There are some cards that state that an ability needs to be triggered at the beginning of a phase.

For example Tywin Lannister (Core Set - i think): At the beginning of the marshalling phase add two gold tokens,….

Another is Theon Greyjoy: While Theon Greyjoy is in your dead pile, he gains: "At the beginning of the dominance phase, discard the top card of each opponent's deck.
Response: After a unique character is discarded from the top of an opponent's deck, put Theon Greyjoy into play from your dead pile"

So can someone explain to me that game mechanic? As far as i know the rules state that for Dominance the very first thing that has to be done is see who wins dominance but how i interpret the card this is an passive ability that Theon gets - so does this happen before any triggerable effects?

And one more of a general question how do you people handle player mistakes? For example i had meraxes (Dominance: kneel Meraxes to draw a card then every player who did not challenge you draws a card), and said i wanted to do something in dominance as we normally go through the phases after the Challenge phase quiet fast. Another player also stated that he wanted to do something which was Theon's ability as described above. But as he didn't say that i went on and knelt Meraxes when he wanted to use his ability i objected that he was too late as it states that it had to be done in the beginning of the phase.

We ended up "rewinding" the phase - so that his action was done first after which i knelt meraxes.

MrFixit said:

Am I correct to assume that you have not yet familiarized yourself with the flowcharts in the FAQ? If you haven't, it is now time to do so. If you don't have it, you can download the FAQ here.

What you need is the flowchart for the Dominance phase (as we'll use that one for our example) on page 20 and the breakdown of the Action Window on page 18.

Now, look at the flowchart for the Dominance phase. You see that the phase starts with a Framework Action Window with one Framework Event: Dominance Phase begins. All phases begin with such a FAW, and it is here that "At the beginning of the phase…" type effects resolve.

Now, look at the flowchart two pages before for the breakdown of the steps in a FAW. Steps 1-3 are not that interesting in the case of the Beginning of the phase-FAW. No effect currently in the game can cancel the Beginning of a phase, so nothing happens in step 1-3 except that the phase, well, begins. Now, step 4 (passive effects are initiated) is interesting. All "beginning of the phase" effects are passive effects, so this is where they resolve. In step 5, Responses to anything that happened before during the Action Window can be triggered. So, if a unique character was discarded from an opponent's deck due to Theon's passive effect, you can now trigger his response and put him into play.

Now look back to the Dominance Phase flowchart: You see that only after the Beginning of the Dominance Phase FAW has resolved completely, the FAW in which Dominance is counted opens. That tells you that effects like Theon's, including his response, happen before Dominance is counted.

Only after Dominance is counted comes the first Player Action Window. Only now do players have the chance to trigger Player Actions, like Meraxes.

Does that make it clearer?

MrFixit said:

I guess I would've handled it the same way. Remember that Theon's discard effect is a passive - it *has to* happen, if the players want it to or not. Theon's Response is optional, though.

Yes very much thank you.

I had this confusion too after only reading the rules in the Core Set. What the Core Set rulebook should have said is that dominance is won before any player can choose to perform an action. That would have implied that cards outside the Core Set had effects that could happen before counting dominance.

Rehlow said:

I've been teaching this game to a lot of new players lately and have taken to telling them flat out that you can't really learn how to play the game just from reading the Core rulebook. That'll get you started with just the decks in the Core set, but the FAQ and the supplemental rules in the CP cycles that introduce new mechanics are required to go past that point.

For instance, just to make things even more confusing, Shadows actions take place "at the beginning of the phase" and have their own special status with respect to how they relate to other timing rules.

Rehlow said:

"At the beginning of the dominance phase, Knight of Flowers claims 1 power if he is standing."

That power is claimed before Dominance STR is counted because it is not an action performed by a player. It is a passive effect that happens when the Dominance phase begins, whether the player wants it to or not.