OK, following situation.

I have a bunch of saves and flip Valar. You have a standing Learned crest character and flip Outwit. You win INI and make me First Player.

1. Valar is initiated.

2. Save/Cancel-Responses

- I expect you to cancel Valar and trigger no save/cancel Response.

- You: Ha ha, no save/cancel Response either

3. Valar resolves. All characters die. All my dupes are lost.

OR

1. Valar is initiated.

2. Save/Cancel-Responses

- Me: I use this dupe to save this guy.

- You: Pass

- Me: I use this dupe to save this guy.

- You: Pass

- Me: I use Iron Mines to save this guy.

- You: Ha ha. I cancel Valar. You just burned up your saves for nothing.

Is this really how it works? What am I missing? Because the way I read the FAQ, that's exactly how it works. But the more I think about it, the more absurd it actually seems.

When valar and outwit are revealed, the outwit has the decision to cancel it or not. If he cancels it nothing happens. If he doesn't cancel it then valar executes and each char gets a save chance. Once the killing starts you cannot retroactively go back and cancel valar.

Not what the FAQ says. Saves and cancels happen at the same time, and the opportunity goes clockwise around the table, starting with the FP, until all players pass consecutively. Saves do not happen after Valar "executes", they happen before.

What are you basing that on, dennis? As far as I know, there is nothing in the FAQ or the rules that says cancels have to be triggered before saves, or that once the saves have started, the chance to cancel is gone. They have the same timing. There is nothing "retroactive" about using a cancel after a save effect has been used against the same effect because both "saves" and "cancels" interrupt the initiation and resolution of an effect.

Said another way, just like saves, cancels happen after the effect initiates (or "executes" to use the same words as the last post). We know that the effect has fully "executed" before a cancel can be used because all costs must be paid before you have a chance to cancel something.

So yeah, as weird as it may sound, the sequences in the original post are entirely possible - and legal - under the game's timing structure.

dcdennis said:

Krhm. ~ I guess we're being old-folks friendly, so people don't have to squint?

Anyway, I think Ratatoskr has the right of it… At least I haven't found any portion of the FAQ that would segment the save/cancel response window into two portions, like you seem to imply. However, if you disagree, just point to the portion of the rules in the FAQ/rulebook that you believe supports this claim.

Moral of the story? If an Outwit players starts doing this, only use a portion of the saves you have available. If he passes and you pass, there is no more opportunity to cancel.

EDIT: Beaten by ktom. Should've known.

Ha! Ratatoskr 2 - Agotcards 0.

*blows smoke off muzzle*

Being completely serious, if we are now saying that you can cancel a valar after it has initiated and killed people, that is as ridiculous as it gets and I will never be playing this paradox of a game ever again.

dcdennis said:

It's not after it has killed people. The killing happens during the resolution of Valar in step 3, *after* the saves.

It's like this:

Step 1: Initiation. The Valar tumbles drunkenly into the saloon, colt in hand, and announces "harhar, I'm gonna kill you all"

Step 2: Save/Cancel. The bartender ducks behind the bar (save). The card player throws over a table and hides behind it (save). The sherriff says "Oh no, you don't" and shoots the Valar dead (cancel).

Step 2: Resolution. If it hasn't been canceled, the Valar commences killing all people who haven't saved themselves.

The point they are making is that it hasn't killed anybody when Outwit is used. The Outwit player has either watched the Valar player waste his saves and then cancelled the entire effect, or he has watched the Valar player pass on his first chance to save and then also passed (on using Outwit to cancel) so that they have both consecutively passed and lost the chance to save at all, effectively making the Valar player screw up his offensive Valar.

Let's put a little more detail into all of this:

As mentioned, Valar does not kill anything when it initiates (in Step 1). It only kills characters when it resolves (Step 3). Saves and cancels both happen in Step 2 - after initiation and in anticipation of resolution. Nothing has actually been killed yet when both saves and cancels happen. (This is why we always tell people that saves do not make characters "un-moribund," but rather stop them from becoming moribund in the first place.)

It is probably better to think of it this way: saves and cancels do pretty much the same thing with pretty much the same timing. Both are in anticipation of the resolution - before anything has been affected by the resolution. The difference is that a "save" blocks the resolution for a single card while a "cancel" blocks the resolution for all card (players, game states, etc.). The weirdness in the OP comes from the fact that the general "no resolution" effect (the cancel) is being triggered after the card-specific "no resolution" effect (the save). The "general" cancel covers the "specific" saves, making them redundant.

Now, let's be clear about something, though. Dennis does have a point in that saves cannot be triggered after a successful cancel. But the reason for this is not that cancels preempt saves, but rather that the play restrictions for the save are no longer met. Once the cancel resolves and says "no general resolution," there is no anticipation of the resolution of the effect anymore. So the save cannot be triggered. This is the same reason that you cannot save a character that has already been saved successfully a second time. There has to be an anticipated resolution to save the card from.

It's just that the reverse is not true; that is, once a save resolves and says "no specific resolution for this card," there is still an anticipation of a general resolution. So while triggering just one cancel will invalidate all saves (by removing the anticipated resolution), no matter how many saves you trigger, you don't invalidate a cancel (because the anticipated general resolution is still there).

Edit: And of course, Ktom beat me to it. You never cease to amaze!

I see what you mean, dcdennis, but that assumes a timing structure that doesn't exist. You'd like the game to say "Valar revealed. Opportunity to cancel Valar. Valar resolves. Deaths begin. Opportunity to cancel deaths. Deaths resolve"

But it actually works like this "Valar revealed. Opportunity to cancel Valar's effects in whole or in part. Valar's remaining effect resolves".

The save responses should be viewed more as "I'm cancelling/bypassing this portion of valar's effect". What portion can vary from "effect on 1 target" to "entire effect". The fact that a character has been made "immune" to valar's effect (or bypassed it) doesn't mean that you can't cancel the entirety of the remaining effect.

I have an example which is both entirely wrong but might still help the way you think about it: imagine player A reveals Valar, player B reveals Outwit, and player C reveals Power of Blood. There are several nobles that will NOT be affected by Valar - does that mean that player B can't cancel with Outwit? If you think of a save/cancel to a death as "I'm making this character immune to this specific effect that chose him", maybe the logic won't seem as paradoxical (although, again, this is not strictly how the game works re; immunities).

WWDrakey said:

Underworld40k said:

Yes, of course.

Let me explain the logic: In this situation you're the one who has played Valar, so probably you wanted something (or more like everything) on your opponent's side to be killed. Now, if the other player times his Outwit correctly, then he was probably trying to stop you from killing his/her characters. Now, if the Outwit player starts passing in order to force you to expend your saves, then he's gambling… betting on the fact that you want to save one additional character more than wanting to kill of all of his/hers.

This means that the choice is yours. If you don't save anything more, then everything just dies… but if you save more characters, then he/she again has the opportunity to either cancel or gamble for you to spend more of your saves. A greedy player with Outwit will expect you to save as much as you can, before actually triggering the cancel… and in these kind of situations it's probably best to save one or two crucial ones, and then call their bluff by passing yourself. Then you'll get what you wanted (their side of the board dead, with at least one character remaining for you), while they played Outwit… and managed to gamble with it and not achieve what they wanted (not killing their characters).

In a funny way, this is like raising stakes and calling in some other card games (such as poker).

I view it like this:

Each character is tied to a railroad track. (Valar is revealed)

The learned characters happen to be next to a switch that will redirect the oncoming train. (Outwit)

Some magical effect comes along and unties some of the characters to remove them from this track. (Save effects occur)

Finally one of the learned characters decides to hit that switch and redirect the train before it runs the remaining characters over. (Outwit's response is triggered)

~Somehow the remaining characters can proceed to fight in challenges even though they are still tied down on the track.

Or, as in the other scenario, the magical force decides not to untie anybody, as it expects the learned character to hit the switch. Then everybody dies when the learned character decides not to do so, lol.

~OMG, that makes things so much simpler and easier to understand!

ok heres wher i get lost i thought plots resolved in 2 orders, firstly plots without the "when revealed" text take effect, then when revealeds resolve in first players order of choice, shouldn't the outwit be first inline to be resolved ahead of the valar killing then?

Wolfbrother said:

But aren't all of you ignoring the word "just" in Outwit?

The text says:

Response: Kneel a Learned character to cancel the "when revealed" effects of a plot card just revealed.

I mean it could also state - Cancel the when revealed effect of a plot card.

By adding "just" it limits the timing when you are able to do so - or not?

Yes, however, as a response you can only trigger it during the proper response timing. Tt is no different than if you had a location in play that had the same response text. In this case, that is during step 2. It does not have to be the first response during step 2 however. It makes complete sense that you could "gamble" and let your opponent save characters while you passed your action, only to go ahead and cancel the Valar initiation completely.

-Istaril said:

MrFixit said:

The word "just" in the text doesn't change anything in terms of canceling a plot's text. It does allow you to cancel as many "when revealed" plots as you want (at the cost of kneeling 1 Learned character each) while the plot is revealed, though.

I like how this discussion brings to my attention that if someone switches into a "when reveal" plot at any time while I have Outwit as my current plot, I still have an opportunity to cancel the effects.

Also, what if in a melee game, 2 people play Valar and I play Outwit and have 2 learned-crest characters. I believe I can use the response for each/any "when revealed" effect correct?

Slothgodfather said: