Okay I understand the basic usage of val. Draw a card then if you can play it you must, otherwise discard it. I have a few questions though:

Cards

Val

Any Phase: Reveal and draw the top card of your deck. Play that card as your next response or action, if able. Otherwise, discard it.

Catelyn Stark

House Stark only.Challenges: Put Catelyn Stark into play from your hand, knelt as a defender during an Intrigue or Power challenge initiated against you. At the end of the phase, if Catelyn Stark is still in play, return her to your hand.

1) The defination of "must" means what exactly? Does it mean whenever you have the means to play the card or does it have a more narrow explaination? I know that playing cost reducers and the such cannot be part of must (Since they would violate the "as your next response or action) but how about ambush or some other costs (eg knee a character, or discard a card etc etc)

2) Can I play a card that has "put into play" type effects like the above mentioned catelyn stark when i reveal it using val?

3) This isnt really a rules question. Just wondering isnt val's "as your next RESPONSE…" text rather useless? Since she can only draw cards as a standard action she can almost never play a card as a response unless its to response to her owner drawing cards? Or am I missing something?

powerpac316 said:

"Character, Location, and Attachment cards are 'played' from the hand during the marshalling phase, by taking a player action and paying their gold cost. Event cards are 'played' by placing the card on the table, paying the specified cost, and triggering the effect."

So, as far as Val goes, and her requirement that you play the drawn card as your next player action, if it's a character, location, or attachment card, you have to pay the gold cost to "Marshal" it. If it's an event card, you trigger the effect.

You cannot take the "trigger the effect" definition of "play" that applies to event cards and use it for characters, locations, or attachments. Things like Catelyn's "Challenges" effect or the Ambush keyword are "put into play" effects. Triggering them is not considered "playing" the card. So you cannot use them to satisfy Val's "play" requirements. If you use Val and draw a character, location, or attachment, the next thing you do has to be to pay the gold cost and Marshal it - something you can only do as the Active Player in the Marshaling phase - or you have to discard it.

So, if it is the Challenge phase and you use Val to draw Catelyn, you are going to have to discard here - even if would otherwise have been legal for you to trigger he "Challenges" effect as your next action. (Because doing so would not be "playing" the character.)

powerpac316 said:

powerpac316 said:

I have a related question: If I anticipate that I might draw, say, a Baratheon character, is there anything that prevents me from triggering a reducer (Seat of Power, for instance) prior to triggering Val and have it reduce a character I draw due to Val (which would be the next Baratheon character I play, since I must if I can)? I know there's no "pool" of Influence like mana in M:TG, but does lack that extend to reduction effects?

Thanks for the clarification.

Amuk said:

Reducers, on the other hand, are completely independent of playing whatever they are reducing. Suppose you trigger Seat of Power. That is one action. Your opponents then get a chance to take whatever actions they might want. During that time, Seat of Power's "lower the cost" effect is hanging around - and it will hang around until you play your next Baratheon card. Eventually, you get another action. You might play a Baratheon card from your hand (applying Seat of Power's effect to reduce the cost), or you might play a neutral card from your hand (so Seat of Power's reducing effect is still pending), or you might take some other action. The "reduce" effect of Seat of Power is a lasting effect - with a duration of when you play your next Baratheon card, or until the phase ends, whichever comes first.

Realizing that reducers are lasting effects that modify later costs (as opposed to kneeling influence, which pays the cost directly), you can see that you can kneel your reducers any time during the Marshaling phase that you want. In fact, I've known players that will kneel reducers during their opponent's turn Marshaling, particularly if they are afraid of a Marshaling-based "location killer" from their opponent.

Also, when you think of reducers as lasting effects, you'll see that not only can reducers triggered before using Val be applied to the non-event card you draw with Val, they must be - because they are applied automatically to the next (eligible) card you play, and you must play the card you draw with Val if possible. So be careful with this concept. You can discard your Seat of Power before triggering Val, but you kind of screw yourself if you get an Old Red Priest instead of King Stannis, ya know?

Amuk said:

There is nothing that prevents this, no. Totally legal play.

Edit: Fristed!

ktom said:

I thought all of this was the case (up to and including the risk of "wasting a SoP on an ORP") but I wanted to confirm. Thanks very much.