withered lands

[marcos]

Can withered lands target a region symbol printed on a site card?

i mean, some people use it to tap sites in combo with long winter, but since long winter uses the site's path, it is kinda tricky.

Is withered lands played on a region the company is moving through, on a region symbol, or on what?

[Bandobras Took]

A target is any entity in the game through which an action is played out. I do not know that a site's site path counts as "an entity in the game" any more than the Elf race counts as "an entity in the game."

A given character may have the Elf race type, but you do not target the Elf with New Moon -- you target a character with that type.

Environment. Playable only if Doors of Night is in play. Treat one target Wilderness [w] as two Wildernesses [w] or one Shadow-land [s] as two Wildernesses [w] or one Border-land as two Wildernesses [w] until the end of the turn.

The way Withered Lands is worded, though, seems to override normal definitions. You target a Region Type with the card. The region types on a site in play would seem to be valid as well as the region types on the region cards used in the company's movement.

[Eyelid]

Your assumption is correct, as confirmed by Council of Elrond Rulings Digest # 54:

Re: Withered Lands
Is it possible to play this card on the on the path of a site, even if the company doesn’t travel through one of those regions?

*** Yes, both the company's and the site's site path are in play and targetable

[Thorsten the Traveller]

But doesnt this like totally kill the game? Every hero site that doesn't have Grey Havens as nearest haven has a Wilder in SP, so there you go....
what are these people thinking? are they thinking indeed?
instead of a creature minimum, we should have an enviroment maximum rule for deck construction...

[Bandobras Took]

Twilight and Gates of Morning are both viable counters. So is Balance Between Powers, if it comes down to it.

[Thorsten the Traveller]

Hence the environment maximum, in case you run into Balance between Powers
Viable counters? that's rather debatable. Moreover, you'd be forced to include them in deck or otherwise hide out in the deeps. Minions are not safe either above ground, in fact I think there isn't a single site that cannot be targetted by this combo. Barad-dur withering away in the snow...yeah right.

The timing dificulty and insecurity of playability made Long Winter a bit acceptable, but those are gone by this ruling, so that's rubbish.

[Bandobras Took]

You're not necessarily forced to either. There's no guarantee your opponent will choose to go with Environment hazards.

There's also Promptings of Wisdom/Piercing All Shadows from the White Hand set if you don't want to devote space to environment resources.

Besides, Morgul Night/Foul Fumes has existed since ME:TW, and does the same thing with less work.

(As a small side note, the creature minimum was instituted after the initial release because every hazard portion consisted of roughly 22 corruption cards, Ren, Uvatha, and Balance of Things.)

[Konrad Klar]

Certain cards refer to the site's site path. The site's site path is always the site path
given on the site card, regardless of how the company got to that site.
Events can alter both a site's site path and a company's site path.

Underline mine.