It says:"Response: After an opponent returns gold to the treasury during the taxation phase, add 1 gold from the treasury to Merchant's Widow."

Now I don't know that if my opponent has no gold in his gold pool when taxation begins, can I add 1 gold to Merchant's Widow.
I think I can do that. Because "returns gold to the treasury" is a game action, even if my opponent has no gold, he also has to move 0 gold token to the treasury.

Am I right?

Rules forum is two doors that way ----->

However, being required to return gold to the treasury, but having nothing to return, does not count as actually returning gold to the treasury.

With Merchant's Widow, you are responding to the movement of gold, not the instruction to do so. So moving 0 gold does not meet the play restrictions on the Response. The opponent with no gold to move back to the treasury is said to have unsuccessfully returned gold. You cannot respond to something that did not take place successfully.

This is just like the long-standing rulings saying that while you are allowed to choose a character that is already kneeling as the target for a "choose and kneel a character" effect, the effect is not considered to have successfully knelt the character, so you cannot use "after a character is knelt" responses.

So, moral of the story is: Merchant's Widow cannot use her response after an opponent returns their "empty" gold pool to the treasury.

Now I know it. Thank you!

And knowing is half the battle!

Ugh I hate myself now…

Ugh….

ktom said:

Assuming the quote is correct. Yes. Each player who gets taxed creates an opportunity to respond. NOW GO TO THE RULES FORUM!!!