Draft of CoE Digest #201 Q5 - In the Heart of his Realm - Open until September 24th

[Manuel]

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1) The thread will be open until September 24th.
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3) After the review period, the ROC will carefully consider everyone's contributions, revise the draft as appropriate, and then the Digest will be published and official.

Can Marvel’s Told be played in response to In the Heart of his Realm?

This is the original card text for In the Heart of his Realm (henceforth referred to as ITHOHR):

IN  THE  HEART  OF  HIS  REALM

Each company moving in a Dark‐domain draws one less card at the start of its movement/hazard phase (to no minimum). Additionally, any sage at a site in a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth, or moving with a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth in his site path, loses his sage skill. No character at a site in a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth, or moving with a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth in his site path, can use spells, light enchantment or rituals. Discard when any play deck is exhausted.

Some of this card’s effects are actions caused by passive conditions, which can be responded to. However, not all of them are considered actions but just ongoing effects that are implemented when ITHOHR resolves. To parse these distinctions further:

Each company moving in a Dark‐domain draws one less card at the start of its movement/hazard phase (to no minimum).This is an ongoing effect, not an action, so it cannot be responded to. Once ITHOHR resolves, this effect becomes active.

Additionally, any sage at a site in a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth, or moving with a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth in his site path, loses his sage skill.This is an action caused by a passive condition (since removing a skill actively changes the state of the game), so it can be responded to. This means a player could respond to this action with a card requiring a sage and resolve it before In the Heart of his Realm resolves, per the last-in-first-out nature of chains of effects. However, that card cannot be Marvels Told because it is a ritual, which is prohibited by ITHOHR:

No character at a site in a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth, or moving with a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth in his site path, can use spells, light enchantments, or rituals.This is an ongoing effect, not an action, so it cannot be responded to. The effect is comparable to Bane of the Ithil Stone; it doesn’t actively change the game state when it resolves, but merely prevents certain actions from being taken in the future. This means that, once ITHOHR is resolved, this effect kicks in and no sage at these sites or moving through these regions can play Marvels Told, because it is a ritual.

With all of this in mind, here is an example of what can and cannot be done by a player going to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring when ITHOHR is played.

Resource player (Player A) has only one company consisting of Gandalf, Frodo, and Sam. Frodo is bearing a Precious Gold Ring. They move to Mount Doom. Both players draw cards. Hazard player (Player B) plays In the Heart of His Realm. Player A has Marvels Told in their hand and an untapped Gandalf, but they can’t play Marvels Told to discard ITHOHR in response to the declaration of its play, because ITHOHR has been declared but not resolved; it’s not in play yet, so it can’t be discarded from play. Therefore, Player A has to wait for ITHOHR to resolve in order to play Marvels Told to discard it (although they won’t be able to do it later either).

Player A also has Wizard’s Test in their hand. They may play Wizard’s Test in response to the declaration of ITHOHR, since ITHOHR hasn’t entered play and its spell-negating effect is not active yet. Therefore, player A decides to play Wizard’s Test in response to ITHOHR.

Until now, the declaration chain has been:

1. Player B plays ITHOHR.
2. In response, Player A plays Wizard’s Test.

No more actions are declared in this chain of effects. Proceeding into resolution:

1. Wizard’s test resolves. Player A rolls a 5, which is not enough for a One Ring result.
2. ITHOHR resolves, and its ongoing effects are implemented. Now it can be targeted by other cards like Marvels Told because it is in play. However, now that the ongoing effects have been implemented, no character in a company moving with Gorgoroth in its site path can play Rituals, and Marvels Told is a ritual.

Now, let’s consider the same example, but in a different order. The same company moves to Mount Doom and cards are drawn, hazard limit is set, etc. Player B plays Pukel-men. Player A thinks it’s a good idea to test the Precious Gold Ring that Frodo is bearing now, since a One Ring result would provide the option of canceling a strike against its bearer. Player A plays Wizard’s Test after Pukel-men resolves but before strikes are assigned, but now Player B has a chance to play something in response, and decides to play In the Heart of His Realm. Again Player A would like to play Marvels Told to discard ITHOHR, but they can’t because ITHOHR has been declared but not resolved and so it’s not in play (yet). This time the chain of effects goes like this:

1. Player A plays Wizard’s Test

2. Player B plays ITHOHR in response

No more actions are declared in this chain of effects. Proceeding into resolution:

1. ITHOHR resolves, and its ongoing effects are implemented.

2. Wizard’s Test tries to resolve, but since the no-spell effect of ITHOHR is already implemented, it fizzles.



Note that this ruling overturns CoE Ruling Digests #38 and #74 Q25.

[Konrad Klar]

I perceive "loses his sage skill" as "does not have his sage skill" while at or moving through listed sites/regions.
As continuous effect, not as action. After all there is no complementary action "regains his sage skill".
What if In the Heart of his Realm that caused "loses his sage skill" is in effect and then is discarded by effect of Palantir of Osgiliath or by The Cock Crows? Are results of "loses his sage skill" still in play? For results of action caused by passive passive condition, they should still be in play.
A company returned by action from Snowstorm is not returned on track if later Snowstorm is discarded.
Once applied results of action caused by passive passive condition are no longer depending on a card that caused the action.

[dirhaval]

Great explanation on this card.
Sage skill returns when ITHOHR is no longer in play. Logic is the same with magic rings. Ring gives bearer the skill while controlled.
<jingle> Test one now, pass it around, everyone has the skill now. <>

[meaglyn]

I agree with Konrad on this. I have a hard time reading the sage skill removal effect and the ritual preventing effect as behaving differently. I think they are both continuous effects.

[DamienX207]

Thank you, all, for your interest in this topic. However, I want to emphasize that anyone disagreeing with something in these digest drafts is strongly encouraged to provide actual citations that prove your point and/or demonstrate why something in the digest is wrong, as merely saying "I *feel* like the rules should be such and such" is really not useful for these discussions. Our committee's goal right now is to clarify what the rules actually *are*; and then, having done that, we can further discuss whether certain rules should be changed per the community's preferences. But for now, my personal hope is that people will be citing the actual rulebooks, Ichabod posts, etc., if looking to argue with the digests so that we can be making the best use of time in addressing actual issues.

Also, as a quick preface: for the past year I've been working on a fully comprehensive rules document that will encapsulate all of the current rules of the game. The timing rules are something that I've been particularly focused on understanding better since they are not necessarily intuitive to most people. This is only to say, I am not a Rules Wizard (yet! still working on that degree), but I probably have a better foundational knowledge of this stuff than most members of our community at this point, though certainly not all. So, I'd like to personally try to explain what's going on here, using layman's language and not on behalf of the CoE, and again with the caveat that I'm always trying to understand these things better myself:

I would argue that an action is a one-time activity that changes the board state in some way. I know that Konrad has his own definition about how an action must not go away if the card that caused it goes away because there's a reference to the 'Konrad Klar Approach' in an old copy of the URD that I have, BUT I have personally never found any evidence to support that specific definition in all of my rules researching. Konrad, please feel free to message me if you want to discuss that more, as I would certainly be interested in seeing any evidence that you have to support that argument. However, I do not believe that to be an accurate working definition at this time, and personally I find it misleading more than helpful. Regardless -

As we all know, actions are generally what determines when a chain of effects is initiated, whether the action is part of an active condition or just being declared on its own. And as we all know, when an action would be initiated due to a passive condition while a chain of effects is resolving, that passive condition starts a new chain of effects.

Targeting, though, is a special case. Although I expect most people don't think of 'targeting' as an 'action', targeting is treated like an active condition for declared actions in that it must be declared up front and then the target must still be available upon resolution, just like other active conditions based on actions.

Here's the kicker: unlike in Magic and other games, on-going effects in MECCG that potentially affect multiple cards in play (e.g. all attacks of a certain type have their number of strikes increased, all characters in a company with a certain keyword get a modification to prowess, all items have their corruption points doubled, etc.) *must be targeted onto each of the cards for which the effect is applicable*, and because targeting is an active condition, this targeted application of an effect onto a card actually does initiate a new chain of effects. Ichabod ruled this over and over even after speaking to the designers, specifically in reference to Rank Upon Rank if you want to read about it in the CRF or digging around on Usenet like I've been, but it's clear that this was the designer's intention even though I will readily agree that it is not very intuitive for people who have played other CCGs.

SO, once ITHOHR resolves into play, it creates these 2 effects that y'all have been talking about in particular:
- No character at a site in a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth, or moving with a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth in his site path, can use spells, light enchantment or rituals. -- This is just a rule change, adding a new restriction to the rules that prohibits players from declaring spells, light enchantments, or rituals with the designated characters. It's not applying an effect to those characters; it's just preventing something from being declared in the future, so this would not initiate a chain of effects. The new rule restriction comes into effect when ITHOHR resolves into play, and then immediately goes away if ITHOHR leaves play.
- Any sage at a site in a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth, or moving with a Dark‐domain or Gorgoroth in his site path, loses his sage skill. -- This is a passive condition that also comes into effect when ITHOHR comes into play, but the key here is that this IS creating an effect that needs to be targeted onto each sage moving/located at the relevant regions. Once this wider on-going effect becomes active, as soon as a sage would be affected, a chain of effects is initiated due to the effect being targeted onto the sage, and when the chain of effects resolves, essentially a new targeted effect has now been created that removes the character's sage skill for as long as the character is still a legal target of that effect. Once the character is no longer a legal target of the effect (i.e. by moving somewhere else) or ITHOHR leaves play, then yes that targeted effect would immediately go away (per the rules of cards leaving play and their effects leaving with them, etc.). A 'regains his sage skill' is not necessary for the effect to be removed.

I hope that I have explained this clearly enough to remove any confusion on this particular card. And as mentioned, a full rules remaster to better explain everything is in the works! Please, anyone, feel free to hit me up to chat about random rules confusion in the meantime. <3

[Bandobras Took]

ICE never bothered to satisfactorily define "Action" other than an activity in the game -- and then went on to say that meeting active conditions and exhausting a play deck are *not* actions.

Meeting active conditions and exhausting a play deck are not actions

Even though these *actively change the state of the game.*

I find that this CoE ruling has dubious definition for what constitutes an "action."

ACTIONS AND CARD PLAY

The various activities that you and your opponent can perform during play are called actions. Typical actions include playing a card, tapping a card, making a corruption check, revealing a card, etc. The following general guidelines apply to resolving actions; more detailed guidelines can be found on pages 69-70.

You must give your opponent a chance to respond to every action, and vice versa. If you perform an action and move on to another action without giving your opponent a chance to respond, you must “back up” if he indicates that he wants to respond. A series of declared actions made in response to one another is called a “chain of effects”. You always have the option of declaring the first action in a chain of effects during your turn. The actions in a chain of effects are resolved one at a time from last declared to first declared (i.e., the last declared action is resolved first, then the second to the last, etc.).
If the play of a card requires other actions (e.g., corruption checks), the actions are resolved in the order in which they appear on the card.
A required or declared dice roll is an action and can be the target of another action or effect declared later in the same chain of effects. Otherwise, a card cannot be targeted until it resolves.
When the effects of a dice roll require further actions (e.g., a roll for a strike requires a body check), those actions become the first actions (any further rolls come first) in the next chain of effects after the roll.

Note that all the examples of actions here are of the player physically doing something -- playing a card, tapping a card, corruption check (which requires rolling the dice), body check (same), etc.

I would suggest that it is not enough for a card to have a direct effect on the game for it to be called an action. An action *must* consist of you or your opponent *doing* something. That would seem to be what the MELE rules indicate.

(Note also that meeting active conditions and exhausting a play deck are specifically noted in the glossary as not being actions, so it is also safe to assume that what constituted an action that could be responded to was meant to be limited in scope.)

[DamienX207]

I want to respect Manuel's request that we each just reply once, so I'm going to reply to Bandobras over PM (but just to quickly say, I think that MELE definition about active conditions is also deceptive; will discuss with him tho)

[Manuel]

Thanks everyone for your contributions.

The ROC will study them carefully and come up with a final digest soon.