At what point can you cardzap the classic Filch flare? Can you only do it when you catch the player stealing something or can you, once the player has been forced to reveal that he has it and that it is in play, just card zap it at any time? The argument for the second option is that the classic Filch has unique properties making it in play at all times (given that a player doesn't have to announce each time he uses it) and so it should be able to be zapped at any point after it has been made clear that it's in play.
Cardzapping the classic Filch flare
Cards change hands all the time. You can't card zap something just because you think you know someone has it when it may well have been taken in compensation, taken by Trader, etc. You should consider it to be "played" when it is revealed (i.e. when the player is caught).
As cool as the card is, it is a bit problematic, and its frequent appearance (1 in 5 games for the base set) overwhelms the rest of play. I hope the Warp's "Subterfuge" cards get released in an expansion as they allow the fun of the classic flare without making the rest of the game pointless since you can't steal everything at once.
Yeah, while my group really likes the flare as it introduces another entertaining, and occassionally frustrating, aspect to the game, problems like these keep coming up when it's in play since it seems to fundamentally differ from how all other flares are played... I just wish that it was a seperate kind of card that had firm rules to govern it as standard flare restrictions are hard to apply.
I would rule that Classic Wild Filch can be zapped just as the user is getting caught. The flare doesn't have to be used to have its effect (stealing stuff) invoked; in a way the flare is used to undo the cheat and lose a ship when the owner is caught. Zapping the flare would undo the cheat (since it has to be outed in the first place) and also cancel the lose-a-ship-for-getting-caught, since that was part of the flare's effect. Then it would be discared (which would be the point of using the Card Zap in the first place).