FoS: Lost and Alone plus King Under the Mountain

By GrandSpleen, in Rules questions & answers

Posted at
If a hero is in your deck and you use King Under the Mountain and end up revealing that hero, can you put the card into play? Here's relevant card, manual, and FAQ text with emphasis added:
FAQ:
When Lost and Alone comes out,
Q: How does the card Lost and Alone (DD 124) work? What if the hero gets attached to a Nameless Thing (DD 125) or was my last hero in play?
A: You only put the lost hero back into play if you draw the hero , whether during the resource phase or through a card effect. If the hero is discarded or attached to a card like a Nameless Thing, then treat it like any other card. In the latter situation, the value of the hero would be null, since it has no printed cost. If your last hero gets shuffled into your deck you are not eliminated from the game; heroes are not considered to be killed unless they are in your discard pile. You will continue playing until you either draw the hero, are eliminated through other means, or the game ends.
King Under the Mountain:
Action: Exhaust King Under the Mountain to look at the top 2 cards of your deck. Add 1 to your hand and discard the other.
Manual pg. 20:
When resolving effects that move cards from a player’s discard pile to his hand or deck, hero cards in the discard pile are ignored, as hero cards cannot move to a player’s hand or deck.
Lost and Alone:
When Revealed: Each player chooses and shuffles a hero he controls into his deck. When he draws that hero, he puts it into play.
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My current thinking is that "add" and "draw" are accepted to be different mechanisms. A card like Enchanted Stream prevents card draw, but you can still get cards into your hand by using King Under the Mountain or other cards that use the text "add" instead of "draw." I think that's a commonly understood distinction, but I can't find anything official to back it up. Is there an official source indicating a distinction between "draw" and "add" when dealing with player cards?
That said, hero cards can't be added to your hand. And as King Under the Mountain does not "draw" the hero, you wouldn't be able to put that hero into play, per the text on Lost and Alone. Thus your only option is to discard the hero and add the other card to your hand. What do others think?

And what happens if you use King Under the Mountain and end up revealing TWO heroes? Will the game spontaneously combust? Is this like crossing the streams?

Posted at

Hmm I´m not sure if we would use that distinction between draw and add, you´re outlining here but we haven´t had it be important to our play before. I do see the point you´re making and if indeed there is an official stand on this, I´d love to know it as much as you.

This question seems a good candidate for Nate & co.

Posted at

GrandSpleen said:

If a hero is in your deck and you use King Under the Mountain and end up revealing that hero, can you put the card into play? Here's relevant card, manual, and FAQ text with emphasis added:
FAQ:
When Lost and Alone comes out,
Q: How does the card Lost and Alone (DD 124) work? What if the hero gets attached to a Nameless Thing (DD 125) or was my last hero in play?
A: You only put the lost hero back into play if you draw the hero , whether during the resource phase or through a card effect. If the hero is discarded or attached to a card like a Nameless Thing, then treat it like any other card. In the latter situation, the value of the hero would be null, since it has no printed cost. If your last hero gets shuffled into your deck you are not eliminated from the game; heroes are not considered to be killed unless they are in your discard pile. You will continue playing until you either draw the hero, are eliminated through other means, or the game ends.
King Under the Mountain:
Action: Exhaust King Under the Mountain to look at the top 2 cards of your deck. Add 1 to your hand and discard the other.
Manual pg. 20:
When resolving effects that move cards from a player’s discard pile to his hand or deck, hero cards in the discard pile are ignored, as hero cards cannot move to a player’s hand or deck.
Lost and Alone:
When Revealed: Each player chooses and shuffles a hero he controls into his deck. When he draws that hero, he puts it into play.
----------------------
My current thinking is that "add" and "draw" are accepted to be different mechanisms. A card like Enchanted Stream prevents card draw, but you can still get cards into your hand by using King Under the Mountain or other cards that use the text "add" instead of "draw." I think that's a commonly understood distinction, but I can't find anything official to back it up. Is there an official source indicating a distinction between "draw" and "add" when dealing with player cards?
That said, hero cards can't be added to your hand. And as King Under the Mountain does not "draw" the hero, you wouldn't be able to put that hero into play, per the text on Lost and Alone. Thus your only option is to discard the hero and add the other card to your hand. What do others think?

And what happens if you use King Under the Mountain and end up revealing TWO heroes? Will the game spontaneously combust? Is this like crossing the streams?

Posted at

I decided to go ahead and ask Caleb Grace, since I thought this was a very good question, and here's the answer:

"I believe the spirit of the effect is that when you are able to take your hero into your hand from your deck, then you get to put it back into play. Therefore, I would rule that if you took your hero into hand via use of King Under the Mountain, you should be able to put it into play.
However, if you had two heroes in your deck and found both of them with the same use of King Under the Mountain, then you'd have to choose one to put into play and the other to be discarded.
I'm afraid those are the kinds of hard decisions that a king of dwarves must make…
Cheers,
Caleb"

So there you have it. I guess the "add" phrase didn't matter in this case.

Posted at

Thanks for that legolas!

Posted at

On a side note, it seems there is an actual distinction between "draw" and "add".

I was asking Caleb earlier on a similar situation before reading this thread, and just got his answer:

Can I still use King Under the Mountain's action while Enchanted Stream is the active location, considering King Under the Mountain uses the wording "add 1 to your hand" rather than "draw 1 card" ?

Yes. You are not "drawing" a card with King Under the Mountain, so the text on Enchanted Stream does not prevent you from adding that card to your hand.

Edited by wlk
Posted at

So while Enchanted Stream is the active locations it prevents all events, or actions, or anything from making me draw cards? if i play and pay an event that alows a player to draw cards i just have the cost but not the gain?

Posted at

Yeah. If the card uses the text "draw," Enchanted Stream will prevent it from working.

Posted at

So, if your lost hero is discarded by King of the Mountain (or attached by nameless effect): is he considered dead?

Posted at

So, if your lost hero is discarded by King of the Mountain (or attached by nameless effect): is he considered dead?

Well heroes in the discard pile are considered to be dead afaik.

If you are referring to whether the hero is an eligible target for Fortune or Fate, then that event specifically instructs you to target a hero in a discard pile.

If this is in regards to scoring, then I would think that only heroes in the discard pile are counted against your score.

I seem to recall a discussion a while back regarding what would happen if all of a player´s heroes had disappeared into his draw pile by this effect and if I remember correctly, he would keep playing, with a chance of getting his heroes back (albeit with no resource income he is in a pretty bad state).

But someone correct me if I´m not remembering this right.

Posted at

http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1702-official-nate-rule-clarifications/page__st__20#entry11400

The problem is "at that time" in Caleb answer. One could interpret it as : if your last hero get lost, you lose. But if one get lost and one die, you might be still alive.

I think that if your last hero die, even if the other is lost, you've lost.

So either way, the only possibility to have no more hero without dying is only by Desesperate Alliance.

Posted at

Thanks for finding that, alogos. Seems the elimination condition would benefit from being updated to something like "if at any point a player controls no heroes he is eliminated from the game"

Though that could also create potential problems with Desperate Alliance :P

Edited by Nerdmeister
Posted at

That post is from August 2012, it's out of date. The official FAQ actually has clarification about Lost and Alone (and it's quoted in this thread, see the first post!)

Posted at

That post is from August 2012, it's out of date. The official FAQ actually has clarification about Lost and Alone (and it's quoted in this thread, see the first post!)

Ah well this is properly where I read it then.