys is returned to hand as part of the save in Step 2 (before the "kill at 0" asserts itself in Step 4) than there is if Viserys is returned to hand as part of the save in Step 4.X.II (before the "kill at 0" reasserts itself in Step 4.X+1.I).

ktom said:

Yes it is. You are right that the "return to Shadows" effect is not guaranteed. In fact, if the First player chooses that the burn effect should go first, it does not mean that the burn effect goes away. The First player gets again to choose which effect goes first. And again. And again. And again…. stucking the game. The issue here is essentially that Jaq'en ability resolves as a passive and not as part of a save, which make it impossible to remove a terminal state before the resolution of the burn effect in Step 4.III).

Oh you were right, we already got through all this here :

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=18&efcid=4&efidt=491867&efpag=1#621920

And I just noticed you misstyped my nickname, there, again :-D

At least you are both consistent. The consistency of my answers is always relative to the amount of coffee I've had!

I'm lost.

I've read the other thread as well.

So, I cannot return Jaqen to shadow where he is burned, right? And the first answer given by ktom in this thread was just an inattention?

Btw, Bolzano, are you from Bolzano?

Ikaros said:

Correct.

Ikaros said:

He's french. But I, too, was always wondering why he had the name of that beautiful city as his handle. So, Bolzano - what's the deal there?

Ratatoskr, I live nearby Bolzano. Do you too?

Btw, today I stumbled upon norse mythology articles through the web and I found you, great squirrel !

I don't fully understand, or agree with, the "ruling" in the other thread, but I thought I would post here since this is at the top. Ktom is much more familiar with the rules than I am, and how the timing works, so in the end I'll defer to his/Nate's ruling on this. That said, here's my objection…

My understanding is that you can save against *any* removal effect, unless attempting to do so would not remove your card from the terminal effect OR the effect specifically says "cannot be saved." In that case, you can't even attempt the save. In the vast majority of cases, burn effects create a lasting terminal state that will kill a character, so that duplicates typically will not save the character and are thus NOT permitted to be triggered. However, there are times when you can be saved against burn. Risen from the Sea is a perfect example…if by playing risen you boost the character above the terminal state, then that character is not killed. Viserys is another example…in response to burn he pops back to hand. Davos is an even better example…you can save him but CANNOT pay the 1 gold to keep him in play.

Why is Jaqen any different? If I burn him with Flame-Kissed, he can discard the dupe BECAUSE by doing so he automatically returns to shadows. Moreover, he has a lasting effect that was triggered when he first came out of shadows that says (paraphrasing) "if the dupe is gone, put him into shadows." So it seems to me there is no conflict of timing…the lasting trigger was already triggered long before the burn effect, and is thus already active.

Hopefully this makes sense. If I were the TO at a tournament, this is definitely how I would want rule it. But again, if people are 100% certain Jaqen can't be saved, then I guess I'd follow the consensus on these forums.

Twn2dn said:

That's where Jaqen runs into trouble against burn. Despite being created by the original "Any Phase" effect that brought him out of shadows, the "return to Shadows" lasting effect has a delayed point of initiation (corresponding to "that" dupe leaving play), meaning it resolves as a passive effect, not a constant one. Said another way, Jaqen is not constantly trying to return to Shadows but being stopped by the presence of the dupe - rather, the loss of the dupe causes him to be sent back into shadows by the resolution of the lasting effect - now initiated.

So, discarding the dupe is a "save" effect, after which, a separate passive effect needs to initiate and resolve before he would be removed from the terminal state. So the situation is a lot like the one that says you cannot save with effect #1, then bump STR with effect #2. And Nate has ruled that the loss of the dupe returns Jaqen to Shadows passively, making the "save" and the "return to Shadows" two separate effects (unlike, say, Viserys, where the "save" and the "return to hand" are two parts of the same effect).

In order for it to work as you say - and the way I said it worked at the beginning of the thread - the presence of the dupe would need to be part of a constant effect that would be applied as part of resolving the save, not a separate, distinct passive effect. For example, if Jaqen read something more like "While that dupe is attached, Jaqen gains…, otherwise, return him to Shadows," the presence of the dupe would be constantly preventing him from returning to Shadows, so the loss would happen as part of the save, not be applied separately as a passive effect. It's a little confusing because constant effects (think of Timett or Stoic Resolve and their "cannot be killed while kneeling" constant effects) will be added in as part of the same effect because they lack a separate point of initiation and thus can combine to take the character out of the terminal state. Passives do not because they are initiated separately.

For a hypothetical situation, let's pretend Jaqen has the text "if he has a dupe attached, he has -1 STR". Would the save not take him out of the burn terminal state(at 0 STR he is killed) because the save itself did not remove the -1 STR reduction? Would it be different if the text was "while he has a dupe attached, he has -1 STR"?

Let's say a Clansman character could kneel to save itself(let's say Maester Aemon[Core] had the trait somehow). What would happen if Timmett Son of Timmett was in play under your control with Maester Aemon?

My point on the Passive step(in my post above) providing the kill effect is that it could make a different considering that you now have other Passive effects that can be triggered to do different things. If the kill effect is in Step 3, then there is no chance of simultaneous and conflicting passive effects. I just wanted to make that type of point since you could have Passive effects initiate that boost strength depending on the trigger.

I'm just making sure that none of the above are possible with terminal effects since the save itself does not remove the terminal effect.

Bomb said:

Generally speaking, "if X happens, DO Y" is going to be a passive effect while "if X is true, Y is true" will be constant (although with a condition). Changing the "if" to "when" or "while" in either of those isn't going to change the nateure of "do Y" vs. "Y is true", although the language may certainly read better.

So in your hypothetical example, discarding the dupe will be possible because the loss of the -1 STR will not have a separate initiation (ie, "Y is true"). This is different than how Jaquen is worded now, where returning him to Shadows does have a separate initiation (ie, "do Y").

Now, if your hypothetical Jaqen said "after a dupe is discarded from Jaqen, he gains +1 STR until the end of the phase," then you are looking at a passive effect. The difference is that the word "after" denotes an initiation that "if," "when," or "while" do not necessarily denote, and the fact that the +1 STR has an end means it must also have a beginning (and thus an initiation).

And that's the key point here - if there is a point of initiation, it is passive and cannot be combined with a save to remove from the terminal state. If there is no point of initiation, it is constant and can be combined with a save to remove from the terminal state (like Timett kneeling to save Tyrion from the Valar set to kill them both and becoming CBK in time to ignore the kill). And don't forget - if it is triggered, it can remove from the terminal state if the trigger is shared with a save (like Viserys).

Bomb said:

Bomb said:

The text you are imagining for Jaq'en would likely be worded "If a duplicate is attached to Jaq'en, he gains -1 STR" then errated because they forgot "until the end of the phase". That's how passive STR modifies are often worded. So indeed, the save would not take him out of the burn terminal effect. And to be more precise, the reason is not that the save itself did not remove the -1 STR. Instead, the reason is that by the save effect resolution, any effect has not removed the terminal state. And "any effect" just happens to be limited in this case to the save effect itself and constant effect - but we could also imagine some replacement effects.

But to make it easier to remember, just think that Jaq'en passive ability that discard its duplicate can be cancelled. So what happens if you just saved him but the duplicate discard is cancelled? You have just triggered a save that did not remove the character from the terminal state. That is just an example, but anything can theorically happen between Step 4.1. III) and Step 4.X.III).

Bomb said:

You have to kneel Maester Aemon to initiate the save effect. So he becomes "Cannot be killed". The save effect will resolve unsuccessfully (or maybe successfully, saving from a kill effect that would resolve unsuccesfully) but still remove the terminal state. So I'd say you can kneel Maester Aemon and he will survive the burn effect - but under one condition. The FAQ says that the save effect must remove from terminal state. Here the save initiation is removing the terminal state, not the effect itself. ktom may have some thoughts on whether or not it can be considered to be the same.

Ikaros said:

From France, I chose that nickname a while ago - that guy was a bohemian philosopher ^^

But it looks like a nice city too.

Bolzano said:

Ah. This guy . I see.

And yes, it *is* a nice city.

ktom said:

Yes, that is exactly what I was saying with my last sentence in my post.

I think I understand how Aemon can still save himself in that situation, but what bothers me is that I don't see his save effect as removing the terminal state because it's not what specifically gives him CBK. So, even if a save effect is reinforced by an outside influence after it is initiated, it can be triggered?

If Tarle the Thrice Drowned is burned(killed at STR 0) and has Devious Intentions(+1 STR for each power on attached character) on him, can he save himself, and claim 1 power for doing so if the 1 power raises his STR to 1? If he is burned -4 STR(killed at 0) and his original STR is 3, can he save himself 2 times for the repeated burn effect, claim 1 power for each save, thus removing the terminal state for raising his STR to 1?

Basically, what are the exceptions and allowances for saving if the save effect itself does not specifically remove the terminal state but has outside effects that might reinforce it?

Bomb said:

If you need to go through two initiations to do this - triggered and/or passive - you are not allowed to use either one. So Jaqen cannot discard the dupe because it requires 2 initiations (the triggered save and the passive return to Shadows) to save and remove him from the terminal state. In the "Clans-Aemon" (or simply the Timett/Tyrion/Valar example), you only need to initiate one thing (the save), even though it is the combination with an (always on, non-initiated) constant ability that completes the removal from the terminal state.

Do you see the difference? You get one initiation - triggered or passive - when trying to save from burn to do two things.

In your Tarle example, you would need to trigger the save twice in order to give him the 2 power he needs to get above 0. That's two initiations you need to remove him from the terminal state, so you couldn't do this.

So it's not like there is a list of exceptions and allowances for saving from a terminal effect that I can give you. It all comes down to "you get to initiate one thing." So constant effects that do not initiate can help get beyond the terminal state, but passive effects (or multiple triggered effects) that must initiate separately cannot.