Can short-events like Beorning Skin-changers be played for no effect?In order to contribute to this thread please follow these rules:
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Short answer:
No
Explanation:
The Starter Rules from METW/MELE clearly state that a card cannot be played for no effect, i.e. just to discard it from its player’s hand:
The MELE Conventions of Tournament Play explain this “Starter Rule” with more specificity in regards to the declaration of cards:Unless stated otherwise, a card is playable only if its effect applies to an existing situation, hazard, attack, etc. (i.e., you may not play a card just to discard it).
Point 1 is clear. If a card would have an immediate effect on the game when it resolves, the aforementioned “Starter Rule” does not apply, and a player can declare that they are playing it (if it’s otherwise legal).Legal Play of Cards: A player may not play a card just to discard it (i.e., just to get it out of his or her hand). Specifically, a card may only be declared if it meets at least one of the following criteria.
The card must have an immediate effect on the game.
The card is a long-event. Long-events can always be played, even if ultimately they will not affect play.
The card has a potential effect on play that could be triggered later. Most permanent-events fall into this category. Only those that are playable on or with a certain entity are restrictive. E.g., you cannot play a corruption card if no character exists that would be affected by it.
Point 2 is also clear. Long-events can always be declared during the appropriate phase, at least in regards to the aforementioned Starter Rule.
Point 3 is where things have historically gotten messy.
Just in regards to permanent-events, Point 3 indicates that most permanent-events are considered to have a “potential effect” even if they don’t have an immediate effect, and thus the Starter Rule does not apply to those. An example of this would be a card like Alliance of the Free Peoples, which can be played even if no Dwarf, Elf, or Man factions are currently in play because it creates a new passive condition which might have a potential effect at some later point after it resolves. As Point 3 explains it, the primary prohibition for a permanent-event in this regard is that it must have legal targets per its active conditions, but otherwise the “Starter Rule” normally doesn’t apply to permanent-events.
Then we get to short-events. Many players have taken “The card has a potential effect on play” at the start of Point 3 to mean that a short-event like Beorning Skin-changers can be played on a company even if the company does contain Beorn or an untapped warrior with prowess greater than 4, because in these players' minds, there is still some small chance that perhaps Beorn could be eliminated in response or the warrior could become tapped in response, and thus BSc could have a “potential” effect. However, this interpretation fails to consider the entire wording of the rule:
The second half of this sentence clearly specifies that a card must have an immediate effect (per Point 1), OR it must be able to have a potential effect at some point after the card has resolved, e.g. as a permanent-event in play. Just having a “potential” effect is not enough; it must have a potential effect “later,” not immediately. Note for the record that rolling dice is considered an action and thus, per CRF 10, a card that requires dice to be rolled is considered to have an immediate effect on the game even if there is no potential further effect based on the result of the roll:The card has a potential effect on play that could be triggered later.
Returning to Beorning Skin-changers, if a player declares that they are playing it as a short-event on an opponent’s company, and the company contains Beorn or an untapped warrior with prowess greater than 4 at the time of declaration, Beorning Skin-changers will logically end up being discarded without the game state having been immediately affected beyond the discard of the card AND without a possible future effect that could be triggered later. This would be a clear example of playing a card just to discard it, and a direct violation of both the “Starter Rule” and the MELE Conventions of Tournament Play. As a thought experiment, even if an untapped Faramir was the only warrior in the company and became tapped or had his prowess reduced in response to BSc being declared - or some other hazard was played and then its effects were negated due to the opponent responding with their own resource, like responding to Darkness Under Tree with Gates of Morning, or going further, responding to a creature with Master of Wood, Water, and Hill to negate the creature’s keyed region type - the game state was still affected beyond the initially declared card just being discarded. But most importantly, it is worth keeping in mind that the Conventions of Tournament Play preface does specify that this prohibition is checked at declaration, not at resolution, so it doesn’t apply to cards being negated in response.You may not play a card which has no effect on the game. Causing a dice roll is considered to be having an effect on the game.
Therefore, Beorning Skin-changers cannot be played on a company containing Beorn or an untapped warrior with prowess greater than 4, because short-events cannot be declared if they wouldn’t have an immediate effect on the game beyond being discarded.
Note that this adds clarity to CoE Rulings Digest #105 pertaining to the short-event also not needing to be keyed to double Wilderness.
