Questions:

1) If Elrohir and Elladan are separated during Stage 4 of in Foundations of Stone, do they continue to receive their respective buffs?

2) If Ancient Mathom's effect is triggered, but the First Player Token is away with a player in a different staging area, who (if anyone) draws cards?

My forum search has revealed that many players had questoins about FoS when it was released, and also that the search function is somewhat broken. The best answer I could find was in this thread, which says that, within each separate player's area, there is a first and last player. The first player token designates which player goes first in resolving turns, but for the sake of card effects, the First Player is the player who is first in line to receive the first player token. Other considerations:

- the rule sheet for FoS says that the "resolution of each phase occurs as if only the player or players that share any given staging area are currently present in the game."

- BUT the official FAQ states that the unique character rule must still be observed by separated players (even though the other players are treated as if they are "not currently present in the game")

- Elladan and Elrohir buff themselves if the brother is in play. Elladan's text reads "While Elrohir is in play, Elladan gets +2 atk." The card buffs itself rather than receiving a buff from the Elrohir card. If it said "Elrohir gets +2 def" on the Elladan card, we'd have a different story.

With all that in mind, I think that

1) yes

and

2) the person who draws cards must share the same staging area as the location which was explored. If the Token is elsewhere, this means the next in line to get the First Player Token will draw cards.

How'd I do??

GrandSpleen said:

1. No.

2. Would say the same as you.

GrandSpleen said:

1) I'd say no

2) If there is only 1 player in the separate stagging area on which is the ancient mathom's effect trigger, then only that player can draw the cards as he is both first and last player…

Sounds like we're all in agreement about the Mathom, but I'm the odd man out about Elrohir and Elladan. Can you guys help me understand your thought process? Here's mine…

The unique card rule says: "If any player has a unique card in play, no player can play or put into play another card with the same title" (pg. 8, manual). The developers clarified in the official FAQ that, in FoS, "Players must still respect the rules for playing unique cards when they are split up." (pg. 9) Well, the rules only restrict cards that are "in play." The only reading that I see possible is that each player must consider all cards on the table to be "in play" regardless of sharing a common staging area or not.

As I wrote above, Elrohir does not affect Elladan's card, and Elladan does not affect Elrohir's card. So the FoS rule that cards must share a common staging area in order to affect each other wouldn't even be relevant here. Elrohir buffs himself when Elladan is "in play" (and vice-versa).

I asked the question because 1) on the surface, it does seem like Elladan and Elrohir affect each other, which would be canceled by the FoS rules. However, after reading the cards closely I think the alternative conclusion reflects a more consistent interpretation of the rules. And 2) thematically, it makes sense for the buff to be canceled, I think. But I would prefer if it were or not

Maybe I'll shoot this one to support.

GrandSpleen said:

In my opinion, the bold part is the different interpretation.

Even thought the text is in the card that gets the buff, it still needs the other to be in play and in the common sttaging area to be affected, because if they're in different stagging areas they cannot affect themselfs due to FoS rule.

I remember the discussion about the unique cards when in different staging areas. The doubt was if the unique rule didn't apply what will become when the players with the same unique card in play do when they join each other .

The problem here is the reading of the FoS rule:

Ellrohir and Elladan cards are affected by one another.

The effect on the card is a constant one but needs a condition to be met to do it's effect: in this case the condition is the other card being in play. And the fact they need that condition, is where they are affected by the other, so they need to be in the same staging area to affect the other, because of the FoS rule.

You need to think that each staging area is a different play area and it is only affected by the cards that are in play on that staging area.

Hope this clarifies my position. If not feel free to ask any doubts

And you are correct sir! I received this response from Caleb:

" Because cards in one staging area cannot affect the cards in another staging area (except for uniqueness), Elladan and Elrohir do not get their bonus stats if they are in separate staging areas. Cheers, Caleb"

So it looks like the unique rule is just an exception in this case and can't be used to extrapolate about rules affecting other cards

Thanks for the discussion!

Nice to know that you got an official reply, in either way.

Glad to know that my interpretation was correct.