CoE Digest #211 Q1 - Supporting multiple corruption checks

[DamienX207]

Can characters be tapped to support in the middle of resolving Ren the Unclean’s corruption checks?

Here is the relevant text of Ren the Unclean, incorporating his various CRF rulings:

If played as a permanent-event, it will remain in play until tapped during the opponent’s movement/hazard phase (tapping counts against the hazard limit). When tapped, Ren the Unclean becomes a short-event: each character in play must make a corruption check. If you tap Ren the Unclean, then you cannot play resources to aid your character’s corruption checks. Your characters may tap in support. The moving player makes corruption checks first. Each player decides the order of the corruption checks for their characters.

These card-specific rulings specifically note that characters may be tapped to support corruption checks caused by Ren the Unclean’s short-event ability (even by the hazard player; see CoE Digest 209 for elaboration). However, as a general rule, actions can only be taken in response to other declared actions, and cannot be taken in the middle of resolving an action’s effects. And even though Ren the Unclean causes multiple corruption checks, they are technically all part of the same chain of effects. This means that all supporting characters must be tapped for the +1 modification prior to that chain of effects resolving and any corruption checks actually being rolled, and then no additional characters can be tapped once the chain of effects starts resolving.

In other words, here is the order of actions when it comes to Ren the Unclean’s short-event ability:

1. The hazard player declares that they are tapping Ren the Unclean, which immediately becomes a short-event in the current chain of effects.
2. Either player may declare actions in response, including tapping characters in the same company to apply a +1 modification to a corruption check roll for a different character in that company.
3. Once both players finish declaring responses, the chain of effects begins to resolve.
4. The resource player rolls corruption checks for their own characters in the order of their choice (but no further actions can be taken at this time).
5. The hazard player rolls corruption checks for their own characters in the order of their choice (but no further actions can be taken at this time).

Note that the same principle applies to other card effects that cause multiple corruption checks upon resolution like Corpse-candle.

However, this would not be the case for corruption checks during Step 1 of Determining The Winner (i.e. the Free Council, etc.), because those corruption checks are not considered to be part of a single chain of effects resolving and are instead declared one at a time by each player for their characters. This means that players can take resource/character actions in between corruption checks when determining the winner (so long as the action affects the currently declared corruption check).