Lord Commander Title

By Slothgodfather, in 2. AGoT Rules Discussion

I heard something from another player about one of their melee games in regards to the Lord Commander title over the weekend, and I managed not to remember to confirm it with any of the judges present at the time. So, the basic question is, how much (if any) time is rewound (or undone) when a player activates the Lord Commander title?

As an example,what happens if during my challenge against Player A, I use a player action to remove one of their character's icons with Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS), then during stealth declaration I use Lost Oasis (AToT) and Poisoned Knife (ASoSilence) on two other characters. Then the challenge goes unopposed and then the player with the Lord Commander title redirects to themselves. What happens next?

Slothgodfather said:

I heard something from another player about one of their melee games in regards to the Lord Commander title over the weekend, and I managed not to remember to confirm it with any of the judges present at the time. So, the basic question is, how much (if any) time is rewound (or undone) when a player activates the Lord Commander title?

As an example,what happens if during my challenge against Player A, I use a player action to remove one of their character's icons with Orphan of the Greenblood (PotS), then during stealth declaration I use Lost Oasis (AToT) and Poisoned Knife (ASoSilence) on two other characters. Then the challenge goes unopposed and then the player with the Lord Commander title redirects to themselves. What happens next?

When a redirect happens with this title, you start the challenge from the point after attackers are declared. Therefore you and the new opponent can perform any Player Actions. Following that, you may then declare Stealth against the new opponent as well.

It seems like you may have the challenge framework a little confused here. After you've declared a challenge type, attackers, and a target, there is a player action window. After this window closes, declare stealth and then your opponent declares defenders from eligible characters. So you can clearly see that stealth doesn't remove people from challenges, it precludes them from being declared as defenders in the first place. IF they declare no defenders, this is when the Lord Commander has the chance to redirect the challenge to himself. If he does, it reopens the player action window that occurs between declaring an attack and declaring stealth+defenders. Hence people saying it rewinds the time. What this means is that any actions you may have directed at your would-be defender are wasted, unfortunately, but you do get to declare new stealth targets.

You can find this in the FAQ on page 5, by the way.

Sorry, I misread your original post as removing a character from the challenge instead of removing an icon, and using stealth to remove a character. So your understanding of the framework is sound, but the rest of my post still stands. Your actions have been wasted (Orphan of the Greenblood and Poisoned Knife), but you do get to redeclare stealth and play more actions against the new defender if you have any.

*EDIT
Okay, my bad, lol. Your Poisoned Knife and Lost Oasis haven't been wasted (I just went and checked what they actually do), they actually become more powerful in this scenario because you get to stealth more people with these characters. In other words, your Lord Commander would probably have some serious consideration before redirecting those characters toward himself.

Is there no way to delete a double-post?

People have outlined the flow for you and pointed you to the right place in the FAQ to get all the information you need.

Here is the take-home message, though: The Lord Commander title actually acts as a "cancel" effect. It happens in Step 2.b of the "Stealth/Declare defenders" action window and, as part of its resolution, "jumps back" to the Player Action Window between attacking/defending, effectively restarting the "Stealth/Declare defenders" action window, just with the Lord Commander as the challenge defender.

The important thing to notice, vis-a-vie Lost Oasis and Poison Knife, is that you never get to the passives (Step 4) and Responses (Step 5) against the original defender. That means these effects never touch the characters you bypassed when going against the original defender because you never get to the point where you can resolve them. However, by "restarting" the Stealth window, you do get to bypass the Lord Commander's potential defending characters, and you will get to the associated passives and Responses for that bypass, allowing you to fully use Lost Oasis/Poison Knife against the Lord Commander.

OK, that's what I wanted (and expected) to hear as the answers but wanted to double check. They seemed to take it more as an undo of the effects that would kneel the character (lost oasis) and such. Now it's clear that the interrupt (cancel) means the actual effects (other than stealth) hasn't even taken effect yet. Thanks as always for the quick replies and clarifications.

ktom said:

The important thing to notice, vis-a-vie Lost Oasis and Poison Knife, is that you never get to the passives (Step 4) and Responses (Step 5) against the original defender. That means these effects never touch the characters you bypassed when going against the original defender because you never get to the point where you can resolve them.

Wow, I'm surprised to hear that. I always thought the Lord Commander's redirect was a response, so that it would happen after the passives were resolved. In many cases (more often than not), it wouldn't make a difference, as there aren't a great deal of passives to stealthing characters and not declaring defenders, but I wouldn't have guessed that it was a save/cancel.

For reference:

(v1.0) Lord Commander of the Kingsguard
The redirect ability on Lord Commander of the
Kingsguard occurs during step 2 (save/cancel)
of the resolution of the Framework Action
Window
in which stealth targets are chosen
and defenders are (not) declared. It cancels
the initiation of this Window, and re-opens
the Player Action Window between declaring
attackers (now against the new target) and
assigning stealth.

Okay, thanks for that. I guess I skimmed that part when I read through the FAQ because I thought I had a good enough understanding of how the title worked.