Lomys's ability reads:

" Any Phase: Kneel Maester Lomys and discard 1 power each from any number of characters you control to have each of those characters gain 'cannot be killed' until the end of the phase."

Young Griff's ability reads:

" Response: After Young Griff comes out of Shadows, stand any number of characters you control. Then, you may immediately bring another card out of Shadows by paying the rest of its gold cost."

1. The 'then'-part of Griff's response only resolves if you stand at least one character successfully.

2. You may only pay the cost of a triggered effect that can resolve successfully.

The questions:

Does this imply "3. You have to discard power from at least one character in order to trigger Lomys's effect."?

Or does the 'then'-wording create an exception regarding resolution requirements?

Is it possible to get a general ruling on how to treat the 'any number'-wording?

livingEND said:

livingEND said:

For example, the event card "The Lion's Will" says: "Phase: Pay 2 gold to choose a character. Kneel that character." You are more than welcome to play the event from your hand, pay the 2 gold, and choose a character that is already kneeling (the effect does not make you choose a standing character - the way something like Drunken Allegations does), only to have the effect itself "fizzle" as unsuccessful since the chosen character is already knelt. Similarly, there is nothing stopping you from kneeling 4 influence and playing Westeros Bleeds ("Dominance: Kneel 4 influence to discard all characters from play.") when there are no characters in play to discard.

So, you can trigger an effect that has no hope of resolving successfully - provided that you meet the play restrictions & target requirements, and can pay the cost associated with initiating the effect. You almost never want to do this, but it is legal.

livingEND said:

livingEND said:

As noted above, you are allowed to trigger an effect, even if it will not resolve successfully. This is especially important when there are multiple parts to an effect - some of which will be successful, others of which will not. You are allowed to trigger the effect and resolve as much of it as you can. The stuff that can't resolve will not stop you from triggering the effect for the stuff you can resolve.

However, the rule with the word "then" is that in order for the part after the word "then" to initiate, the part before the "then" must resolve successfully.

So, the word "then" doesn't create an "exception" regarding resolution requirements - because it is the only rule on resolution requirements.

livingEND said:

ktom said:

Actually, that's what I wanted to say. But I sometimes struggle with the official terms.

Thanks for the long and detailed answer. As always .

ktom said:

The thing about target requirements is often overlooked by or simply unknown to many players, so let me emphasize this a bit more: If an effect has a target (i.e. if the word "choose" is used), the choosing of the target(s) is part of the initiation of the effect. If you can't choose all required targets, you can't trigger the effect.

To reiterate ktom's Lion's Will example: As ktom has pointed out, you can use Lion's Will to choose a character that's already kneeling. You can even trigger it when all characters on the board are kneeling. You cannot trigger it, however, if you can't choose any character at all (because there are no characters in play, or because all characters in play are immune to events or triggered effects).

Another example: You can't trigger Ghaston Gray and return one of your Martell nobles to hand (to save it from an impending Valar, for example) if your opponent doesn't control any characters of equal or lower cost.

Yet another example: You can't trigger Hatchling's Feast if there are fewer than three eligible characters in play.

Is the lomys thing with choosing 0 characters still valid with FAQ 3.6?

I would say yes, but that's mostly wishful thinking

It is no longer valid. "Any number" still includes 0, but it is also still considered unsuccessful. 3.6 say you cannot trigger an effect you expect to be unsuccessful. So you can't choose 0 just to kneel Lomys anymore.

After searching the FAQ for a definition of what "un-/successfull" is (one might argue that 0 characters successfully gained cannot be killed) I realized that pretty much exactly my question is already in there on page 29.

For card text that specifies "any number,"

can you choose 0 as the number? Does a

resolution that affects 0 entities qualify as a

successful resolution of the effect?

The number 0 may be chosen for such text,

but a resolution that affects 0 entities is not

considered successful. Further, if choosing the

number 0 is the only means of anticipating

a successful resolution of such an effect, the

effect cannot be initiated as per the 3.6 entry

Thanks ktom.

We need this FAQ paragraph in Netrunner, where all includes 0, successfully, except in certain cases.

How to put this simply...hmm.

The Corporation protects its servers with layers of firewalls called Ice. Ice cards generally have subroutines: effects that happen if the Runner isn't prepared to cancel them. Runners use programs to break these subroutines when they attack the server. Some Ices have variable or conditional numbers of subroutines that can sometimes be none at all.

There's a card called "Woodcutter." It's a piece of ice that comes into play with 0 subroutines, that the Corp can pay to put counters on later, giving it some effects for the runner to worry about.

Another piece of ice is "Chum." it says "Do {bad stuff} unless the you break ALL subroutines on the next piece of ice you encounter."

So, you run through a Chum and hit a Woodcutter that's still got 0 effects stacked up on it. You break all 0 subroutines and {bad stuff} doesn't happen.

But, if you have an effect that lets you bypass an ice--not unlike when you force a character to be removed from a challenge in AGOT--then by bypassing the Woodcutter, you didn't break its 0 subroutines, and Chum does {bad stuff}.

It would make more sense if Chum just did its bad stuff unless you actually break more than 0 subroutines.

Attempt to state simply: failed.

Attempt to post in right forum: failed.