May I activate the response of Lady Daenerys's chamber's for wasting the effect of River blockade if if i do not have any attachment in my discard pile?

Man do I hate these can of worms questions. And it's not your fault, it's just that the wording of the card isn't clear enough to get an absolutely correct answer. For reference, from CGDB:

"Response: After you play a House Targaryen character, return an attachment with printed cost equal to or lower than that character from your discard pile to your hand."

I am going to say yes, you could attempt to initiate it and have it cancelled by River Blockade. It is explicitly lacking "choose an attachment". This means that it does not target an attachment in your discard and therefore whether or not there is an attachment there is irrelevant. On the flip-side, it lacks "search your discard" which means that either "search your discard" is implied or "choose an attachment" is implied.

I prefer that "search" is implied, but there just is no way to get an absolute answer here. There is also an argument that neither term is necessary which means that there actually is an absolute answer of "yes you can do this."

I'm fairly certain the correct answer is "yes you can do that", but not 100% positive.

Gotta agree with Mdc, verbatim: fairly certain the correct answer is "yes you can do that", but not 100% positive.

I have to disagree on this one, as I don't think a card would ever tell you to search your discard pile. It is public information what is in there, so you would simply be told (as with the Hold, for comparison) to do things with the cards in that area. On that basis, you cannot trigger Lady Daenerys's Chambers if there isn't a valid target in your discard pile.

I have to disagree on this one, as I don't think a card would ever tell you to search your discard pile. It is public information what is in there, so you would simply be told (as with the Hold, for comparison) to do things with the cards in that area. On that basis, you cannot trigger Lady Daenerys's Chambers if there isn't a valid target in your discard pile.

Both TBAD and TBAS had to be specifically erratad to not allow them to be cast if the eventual "target" didn't exist. That implies to me that the global ruling for wording like this is that it would allow you to trigger it without a target.

I don't know if that's errata or precedent setting clarification... It's an interesting point, the question should be sent to FFG

To Be a Dragon and To Be a Stag should have been errata'd to say "choose" for simplicity's sake. They wouldn't be the only cards targetting in the discard/dead pile.

Similar question - can I waste River Blockade by kneeling a location to reduce the cost of something, even I do not have any suitable cards in my hand

No one else needs to know what is or isn't in my hand .... being devious does not seem to be against the spirit of the game

I've often wantede/needed to waste River Blockade's affect during the marshalling phase to free up location effects for the challenge phase

Similar question - can I waste River Blockade by kneeling a location to reduce the cost of something, even I do not have any suitable cards in my hand

No one else needs to know what is or isn't in my hand .... being devious does not seem to be against the spirit of the game

I've often wantede/needed to waste River Blockade's affect during the marshalling phase to free up location effects for the challenge phase

Yes, you can kneel the location. It's not even "Devious" - it's a player action with no play restrictions. Even if you had no cards in hand, you could still kneel to reduce the cost of the next character you play by 1 - that effect still goes off in its entirety even if you never play a character.

That's one very common way to try and overcome the irritating River Blockade.

On the Lady Dany's Chamber part of the question:

Because the entries are in the card-specific errata section of the FAQ (not the "Frequently Asked Questions" section at the end) and specifically starts with " These cards ...", I think it's safe to assume that the entries are simply errata , not global precedents. Assuming all other play restrictions are met and costs are paid, you can trigger LDC even if you don't have an appropriate attachment in your discard pile.

Holy ****. It worked. I use your avatar to lure you out of hiding, and here you are.

Must change avatar.

Ktom - it's great to have you back!

Hooray! He's back! Your shoes can be really difficult to fill.

Holy ****. It worked. I use your avatar to lure you out of hiding, and here you are.

Must change avatar.

It's not like I have a copyright on the avatar. It's fine with ME if you keep it.

I'll be more active starting late next week. Someone just PM'd me a specific question, so I thought I'd see if there was a thread on it, too.

Holy ****. It worked. I use your avatar to lure you out of hiding, and here you are.

Must change avatar.

It's not like I have a copyright on the avatar. It's fine with ME if you keep it.

I'll be more active starting late next week. Someone just PM'd me a specific question, so I thought I'd see if there was a thread on it, too.

No, no. I choose to believe that taking on that avatar is what brought you back, and it's a bat-signal. Can't leave on at all times!

I would love to have your opinion on the (as I see it) conflict between the Sons of Mist ruling (Damon overturning one of your previous interpretations) and the Dreadfort FAQ scenario, most recently brought up here . I just can't see the distinction between the two, unless they all check at trigger and not initiation, and constant effects are never not-applied (eg the character was never S2 to begin with), which would also overturn a standing interpretation that one can trigger Maegi crone if a S1 character enters play when Dragonpit is active.

Of course, it can definitely wait until next week when you'll be around more! And I think I've already over-hijacked this thread .

Hmm, interesting, I really assumed you would need to have a valid target to be able to trigger LDC, I'm surprised.

That's the crux of it. Having the appropriate attachment in the discard pile is neither a play restriction nor a cost, so the only way it could be required before the effect could be initiated would be if it was a target. But since LDC does not use the word "choose" in relation to the attachment (or at all), the attachment is not a target by definition. Since LDC does not have a target to begin with, the rule saying that all targets are required in order to initiate the effect does not apply and you don't need a valid target in order to trigger it.

The only examples we have where effects do not use the word "choose" but are still held to require a valid "target" are card-specific requirements imposed by card-specific errata in the FAQ. As such, there is no basis to assume or impose target requirements where there are no targets.

Cool, good to know

In my opinion, To Be a Stag and To Be a Dragon should have been errata'd to choose the cards they return. That would have made things far simpler.

It's just occured to me the LDC does not kneel

I'm sure a lot of oponents would argue that I'm am not triggering its effect given that I am not kneeling it and i.e. have an empty discard pile

The new Prayer event cards use the word Choose, but in conjuction with Up To

i.e. Any Phase: Kneel 2 influence or kneel a [Holy] character to choose up to 3 cards in any player's discard and dead piles and shuffle them into his or her deck.

If I reveal this card (Blessed by the Maiden) by using Val and I had two influence, then I would have to play it

Could I choose may own discard/dead pile and choose zero cards - assuming I had empty discard/dead piles and did not want to give my oponent the benefit of this event

It's just occured to me the LDC does not kneel

I'm sure a lot of oponents would argue that I'm am not triggering its effect given that I am not kneeling it and i.e. have an empty discard pile

I'm not sure how kneeling is relevant at all here.

As for the second part, I believe (but am not certain) the precedent is set by examples like "Dissension" (If you play it and have a mercenary or ally, you cannot choose 0 refugees unless there is at least one refugee). That would mean that while you can choose 0 cards from a discard pile if you trigger it, you cannot trigger this effect if there are no targets to choose from (if both discard piles are empty).

It's just occured to me the LDC does not kneel

I'm sure a lot of oponents would argue that I'm am not triggering its effect given that I am not kneeling it and i.e. have an empty discard pile

Since when do you have to kneel something that doesn't say "kneel this card to" in order to trigger it? Seems like a strange argument to make.

Yes, when a card says "choose up to," you can choose 0, no matter how many potential targets you have. So even if your discard/dead piles are empty, you can choose 0. Just like, if there were a total of 2 cards in your discard/dead piles, you could just choose the 2, even though the card says "up to 3." You don't need a total of 3 to meet the restriction. You just need to total number you choose between 0 and 3.

It's just occured to me the LDC does not kneel

I'm sure a lot of oponents would argue that I'm am not triggering its effect given that I am not kneeling it and i.e. have an empty discard pile

Yea, these guys are right (even if they're being unintentionally jerkish!). Kneeling is one of many potential costs of intiating an effect, but is only required where indicated. There are many effects in the game that do not have kneeling as a cost (Core Set Robb Stark is an example. His effect would make no sense if you assumed kneeling was considered a cost of triggering any effect)

It's a valid argument, but the rules are fairly clear that kneeling is only a cost where indicated and is not an assumed cost. You can just refer to the plethora of cards that explicitly include kneeling as a cost and cards like Robb Stark that wouldn't function if you need examples of why kneeling isn't an implied cost.