Hi,

just started playing this game two weeks ago and ran into the following timing question:

Í control Maester Cressen (Strength 2, Marshalling: Kneel MC to choose and discard an attachment from play)

An opponent plays Flame-Kissed on MC (Attachment, Ambush, If attached character has no other attachments, attached character gets -2STR and is killed if its STR is 0.)

What happens? As long we arent in Marshalling it is clear, but what happens when it is played during marshalling?

From the FAQ it says that only save/cancel responses can be played. Although it doesnt say save/cancel, MCs ability can be used to discard an attachment and thereby save him. So does it count as a save/cancel response for the purpose of saving him?

In order for it to be a save response, it would need to be a response, which always has the word "response" in bold letters before the text. Moreover, it needs to specifically have the word save in the response's text. Cressen's ability is a Marshalling effect. No effect can be triggered (except for responses) until the last effect has fully resolved (or been cancelled, of course). What this means is that you wouldn't be able to use Maester Cressen's discard effect until the Flame-Kissed has fully resolved, which includes it's passive effect killing the character and the character leaving play. At this point, of course, it is too late to discard the Flame-Kissed, which would be useless anyway if somehow possible, as the character has already been killed.

So the short answer is that his ability is not a save response, and thus, cannot be used to save a character from being killed by a Flame-Kissed.

So this is actually a fairly straight-forward timing question, and hopefully the answer will illustrate the same thing for many other such scenarios

Anything that says "Any Phase" or "Marshalling' (A bolded phase) is a player action, which is different from a response, a save/cancel response, a passive, a constant effect, a lasting effect…

The timing in question here is that each player alternates player actions, but each player action is resolved entirely (including all passives/responses that are initiated or triggered by that player action and subsequent passives/responses) before the next player action can be taken.

In this case, he plays Flame Kissed on Cressen, Cressen isn't saved, Cressen dies (becomes Moribund: Dead pile), passive effects triggered by Cressen dying are initiated, you can respond to Cressen dying (eg Retreat), and finally the action window closes and Cressen hits the dead pile.

Then you have an opportunity for a player action, but clearly it's too late for poor Cressen to discard Flame Kissed.

Just like in the books, The Red God 1, Cressen 0.

Now if your opponent is trying to kill a Str 3 character, suddenly things change a bit.

He plays Flame Kissed on Str3 character (action, passives, responses, action window closes)

He wants to play "Forever burning" to finish off the character, but you remind him it's *your* player action now… and you kneel Cressen, banishing Flame Kissed to the discard pile (passives, responses, action window closes).

He should have played forever burning first!

Ok thanks for the quick and detailed responses!

Just one more question, you write

" Then you have an opportunity for a player action, but clearly it's too late for poor Cressen to discard Flame Kissed. "

It is clear that he cant save himself, but can I still use him at this point in time to discard another attachment as his final action? Or is a moribund character unable to do anything?

dshammer said:

A moribund character can do (almost) everything a non-moribund character can (The exception is pay for or trigger anything that would require him/her to leave play), but a moribund character leaves play at step 6 of the action window in which they died. That means they'll never get to trigger an any-phase (or challenges) ability, since by then they'll already be in the dead pile.

"That means they'll never get to trigger an any-phase (or challenges) ability, since by then they'll already be in the dead pile."

To sum it up, you are saying that Master Cressens ability does not respond to anything happening within the action framework and therefore he cant use is ability, right?

Or what do you mean with " by then they'll already be in the dead pile" ? I

Yes - since his ability is neither a save/cancel response, a passive, or a response, he'll never get to trigger it after an effect that kills him resolves successfully (be it a framework action or a player action).

dshammer said:

Break it down!

Your opponent plays Flame-Kissed during his player action opportunity of the player action window which initiates the 6 steps of resolving Flame-Kissed.

1) The playing of Flame-Kissed is initiated, costs are paid, targets are chosen.

2) Save/cancel responses to the playing of Flame-Kissed can be triggered.

3) Flame-Kissed is now in play and reduces Cressen's strength to 0.

4) As Flame-Kissed is now in play, it's passive will resolve during the resolve passives step. This kicks off a new resolution window for Flame-Kissed's Passive which is

i) Flame-Kissed's play restriction is met and the kill effect initiates.

ii) Save/Cancel responses to Flame-Kissed's kill effect.

iii) Flame-Kissed kills Cressen, Cressen goes Moribund.

iv) Passives that trigger off of the kill/death of Cressen trigger.

v) Responses that can be triggered off the kill/death of Cressen can be triggered

vi) Moribund cards leave play is skipped as this is a sub-window.

5) Responses to the playing of Flame-Kissed can now be triggered.

6) Moribund cards leave play.

Someone will come in and nitpick this I'm sure, but for our purposes its close enough (don't quote this for timing stuff, they have good reason to nitpick it, lol). Cressen's ability is not a Response nor is it a passive. It is an Any Phase triggered effect. As can be seen from the above, there is no time in the resolution windows in which Any Phase abilities can be activated. Any Phase abilities are only able to be initiated when you are choosing to either pass or take an action during a non-resolution action window. Therefore, Cressen is dead and out of play before he ever has an opportunity to use his ability after Flame-Kissed is played.

Make sense or did I just epic fail?

Passives do not have their own response step (v is actually part of 5): responses to either playing Flame Kissed (or putting it into play) or Cressen dying are not segregated.

1) The playing of Flame-Kissed is initiated, costs are paid, targets are chosen.

2) Save/cancel responses to the playing of Flame-Kissed can be triggered.

3) Flame-Kissed is now in play and reduces Cressen's strength to 0.

4) As Flame-Kissed is now in play, it's passive will resolve during the resolve passives step. This kicks off a new resolution window for Flame-Kissed's Passive which is

i) Flame-Kissed's play restriction is met and the kill effect initiates.

ii) Save/Cancel responses to Flame-Kissed's kill effect.

iii) Flame-Kissed kills Cressen, Cressen goes Moribund.

iv) Passives that trigger off of the kill/death of Cressen trigger (and passives that trigger off those passives).

5) Responses to anything that happened from 1 until now can now be triggered.

6) Moribund cards leave play.

Khudzlin said:

And you just made me realize why I am so baffled by this reponse thing. It is absolutely illogical to not have a response window there. It clouds everything up to hell. If there is one thing Magic got right, it's LIFO. Makes everything so much easier. It boggles my mind that they don't have a response window there. I can't think of a reason not to.

I have got to admit that the full resolution to that rather simple example is quite complex. On the other hand I really like to read the rules discussion threads because I always try to check how I would reply and whether I got it right.

It is interesting (and a bit frightening) to see that for some threads even seasoned experts do disagree initally on the correct timing. I dislike some things about Magic but like you say Lifo was much more easy to grasp in my view.

MDC, the response window is exactly where you put it, but responses for everything that has happened up to that point in the resolution of playing Flame Kissed can be triggered. So the distinction Khudzlin is making is that there isn't one reponse window for the killing of Cressen and then a seperate one for the playing of Flame Kissed. Unlike Magic, the responses all happen in the same part of the resolution - after passives. If you have a passive that triggers after Cressen dies, it will trigger in the passive window that you listed in your timing, and if there is a response to that passive, a response to his death and a response to the playing of Flame Kissed (or, say, a character's strength being lowered), they can all be triggered in the order determined by the players triggering them (First player first then each player in turn until all players pass, responses chosen in any order). Keep in mind that each response triggered has it's own save/cancel and passive windows, which end in the reopening of the response window. As stated in the faq, responses to everything that has happened in the effect resolution can be played until the moribund cards leave play and the response window closes.

J_Roel said:

I'm more referring to the lack of the separate, distinct response windows. For example, the best example in the game of how this timing structure can lead to nonsense is the No Quarter/Harrenhall/Son of the Mist timing. This needs to be a thing as it quite clearly illustrates how the timing window works and how equally absurd it can be:

Pre-Cursor - The Lannister player has two Son of the Mists in play. The Stark player has 1 card in hand, No Quarter, and a Harrenhal in play.

1) Stark plays No Quarter

2) Lannister triggers Son of the Mist 1

3) Stark triggers Harrenhal

4) Lannister can no longer trigger Son of the Mist 2

Now, in the event that the playing of the last card in hand created its own response window in which only effects that responded to the playing of the last card in hand, you wouldn't have this oddity.

Someone come up with a name for this. The No Quarter/Harrenhal/Son of the Mist Oddity just doesn't sound right.

Yeah, I've avoided that thread altogether (avoided taking part in it, though I have been keeping up with it, lol)