Timing question: Valar, saves and effects triggered on death

By loffenx, in 2. AGoT Rules Discussion

Greetings, looking for some help regarding a situation that came up yesterday.

Player A has a stark character with Icy Catapult attached ( Weapon ico_stark.png character only.Limited Response: After attached character leaves play,choose and kill a character without attachments. (Limit 1 Limited Response per round).

Player B has Moqorro ( Asshai Response: Kneel Moqorro to save a unique ico_greyjoy.png character from being killed or discarded. That character gets +2 STR and gains intimidate until the end of the phase).

Player C reveals Valar Morghulis.

Player A wins initiative.

What confused me is the timing of kills, saves, and effects such as Icy Catapult. Is there a difference between "After attached charachter leaves play" and text such as "after attached charachter is killed" timing-wise?

The way I understand it, if there is no such difference, two scenarios are possible:

A choses to be first player. Valar kills all charachters. A cannot use Icy Catapult to choose and kill a charachter, since all charachters on the board at this time are moribound, and moribound charachters cannot be moribound again. B has a chance to respond after A, and uses Moqorro's ability to save Moqorro himself. Moqorro survives.

A choses B to be the first player. Valar kills all charachters. B has first chance to respond, and saves Moqorro. A has second oppurtunity to respond, and triggers icy catapult and choses Moqorro as the target, Moqorro dies.

SO, my question is, is there such a difference, and if not, is my understanding of the timing-rules correct? In the actual game, A did win initaitve and we got confused what actually was the tactically best way to choose first player.

Any input appreciated!

Furthermore, if A passes on the response oppurtunity, but B uses his, does A get a second chance? The FAQ states something like that the oppurtunity remains until all player have subsequently passed, but I am a bit unsure regarding how this works.

Your timing is a little off (but not by much), and its in relation to the timing of saves and cancels.

When valar is resolved all charcters go moribund: Dead, at this moment you can use a save triggered effect which prevents the character going moribund at all. The first player would respond with a save first, then the next player etc. when both players pass consecutively then the save window ends (see the debate on valar and outwit for the only real practical application of choosing not to save that i can think of).

After this then we get passives and then responses (where icy catapult will come into play). Cards are considered to leave play when they go moribund: anywhere but in play for triggering effects as you summised.

A quick reread over the faq should help you, it takes most of us a while to get to grips with the precise timing structure, Hope this helps.

Thanks alot! I had missed/forgotten that save/cancel was a different response-window than other responses.

Just to be perfectly clear, if A passes, and B triggers a response, and C passes, A can trigger a response after that? Only when all players have passed does the window close?

Indeed, so to use your example

a pass, b play, c pass> a play, b pass, c play, a pass, b pass, c play> a pass, b pass, c pass = window ends is perfectly valid. Only when ALL players pass CONSECUTIVELY does the window end, passing dose not mean you cant make a play later if others dont pass.

Underworld40k said:

When valar is resolved all charcters go moribund: Dead, at this moment you can use a save triggered effect which prevents the character going moribund at all. The first player would respond with a save first, then the next player etc. when both players pass consecutively then the save window ends (see the debate on valar and outwit for the only real practical application of choosing not to save that i can think of).

After this then we get passives and then responses (where icy catapult will come into play). Cards are considered to leave play when they go moribund: anywhere but in play for triggering effects as you summised.

and

ALL the "response" opportunities that were created in the ensuing action (e.g., three plots were revealed, any number of characters died, any number of characters were saved, maybe an event was played, or a player discarded a card, etc.) are open and available to you at the same time. You can trigger your Responses in any order - completely independent of the order in which things happened to create those Response opportunities. For example, even though plots were revealed before the characters were killed for Valar, you are allowed to trigger the "after a character is killed" Response on Icy Catapault before triggering the "after a plot is revealed" Response on Frostfang Peaks.

I'm too lazy to read responses. Practical application using your example:

Player Valars. All characters die, except for Mqorro who saved himself. Activate Icy Catapult. Kill Mqorro.

mdc273 said:

Player Valars. All characters die, except for Mqorro who saved himself. Activate Icy Catapult. Kill Mqorro.
order

Quite true, easy to forget that all the wehn reveals are resolved before moving on when just giving it a paper run down.

ktom said:

He knew that coming in. The question was whether or not the First Player could muck with the order of things so that other outcomes were possible. (They aren't.)

I don't think so. The first scenario he outlines is incorrect. He properly outlines this scenario in his second scenario, but he technically doesn't have it correct. The true order of progression, as I recall, is:

Valar Initiates

Mqorro Kneels to save himself.

Valar kills all characters (except Mqorro).

Reponses (Icy Catapult) can now be triggered. Icy Catapult can target (and kill) Mqorro as he is kneeling and can not save himself from this.

He is not Moribund, therefore he is a valid target for Icy Catapult.

Mqorro (because saves activate before the effect resolves) never enters the Moribund state. It is not, however, a response step response.

Not that it matters, but I wanted to add some additional detail as I didn't mention Mqorro saving in the save window, not the response window, and not actually going Moribund.

There is NO scenario in which Mqorro survives.

Thanks for the input everyone!

The ehart of the question was actually that i had missed & forgotten that save/cancels were a seperate window. My thinking was that if A goes before B, Moqorro will not have been saved, will still be morribound and hence an invalid target for Icy Catapult. But this thread cleared it all up :)