Came up in a tournament yesterday:

I have Darth Vader, our dark lord of the Sith out. Opponent has a scrawny desperate Yoda hiding behind Old Ben's Spirit with one damage already on his green person. I want to play Force Choke, squeezing the last of Yoda's ancient religious protection by making him discard the enchancement.

Now since this is after I have played a Sith event, I figure I can use our lordship's Reaction to deal another blow to this annoying muppet. Unfortunately my opponent(and TO) says no, I must choose my target for the Reaction before giving out damage with Force Choke and that Yoda will take 2 damage at once, not one at a time. At least that's how I understood my opponent's argument because he didn't let me leave Yoda naked and with 1 damage on him.

I've looked around the rules and FAQ but have only found that Reactions must happen immediately after the triggering condition. Maybe the question is does Vader react after or as soon as I intend to play the card? And I can't see how this combo would deal 2 damage at the same time. Does the TO have an argument, or did I just get Jedi mind tricked?

And if you're reading this TO, you know I had other options so ruling didn't matter, I ain't even mad. Had good, close games and lots of fun, still love ya and not just because you gave me that sweet Arubesh Red 5 card. Looking forward to the next one.

Your TO is flat out wrong.

You finish resolving the force choke and then the Reaction takes effect. Sounds like they might have had Reaction and Interrupt confused maybe. Not sure but that is only way I can see someone thinking that way.

Rulebook Page 25, Reactions, emphasis mine.

Reactions
Reaction abilities are clearly labelled by the word
“Reaction” followed by effect text. Reactions may only be
resolved after a specified triggering condition occurs.
Unlike interrupts, which resolve before the triggering
condition is completed (and may change the outcome of
the triggering condition), reactions are played after the
effects of the triggering condition have resolved.

When playing I try to keep the following in my head

Action - Interupt - Resolve - Reaction

The strange thing is that, even if the Reaction did resolve before the Force Choke, it would still deal its damage before the choke and end up with the same result. There's absolutely no way I can think of to come up with them happening at the same time. Sorry that it was ruled incorrectly against you.

Toqtamish said:

Sounds more like he had engagements on the brain and in the TO's head, it went something like this:

"Damage being dealt? Same time. End of transmission."

Oddly, we had a very similar question come up in our regional, but we ended up with the right ruling. The timing rules are still a trouble spot for several people.

dbmeboy said:

They seem to do that a lot with all their timing structures. This one's a little easier, though. Thrones timing still gives me a headache from time to time