So as always not a game passes by without some questions

I was playing Greyjoy in a melee game and one of the opponents played Stark. I had my opponents discard cards from their decks and Stark discarded a Stalwart character (Midnight Sentry). I then played River Raid: Response: After a character card is discarded from an opponent's deck, put that card into play under your control. At the end of the phase, return that character to its owner's discard pile.

So after the phase was over i proceeded to return that character to the owners discard pile. Stark player said that it should be put on top of his deck as it has been in play and the keyword would change destination when leaving play to the top of the deck.

While my argumentation was that the text of the event should be followed it made some sense what he said. We ended up having him put the character on the top of the deck.

Was this correct or should the character end up on the discard pile?

I think the decision to put him back on top of the deck is correct. The lasting effect created, due to timing, does not allow saves or cancels but stalwart acts as a passive replacement effect simply changing the destination of the card (moribund discard become moribund top of deck). Im basing this on the fact that if the sentry had been killed in play before the end of the round he would certainly gone to the top of the deck and i see no limiters on his keyword ability doing the same at the end of round sequence.

Actually, there is a technicality here.

Just because the card ends up in the discard pile does not mean it was "discarded." We know that whether or not a card is discarded depends on the effect that initiated, not on the fact that it ends up in the discard pile. (You are not, for example, considered to have "discard" an event card when you play it, even though it ends up in the discard pile.) Technically, the card here is not being "discarded." It is being "returned to the discard pile."

So, just because the card ends up in the discard pile does not mean it was discarded from play. Since this card was not discarded from play - but rather "returned to the discard pile" - Stalwart should not kick in (since Stalwart only works when the card is killed or discarded from play). If, on the other hand, the card said "at the end of the phase, discard that card," Stalwart would kick in.

Look at it this way: if River Raid said "At the end of the phase, put that character in its owner's dead pile," would you say that the character was killed, activating Stalwart, just because it ends up in the dead pile?

Wow. It's so clear when you put it this way. Thank you!!!

Hmm. I wonder if I'd have considered that if it had happened in my game. Sometimes it's easy to overlook or not catch everything like that.

Well. My face is a little red.

I hadn't appreciated that a lasting effect that would move a card back to a dead/discard pile would not constitute the actual action of killing/discarding the card and that it wouldnt interact with an in play effect that changes the moribund location.

Obviously intrigue challenges and something like aegons hill bypass this as the keyword is not in effect when the card is in hand but the rules text for stalwart blinded me to this.

"When a card with the “Stalwart” keyword is killed or discarded from play, it is placed on the top of its owner’s deck instead of being placed in the dead or discard pile"

As far as i could see the conditions for this are being met, the card is in play and it IS being discarded, if the effect was something like threat from the north the sentry is top of deck bound so im assuming that this is something to do with the the lasting effect creating an additonal constraint with the word 'move' (likely) OR its something to do with the timing differences of the end of phase windows (unlikely).

Hypothetically if this end of phase effect was also being combined with the plot battle of oxcross i assume that the first player gets to make a choice on the order of conflicting passives and if he had the option to kill the sentry and took it he would be heading to the top of his owners deck?

I view it like I view the difference between "draw" and "reveal the top card of your deck and put it into your hand".

"Place on dead pile" does not mean "killed".

"Place on discard pile" does not mean "discarded".

"Discard your hand" does not mean "discard each card from your hand".

They purposely word the differences so they are not meaning the same thing.

With hindsight the killing one is rather obvious but i bamboozeled myself by over thinking and trying to relate it to an in game action.

Im awear of the difference between discard hand and discard a card from hand as the laughing storm dose not stop you playing narrow escape, and stalwart obviously dosent stop aegons hill having super fun times but i think more than anything i just took stalwarts text at face value without considering the nature of the discard.

Underworld40k said:

Underworld40k said:

Let's say that Sentry was killed for claim. Stalwart kicks in and it goes "moribund:top of deck" instead of "moribund:dead pile." So, what kind of Responses can you use, "after a character is killed" or "after a character is returned to the top of your deck"? You still trigger "after a character is killed" responses, right? So this character is considered "killed," at least as far as responses are concerned, even though it's not going to the dead pile. And it is not considered "returned to deck," at least as far as responses are concerned, even though it is going to the top of the deck.

So that's where the "just because it ends up in the discard pile does not necessarily mean it was discarded" concept comes from. And while the difference between "place in the discard pile" and "discard" is a pretty fine hair, it is one that can be split. After all, they split the hair between "claim power" and "move power" for a power challenge, right?

Underworld40k said:

All effects removing a card from play cause a character to go Moribund, don't they? So the Sentry becomes Moribund - Discard still, correct? I appreciate that Stalwart only goes off from a kill effect or discard effect, but the card still becomes Moribund, right?

mdc273 said: