Who doesn't love The Red Viper? Personally, I love the APS version of him. It has helped me suck up power quickly with Taste for Blood attached to him plus his renown. Oh yeah, and those abilities kick ass.

However, there was a wording that caught my eye the other day and made me fear I was using the card incorrectly.

The wording states. "CHALLENGES: Discard 1 gold token from The Red Viper to stand him. Then, you may discard one additional gold token from him to raise the Claim value on any player's revealed plot card by 1 until the end of the current challenge."

The wording that catches my eye is the "current challenge", does this mean that to take effect a challenge must have been declared already or can I stand the Viper, declare a challenge and then discard an additonal gold to raise the claim?

Do I have to delcare a challenge and then discard a gold to stand Red Viper and then discard another gold to raise the claim?

I also realize that the Red Viper does not have to participate in the challenge but he does need to stand first for me to take advantage of the "Then" ability.

Anyone wanna ring in on this? Thanks in advance.

It's pretty straightforward. You cannot raise the claim for the "current" challenge if there is no challenge in progress at the time you trigger the effect.

You certainly cannot stand the Viper, declare him as an attacker, then - all these action windows later - "finish" the standing effect by raising the claim.

So, since a challenge must be in progress for the "raise claim for the current challenge" to mean anything, you cannot stand the Viper, declare him as the attacker that initiates the challenge, then raise the claim on that same challenge for just 2 gold. That's because you're going to need to initiate his effect two times - once before the challenge starts (so he can initiate it) and once after the challenge starts (so he can raise claim). So, in that scenario, you'd need at least 3 gold on him, not 2 - or to stand him with an effect other than his own.

His standing effect works just fine outside of challenges - provided you are not also wanting to increase claim.

Ktom comes through with another detailed and accurate answer.

The 3 gold to stand, initiate, stand again and then raise the claim makes perfect sense but if I stand him after I declare a challenge isn't he now out of the challenge? The way I understand it he would just be a standing attacker. Correct?

No effect (including standing a character) will ever remove a character from a challenge unless it specifically says it does. So, if you kneel TRV to initiate the challenge, you can definately trigger his ability by removing 1 coin to stand him and another 1 coin to raise the claim. The trick is to find a way to kneel him again so you can raise your claim a second time! Such as for your next actions discard an orphan to remove the icons on 1 of your opponent's characters- then play Parting Blow and kneel your TRV. Draw a card. Then use TRV's ability for 2 more gold to raise your claim again.

*edited for clarity.

Ruthless. I like it.

However, Parting Blow says you must kneel an oponents character. Not your own.

Well, there is that. I knew I should have reread it before making that suggestion, but you get the idea.

BARF said:

Can I attempt to raise the claim after standing him without a challenge being active at that moment?

livingEND said:

Yes. If you can pay the cost and meet any other play restrictions, you can do it. Since the Viper's effect does not say anything about "the current challenge" in it's play restrictions - only in its duration - you could pay the extra gold if you use the effect outside of a challenge duration. But nothing happens, so you literally accomplished nothing more than moving a gold token from the Viper to the treasury.

This question had a reason:

Is this also true for Corrupt Contender that reads:

"Challenges: Corrupt Contender gets +10 STR untile the end of the challenge. After the challenge resolves, discard Corrupt Contender from play (cannot be saved). Limit once per challenge."

Or does the "Limit once per challenge." contain "Only during a challenge."?