CoE Digest #207 Q3 - ABPs
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2024 2:23 pm
Can a player respond to passive conditions that come into effect at the beginning of a phase/turn?
In 2018, the Council of Elrond held a community vote to ratify or reject a variety of submitted rule proposals. One of the ratified proposals defined how to handle “At Beginning of Phase/Turn” (“ABP”) effects:
Some community members have proposed allowing non-ABPs in response to ABPs specifically during the movement/hazard phase (which would at least address the problem of the Wizard’s Companion example), but in the end, this committee has found no historical reason that the same wouldn’t apply to all of the other turn phases. As such, in keeping with the spirit of the community vote while also making sure that the text is as accurate as possible, this committee will be updating this ruling as follows:
Any passive condition effects that would be initiated at the beginning of a phase/turn must be immediately declared in a single chain of effects (in an order chosen by the resource player) before any other actions may be taken during that phase. Players may then respond to this chain of effects with their own “at the beginning of [this phase/turn]” actions; once both players confirm that they have no other “at the beginning of [this phase/turn]” actions to declare, they may then respond with normal actions as allowed for the phase.
In 2018, the Council of Elrond held a community vote to ratify or reject a variety of submitted rule proposals. One of the ratified proposals defined how to handle “At Beginning of Phase/Turn” (“ABP”) effects:
While this new ruling was presumably well-intentioned, one notable problem is that the Wizard’s Companion example under Passive Conditions specifically involves a player responding to an ABP with a non-ABP action, which would conflict with the newer rule. Such a prohibition also causes notable problems for passive condition effects declared at the beginning of a phase to which players could otherwise normally respond, e.g. an already-declared-and-resolved permanent-event that initiates an attack against a company at the beginning of a phase should normally be targetable for removal to cancel the attack (unless it’s at the beginning of the site phase prior to entering the site, of course).Beginning of a phase/turn:
This period begins at the start of a phase/turn and ends when all players announce that they will not declare any ABP starting a chain of effects and when all triggered ABP are resolved. The only actions that may be declared in response to ABP are other ABP and actions that target a dice-rolling action and actions that target declared events. Triggered ABP are declared before ABP that may be taken by players.
Some community members have proposed allowing non-ABPs in response to ABPs specifically during the movement/hazard phase (which would at least address the problem of the Wizard’s Companion example), but in the end, this committee has found no historical reason that the same wouldn’t apply to all of the other turn phases. As such, in keeping with the spirit of the community vote while also making sure that the text is as accurate as possible, this committee will be updating this ruling as follows:
Any passive condition effects that would be initiated at the beginning of a phase/turn must be immediately declared in a single chain of effects (in an order chosen by the resource player) before any other actions may be taken during that phase. Players may then respond to this chain of effects with their own “at the beginning of [this phase/turn]” actions; once both players confirm that they have no other “at the beginning of [this phase/turn]” actions to declare, they may then respond with normal actions as allowed for the phase.