I control Arya Stark with an attached Northern Courser, win a [MIL] challenge against a player who doesn't have a Title opposed to mine with Arya alone. Assuming there is a player with a Title opposed to mine, what happens when I trigger Arya's response?

Relevant text:

Arya Stark

Response: After you win a challenge in which Arya Stark attacked alone, each opponent with a Title that opposes your Title must also satisfy the Claim of that challenge, if able.

Northern Courser

If you win a [MIL] challenge in which attached character attacked alone, instead of the normal claim effects choose and kill 1 character controlled by the losing opponent.

As an additional question, with or without the Courser, how many times does the loser of the challenge have to satisfy claim if his Title is opposed to mine and I trigger Arya's response?

Khudzlin said:

I'd say that the Courser only applies to your actual opponent in the challenge while Arya's Response applies to any other opponent with a title that opposes yours. So you'd choose and kill a character controlled by your challenge opponent and the other player(s) whose title(s) oppose(s) yours would have to choose a character to die for claim, as well.

Khudzlin said:

I don't see anything in her Response that requires your actual opponent in the challenge (whose title opposes yours) to satisfy your claim more than once, if that's what you're getting at. The wording is a tad ambiguous, but "must also satisfy the claim of that challenge" implies that your challenge opponent who already paid claim is excluded from the Response.

I'd say that the "losing opponent" as written in the Northern courser replacement effect, should become "each opponent that opposes your Title" per Arya's response.

As a matter of fact, the rules tells us, for basic definition of military claim, that the defending player should kill a character. Obviously, if you win your military challenge with Arya, both the loser and your Opposed player will have to kill a character when you don't have the Northern courser.

Now, what is the difference between the text from the rules defining normal claim : "The defending opponent must choose and kill a number of his characters in play" and the modified claim text : "kill 1 character controlled by the losing opponent. "?

I think losing opponent and defending opponent should be considered the same. So when Arya's Response kicks in, both the losing player and Opposed player must kill a character. It is not only the losing player that should kill several characters.

I'm not sure I followed that, so let me start from scratch.

The first thing to notice is that Arya's ability is a Response to winning the challenge. That means that you cannot trigger it until after claim has been initiated and resolved. (i.e., the Response happens in Step 5 - long after claim is settled in Steps 1 through 3.) So the "satisfy claim of that challenge" placed on the player(s) with titles opposing yours comes as a result of Arya's character ability, not as a result of the claim effect. That is going to be huge for immunity purposes because Arya is doing the killing/discarding/moving of power, not the game/framework effect.

What it also means is that as a separate effect from claim, it is not like claim would be happening twice to the same player. The timing of it therefore indicates that if the loser of the challenge is someone you oppose, you can hit them twice - once with claim in Steps 1 to 3, and once with Arya in Step 5.

(Now, there is some room for interpretation in that Arya's ability says "also," implying that if you were hit for claim in Steps 1 to 3, you are not eligible for the effect in Step 5, but that is not how things usually work in this game. Still, there is enough ambiguity there that you might want to send that part of the question to FFG for clarification.)

Further, Arya's ability says that the "opposed" player is on the hook for the claim effect of that challenge. Not "that challenge type," but for "that challenge." Any claim replacement effects that applied defined the claim effects for "that challenge." So whatever was resolved in Steps 1-3 is what should be resolved for this Response. So the Northern Courser's "choose and kill" replace claim that you resolved in Steps 1-3 is what you will resolve when you trigger Arya's Response.

I agree with your point but think he not answered yet. It came up on the French forum and we're maybe not very clear in English, sorry for that.

The point is, the Northern Courser effect will kill 1 character from each opponent (losing player and Opposing players) or 3 characters controlled by the losing player (assuming Ary'as controller opposes two players and has attacked the other one)?

Northern Courser says the losing player should choose and kill a character. So let's say I oppose Arya's controller Title and I have to satisfy a military claim. It is replaced by Northern Courser during Step 5 : now the defending player must choose and kill a character : NOT ME.

Now my opinion about this is just above.

No, Bolzano, Northern Courser says that its controller chooses and kill a character controlled by the losing opponent (I included the text in my OP). The question was: does having to satisfy claim including being treated as the losing opponent for the effet (so that 1 character is killed for each player) or not (so that all characters must be chosen among the actual defender's)? Red Vengeance specifies that its target player is to be treated as if he lost the challenge as the defender, but Arya Stark doesn't.

On a side note, having the losing opponent choose and kill some of their characters is the standard military claim, so it would just be fixing the claim to one (not remotely interesting).

Totally unrelated side note: why the hell did this forum become usable only with IE?

?? I'm on Chrome and can still access the site and its features perfectly fine.…. Is what I was going to say until I realized that I couldn't publish my comment in Chrome. Wtf?

I'm using Firefox and able to post.

Khudzlin said:

Khudzlin said:

So, since Norther Course does not say "as if they had lost the challenge," the extra characters killed by Arya's Response when the Courser is attached will have to come out of the characters controlled by the actual loser of the challenge, since they are the only legal targets for the claim of "that" challenge.

Khudzlin said:

ktom said:

From this it follows that even without Northern Courser, only the losing opponent will have character killed by Arya's response during a MIL challenge.

Opposed pllayers have to satisfy the claim. And claim defintion is that the defending player chooses and kill one of his character. Since they are not treated as if the had lost the challenge, they apply the Claim by killing a character from the losing player.

My point is, I'm not sure at all it is supposed to work his way.

Bolzano said:

Arya's response also has "if able" in it. Which, to me, means that with Northern Courser, they are not the losing opponenent, so they cannot satisfy claim. They cannot satisfy claim by choosing who is killed by the losing opponent because they did not win the challenge.

The only way I see claim being satisfied here is by the winner choosing to kill additional characters of the losing opponents for each Title the winner opposes. Satisfying claim has become the winner having the ability to "choose and kill a character of the losing opponent".

What would happen if Red Vengeance is played against you in a normal claim effect scenario? If you trigger Arya's response, would you have to satisfy claim for each opponent's title you oppose?

ktom said:

I was using FireFox on Windows until the JavaScript became unusable.

Khudzlin said:

Neither Firefox nor Chrome (Windows) are working for me. And at home, not even IE. Good Job, FFG.

Bolzano said:

But I see your side of it, too. With two viable interpretations, it is usually a good idea to send it in to FFG for official clarification

Saturnine said:

Soooooo unintuitive. It would be so much simpler if you just chose and killed characters from each player you oppose…

And I agree with the assessment, LoL.

ktom said:

Despite their similar names, Java has nothing to do with JavaScript, with the latter presumably being the source of the problem. Anyhow, the forum appears to be functional again in Chrome, so that's good enough for me. (Didn't check Firefox)

Khudzlin said:

Just my two cents on the topic and I will preface this entire statement with… here is what I believe/think/guess/estimate:

There is nothing in Arya's text that makes the other "opposing" players "losers" of a challenge, though they are satisfying claim of that challenge. To me it's similar to a Red Vengeance that picks a 3rd person at a melee table (provided player 1 is attacking player 2, who uses RV to redirect claim to player 3). They aren't losing this challenge, though they are paying claim for it. They do not get to trigger their own Taste of Blood (or similar) effects.

The attachment allows you to choose claim on your losing opponent. So instead of them getting to pick, you do. But there is only 1 losing opponent. This replacement effect would come into play before you get to triggering responses, so after winning the MIL challenge against your opponent, normal claim is replaced with you decided to kill someone controlled by that losing opponent. The key here is "losing". When you get to Arya's Response nothing has changed who lost this challenge so I don't see any conceivable way you could think the Courser could be used against your "opposing" opponents also.

The next important thing to note is that Arya's ability is NOT normal claim, so the Courser could not be used to replace that effect. Normal claim is defined by the game mechanics and can be replaced by cards in play such as the Courser, but her ability is not one of them (or it would say "instead of normal claim… yada yada yada"). That's my take on her ability at least…

Someone else mentioned getting to pick 3 targets on the losing opponent's board, and after writing the above I finally see where they were trying to go with that.

If Arya's ability does in fact issue "normal claim" to the opposing opponents, but the Courser replaces it with "kill a character of the losing opponent" then you should basically be able to redirect Arya's additional "claim" effects into additional targeted killed effects against the single losing opponent. However, I'm not sure I would consider her ability to be applying "normal claim" to your opposing opponents.

How does Red Vengeance work against claim replacement effects?

Khudzlin said:

I'm not sure I've seen a direct response to this, but if you attack an opponent you get normal claim, then you trigger Arya and any opposing opponents must also satisfy that claim. I would say the opponent that opposes you would have to satisfy the claim twice.

In all honesty, can this effect truly resolve?

The opponent's can't actually satisfy the claim of the challenge in this situation, can they? If not, then wouldn't the effect just fizzle?

Slothgodfather said:

So it is not that Arya duplicates the "normal claim" which would then be replaced by the Courser. Rather, Arya duplicates the claim of that challenge - which was already replaced by the Courser before it was duplicated.

Slothgodfather said:

This question came up again over at Cardgamedb and I went ahead and asked FFG about it. Here was the response from Damon.

"The Northern Courser changes the claim of the challenge Arya is in. The claim replacement is incompatible with the opposing player satisfying the altered claim so the "if able" clause prevents Arya's ability from triggering." - Damon Stone

Side note - Is there anyway to get that "FFG Rulings/Answer" thread as a sticky so it can be easily found?

I like the ruling, but have a hard time explaining its general applicability.

I guess because "choose and kill 1 character controlled by the losing opponent." specifically refers to the losing opponent and because the opposing title owners are not the losing opponent that they can not satisfy the effect. As they can not satisfy it, the "if able" condition is not met and the effect goes unresolved.

I wish they'd addressed the "the guy I attacked also has an opposing title" issue, but one thing at a time.