Spying out the Land

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Bruce
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Spying out the Land wrote:Short event
Magic. Spirit-magic. Playable on a spirit-magic-using character during the organization phase. Opponent may reveal to you any hazards from his hand, and only those hazards can be played during the character company's movement/hazard phase. Unless he is a Ringwraith, character makes a corruption check modified by -3.
I have some doubts about this card's effect on hazards already on the table at the time when SotL is played.

Example 1: I play SotL, and my opponent has Adunaphel in play as perm event (played in a previous turn). Can he tap Adunaphel in the spirit-mager's m/h phase to tap a char in the spirit-mager's company? My guess is no, is that correct?

Example 2: This is related w/ #1, but more subtle. I play SotL and my opp has Adunaphel in his hand, and he shows me the card. No doubt he can play Adu as perm event during the spirit-mager's m/h phase. Can he also tap Adunaphel to tap a character in the spirit-mager's company? And if he shows me Adunaphel but plays the nazgul as perm during another company's m/h phase (whose m/h phase takes place before the spirit-mager's), could he tap Adunaphel during the spirit-mager's m/h phase to tap a character in his company?

What about hazards which require being discarded like Daelomin at home, Baduila, or hazards which require being tapped like Power Built by Waiting?

Thanks in advance
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Bandobras Took
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CRF, Nazgul wrote:If a Nazgûl is tapped to become a short-event as printed on its card, it turns into a short-event upon declaration. At this point, the Nazgûl is a short-event just as if had been played as such from your hand.
According to this, Spying Out the Land would indeed prevent the tapping of Adunaphel if she were already in play.

However, if she were revealed from the hand as part of spying out the land, you could do whatever you want with her.

Discarding a hazard for an effect is not the same as playing it; therefore Baduila, Daelomin, etc. work.

Tapping Power Built By Waiting also works. Only Nazgul have a CRF entry stating that tapping them for their effects is like playing them from your hand.
Wacho
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I disagree. The statement that a Nazgul becomes a short-event "just as if it had been played as such..." does not mean that the Nazgul is played at this point, thus the phrase. As such you certainly can tap Adunaphel in this situation.

In general, the term "played" means taking a card from your hand and bringing it into play. Cards that are already in play may be tapped, etc. for their effects. Spying out the Land does not affect this at all.

From the CRF
Playing a Card

Playing a card is the process of bringing a card from your hand into play.
Bruce
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I searched in the CRF and found an entry regarding Here Is a Snake, which has the same effect (just different playability conditions):
Here Is a Snake! wrote:Playable on a company during its movement/hazard phase after cards have been drawn. Opponent may reveal to you any number of hazards from his hand. He may only play hazards he revealed to you (including on-guard cards) for the remainder of target company's movement/hazard phase.
Alternatively, a face-down agent is tapped and revealed.
CRF wrote:Here is a Snake does not prevent the use of hazards already on the table.
Looks like any use (tapping, discarding, or else) of hazards on the table is in no way considered "play" of the hazards.

Another potentially interesting and unusual resource that turns out having an extremely weak effect and thus being useless... :(
And SotL is even rare!! [/sorrow mode off]
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Bandobras Took
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Try combining it with cards that allow multiple movement/hazard phases. It has its uses.
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Konrad Klar
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Here Is a Snake! is not an effect played during organization phase and as such is not reapplied for each company's M/H phase.
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Wacho
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I think you underestimate the effectiveness of Spying out the Land. Remember you play this during the organization phase. Any cards your opponent draws cannot be played unless they are duplicates of cards he reveals. Also since you now know the hazards you can face you can potentially alter your plans to avoid those hazards. In addition if you have multiple companies and you choose your other companies to go first your opponent has a choice of either using these hazards against them and possibly having nothing to play against the company that used SotL or holding onto these hazards and clogging up his hand. All in all it is a decent card. Not great, but not worthless by my estimation.
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Bandobras Took
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Konrad Klar wrote:Here Is a Snake! is not an effect played during organization phase and as such is not reapplied for each company's M/H phase.
Good thing we're talking about Spying Out The Land, then. ;)

The CRF entry on Here Is A Snake was only mentioned for comparison purposes. :)
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Konrad Klar
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My impression is that Bruce's last post was about Here Is a Snake! (or I'm wrong?) and it directly precedes your answer.
But I did not suggest your answer was wrong (I believe that you had Spying Out The Land in mind writing "Try combining it with cards that allow multiple movement/hazard phases.").
My point was just that the effects of the both cards are quite different for this reason.
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Bruce
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My complaint was about the limited usefulness of Spying out the Land. It is indeed useful when a company moves more than once in a turn (Here Is a Snake even doesn't have this upside, since it only affects the m/h phase it is played in), but IMO it is still a card with very low potential: nazguls and agents already in play will be an unavoidable and constant threat.

If SotL didn't allow the use of cards already in play it would have balanced the huge advantage of keeping an hazard in play on the table for several turns (also keeping your opp from playing that same card if it's unique), waiting for the right moment to use it when it hurts more. Sure, the longer it stays in play the more chances you have to draw a VoM, but you could draw it too late as well...

Given its limited effect, I think SotL is not worth more than 1 slot in a deck (unless you play an underdeep deck which abuses of World Gnawed by the Nameless ;)). If its text said "only those hazards can target the character's company during the movement/hazard phase" the card would have been worth 3 slots in a deck and this would have opened the way for another range of strategies. What brings me down is that we have dozens and dozens of useless or semi-useless cards, and in the end there are basically only 2 feasible strategies: having a bunch of orcs/trolls beefed up by as many I'll report You as possible, or playing a cancel-everything-you-can Sauron or Hoarmurath deck. No room for anything original or more elegant. That makes deckbuilding so monotonous, especially as a minion player... :(
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Konrad Klar
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Bruce wrote:If its text said "only those hazards can target the character's company during the movement/hazard phase" the card would have been worth 3 slots in a deck and this would have opened the way for another range of strategies.
And at the same time it would allow hazard player to play hazards that does not target company even if they was not revealed.
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Bruce
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True. But that would have made SotL a balanced card: it would have protected your company from hazards able to target it, but not from hazards with a general effect (like ahunt dragons or Ren's ability to trigger a mass cc), since they affect all companies in play, even your opponent's.
Wacho
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In my mind that would make SotL a much weaker card. There are plenty of dangerous cards that don't target the company. Ahunts, Environment cards like Snowstorm, Auto-attack enhancers, even River.

I really don't see how you view that preventing an already in play Nazgul tapping for effect, or agent attack is preferable to preventing all of these hazards that don't target the company. The idea with Spying out the Land is that you know what hazards can be played against you. This is a big advantage. If your opponent reveals a drake then avoid double wilderness(or wherever it can be played) If Adunaphel is on the table you know one of your characters can be tapped but you also know what creatures you might have to face and can plan better on how to keep your characters untapped so they can do something in the site phase.
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