Radagast no longer works with Fog? (Annotation 25b, 26)

[CDavis7M]

Going back to the beginning of time there was a combo of using Fog to turn everything to Wilderness and then drawing a bunch of cards with Radagast. This was even presented as a sample deck in the The Wizards Players Guide authored by Ichabod and mentioned in the strategy section as well.

Originally, the Movement/Hazard phase was started with 2 steps: (1) reveal the site, (2) draw cards. However, Annotation 25b on the movement/hazard phase was added in The Lidless Eye Companion:
Annotation 25b: Players drawing cards when a new site is revealed is synonymous with the resolution of the new site being revealed. It happens immediately, not in the following chain of effects.

This change was reflected in the Challenge Deck/Balrog Rules Summary which only has 1 combined step in the M/H phase: (1) reveal site and draw cards.

The Annotation allows drawing cards before being returned to your site of origin. And maybe getting lucky enough to draw a Twilight to stop a return-to-origin environment effect. But with drawing cards being "synonymous with the resolution of the new site being revealed" and happening immediately, it seems as if there is no time to apply site-path changing effects before drawing cards, messing up the olde Radagast Fog deck (and Girdle).

Maybe this is consistent with The Dragons clarification stating that hazard limit modifiers are applied simultaneously with the site is revealed (Fair Travels), not leaving time for applying region-changing effects to the site path. Despite this working before the clarification (and being mention the The Wizard's Player Guide).

Yet, it seems like region-changing effects should apply.

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Updated title

[Konrad Klar]

But with drawing cards being "synonymous with the resolution of the new site being revealed" and happening immediately, it seems as if there is no time to apply site-path changing effects before drawing cards, messing up the olde Radagast Fog deck (and Girdle).

As long the effect of Fog will be perceived as result of action triggered by presence of region symbol in path, so long the problem will be seen in such way.

Effect of Fog is continuous, not triggered by anything. Region symbols are not changed. They are treated as other symbols as long Fog is in play.

[CDavis7M]

As long the effect of Fog will be perceived as result of action triggered by presence of region symbol in path, so long the problem will be seen in such way.

Effect of Fog is continuous, not triggered by anything. Region symbols are not changed. They are treated as other symbols as long Fog is in play.

I was thinking that the effects of environment long-events were actions that were applied (using timing based on passive conditions) rather than being an instruction to the player on how to "treat" the symbols. For instance, the effect of Hey Come Merry Dol is clearly an instruction to the player to change how they count the number of wilderness symbols (rather than a change to the actual symbols): "each wilderness counts as half... when calculating the number of wilderness...". On the other hand there is Master of Wood, Water, and Hill's "change" and Girdle of Radagast's "become".

I looked at Annotation 26 some more:

CRF - Movement/Hazard Phase
Annotation 26: If at the start of a player's movement/hazard phase, there are multiple effects in play such that their net effect depends on the order they are applied, the player who is currently not taking his turn (i.e., the hazard player) decides the order in which they are to be applied. Once this interpretation is established, all further actions are applied in the order they are resolved for the rest of the turn.
Once the effects of an environment card have been applied to a target during a given movement/hazard phase, that effect is not applied again to that target during the current turn.

This was the basis for my thinking that the effects of Fog were actions that were applied (meaning, that there was time to respond like any other action).

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This question was brought up because of the change to Annotation 25 in The Lidless Eye Companion. I also noticed a change to Annotation 26 in the The Lidless Eye Companion, which was not reflected in the CRF's version of Annotation 26, but which I think supports the idea of "treat" being an instruction to the player rather than an effect that is applied (yet it still uses the "all further actions" language). The original Annotation 26 and its example in The Wizard's Companion discuss "applying" effects of Fell Winter and Morgul Night which "change" region-types. And it uses the phrase "all further actions" (indicating that region-changing effects are actions, which in general can be responded to), rather than the player "treating" a region type as a different type for some purpose -- the player must be doing something with the symbols in order to "treat" a symbol differently.

Here are the 3 different variations on Annotation 26 for reference:

The Wizard's Companion: (effects that "change" the region type are "applied" when there is no other purpose for which the player might be "treating" a region type as a different type).

Annotation 26: If at the start of a player's movement/hazard phase, there are multiple effects in play such that their net effect depends on the order they are applied, the player who is currently not taking his turn decides the order in which they are to be applied. Once this interpretation is established, all further actions are applied in the order they are resolved for the rest of the turn.

Once the effects of an environment card have been applied to a change a site type or a region type in a site path during a given movement/hazard phase, that effect is not applied again during the current turn. If several environment cards are in effect at the beginning of a movement/hazard phase, the non-phasing player chooses the order in which those cards are applied. This choice is made after the moving player has revealed the first movement declaration where the order of application would be a consideration.

Example: At the start of Meredith's movement/hazard phase, Morgul Night and Fell Winter, both long-events, are in play, because [they were played last turn]. Morgul Night changes wilderness to shadow-lands and shadow-lands to dark-domains; Fell Winter changes free-domains to border-lands and border-lands to wilderness. Meredith revealed the new site of one of her companies: Edhellond, which her company is moving to from Lorien. Quinton now decides the order the two long events are to be applied to the site path. Since Fell Winter does not affect the wilderness, Morgul Night changes these to shadow-lands...[there is also a part about Meredith playing Moon outside of the Long-event phase...]

CRF: (reflects but summarizes the original Annotation 26)

Annotation 26: If at the start of a player's movement/hazard phase, there are multiple effects in play such that their net effect depends on the order they are applied, the player who is currently not taking his turn (i.e., the hazard player) decides the order in which they are to be applied. Once this interpretation is established, all further actions are applied in the order they are resolved for the rest of the turn.
Once the effects of an environment card have been applied to a target during a given movement/hazard phase, that effect is not applied again to that target during the current turn.

The Lidless Eye Companion: (uses the term "interpret" instead of "apply". But still mentions "all further actions") Does not include the Fell Winter + Morgul Night example)

Annotation 26: If at the start of a movement/hazard phase there are multiple effects in play such that their net effect depends on the order they are interpreted, the player whose turn it is not decides the order they are to be interpreted. Once this interpretation is established, all further actions are interpreted in the order they are resolved for the rest of the turn."

Like I said above, I didn't see any timing issue when revealing the card was a separate step from drawing cards. But (at least for me) Annotation 25b raises the issue of timing. I wonder if this change to Annotation 26 was made because of Annotation 25b or if there was some other reason for it. An on-going effect that provides an instruction to the player on how to handle a situation would be something that is "interpreted" by the player (rather than an action being applied). Different words do have different meanings in MECCG after wall.

As for the CRF being different, my understanding is that the Annotations came from the Designers, not Ichabod. I don't think he noticed this change.

[CDavis7M]

Just to recap and expand further:

First I was thinking that region-changing effects like Fog, Fell Winter, Morgul Night, etc. were applied based on conditions (passive condition timing) based on the description of "applying actions" in Annotation 26 and the example in The Wizards Companion.

Then Konrad mentioned an alternative and I noticed a change to Annotation 26 in The Lidless Eye Companion which never made it into the CRF and I wonder whether this change was related to this issue I'm seeing.

Looking more into Annotation 26 more, it covers effects that modify attributes of cards based on (passive) conditions like the bonus/doubling of Plague of Wights & The Moon is Dead, and the reduction/minimum of More Alert Than Most.

But Annotation 26 also covers purely on-going effects not applied based on (passive) conditions, like the reduction/minimum of No Way Forward & the reduction (no minimum) of Short Legs Are Slow, and also the prowess reduction taken when deciding not to tap against a strike for The Black Enemy's Wrath (-5 to prowess) and Master of Shapes (only -1).

So maybe this is the reason for Annotation 26 being changed -- to better describe situations where the effects are not being applied to change some attribute of a card but instead the effects are being interpreted by the player as they are carrying out the game effects.

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So then it the Annotation 26 Example off-base when it describes Fell Winter and Morgul Night's effects as being "applied" to "change" the region-type attributes of the site/regions?

I mean, who was writing these examples? Some of the examples in the Rulesbook also are a bit off-base.

IMG_2395.jpg (1.02 MiB) Viewed 1261 times

[Konrad Klar]

On the other hand there is Master of Wood, Water, and Hill's "change" and Girdle of Radagast's "become".

Yes. Seems like that only texts of environment cards care about "what after them".
That is not only question of interaction (e.g. between Girdle of Radagast and Morgul Night).
Girdle of Radagast may potentially leave play. Master of Wood, Water, and Hill will ultimately be didcarded.

[Konrad Klar]

I was thinking that the effects of environment long-events were actions that were applied (using timing based on passive conditions) rather than being an instruction to the player on how to "treat" the symbols. For instance, the effect of Hey Come Merry Dol is clearly an instruction to the player to change how they count the number of wilderness symbols (rather than a change to the actual symbols): "each wilderness counts as half... when calculating the number of wilderness...". On the other hand there is Master of Wood, Water, and Hill's "change" and Girdle of Radagast's "become".

If there is no arbiter-program that cares about changes in play/game not reflected by card's state/position, it is players burden to remember what happened in play (whether Witch-king of Angmar as long-event is in play or not, who was in company that has defeated Dragon at Home etc.)
No surprise.

But Annotation 26 also covers purely on-going effects not applied based on (passive) conditions, like the reduction/minimum of No Way Forward & the reduction (no minimum) of Short Legs Are Slow, and also the prowess reduction taken when deciding not to tap against a strike for The Black Enemy's Wrath (-5 to prowess) and Master of Shapes (only -1).

Really interesting. No joke.

No Way Forward says: "This card is effective during each player's organization phase."
If Annotation 26 would determine order of applying of effects only in period from start of player's M/H phase to the end of turn, it would be unusable for case "No Way Forward & the reduction (no minimum) of Short Legs Are Slow".

Case "Itangast at Home & Bane of The Ithil-stone".

Someone would even say about case "Moria & Nature's Revenge & Rebuild The Town". I do not think that Annotation 26 should cover this case, but formally there is some order of effects here. This makes a difference what is applied to Moria as first - effect of Nature's Revenge or effect of Rebuild The Town.

My approach is to ask: what is/should be the purpose of Annotation 26?
My short answer is: not duplicating any part of Passive Conditions rules. Not superseding other rules. Effects of cards played on other card and limited to the other card should not be covered. Annotation 26 should cover period from start of player's M/H phase* to the end of next long-events phase.

Studying the history of changes of Annotation 26 is not unusable. May be helpful in reconstructing the idea of authors.

*) which not necessarily must contain any company's M/H phase.

[CDavis7M]

No Way Forward says: "This card is effective during each player's organization phase."
If Annotation 26 would determine order of applying of effects only in period from start of player's M/H phase to the end of turn, it would be unusable for case "No Way Forward & the reduction (no minimum) of Short Legs Are Slow".

Annotation 26 does NOT say that it only determines the order in the period from the start of a M/H phase to the end of the turn. It just states that any new effects are applied in the order they resolve (on top of the order set by Annotation 26). Unless there was a rule that stated otherwise, I think the order set via Annotation 26 in the previous turn (set by the hazard player) would still apply during the following turn (of that same player). New hazards are not being played during the organization phase. It is possible for new resources to be played. It seems like, if the order mattered, a new effect would be applied last, same as new effects are applied last in the previous turn. This might come up for corruption checks but I'd need to look for cards to find an example situation.

Someone would even say about case "Moria & Nature's Revenge & Rebuild The Town". I do not think that Annotation 26 should cover this case, but formally there is some order of effects here. This makes a difference what is applied to Moria as first - effect of Nature's Revenge or effect of Rebuild The Town.

Annotation 26 doesnt seem to apply because these are targeted effects. The question of ordering effects does still come up though. But maybe it's actually quite simple for targeted effects. Nature's Revenge is played on Moria. And then Rebuild the Town is played on Moria. Because the Rebuild the Town card is now on top of Nature's Revenge then the order of the effects is known from the order of the cards. Which is why Annotation 26 isn't used.

My approach is to ask: what is/should be the purpose of Annotation 26?
My short answer is: not duplicating any part of Passive Conditions rules. Not superseding other rules. Effects of cards played on other card and limited to the other card should not be covered. Annotation 26 should cover period from start of player's M/H phase* to the end of next long-events phase.

The purpose of Annotation 26 is cover situations where 2 cards are in play and they would both apply to a situation but the outcome would be different depending on how that is done.

The rules on passive conditions are different but then the Rank Upon Rank vs Ready to His Will ruling throws things off a bit because of some (unintended?) overlap.

[Konrad Klar]

Unless there was a rule that stated otherwise, I think the order set via Annotation 26 in the previous turn (set by the hazard player) would still apply during the following turn (of that same player).

I would wish so every interested player.
But if this is actually current state of things, then "for the rest of the turn" is confusing (is not?).

Annotation 26 doesnt seem to apply because these are targeted effects.

I would wish that it was clearly expressed.
Targeting effects may also affect objects other than target (King under the Mountain, Girdle of Radagast etc.).

The rules on passive conditions are different but then the Rank Upon Rank vs Ready to His Will ruling throws things off a bit because of some (unintended?) overlap.

Moot point.